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Pictorial Photography’s blueprint for success

When talented photographer Sarah Chappell, 29, went on maternity leave as she was expecting her first baby, she decided the time was right for a change in lifestyle. “I was travelling from Berwick to Newcastle, where I had been working as a Photographic/Apple Mac Technician for four years,“ she said. “But it was a long commute, and I really wanted to create my own work, so I set up Pictorial Photography.“

Berwick based Sarah had previously attended a ‘How do your ideas grow’ workshop at The Baltic, Newcastle when she lived in the city - she had been working at Northumbria University’s School of Design as a photography demonstrator at the time and had always dreamt of running her own business. The workshop provided a springboard and was very inspirational, giving Sarah the momentum to start working on her portfolio with a view to becoming self employed in the future.

Four years on and now mum to toddler Leo and also baby Stella, Sarah is firmly established and offers her own unique, contemporary style to her clients. “My fundamental aim is to really capture the spirit and personality of everyone and everything that I photograph. To me, successful photography is all about being natural and spontaneous and, of course, having lots of fun“, she says.

Sarah’s talent is clear - with a degree in Contemporary Photographic Practice and 10 years of experience under her belt, she has had photographic exhibitions at Halifax School of Integrated Arts, London’s Millennium Dome, AOP Gallery and Northumbria University. In order to develop her business acumen, however, more recently she has attended several business courses where she learnt the importance of planning ahead in case her business was affected by the economic downturn. As a result, Sarah has diversified her portfolio into commercial work, developing a niche as a photographer of holiday accommodation.

Realising the importance of developing the commercial side of her business Sarah investigated how she could take this further and attended a presentation held at Berwick Workspace delivered by Amanda Ford – a Leadership & Management Specialist Adviser working for NBSL. The presentation illustrated how the region’s Leadership & Management Advisory Service (L&MAS) could benefit Sarah by providing funding support as well as finding a suitable training organisation for Sarah to work with to help her develop her business growth plans and turn them into reality.

Sarah met with Amanda and within a fortnight her funding was agreed and the development activity had commenced, “the responsiveness from NBSL and the simplicity of the application process meant that the request to NBSL to support the implementation of our plans fitted into the timescale for selecting a provider“ said Sarah. Sarah attended a week long course in Cumbria with an organisation called Aspire who delivered a very in-depth course relating to Managing and Leading a Photographic Business to Success. Sarah commented that the process for securing the funding was “… extremely swift and the 50% contribution from the L&MAS brokered by NBSL was a fantastic help towards the cost of this essential course…“

Sarah is now planning to move out of her home office and into a purpose-built studio. “Offering contemporary photography, with the highest quality albums I have sourced specially from New Zealand, means that I am developing a real speciality in this area“, says Sarah. This combined with her commercial work will lead to on-going success for Pictorial Photography.

NBSL has secured ERDF investment of £2.38million to deliver this type of support to the North East private sector businesses employing between 2-249 employees. The ERDF Competitiveness Programme 2007-2013, managed by the Department from Communities and Local Government, is bringing over £300m into the North East to support, innovation, enterprise and business support across the region. The Leadership and Management Advisory Service will make a major contribution to the ambition of the ERDF Competitiveness Programme 2007-2013 by increasing the numbers and survival of business start ups in the region and increasing business productivity.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Phil Langton .