Books:

Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

But to get back to photography ...

Francis Hanson's "hobby" for four years during the early part of this decade was—you guessed it. Sweating it out in New Guinea and points east. Wasn't much fun, or very profitable, but it gave him one good deal—the opportunity to develop his favorite hobby by attending the Fred Archer School of Photography in Los Angeles under the G.I. bill. Fred Archer's, as you know, is one of the best. The intense training you get there is just what Fran needed to augment his enthusiasm for taking and making pictures.

Fran and I used to match Argus snapshots in high school, and it was a proud day for me when I was able to stop drooling over a pawn shop window and buy a beaten-up Univex movie camera—for $4. That's how it was those days. We were always taking pictures, talking pictures.

When I left college, I took a job with one of the big Hollywood studio laboratories. During my five years there I learned to know cameras, and increased my proficiency in the gentle art of shutter clicking to the point where I could one day hope to sell my own pictures.

Fran and I decided to pool our dreams. We had hardly any money, but we did have a couple of fine cameras and what goes with them. Also we were in love with taking pictures. That means a lot.

ONE BRIGHT morning last April we were sitting on an old Sausalito wharf, looking across the shimmery Bay—at San Francisco's famous skyline, at the Negro kids fishing off the end of the dock, at trim white-sailed boats flying past Angel Island. All this made us trigger-happy. We wanted to be out taking pictures.

But then we looked behind us, across Bridgeway. There was the old shingle building, part of which we'd just leased for our studio. Truthfully, it didn't look like a studio. It looked just a little like a slum. The walls were peeling, the floor was chewed up, the plumbing smelled, the windows sagged. Oh, oh. Not so good. Hard to shutter off your darkroom. We were to live upstairs, in the back. It was cheap and we might get a rush call at night. We hoped.

Our studio didn't have much, but one thing it did have was location. Right on Bridgeway, one of Marin County's two main arteries to the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco, it was also near the center of town. Bridgeway Boulevard makes delightful strolling for both tourists and Sausalito folks. This, we figured, should guarantee a few people stopping in, if only by accident.

We hadn't been stupid. We had considered business angles. Sausalito, a city of around 5,000 potential customers (isn't every human being a potential portrait customer?), had no other photographer's studio. To be sure there were other photographers, but not set up in business right in town. We'd have plenty of competition from surrounding towns, particularly from San Francisco itself. But we would be handy; besides, the pictures we took were going to equal pictures taken anywhere, by anybody. On that point we were positive!

RULE ONE for opening a photographic studio goes like this: choose a locality that isn't overrun by photographers, one where the population constitutes a market for pictures, both personal and commercial. Choose a spot where you'll be happy. You'll do your best where you're happy. And don't overreach yourself on cost. Be content with a small studio to begin with. Put the bulk of your money into good equipment, not into swank.

Once we had settled on a location, we had no time to take pictures. We dug in with scrapers, sandpaper and paint. Before long the old slum with the peeled walls began to look a lot different.

The room which was to be the portrait studio was small but adequate. We used a flat beige chemical paint on the walls and painted two ceiling rafters matching brown. We blocked off the useless window at the far end of the room, and draped it with wide white panels for background, with a single figured brown and yellow drape on either side. We couldn't make our studio modern looking, so we emphasized the quaintness, concentrated on being amusing and homey.

We furnished it simply. A secondhand divan, a bamboo chair, a woven rug, two lamps, and three or four of our best pictures on the walls. An old piano stool made an adequate posing bench.

OUR LABORATORY took ingenuity and elbow grease. It had been the kitchen, and we would continue to do some cooking there. We built a long worktable with a heavy plywood top. It has three drawers along one side, for papers, easels, etc., and cabinet space on the other side for more gadgets, with floor room underneath for our tray rack and our gallon wine jugs of mixed chemicals. Our Elwood enlarger is bolted to the table top. Of course the worktable is next to the kitchen sink. We bought a rubber hair rinser for next to nothing because the spray was gone. Attached to the water faucet it's ideal for washing prints, filling jugs, etc.

