I was a graphic artist for about 20 years. I hired into a wedding and senior portrait photography studio as a retouch artist for 2 years. During that time I made the switch to photography and sort of managing the studio.
I struck out on my own and have a small studio with low overhead in an artists community in a smaller market.
What I really want to focus on is headshots for actors and artistic photography such as the body painting shots on my website. www.lennoxstudios.com So the question is how do I get the right clients who can afford me to travel to this location (1 hour west of Detroit) and then tell all their friends about me?
Additionally, ANY workflow streamlining tips for a one person studio would be appreciated. I have tried having assistants, and they help for a minute and then turn out to be a liability with lost or not ordered images and/or sloppy retouching. Can anyone suggest a never-fail retouch and colorcorrecting lab? Also any website criticisms would be great! The single most helpful thing you can do is concentrate on the business. It sounds trite, but look at what others have done and are doing to build a photography business.
The next most helpful is to nail down your technique so that an absolute minimum of retouching is necessary. That means learning to light to minimize the appearance of skin problems and emphasize or de-emphasize features. You shouldn't need the lab to do color correction if you are shooting digital and in digital you should be able to batch process your shots because you know the corrections that are required.
Getting people who can afford you to come to you is a matter of salesmanship. You will always be able to get people who can't afford you. Trust me. For business purposes, they are only useful as kind of a passive advertising (if that). They become more useful if they know people with money that can use you.
You can write articles about what goes into a good head shot that will appear where people needing head shots will read it.
Spend 80% of your time on the business and 20% of your time shooting.
Vance | 