Photography studio startup

mrlarter

I am just finishing off the business plan for my new Photography studio. Before I finish the last details I am looking around for ideas and suggestions on ways to improve our little studio. Let me tell you a bit about our studio.

We hope to have a large open space located in the downtown core that will allow photographers as much room to move and stretch out as they need. The room is equipped with four large windows facing downtown on the west side. All four windows will come equipped with light blocking curtains that will keep out the natural light if needed. The studio will have a full studio lighting setup in place as well as a computer system that will allow you to view your photographers on a large LCD screen as you take your photos. We hope to have a wide array of props, furniture and backdrops for your photo sessions as well as a comfortable area for you and your model or client to sit and talk and discuss your project. We also hope to provide a wide range of services such as contacts with other local photographers, makeup artists and models.

In the future we are looking to expand our serves even further by providing camera rentals, lens rentals, dark room rentals as well as the ability to store your images in our system with the ability to access them from home or show your client online what you have done for them.

The idea is to setup a studio that we rent out to other local photographers for their studio needs. If you where to go into a studio to rent for a project what are some things you would like to see in place that would make your job easier?

mrlarter

Nothing at all?

dogwood

Well, I'm a 'renter' but I have all my own gear and don't mind hauling it to rental studios (the places I use have easy loading/unloading from a car).

But-- that said, a white 'cove' (curved white wall) is always a bonus. Bookends (big 4x8 foamcore sheets taped together)-- both white and black-- are awesome because they are a pain to haul around. Same with a sheet of plexi. And a music system.

But to be honest, my main criteria is the amount of space. It's a lot harder to shoot in smaller studios and not nearly as fun.

Jeffro

That sounds like a big undertaking. Good luck!

How do you plan on allowing photogs to see their pictures while they shoot? Are you going to supply wi-fi for the cameras, or will they need to have their own?

That's the only question I could come up with. I've never been to, or even thought about renting a studio. Sounds cool though.

mrlarter

Hello

Thanks for the feed back guys, this is exactly what I need.

I will definitely look into those dogwood. I think we could easily fit those into the budget. We want to be able to make the space as open as possible and will in the future look for an even bigger space.

At the moment we are hoping to be able to provide wi-fi adapters for at least Canon and Nikon at the moment. Any other system we would need to judge the demand and look at prices.

I guess I need to look into seeing if Nikon and Canon even provide universal wi-fi adapters that work on all of their systems.

El Rey

mrlarter wrote:

Hello

I guess I need to look into seeing if Nikon and Canon even provide universal wi-fi adapters that work on all of their systems.

Nikon does not provide universal wi-fi systems.. You would also have to consider the fact that some cameras require updated firmware for that to work.

That said I think if you're going to have cameras for rent then you could do that because you'd have it all set up. Otherwise it might be more of a problem.

I'm not knowledgeable on studios but I wanted to be of some help.

mrlarter

Perhaps its something we can only provide then to photographers with wifi enabled cameras.

So do people prefer mac over PC? or does it even matter in photography?