Spectacle Photo: A New Studio Approach

When Rich Johnson and I bit the bullet and opened a new studio in The Altamonte Mall, we decided to put a spin on the photography studio business model. If you’re in the photography industry you know a lot photographers spend their time fighting amongst themselves, worrying about who’s going to steal their business, and fervently trying to “protect” their name/company name by lording over it. We’ve found that approach to be…counterproductive. Rich and I, in no way, wish to do all of the photo jobs booked at this studio by ourselves. This is why we’ve asked select photographers to come join us. They lend us their photos and we pitch them to people who are looking for something Rich and I don’t specialize in. Spectacle gets a commission for handling the sale and the client, our photographers get booked to shoot what they want to shoot and can use the studio whenever they want, and everyone always gets paid for their time. We also offer free pics to models just starting out if they agree to help us out with in-house ads later down the road. So far this studio has been operating like a creative salon, and it’s been awesome so far. Our photographers can have their own company, or whatever they want, outside of Spectacle. If they don’t have a company or a creative home-base we give them their own Spectacle business cards and whatever else they need to market themselves and let them loose to go and sell their work. As long as everyone is focused on producing high-end photos, we’re happy.

If a photography studio is going to survive in this digital age, it needs to adapt to its surroundings. We built Spectacle from the ground up to be the ultimate team player, and an all-around awesome place to take photos and hang out. Below are some photos we took of the place, but the studio looks even better in person. If you haven’t come to visit us yet, get over here!

Our front window. We have one of those now. The workspace! Photos on canvas! A quote! Another quote! This is our photo previewing station. We even have canvas’s floating in the air here. Our desks. The shooting area! Wahoo! Dressing rooms, and a grass wall from Disney that’s great for headshots. Our makeup station, because we listen to our makeup artists. Lights are on the way!