Interesting business idea or am I going nuts?

[visiondr]

So, I was getting my haircut the other day talking photography and lamenting my goofy financial situation with the woman cutting my hair. She says I could make a little extra money by starting some kind of on the side photo business. She's seen some of my photos (she's a family friend) and says, "You're really good. You could sell your work. I would even put some up here in the shop and clients would see them and maybe you'd sell some." She's a very business savvy person and goes on to suggest establishing an LLC or some other form of S Corporation under which I could purchase materials and handle all the tax related stuff.

As I'm sitting there I'm being polite, but thinking she's gone a little over the top. Later, though I find myself wondering if I could make a go of it. But, later still the more I think about it, the more I keep convincing myself that it's a stupid idea.

Then, yesterday I thought, "hey, you live in a nice old neighborhood with beautiful old homes. Why not photograph people's homes in an appealing way and sell the owners on owning a nice black and white 'portrait' of their home?"

By now I'm formulating a half-baked business plan by which I could take some photos of a few friends' homes. I'd display them on a professional-looking website (a good friend of mine is a web designer and photographer who'd help) and then go door-to-door here in Portland's nicer neighborhoods, dropping off a postcard with an especially nice photo on one side and advertising copy on the other. The advert could direct the homeowner to the website which would include other home portraits, an explanation of the service, prices and a link to an email address. The point is, I'd take photos, sell photos, make enough money to satisfy my GAS and maybe, just maybe earn a little extra cash for the family. I have always loved architectural photography and have a passion for old homes.

So, now that the half-baked idea is out in the open, what do you guys think? Am I nuts even considering this or is there the germ of a good idea here?

Ron

 

[ferider]

It's a great idea, Ron.

My wife volunteers for a local museum and spends quite some time
scanning old house photo negatives. There are also walks arranged through
the neighborhood and people are interested in new photos of well-kept
older houses. There definitely is a demand in prints and scans of nice
real vintage and vintage looking house photos; and in comparing
old vs. new.

Check with a Realtor or two, they can confirm.

Best,

Roland.

 

[visiondr]

The realtor angle is a good one. Maybe I'll call the guy who helped us find our old home (1905).

Ron

 

[Keith]

I think it's an excellent idea and can't see why it wouldn't work. It's no more half baked than my ambitons to go and photograph polo matches and sell prints to the polo elite.

Go for it ... you have the cameras, the ability and there is not a lot to lose if it fails! 🙂

 

[jlw]

Don't expect to get rich at it, but if you were able to keep the operating costs and overhead low it could make you a bit of money.

I'd think the big hurdle would be pricing. You might want to do a bit of informal research among homeowners in the area to see how much they'd pay.

Also, you might want to look at tying in with some of the on-demand online printing services. I'd think that the number of people who would want a framed print of their home to hang in their home might be relatively small compared to the number of people who might want, say, note cards with a nice picture of their home on them. Another advantage of that route would be that it provides the potential for repeat business: a "portrait" lasts a lifetime, whereas note cards get used up and have to be reordered.

Another thought: Offer a package of exterior AND interior photos that could be ordered as a book (again, easily available through on-demand printing services.) This could provide added value that would justify charging higher prices. An obvious way to get this going would be that if you've got a friend with a nice old home, shoot it and make up a sample book.

The one thing about your plan that sounds potentially dodgy to me is the use of postcards as your advertising medium. Having nice two-sided cards printed will be a significant startup cost, and the response rate is likely to be low. I could be wrong (this is another thing you should research) but I think you might do better trying to publicize your service at neighborhood-group meetings, in neighborhood-association newsletters, etc. Do have some business cards printed with a nice photo, your business name, and your website address, so you've always got something to give to potential customers -- in fact, if you've got a photo-inkjet printer, you could start out simply by printing a few of them yourself.

I feel that the key to a successful startup in this type of business is keeping the fixed costs down, and structuring the variable costs so they can be charged to the customers on a job-by-job basis.