We made quarter-inch plywood shutters for the two windows, but we use the adjoining bathroom for quick daylight loading. We tacked heavy velvet drapes across the inside of the door and window. These drapes were retired theatre curtains we bought at the Goodwill for a pittance. It is surprising the gadgetry you can find in salvage shops which will cut down expenses and serve the purpose until you can afford something new and shiny. War surplus shops also served us well. One example is the bleached denim navy hospital smocks we find useful for slipping on as a coverall for dress clothes which we must wear to present a neat appearance for customers liable to drop in at any time.

So, having displayed our versatility as carpenters, painters, drapers, and decorators, we were now in business as photographers.

Now to let Sausalito know we were there.

We invested in professional business cards. We thought they would let people know we meant business, and also it would boost our own morale. It did, too. We had rubber stamps made to use on our stationery and for stamping prints. We built a glass-doored box for displaying our portraits out in front. We ran an announcement in a local paper and a screen-ad in the local movie. All this cost money but it was vital. We weren't in any position to sit around waiting for business to come to us. We had to go out and drag it in. By this time our bank account was all but invisible.

WHAT DID our advertising say? What kind of photographers were we, anyway?

We discussed these problems at great length between ourselves. In the end it came out like this: First of all, we were portrait photographers. Our studio was a conventional portrait studio and our advertising featured the usual baby pictures, graduation pictures and wedding pictures. But we went a step farther. We featured "Personality Portraits," which we advertised would bring out the sitter's individuality. If he wanted something casual, with a pipe in his hand and one arm slung over the back of our bamboo lounge chair, okay. Or if she (as the case might be) wanted the Hollywood touch, we used tricky side and back lighting, or a dramatic spot on one side of her face. If she (again) wasn't pretty but had a nice figure, we suggested a three-quarter length portrait, with something vivid in the way of blouses. Anything to point up the sitter's best "personality," even if actually the sitter wasn't that type of person at all, but only liked to think she was. After all, portraits are really nothing but publicity, and should be so designed as to convince whomever they are intended for, be it the sitter himself, his mother, or his best girl, that he is such-and-such kind of a person. Could be he is glamorous, virile, bookish, whimsical, or what have you. The best portraits are more than just accurate representations of models. There is a psychological approach to portrait photography, just as there is to every other art or profession.

OUR INITIAL advertising campaign featured a free offer. It was free, too. So free, people couldn't believe it. It was simply this. For our entire first month in business we made a free 4-by-6 portrait of just anybody who came in and asked for one. Of course, when the picture came out well and we knew the subject liked it, we did try to sell him more than one. And if he liked it, he usually did want a couple more.

We must have shot a hundred of these, at least. As you can see, this offer had several angles to it. First, it was advertising. It told people we were in business in Sausalito, and it gave them a concrete reason for stopping in. Also, it showed them the quality of our work. We explained to each customer that our free offer couldn't be just a cheap two-bit rush job as that would defeat out purpose. It would be as good as we could do within the restrictions we had to apply, from a cost standpoint. Even if they didn't take more than the free one, at least it kept us busy, gave us a chance to get acquainted with our new equipment and surroundings, as well as providing experience in portraiture which we both needed.

Second, we made it known we were available for commercial work of almost any variety. We guaranteed to turn a real estate agent's nightmare into a photographic dream house. Sausalito is an art center, and our studio is located in the same building with the art center's nucleus. Clyde Earsom has his "Alley Gallery" of paintings on a whitewashed fence just opposite our piazza. We made use of that piazza. Week ends when the Alley Gallery show is going full blast, our mounted blow-ups decorate the piazza, and draw a lot of comment from artists and those interested in art. So we found ourselves, quite naturally, taking photographs of paintings, of handmade jewelry, of textiles. We shot artists at work, such as important local ceramist Edith Heath working at her potter's wheel.

