Leading a photo studio is the equivalent of a ringmaster running a three-ring circus. Every day presents new challenges as models, stylists, photographers, art directors, executives, merchants, and assistants weave through various studio spaces and sets. The mental weight of switching mindsets, creative aspects to budgets, project meetings to software systems, employee matters to equipment issues is yet another tough aspect of the role. You have to ground yourself, present a calm appearance, and address every situation with tact and care.

Here are six dos and don’ts of working and leading a photo studio from the perspective of a leader setting the tone, strategy, support, and efforts of the team. Information based on years of experience, discovery, execution and oversight, as well as amazing colleagues to collaborate with, confirm thoughts, and execute tasks and projects successfully:

(1) DO:

Define the team and teammates’ roles and responsibilities

• Once, I led a studio where job descriptions weren’t well defined, overlapping into frustration, angst, and confusion. Digital Techs were providing model direction, Web teams were retouching assets, and Stylists were acting like producers. Muddying roles adds to ambiguity, ultimately affecting productivity, budgets, and camaraderie. Knowing who is supposed to do what defines responsibility for numerous tasks, specs, operations, goal-making and decisions on who controls what. This makes responsibilities easier and better understood by the entire team.

(2) DON’T

Don’t kiss up and slap down:

• The term refers to complimenting and/or respecting colleagues up the chain while being rude or condescending to people you manage or who may be lower on the org chart. Treating every person equally drives personal dynamics and should be a given. Kissing up while slapping down generates a lack of respect, animosity, and a poor culture, leaving teams less valued. I once watched a VP treat the company president like gold just after dismissing numerous people on set, not even providing eye contact for no legitimate reason. As I’ve always said, we’re not a team because we work together. We’re a team because we respect, trust, and care for each other. So, set the standard, foster this attitude, and your team will become more cohesive and productive. This philosophy should also be adopted by company leadership.

(3) DO:

Focus on Pipeline and Process Optimization: 

• The Photo Studio Director should possess as much knowledge about team functions, resources, and creative workflows. Lead with the business directives in mind, but also delve into the details with your team to determine better procedures, eliminating inefficiencies. Build flexible processes to skillfully navigate multiple competing priorities, managing expectations, foreseeing obstacles, acting proactively and influencing resourcing decisions. That said, encourage your team to work on optimization too so you can focus on higher-level tasks. Streamlining is where efficiency meets budget savings, reducing lead times while adding quality and improvements over time. This was my strategy while running a studio for a number of major fashion brands and each year, we’d save a million dollars in increased productivity. 

(4) DON’T:

Don’t neglect onboarding and training:

• Giving a new employee a true chance to succeed through your investment in their onboarding and training is critical to team and company success. I walked into a position a few years ago and was left to discover most of their practices on my own. Three to four months in I discovered a crucial document I should’ve had at the start. Six months in we learned of a quality issue due to specifications that were never shared. Institutional knowledge is incredibly valuable, yet it takes years to gain. Developing and maintaining documentation illustrating specific iterative processes and best practices based on company needs is a critical onboarding and training tool shared with new hires, freelancers, and vendors. This includes software training, style guides, project briefs, schedules, budgets, estimates, resource plans, status updates, and specific documents based on their position.

(5) DO:

Work for today, scale your department’s future impact: 

• Directing a Photo Studio isn’t just about overseeing day-to-day ops. You are part operational leader, yet also part strategist in guiding the future of your department, vital today as AI takes hold and budgets become more scrutinized. You also need to stay up to date with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices, having industry awareness to produce innovative ideas enhancing project outcomes. As you develop a plan of action, work toward possessing robust systems and software involving automation to reduce manual efforts. This streamlines digital workflows while being time-saving and cost-cutting. Leverage platforms, products, people, and technology strategically. Implement systems that balance creative freedom with operational efficiency, allowing photographers, stylists, designers, and post-production artists to focus on their craft. Project management systems for workflow optimizations can provide organization as well as data. However, if you implement a system not automated with your operational tasks, it becomes redundant, burdening efficiency. Finally, be involved in the planning stages of the marketing and merchant departments, getting ahead of the company’s direction to determine the most effective way to utilize your team.

(6) DON’T:

Forget to apply on-set guidelines and processes to assist Post Production: 

• Often the last teams in creative production are provided the least amount of time. As it should occur throughout the chain of content creation, each team bears responsibility to receive and provide the information needed for their team’s success. File specs should be met not only within the proper project timelines, but with the highest quality and agreed-upon ingestion processes. If Digital Techs are consistent in following a set of processing guidelines, including color space and industry-standard color matching, then retouching teams run more efficiently producing higher-quality files on time. Same goes for on-set crews, from photographers following current lighting guides, stylists matching style guide specs, and art directors speaking the language of retouchers during markups. These critical tasks assist post production, which in turn helps the Web team with consistency and customer experience. These are the necessary steps in creating a strong content creation team.