In past post I’ve been able to show some awesome thing we get to do at our studio. What doesn’t get discussed much is all the “not as much fun things” that really makes a studio run. This is not a “complain session” post, but some of the realities of running a photography studio that many starry-eyed young photographer or clients don’t see. All they know, and all we want them to see, is we have a fun, clean, organized place to shoot photos and video and everything work’s perfectly.
Last week, an average week:
1. It rained and my intern noticed the, 4-year-old roof, had developed a leak. Had to quickly get some plastic and cover a bunch of boxes so they wouldn’t get wet. After the rain stopped I went up on the roof and noticed that when the workers had removed a tall brick chimney, one of the bricks fell and put a hole in the roof. Will have to call the roofer and get it repaired.
2. It seems like one of our two 12.5 ton air conditioner units was starting to squeal when it turned on. Called the AC repairman to come change the belt. I noticed that the pulleys weren’t aligned causing the belt to wear out fast. More time and money.
3. I noticed that weeds were beginning to grow in the cracks of the parking lot. Mix up the weed killer and sprayed.
4. Noticed that there are some sharp edges on the tile we put in our new restrooms. I brought in a hand held grinder from home and ground the corners smooth. This is important so someone won’t get cut and we get sue.
5. Went through the 150 emails I got in over the weekend.
6. A client rented the studio for a video shoot. Need to mop all the floors, empty the trash, and clean all the bathrooms. Oh, I forgot need to clean all the glasses and coffee cups that were used.
7. After a wonderful 3 day photo shoot then we worked another 57 hours on retouching, making clipping paths, making zip files and uploading them to the clients server.
8. Put together all the bills and time sheets too bill photo project. Invoice client.
9. Scouted location for upcoming photo shoot.
10 Attend 8 hour conference on photo marketing.
11 Answer more emails
12 Call client to make sure they got all the files and were happy. They were thrilled!
13 Package up client’s product and ship back to client.
14 Called food stylist to schedule some test shots.
15 Assemble and addressed more direct mail promos
16 Opps, ran out of ink in the printer. Go to the store and get more ink.
17 Checked my Google Analytics report to see how my sites are performing.
18 Back-up and archive Clients photo files
19 Install new hard drive on server.
20 Meet with Accountant to go over quarterly numbers.
21 Open and sort mail
22 Send email with photos to new Art Director I met.
23 Pre-Production meeting with client about upcoming shoot
24 Phone conference with interactive development company to find a way to upload images to our website easier.
25 Faxed insurance papers to our loan company.
These are just 25 of the things I could remember. Behind the scene at most advertising photography studios, the mix is 80% business and 20% photography.
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