OUR APPROACH to photography would be frowned on by the purist. Here we were taking pictures of anything and everything, pell-mell, when we should have been specializing. We knew that. It's important to specialize, to build up a reputation as a fine photographer of flowers, of stock animals, or of babies. But it's also important to eat. And, we figured, after you gain your footing as a photographer, almost without realizing that you are, you are specializing. You find yourself slanting more and more. Maybe you have a knack for a certain type of picture, maybe your training in other fields or your environment suggests some particular classification. We consider it to be a natural process of elimination.

Meanwhile, we had to eat.

One vital thing to consider, we found, is to establish good will among your townspeople. A photographer is a professional man, like a doctor or lawyer. In a way he has a responsibility, as a recorder of important events, new citizens, weddings, even perhaps funerals. It is possible for him to become an important functional part of his community. But he must earn that good will first. It's a funny thing, but folks in a small community are suspicious and even a little resentful of someone coming into their town and opening a studio. In some odd way, perhaps, they feel he is trying to take something away from them. He isn't; in fact the reverse is true. He is eager to contribute something to his new home town, eager to become a useful citizen of it, to be proud of living there and to advertise and promote it with his camera.

But he must prove all that.

Here is how we tried to do just that. We were very friendly with everyone, down to the last curious little boy who kept asking what that was and yelling "take my picture!" every third sentence. We were friendly, but not pushing. We stayed out of the usual circles until invited to come in. We got acquainted with the local press. We offered free pictures, and cooperated gladly on the stories they ran on us. After all, just coming in and opening a studio was news, and our backgrounds provided half a column for the weekly paper—Fran as a veteran, myself as a selling writer and Hollywood lab technician. In a small community that's news and we made the best of it. It was good because it made the local citizens feel they knew us. It made it easier for them to drop in and say hello, especially in conjunction with the free portrait offer. Even when they didn't want a free picture, just seeing what kind of work we did and getting acquainted implanted in their minds the thought that some day they'd bring little Oscar down for his picture, or have us make a copy of grandpa's yellowed portrait with the painted marble pillar in the background.

"You know, mother—the friendly young fellows down on Bridgeway. They're working hard to make a go of it, and take darn good pictures, too. Like he said, too, it's a nuisance to bring Sally all the way into the city for her picture. She gets cranky, and they all come out bad."

WE FOUND that we didn't have to pay a cent for some of our best advertising. For example, when the local artists contributed their works to be sold for the benefit of the Jewish Welfare Fund, we donated some of our best mounted blow-ups. And when the Boys' Club put on a campaign for funds to lease and maintain a recreational clubroom, we put our services at their disposal. We took pictures of the Boys' Club orchestra rehearsing, of the street dance they put on, we traveled to nearby towns to shoot the baseball team in action. Sure, we spent money for film and flash bulbs and transportation. But we got a lot out of it, besides the satisfaction in having helped a good cause. Our pictures were used in both local and city papers, with credit. Besides, many of the boys wanted prints, which we provided at minimum cost.

A definitely worthwhile project to get in on is photographing local amateur theatrical groups. For instance, suppose a women's club sponsors a children's play at the local high school. It's to raise funds for the new gym. You can help them out with publicity at a low cost, or even free. It takes your time and effort. Maybe you have to miss a basketball game or the only local appearance of Spike Jones to watch the little kiddies dress rehearse; maybe you get drenched and pay a buck cab fare and lose a lens shade. It's still worth it all, if this studio of yours means what it should mean to you. Those kids will remember you and their mothers and fathers will, too. Add to this the cold-cash fact that most of the fond parents will want prints of these pictures. We netted $32.55 from a deal like this, and met some swell people, besides.

But all this wasn't enough to keep the landlord at bay, nor to keep the wolf from nibbling holes in our darkroom shutters. Bridgeway is right on a main artery. Tourists stroll by. They wander into the Alley Gallery. So what do tourists suggest? Postcards. Scenic views. We got busy and shot a series of Sausalito scenes, different ones, good ones. The kind of pictures you can't buy in the drug stores because they aren't stock shots. Views of the town plaza, of the yacht harbor, and little local high spots that would have a personal meaning to the tourists. New, alive pictures—not the usual postcard stuff. It is really surprising how many of these we sold at a dime each. And every dime made our future that much brighter. Right along with these we offered mounted blow-ups of local scenes, some blue-toned or printed with texture screen. Come to think of it, we sold as many local scenes to local people as to tourists, if not more. They send them to friends back East. Being actual photographs from the original negatives, it's almost as if they shot them themselves.

