The Studio

So how important is a studio for headshot photography?

I've had six photography studios over the course of the last five years, and each one of them brings a different character to the type of work that I do, whether that be in the background walls or the flooring, or the position of the windows to produce different types of light, the size of the space, the height of the ceiling, or in something less tangible - the atmosphere in the space, whether it feels like a domestic space, whether it feels like a creative workshop space, or more of a corporate office space.

When we think about what type of studio we want for our photography business, we have to be clear how we want to project our values, the way our clients are going to see us as photographers, how they're going to show up in the space. Because space has a character that impacts who we become when in it, we must attend to that character in our decisions.

My studio now feels like an art studio. It's on a small cobbled mews that is also home to other artists, designers, architects and creatives. It has a big wooden door and very old fixtures and fittings, a thick concrete floor, which has been worn down over the many years of use. It was a light industrial workshop, built at the turn of the 20th century, and all of the spaces around it feel very creative, which means that my clients arrive in a creative mood. It's an environment to play and to create new things and try ideas out - and that's exactly who I am as a photographer. And I've always tried to have studios that kind of feel like that.

My first studio, in my flat, had a much more domestic feel to it, and one obvious downside was that people came to my home - at that stage of my business it obviously made sense to not spend extra on having a unique studio space, but over time it became clear to me that I would have to make that significant investment in order to grow the business and be true to my business values. So, after the first six months of running the studio out of my flat, I decided I needed a studio space that was going to be bigger and more appropriate for the kinds of work I wanted to create. So, I found two other photographers who were looking to share a space and found somewhere together.

By the end of eight months in that studio space I realised that sharing had its downsides - one of the photographers I was sharing with was a newborn photographer and filled a portion of the studio with their props and accoutrements, meaning the studio felt like it didn’t really belong to me. I also realised that if I wanted to do more than ten shoots per month I would need a studio of my own. So, in autumn 2022 I moved into my very first photography studio, this one felt a little bit more like an office space. It was designed to house a small team of people on computers rather then be a dedicated photography studio, but it had a really wonderful view and fantastic natural light. So it was very helpful for me to develop my use of natural light in my work. At certain points in a day, as the sun moved across the sky, I’d get really intense light filling the space. In order to control the light I put up curtains, and often used the curtains as backdrops to shoot against and through. And of course, as the sun goes lower in the sky and you get interesting colours in the light, the environment changes and a different, unexpected kind of photography becomes available.

This is exemplified by a photograph I took of an American model I worked with once. Just as we had finished the shoot, she was just putting on her coat, and I realised that there's an amazing patch of yellowy orange light on the on the wall. So, I just asked her to stand in that light and captured on of my favourite photographs of all time - which was an amazing accident of the light that wasn’t replicable. Just a quirk of the studio space.

Subsequently, I had to leave this space because construction started directly outside the window, and the plans were to build a multi story block of flats that would have obscured my view and light, and I just knew that the next two years it was going to be lots of lots of dust, lots of noise, lots of construction work directly outside, so it wasn't going to be the kind of relaxing space I needed in my studio. So I moved to the other side of the building into a larger space that did cost a little bit more, but had good natural light. While it didn't have that same interesting sunset light that I'd grown to love, it was a much bigger space. Which meant I had the opportunity to set up different scenes within the studio - a couple of backdrops on one side, couple of backdrops on the other side, and then some in the middle, which meant more flexibility. I could shoot a lot wider, and a lot longer, because I had more space. And this is where I really developed my interest for larger scenes, the ability to include multiple backdrops and so forth. I didn't put the curtains back up in this space, although I did use material now and then. However, after the first four or five months of being in the space, I realised that the studio provider had not been taking my rent. I had assumed I'd set up a direct debit because it was carrying over from the previous accounts, but they had made a huge clerical error. And subsequently, I got a letter telling me I owed thousands of pounds in rent. So for the next five or six months, I was paying double rent each month, which made it very difficult to manage cash flow.

So, in the middle of 2024 I was put into a very difficult position, and at exactly that moment in the summer months of 2024 the industry just seemed to take a dive. The drop in inquiries seemed to be across the board, everyone was saying the same thing. So I made the hard decision to get rid of the studio space and save the money in rent by moving back into my home studio. I built out the fairly large open plan living area, installing curtains to isolate the space from the rest of the property. This worked exceptionally well in order to weather the storm, save a little money. And thankfully, I got through the other side. And sometimes you need to make sure that you have the capacity to reduce outgoings at moments where there might be a drop in the economy, or some unexpected costs appear.

After three months of running the space from home, I had the opportunity to grow again - I got a massive contract that meant my financial situation had significantly improved and I was starting to see the benefit of being high up on Google’s ranking. So it was time to expand again. A friend owned a two bed property with a small standalone space attached which could be turned into the perfect home studio, so I took on the rental of the whole property, including the studio. At the exact same moment another friend gave me the opportunity to take on her studio space in Elephant and Castle, which I couldnt refuse as it’s such a unique space. So, now I not only have the lovely artistic space in Iliffe Yard, as described above, but I have a smaller home studio that I have converted into a Youtube recording studio and am hiring it to a Voice Reels Producer who is using it to record actors’ voice reels.

I’m lucky enough to be in a situation now where I have two unique spaces that generate an income and allow me creative freedom, the studio really is a tool in the photographer’s toolbox, contributing to the creative voice of the photographer, helping shape our artistic vision and impact meaningfully in the way we feel when photographing.