Your friend also is smart to encourage you to look at how your small-business venture would affect your tax status, insurance coverage (many homeowner policies won't cover camera equipment used professionally) and liability. Liability is probably the biggest risk exposure: if you happened to knock over a flowerpot while photographing a house and it killed the owner's cat, you wouldn't want him/her to be able to sue you and get your life savings. Also, if I were a savvy homeowner and hired someone to photograph my house, I'd want him to provide ME with a waiver saying I wouldn't be held liable if he slipped and fell or something, so you might want to make sure you've got that end covered as well.

 

[easyrider]

It's tough but possible

It's tough but possible

The trick these days is to find a niche that will generate some cash for you. We live in an age of digital P/S cameras and everyone can produce a good picture at least once in a while. You have to ask yourself what it is that you can offer that the average digital P/S shooter cannot. You have to give people a reason to pay someone to take pix.

Pick a niche for pix in which you are experienced. If it is houses and real estate, then pick that. But you have to convince the home owner and real estate agent that you can do it better than they can.

On Sunday, February 11, The New York Times real estate section had a long story about how successful agents use professional photogs and how important it is. The title was "Making Every Pixel Count." It is likely online. The NYT web page is free but you have to register.

If you are going to do events, like kids parties, you have to convince the mom that she will be too busy running the party to take pix and that you will deliver all done up in print form for, say, $300 to $500, depending on the length of stay, etc., plus the cost of the prints. (Check what pros charge in your area.)

Set yourself up as a small business. Your state or federal government no doubt has online information about how to do that. You won't get rich but you might cover the purhcase of gear and you will get a tax deduction for expenses.

If you have the time and love photograohy, it's well worth doing.

 

[Mr Ho]

Why not compile and self-publish?

Why not compile and self-publish?

Why not simply photo-document as many historic homes inside/out as you can and then propose to the Portland town council that you self-publish a coffee table book/keepsake for the local community's enjoyment and future generation's memories? I bet all the home-owners would buy a copy, and all local bookstores, coffee shops, art galleries, etc. would help distribute them for you. Just an idea!

 

[visiondr]

Thanks Mr Ho, but there are approximately 2-million people living in the Portland Metropolitan area. Though, that's nothing like the 7+ million in and around Hong Kong.

Ron

 

[Mr Ho]

Preserving Portland

Preserving Portland

Good, that makes it sound like a nice, fat project to take on! And, there's a good market of potential buyers!

Seriously, how many historic buildings are there in Portland? Thousands? I had an image of San Francisco where I think there are only (unfortunately) a handful of old residential structures left, and they have been over-photographed. So, maybe self-publishing is not an option for Portland if there are so many structures. Why not shoot one place, write up a little bit about it (find a historical preservationist to help), and then take a sample "chapter" to a publisher of coffee table books?

In Hong Kong, everyone is desparately trying to hold onto the past as Government efficiently tears down all legacy structures. I wish someone here had started documenting our old colonial buildings 10 years ago. I have to travel over to Macau to do so now (the Macanee have done a surpisingly better job of preserving their heritage).

 

[RF-Addict]

I would not count on making money with your idea - sorry, don't want to be the party pooper here, but I believe you would have a hard time breaking even. First of all, once you declare this as a business you need to get insurance for all kind of stuff - liability, insurance for your gear, etc.

I am not very optimistic that people would buy the pictures of their houses from you - today EVERYBODY think they are Ansel Adams and all it takes is a digicam and they can make their own piece of art.

On top of that you now have to deal with the IRS who wants to understand what income you generate for the expenses you'll declare.

I honestly think this would be more hassle than it is worth. You should at least talk to a tax accountant to understand the financial implications. I was thinking along similar lines many years ago and after talking to my tax accountant realized that it was just not worth it and that I'd be better of sticking with photography as a hobby.

 

[sherm]

I have to second "easy rider" on the idea of a niche product or specialty. Distinguish your "practice" as that of an architectural photographer. You may also want to contact an office for the Portland architect or building design association? Market your services by doing a couple of pro-bono jobs for a couple of select firms and see where that leads you.......

