Are the studios closing down?

Carlos said

I ran a studio in Hertford for 7 or 8 years.  

It was fairly substantial: waiting/chill out room; office area; changing room; two shooting areas both with max width coloramas; one with a huge infinity curve/cove; one with loads of daylight; five sets of lights (all Bowens - 2 x 1000s) and all the gizmos.  So not too shabby and not inexpensive to set up and run.

But it worked (financially) for me for three reasons:

- I was at that time an avid photographer and it saved me the cost of hiring studios (open air photography? nah, not for me)

- I ran my (non-photography) consultancy business from the studio office.  Clients loved to come to me as the setting was so different.  So I saved office and travel costs.

- As well as hiring out to photographers I attracted paying clients.  And rented to local bands as a practice space.

Without the ‘multi-use’ aspects I couldn’t have got it to work…..

Interesting post. Especially the 'multi-use' part. My studio is a much smaller affair than yours was. Nevertheless, I couldn't justify keeping 25m² of real estate simply for hobby photography. I think I average one model shoot a month these days. So I designed it so that it can be quickly and easily redeployed for other things. I run my business from it too. Transpires that with a little imagination and forethought, space that works well for photographing models also works well for designing and configuring Debian servers. Most of my work is remote anyway, conducted over SSH. So a lot of the time I sit surrounded by plenty of space. I really like that.

All the backdrops are motorised and fold away at the click of a button. The main lighting booms are pre-wired with IEC 60320 connectors, so the flash heads can be quickly replaced with RGB+CCD spots - lights that shine light exactly where needed when I'm working on stuff. Three separate "work" power circuits can be isolated at the door so nothing potentially dangerous is ever left live.

Almost everything is on wheels so it can easily be moved around. The carpet is "neutral grey", flame-retardant, 500mm x 500mm "wheel-proof" carpet tiles that don't mark when heavy stuff is wheeled across them. Tiles can be easily replaced if I ever do irreparably damage one. Oddly enough, the tiles also form a handy "minds-eye" metric ruler for measuring cables, guesstimating areas, volumes etc. And, as luck would have it, the heavily-backed and damped tiles also make the acoustics near-perfect for another of my penchants - vintage British Hi-Fi.

In fact it is a lovely creative environment for all sorts of stuff, too numerous to list here. My wife once rather uncharitably described it as my "Playroom". But she does have a point. I do spend an awful lot of time working in here these days. In a sense it is a true "studio", as per the Latin word meaning "I study". And as I said in another similar thread recently, the entire cost of kitting-it-out has been met by what I saved by not paying for my software licences.

Edit: I guess the moral of the story is that creative environments often require creative funding too. :-)

Edited by waist.it

A visited a "studio" at another department in my workplace and saw video lights arranged in a manner of a photoshoot. I mean surely not I thought. And shock horror it turned out to be a portrait photoshoot for staffs. The sitter were all squinting because of the dazzling lights hurting their eyes, told to keep very still because the camera shutter speed are not fast. Well you guess how the photos turns out.

As a videographer I'm all in favour of creative lightings and employing video lights in photography if it helps but in this case it was not knowing how to use sync photography lights was the reason after I spoke with the photographer. There is plenty of life left in real photography studios yet but I think location is very important too.

I can think of at least 4 that have disappeared in the North East in the past 2 or 3 years, including 2 of the largest. Generally landlords wanting more money, or simply ending tenancies to they can redevelop.

My studio is still going strong, with new ones popping up all the time, and some falling by the wayside. When I first opened up around 7 years ago there were loads in the area, many didn’t make it through Covid 19, it’s been pretty turbulent what with the above mentioned, Brexit, cost of living crisis etc.

definitely finding it harder to sell Studio days with rising costs – so I imagine other studios are too, especially in more remote areas.