Inspired and spurred into action by my mate Ed over at the Soundmill studios, I remembered I had started a blog for Hilton Sanders Photography a few months back, and am now determined to write some stuff down about what's been going on.
We're now into our second year of business, older, wiser and in my case carrying a little more weight. At first we could hardly believe we could legitimately state our professions as "Photographer" let alone that we were both directors of a company, with all the imaginary images that accompany those terms. The reality was definitely not glamorous. We started HSP just before what was already a credit crunch became a full-blown recession, and spent several weeks covered in paint while we prepared the studio, just as people stopped spending on everything, and getting professional portraits done was definitely the last thing on the list. The run up to Christmas is a reliable time for any photographer, and we saw enough people to get us going and start to get our name out there and be recognised. But come January 1st...... tumbleweed. I think we probably started naively with the Field of Dreams credo -"If you build it, they will come." After a cold and quiet winter in the office, we realised that we needed to push harder to get commercial work in, because businesses always need promotional photos, to give us a chance of avoiding the impact of the seasonality of portraiture.
And it took us until May to get our act together. We'd tried a couple of different networking groups, and although we were only visiting, we came away with jobs from each one, but we always felt that we were either the only women there, or the youngest people (our average age is creeping towards 32 these days....), or that we were just in the wrong place. Whilst our business is split between domestic/family and commercial/business work, we were there to secure work from businesses - ideally product shots, or a little PR, and as much as we'll never turn a customer away, there's just not so much you can do for your average accountant! So in May, we launched No Frills Business Networking for Women, with the idea that we can't've been the only new, small company looking for a way to make friends and connections with others in the same situation. And we were right. We've made some great business friends, and they've introduced us to some other local networking groups, and more local businesses in turn. No Frills (the pun's obvious if you know me and Jo) kicked off with Lindsey Davies of Open Communications taking the 5minute intro spot, and she invited me to attend the weekly MBE (Milford Business Exchange) session the week after. Lindsey had been right - this was a networking group I felt comfortable with - a mixture of businesses of various sizes, ages and services, where I feel like I am supported and encouraged, and it's resulted in some great jobs. The combination of an early-morning weekly, semi-formal(ahem!) mixed-sex group, and the monthly, very relaxed and women-only session suits HSP fine, and we have now worked with great local businesses from start-ups and one-man bands to some of the biggest international companies with premises in Yorkshire.
Even better, whilst we've built up our connections with local businesses, we've continued building our reputation for great portraits, and we hear from our customers that they came to us because they had friends or family who've already used us, and loved the shots. There's no better way of getting portraiture business than good word of mouth. With this in mind, we opened our studio up for photo-parties - for any celebration. They're a great alternative to taking a bunch of kids to the cinema, to the fast-food restaurants or for a swimming party, but equally good for hen-nights and silver wedding anniversaries. From our point of view, it's s way for people to come and have a look around the studio, meet us and see the sort of thing we can do, without spending too much. We have had some amazing fun with our parties - the creativity people come along with has been incredible! Our suggestion that people bring a change of clothes and a theme for the second outfit, has so far has been recognised as an artistic opportunity by most of our parties. Our favourites have been the apparently simple theme of "fluorescent", which turned a team of 13year old girls into Oulton's next top models, and "Hollywood", where 4 girls brought their own red carpet, fun cameras and cuddly "airdog" (never touches the floor) and so we set up a "papping incident" in the studio. Fantastic.
Every challenge and idea we're approached with is exciting. We try to find out what all of our customers are looking for and take them just a little bit beyond what they were expecting, and that's fun to attempt, and satisfying to achieve. What more could I ask for from a job? Yes it's terrifying knowing that each month we have to earn our living, rather than being able to depend on a regular wage, but every single penny we make feels ten times more valuable knowing how hard we worked to earn it.
So... that's roughly what we've done in our first year. In the next few months we've got some great jobs coming up - naked fundraising calendars, in-house newsletters, playgroups and nurseries, and lots of family shoots. I'll try to update this blog a little more often and maybe shed a little light on what goes on behind the doors at HSP, and our experiences in business as we adventure through the turbulent times at (hopefully) the end of the recession. Please feel free to follow us and chime in with any ideas!
Cheers,
Caroline