Another wise bit of advice that your stylist gave you was forming a corporation. It's a great way of protecting yourself in the advent of unforseen trouble you may encounter along the way ie. insurance, liability or lawsuit.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[easyrider]

Croporation?

Croporation?

Thanks, Sherm for seconding my comments. I would say NO to a corporation. That involves a lot of costs and paperwork. Your corner photo store or studio is not a corporation. It is a small business.

I also do not agree with RF-Addict. Whether it is worth it to you, depends on your circumstances. There is no reason why you should not be able to generate some cash right away, providing you can deliver the goods.

I don't live in the U.S. But I think the tax thing works the same way -- you have to show the tax people the expectation of making money at the start. You don't have to be profitable right away but you can't be showing a loss forever.

Like any small business, you have to be focussed and committed to it if you are to succeed. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

If you don't want the hassles, you could simply find a job in the photographic field.

Do some research and for starters, you could hang some pix in the barber shop and see whether anyone forks out any cash.

It is a little hard to tell you more, not knowing your circumstances, age, photographic abiliy, business acumen, etc.

The main thing is that you have to WANT to do it.

Good luck.

 

[JP1]

A friend of mine who already makes his living as a photographer, bought an old retired electric company bucket truck and uses it to get elevated views of homes and businesses. He can get real nice overview shots of properties. He gets a lot of requests to photograph business properties and estate type homes, and gets hired by realty companies to photograph estates that are on the market. It only makes for a small percentage of his income, and may not even break even, but I bet if it was persued the right way it could be a worthwhile thing.

 

[jlw]

I would not count on making money with your idea - sorry, don't want to be the party pooper here, but I believe you would have a hard time breaking even. First of all, once you declare this as a business you need to get insurance for all kind of stuff - liability, insurance for your gear, etc.

Good reality check, although I'd amend it to saying don't count on making much money.

I say this because I just got done calculating my taxes, so I have all the figures in my head.

I do a lot of photography, but most of it is either part of my job (no tax headaches) or stuff I do for charity (also no tax headaches but also no income.) What little shooting I do specifically for money earned me $2,100 gross last year. This is nice and simple: It's all for the same client, and I shoot it all as digital and put it on CDs they provide, so it's just a matter of billing them for my professional services - no overhead, no expenses, no nuthin'.

So, it's hard to imagine a less complicated form of photography-for-money. I just show up, push the button a few hundred times, then drop off the CD and the bill.

The back end also is very simple. I have my equipment on a 'floater' insurance policy that costs me $104 per year. I don't worry about liability insurance because the type of photography I do doesn't involve much liability exposure (it's all on the client's premises) and I don't have enough assets to make it worthwhile for some lawyer to go to the effort of suing me anyway.

I also don't depreciate my equipment because I've done the scenario and it wouldn't save me enough on taxes to be worth the bother, since only a small percentage of it can be attributed to income-producing use. (For example, depreciating the Nikon D80 body I bought this year would have saved me a whopping $2 off my tax bill.)


Allowing for all that, I've just learned that this year I'm going to have to pay about $800 in income tax and Social Security and self-employment tax and so forth. That plus the insurance means I'll net $1,200 after taxes.

Is it worth it? Well, I guess making $1,200 is better than not making $1,200, considering that I like the people I work for and it mostly involves taking pictures at events I would have enjoyed attending anyway.

But if the events were ones I did not enjoy, or if the record-keeping and administration were much more of a hassle, I'd probably walk away from the $1,200 and just enjoy having a few extra hours of free time per month.

I suspect it's similar for most on-the-side photographers. You're probably never going to make enough money to quit your real job, so you've got to decide where to draw the line between what's worth doing for a few extra bucks and what's more trouble than the money is worth.

 

[RML]

The idea of doing neighbourhood books is something that's being done here in Amsterdam. The different districts and sub districts are small (like villages, and Amsterdam only has about 750.000 inhabitants to begin with) but sufficiently different in character, history, architecture, etc to warrant a book each. It takes research, of course, as people want to read about the history of their district. Old postcards and comparative shots taken today also add to the interest.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

A friend of mine used to photograph shops at night and return a few days later with a print for sale right there and then.