The Themed Studio - Narrowing Your Focus

So you've got your set of studio flash lights - you chose Elinchrom or Profoto? Good for you - they will work for decades and they will make your images look good. You've invested in manfrotto studio accessories like Expan roll holders and Autopoles and light stands? Great - Manfrotto make some of the sturdiest gear around and there are so many ways you can clamp and combine that you'll never be stuck for ideas. You've got your first roll of Superior paper? White, black, or Mardi Gras Pink? I've got TWO rolls of Mardi Gras at my place and they are wonderful!

So, What are you gong to do? What clientele do you want at your studio? What will make your studio....a studio?

If you are lost for an answer, now is the time to think of a theme or a niche - to make a business plan - or to resign yourself to artistry and Easy Mac for dinner...

There are studios that sell themselves upon their photography of...families, school groups, sports clubs, weddings, food, fashion, architecture, jewellery, catalog products, nudies and boudies, cats and dogs, and a whole host of others.

If you have a bent for something - I have my own specialties - this can tell you what to concentrate on. If your field of endeavour becomes a field of expertise, well and good. You might not be able to ensure that you make a living from this excellence, but it is a better bet than trying to trade upon ignorance and inability.

If you find that your first target choice is over-catered or is so swamped with over-promotion as to exclude a new studio, step a little aside and look for another approach to it - or approach a different clientele. If the town is flooded with baby studios taking the same picture of sleeping infants propped on their forearms, either figure out a new way to suspend the child or find another subject that could be stuffed into an oversize teacup.

If you find your pictorial approach is too far in advance of fickle public taste - or too far anchored in the past - change your approach to provide the current sort of fickle.  You might be one month behind the cutting edge of fashion, but Perth operates about 6 months slower than the rest of the world anyway.

When all else fails, brand yourself, market yourself, tweet, blog, and twit until everyone blocks you with their spam filter, and never, ever let an opportunity to attend an opening of ANYTHING pass you by. Whatever they are exhibiting, selling, or promoting, attend - there are usually drinks and bits of cheese on a stick. If you cannot get eating money out of your studio, at least you can survive, albeit slightly drunk and constipated...

Uncle Dick