525: Michelle Wrighton – How to build a photography business in a low population area

Premium Members, click here to access this interview in the premium area. Michelle Wrghton of www.threeredponies.com.au is today's featured photographer. I stepped gently into this interview because I wasn't thinking it will be one of those huge success story episodes where the guest has struck gold with their business and is killing it. I do believe, however, that's where this photographer and her photography business are headed. She's based in Boyup Brook in Western Australia, 150km inland from the coast, with a population of about 1000. Her closest town is 30km away with a pop of 5k. She has a 3.5-kilometre dirt driveway to get to her home-based studio! She knows she's up against it, based on her location alone. Take one look at her website, though, and you'll see this is someone serious about business! Not only is the site beautifully laid out with stunning images of horses and dogs, her specialty… she also offers fabulous painted portraits. You'll see multiple options of wall art collections on display, promotions for a limited edition book project, and a breed of the month competition. Dig deeper, and you'll find an active Facebook Ad campaign. From what I saw, everything pointed to a successful business, and I couldn't wait to learn more about this remote and isolated photographer and how things are going after all the work she's putting in. Here is the email from Michelle that became the catalyst for this interview… Hi Andrew, I just wanted to personally thank you for all the help you have given me. A couple of months ago, I was ready to give up on the client side of my business (covid and health issues created a very long hiatus from private shoots) and focus on selling my fine art prints and products. I'd even gone as far as cancelling business subscriptions, including my PBX membership, due for renewal later this year. I accidentally got locked out when I unsubscribed, but you and Linda fixed that and extended my membership. That actually got me motivated again to try something completely different. I have always been on location, which meant travelling lots, sometimes 7-hour round trips, which was both expensive and exhausting. I'm 52 next month and want life to be a bit easier (I did some coaching with Mark Rossetto a few years ago…he thought I was mad for travelling ?). So we decided to turn the self-contained cottage on our farm into a pet photography studio (I've done studio photography for horses and dogs, always on location). I've never ever wanted a studio – or people coming on my farm for that matter – but now my hubby and I are really looking forward to the future and what it might bring (LOL cautiously optimistic that I can eventually find one client a week, in our remote rural location willing to spend $1000-1500 on artwork featuring their pet. Sorry for the long book, but I just wanted to say thank you for inspiring me to take this next big step with my business. We don't know how it will pan out given our location…but we have another backup plan nearly ready for selling stock/artist reference images, so if all else fails, I will do free shoots to get material for that along with my painting commissions and ghost painting for other photographers. LOL, I will let you know how everything pans out in the future! When we started down this path, I did the demographics, and there are 38k within a 100km radius; being rural, there are lower socio-economic groups and many farmers. We are on 3.5km of gravel road, and people out here can be weird about travelling far (even though they will travel 300km+ to Perth). I keep telling myself I only want one client a week,