Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Smith.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My late grandfather was a printmaker, meaning he developed photographs and made prints in his retirement years. He loved photography and taught me to love it too. I graduated from Texas A&M with a BS in Fisheries Science and continued to Texas Tech to earn an MS in Fisheries Biology. I took a temporary job with a local golf retailer, Dallas Golf, while I was looking for career work in my field. I stayed 13 years and helped grow the company into one of the largest online retailers of golf equipment. While there, I was the E-Commerce Director, and always thought photography and video were an important part of our web presence. During a down year for our business, I got the chance to purchase a portrait studio. I had kept up photography as a hobby, of course, and the opportunity to do it for a living was a dream come true. I purchased Ivey Photography in 2008. We now have our own studio in Midlothian, just south of Dallas.
Has it been a smooth road?
The greatest challenge in owning a business is the feeling like you’re always hanging from a rope with one hand. You may find success one day or month or year, but you know that if you let go of the rope and don’t continue to climb, you’ll fall. That feeling is very motivating, but also very tiring. It takes patience to keep focused on long-term success and not let the little things get you down. As a portrait and wedding photographer, the hours have also been hard on my family life. I have small kids and for a long while, Saturdays spent working meant missing some of their activities. The past few years we’ve made changes in the types of business we take on, and that’s helped alleviate the pressure from home. I’ve been lucky to own a business in a growing economy, and even though the country was struggling in 2008, the turnaround has been enough to give our business momentum to continue to grow.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Ivey Photography story. Tell us more about the business.
Although we are a general portrait studio, based in family portraits, we are known, across the country actually, for The Storybook Santa Experience. We photograph all types of families, sports, schools, corporate events, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, all year long, but when October comes, we are in full Santa Mode. We earn about half of our overall revenue in Q4, all on the shoulders of Santa Claus.
We’ve turned what most people consider a horrible mall experience into a memorable part of the Christmas Season. Families come from all over DFW, all over Texas, and we’ve had clients from California, Oklahoma, Missouri and Rhode Island to enjoy our Storybook Santa Experience.
The program has been so successful that I took on studios in Sacramento, CA, Houston, TX, and Salt Lake City, UT as partner studios. I trained them in my method of delivering the experience to clients, they send me files to create art pieces, and they sell those to their clients. We share the profits. On average a studio doing a traditional Santa portrait set in past years will have a projected revenue increase of over 500% with our program.
At home, we have a studio in Midlothian and a studio in Richardson where local families can come to enjoy The Storybook Santa Experience. In January 2017, I earned the Degree Master of Photography from the Professional Photographers of America. The title is earned for excellence in image exhibition and competition. In 2017 I was one of only 22 photographers nationally to earn 8 Merit Awards at the International Print Competition in Atlanta. In January 2018, I’ll be awarded the degree Photography Craftsman, a degree awarded for teaching and service within the photography industry.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The photography industry has been largely impacted by the digital age, and especially smartphone camera technology. When mom can take a stunning portrait of her baby with an iPhone in her garage, she no longer needs a studio for that type of photo. In addition, the camera manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon have made the operation of a DSLR camera so easy, if a family wants to make the next step from their phone, they can enter the digital camera market very easily. The need for a professional photographer has been replaced in so many cases, the viability of portrait studios like mine depends on a very special set of circumstances. First, the studio has to offer something that “moms with cameras” cannot. We rely on digital art to transform our images into pieces that “don’t come from the camera” directly. Second, a professional photographer needs access where there is no one else competing, such as a school, a sports arena, or corporate environment. I’ve been lucky to establish relationships with clients that keep me working. As long as I stay on top of my craft and continue to develop products ahead of the curve, I’ll be in business. As for how the industry may begin to change, I feel like there will be a movement back to things that are crafted, printed, or made by hand. Even though the millennials are tied in to the world digitally, there is something special about a hand-printed portrait, or a handmade leather album. Quality will never go out of style.
Pricing:
- Our Storybook Santa Experience begins at $499
- Wedding photography starts at $1999
- Portrait photography starts at $649
Contact Info:
- Address: 403 West Main St
Midlothian, TX - Website: iveystudio.com
- Phone: 972-723-2464
- Email: csmith@iveystudio.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/iveyphotography
- Facebook: facebook.com/iveyphotography
- Twitter: twitter.com/iveyphotography
Image Credit:
Ivey Photography
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