WELL, NOW it was portraits, commercial work, and scenic views. But still it wasn't enough. There was the city license coming up again, and new darkroom equipment we'd thought we could get along without but found we couldn't. A print washer, more ferrotype plates, an electric fan. Little things, but they added up.

Tourists came in and asked did we process film. They needed it done in a hurry, as they were leaving tomorrow. Also, did we sell film? No, we hadn't thought of it. Yet, why not? So what if we had to stay up until two and miss the preview. What was more important, anyway? Sure, we'll soup up and print your film in a hurry! And there were quite a few serious amateur photographers locally, we found, whose work cried out for careful individual attention, yet who hadn't the time nor facilities to do their own processing. To our knowledge such a service didn't exist in Sausalito. So we invested in a good contact printer, in roll film tanks and fine grain developer—and remedied that situation, but quick.

Putting in a small supply of film and some other photo supplies was a natural. And while we were at it, we gradually added a few inexpensive cameras. Our friends in the Boys' Club made this worth while.

THERE ARE other angles to your studio on a shoestring. Mail order, for instance. We took a whack at that, too, but that's a long story in itself. But if you're thinking of such a thing, get into a field that isn't too crowded. Try to offer a new service, or supply pictures that are somehow unusual. All this is gravy if you're careful not to invest more than the cost of a couple of well-spotted advertisements, maybe a mimeographed sheet explaining your service to prospective customers, and some stamps.

Then, of course, you'll want to keep submitting your best prints to magazines and salons. Whatever you do, don't stop being creative. Don't stop taking the kind of pictures you like to take, even if they're not your bread and butter. Your bread and butter pictures will suffer, too, if you don't keep that fresh enthusiasm that comes with constantly discovering and exploiting new angles to the pictures you take.

Now let's take a look back. Our hobby photographic studio has been open about six months. Have we made any profit? After all, we have to show profit or forget it. Let's take a look at our books. First month: nothing. That's right. We were still chucking every cent into supplies. Second month: $112.08. That's clear. Not so bad. Our "free offer" did that. The following month we didn't do so well. Why not? Oh, yeah. The electric dryer and some other stuff. These larger investments eat up the profits, but we decided they would pay for themselves in time, and they are doing so. Well, in less than six months actually open we have grossed well over $1,000. Not much, to be sure. But we agreed not to expect much the first year. Photography is still just our favorite hobby.

And what have we accomplished aside from cash? Well, we've had photographs, lots of them, in five local newspapers—with bylines. We've made two national magazines and have taken pictures for the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce booklets. Fran is official photographer for the Sausalito Little Theatre, and my two amateur movies have created quite a fuss, had two local screenings with cash profit each time. We've had a hundred commercial jobs by now, businesses like Heath Ceramics, Conover Furniture, Traversi Studios, and lots more. And—we've made a lot of new friends.

After all, you take up a hobby mainly because you enjoy it. You don't expect to make a million right off.

SURE, THIS photographic studio on a shoestring is not all glints and high lights. The muddy tones are always there, lurking under the emulsion. But you do meet a lot of nice people. Nothing attracts like a camera. And no matter what they tell you, everybody subconsciously wants his picture taken. You might get bitten by a truculent baby once in a while, or get the cold and frosty from a debutante who wants to look like Hedy Lamarr and can't, even through seven diffusion discs, but to us there's nothing that quite matches the sum total of a photographer's life. It isn't only the lights, camera, action. It's the pungent smell of fresh hypo gurgling down a sieved funnel into an immaculate white tray. Or the little thunk you get as a double weight 8-by-l0 slips under the agitated developer and hits the far end. Or when you flick on the overhead, after anxious moments, and then lift the dripping print out of the wash (or can you wait for the wash?) and your eyes are dazzled by crisp lines and subtle tones ranging from pearl to velvet black.