2024 12 30
“Keep it 100” studio portrait featuring Serina. Chicago, Illinois. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Becoming a Portrait Studio Photographer in 2025
I’ve been quite humbled in the last few years by the difficulty in attracting people to give you money to take their portrait. Just because you have a photo studio doesn’t make you a professional portrait photographer. It’s been a re-learning experience to figure out what people want from me and what people are willing to pay me for it, when pursuing portrait clients. That said, being a portrait photographer has never been a focus of mine and I’ve sort of actively avoided this my entire photography career, as I didn’t have a studio and it always felt like more work than it was worth. To be honest, my insight is that people don’t have much money to put towards portraits and expectations are high for the little money they will pay (I realize my perspective is a bit warped as a commercial and editorial photographer). What might’ve been a no-brainer career pursuit a decade ago is now challenging and perhaps not advisable.
All that said, I think I finally got to a place where I have things a bit more figured out, in a way that works for me. My “Keep it 100” portrait sessions, inspired by a similar setup done down in Nashville by Jeremy Cowart, have been both a ton of fun and a bit more financially justified. I have a longer post in the works that goes into further detail on the backstory and process, however, I will say that providing an amazing service (one hundred fun and unique portraits for [currently] $150) does wonders for word of mouth. In more recent months, I’ve built up some real demand for this service largely due to the affordability and simplicity (though the setup is quite detailed). This has me thinking I should make portraits a more consistent and regular offering at the studio next year.
Additionally, I recently saw some work from Ivan Weiss, a London-based studio portrait photographer, that further inspired me to want to focus more of my time on offering a more well-rounded portrait studio experience. While there’s a lot of potential to make really great work, there are also real expenses involved (backdrops, cameras and lenses, lighting) that make this approach less appealing to me. Then, there’s the even more challenging reality of finding higher end clients that are both willing to spend a more appropriate amount of money ($600 and up!) on great images, while also maintaining the creative approach that inspires me to want to do this. The challenges are so great that I will likely stick with the lower end approach. Keep it quick, easy, and affordable, while also making it low stakes enough for me to experiment, get weird, and have more fun along the way.
One other idea I hope to explore is to turn my more affordable “Keep it 100” portrait model into more of a social experience. In a previous life, I ran a website called everyoneisfamous.com, in which I would go out to parties and shows, take a bunch of candid pictures of people, and then post them to the photo blog. I like the idea of dusting off the website and giving it more of a studio portrait approach, in which anyone who wants to participate will get their images on the public website for others to see. We could then offer the setup out in the world at various events, and perhaps even bring the whole thing on the road and do it in other cities! That all gets me excited and feels like a model that might make sense, as part of the payment then becomes exposure for myself and my portrait setup, thus allowing me to keep my rates low enough for anyone to participate.
-Clayton
This is one entry in a multi-part series of self-exploration and contemplation-out-loud in advance of the new calendar year. Some of this may happen; none of this may happen.
For the complete list of posts, see 2024 12 25.
