Diversifying to broaden your projects

- This week, I'm here with Konrad Eek. Konrad, you for years had a business as a commercial photographer. Like a lot of commercial photographers these days, you found your business, um, uh, - Eroding, that's the word. - That's the diplomatic word. - (laughs) Yes - Like a nice flowing river, it was being washed away. And, you made an interesting choice to add on to your photo business. - Yeah, I had to look elsewhere for revenue sources, like so many commercial photographers. Our work was moving overseas.

It was sometimes being picked up by publishing houses. Also, high resolution well-lit photographs are not a necessity for the net, and as print media started going away, a lot of my skill set was no longer necessary. So, I had been doing a lot of art documentation for various artists. I've spoken in some of my courses about my involvement with the Oklahoma Arts Institute. This is some work from the students there this summer. It was a natural progression for me to take the next steps in the art presentation.

I do the photographs of the work for the artist, but I started offering framing services. I'd studied presentation and archival techniques when I was in college, so I had the basic skill set. And it was just a question of discovering a business model, doing some research, finding local wholesale sources for framing materials and doing a business plan. Cost analysis, figuring out what tools I needed to buy, and what cost benefit the different tools had. There were some things I bought in the beginning, an underpinner for one, that drives the little v-nails into the back of a frame.

You can find out more about that in my matting and framing photographs course. Very economical purchase that paid for itself within the first 40 frames I assembled. So, you've got to think. That being said, I didn't buy an extremely high-end miter saw for cutting the molding down, because that would have taken some 500 frames to repay the investment. So, it's a pretty simple business to get started in, and I think the key to it was I just kind of looked downstream from my photography. You know, where do I go with this skill set, and what can I develop that will further the revenue that I create from the photography? And the framings been a really good fit for me.

- Now you've done another expansion of that recently. - Yeah, just recently. I've started getting connected as I've gone forward with this, a lot of it's been word of mouth, but I've also started to get connected with design firms, and there's a firm... - Like, graphic design firm? - This is actually interior design - Interior design - Um, and uh, in Tulsa, that I'm working with that has some very challenging artwork. We're doing large over-sized frames, so the engineering aspect of it has brought me to where I'm milling my own molding.

- Wow - I'm starting from scratch. Going down to the lumber yard and buying 8 quarter-inch and 10 quarter-inch oak, and milling it down to size for these massive frames I'm doing. - As opposed to buy pre-made, pre-fabricated-- - Exactly. What I'd been buying previously was either length or chopped molding. Where I go to a couple of different manufacturers and look at their catalog of already made moldings, and I'd work with those, assemble those to make the frames. The mats was a straight-forward process. I bought a mat cutter, and I buy mostly Crescent mat board.

They've got hundreds and hundred of color choices. So that part was easy, but milling my own molding has really opened some doors for me. - In terms of expanding your business. - Exactly, the business has grown because of that, and I'm working on a larger scale now. I'm able to tackle framing projects that I wasn't able to address before, and it's also creatively been fun. It's been an inspiration for me to kind of launch out, and branch out into a new direction. - I think the real lesson here is to view the photograph as not a finished product, but as an asset that your client is using.

They are passing it further through a production process. Either, aiming for reproduction or display. So, I think what you mean by looking downstream, would be what's happening to that asset that you're creating as a photographer, and can you grab some of that business. - Oh exactly, and I think the constant re-education is a real necessity. I think as creative people, it's important, you've got to stay on top of what's happening with the technology. Any photographer in today's world, I shouldn't say any, but most photographers in today's world have to stay up to speed with what's happening with Photoshop.

What other new software is out there? I'm actually currently learning. I've got a new camera and I'm learning to do video, because it's just one more thing I can sell. The other thing we started doing too, if I frame something, like here. You know, I'm not photographing these works at all, I'm just framing them. I've done a lot of framing projects for corporations, where in addition to the framing part of the bidding process was bidding on the installation as well. I've heard it referred to as black art. How do you actually arrange things so that they go well together? And I talk a little bit about that in another course I've done on, I think it's called, Preparing and Curating an Exhibition, and I talk about some of the conceits and thoughts to have in your mind as your arranging photographs or any framed art in an exhibition space.

- These days of course, most people are ultimately delivering electronically. Even your clients might be delivering electronically. So, in so far as looking downstream there, what you're maybe wanting to look at is whatever web or even video-based work flow your clients are passing your photos through, and can you learn some of those technology, and maybe offer up those services. Konrad, this has been a really inspirational set of ideas in a time when most photographers I know are struggling with the fact that just being a photographer isn't enough anymore.

- It's a challenge these days. - It is. - But I think it's, you know, I want to be an artist and I want to stay in it. I can't imagine punching a clock or sitting behind a desk every day. So, I'm going to keep after it. - All right, well good luck to you. Thank you very much. - My pleasure. Thanks, Ben.