Focused (yes, pun sadly noted)

Ever gotten your mind wrapped around some idea, some thought, some goal you'd like to attain, something you'd like to have?

If you've noticed my recent posts you've undoubtedly seen a photo from my first studio photoshoot. I enjoyed that experience greatly and since that time I've been engaged in thinking of putting fasion/glamour studio in here in my hometown. Most people have to travel to Atlanta to find a studio that is more devoted to fashion or glamour modeling. I'm not talking about nudes but I am talking about the type of warehouse studio where you don't expect to see fleets of Volvos or BMW's outside while the kids are inside getting their senior pictures done. There's nothing wrong with shooting commodity work. I'm sure it pays the bills. I have always considered my work in photography to be an expression of something I see. I feel like I'm starting to find a voice; an expression with my work so that others who view what I produce say things and talk about feelings or emotions or appearances that I was thinking of when I took the shot. That's where I'd like to be and for the first solid year of working to develop this I've centered my work mainly around portraits. Glamour, fashion, casual portrait work. It's been great and now I find that I want to expand and offer the models not only my work in environmental portraiture but I want to be able to shoot studio work, too. I think I've grown in my environmental work regardless of the outfit style. I think that if I could put together a solid year of working in a studio with models then I could really see some improvements and I could start to share a consistent vision.

What's holding me back? Money. I don't charge models; Lord knows there are enough scam artists out there (and professional photogs, too) who will charge them $500-1000 for a portrait session even when they're just starting out. I can't see charging them to follow their dreams. It's not that only a few will make it. Heck, look at the young lady selling the minivan next time. Check out the dude trying to get you hooked on vitamin pills. These aren't Helen of Troy or Adonis. Sure a lot of people think of big breasts and ripped abs when they think of models but pretty much any model I've shot with could find him or herself getting good steady work if they put the time in and go to the model calls and make useful contacts. It's not that they can't pick up work; its sometimes that the very thing that makes a good programmer or a good electrician or a good manager is the same thing that makes a good model: focus, determination and good people skills.
Now to put a studio in with professional grade equipment I'm looking down the barrel at about $5,000-10,000 and that's without the rent factored in. That's just the equipment. A pro grade camera body will cost either $4,500 or 7,500 depending on the model I want (Canon 1DmII or 1Ds, respectively).

I just can't see putting the money into that up front and then hope to get some good contracts from magazine editors. I need to make some inroads in the community, put my work out there for editors to look through, and then when I have some idea how receptive the paying community is to my work I may take the plunge. Of course, back to the current problem, until I do finally make that kind of an investment in my current hobby I'm still gonna be FOCUSED!

Thanks,

Kev