Sign my Lease today

dnavarrojr

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Jan 28, 2011
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Location
Kansas, USA
Website
www.topekadesign.com
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I took the plunge and I will be signing a lease on a 1400sf office in the downtown area of Topeka. I talked the building owner into taking half what he original wanted and giving me a 6 month lease. Hopefully this will pan out. Already planning a big open house and some other events.

Just gotta remember to keep breathing...

I'm actually sharing the space with a couple photographer friends and an artist friend (oil paintings) and I saved up enough money to cover my rent for the 6 months, so I won't be relying on generated income to make my rent payments. All utilities (except internet) are included, thankfully.

We're taking pictures of the space over the weekend while we move it, so I'll post some pics when I can. We plan on renting out the studio area to other local photographers when we're not using it (already have a half dozen signed up).
 
Sounds like a good plan. Good luck with your venture.

Sharing space can be a real bucket of worms.
 
Thanks everyone!

Sharing space can be a real bucket of worms.

Yes, it can. But I've already been working with and am close friends with the people whom I'm sharing the space and shared space is better than no space. It gets me through the winter when I normally have no place to shoot (when the weather turns), so instead of doing nothing over the winter I can still work. Also, we've set aside 6 hours a week for renting the place out to other photographers and half of October and half of November are already rented out. If we rent 75% of the allotted time each month we pay zero rent out of our pockets. Plus, I make a little extra personally by renting out my old lighting kit for an extra fee. :)

We've got a conference room with an LCD projector and my first two Lightroom and Photoshop classes are already 60%+ booked for October, so this is really starting to look promising. I've also got a university professor coming in at the end of the month to run a "Studio Lighting" workshop and we've already got 11 people signed up and paid. Max class size is 14, so we might be able to run a second class.

I'm a firm believer in "a rolling stone gathers no moss", so I'm hitting the ground running. I've already got ads running for our "Open House" on Friday, October 7th which is the "First Friday Art Walk" in the downtown area.

Now that I've signed the lease and got my keys, I'm giddy and excited. :lmao:
 
Nice! Getting your own office is definitely a big plus!
 
Had our first sessions in the studio and it was so nice. Clients were pleased. We're sharing lighting equipment and it's so nice to have enough lighting to get exactly the look you want.

We did have our first conflict as a shared group. I scheduled some workshops a week ago after discussing it with everyone. Yesterday one of the photographers asked if we could move the workshops because she had a client call who's only available on that day. I explained that the workshops had been on the schedule for a week and we've already filled two of them with pre-paid students. She wasn't happy, but it turns out the client who could only be shot on that day was able to change her schedule to shoot the next day.

I had a chat with her last night and showed her the contract she signed and reminded her that we agreed that once something was scheduled, it was scheduled. Nobody in the group has priority and nobody can bump anyone else. She needs to be more assertive and remember that she's in charge, not the client. It's okay to tell a client that a date/time is not available and if they are inflexible, then recommend another photographer. I have a couple of photographers outside of our group whose work I like and give pay me for referrals. I do the same for them.

Tonight is our big "Open House" during the First Friday Art Walk. It should be exciting. We're doing a "Facebook Photo" special and we've got a couple models for photographers to come in and shoot for free. The goal is to show off the space and sign up photographers to rent studio time. Although we've already had enough sign up to pay next month's rent. :) This is going well so far (knock on wood).
 
Sounds great, congrats.

Have you posted photos of the studio yet? We would all like to see it.
 
Will have those tonight along with photos from tonight's party. I asked one of my partners to take the photos, but he's been busy with his day job and didn't get a chance. So I'll shoot them when I go in this afternoon to get ready for tonight.
 
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Our studio is located on the second floor to the right in this picture (the large round-top window).

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The ceilings are 14 foot and the window on the right is 11.5-feet (that large round-top window from the other photo). I need a wider lens to show more of the room. I'm headed over there today to shoot some pictures of the bare room in daylight, the second studio area, and the old bank vault in the office area.

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This is the floor plan.
 
The building was built in 1887 by a bank that occupied the bottom floor (which used to be the basement) and the second floor. There is a small "personal" bank vault on every floor and a monster vault on the bottom floor.
 

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