If you’ve followed our blog for a while, and taken note of the photo credits, you may well recognise this week’s Friday Feature… it’s the very popular Holly from Holly Booth Studio. Specialising in brand and product content, Holly is a creative photographer for independent designers, makers, and shops (and she is the photographer behind quite a few of our small business Friday Features and Create It Yourself Features).
Now joined in the business by her husband, Pete, together they offer a range of visual-media services – helping other creatives tell their stories through photography and videography.
Let’s get to know more about wonderful woman behind the small business…
I’ve always been interested in making things, particularly visual media. I loved art and photography in school, so it was inevitable that I’d go on to study photography in further education. I specialised in photography in college and went on to do a degree in commercial photography at university. It’s lead to a career that I love, but I also try to make sure I’m still being creative when I’m not working. I take my camera everywhere, especially when we’re travelling.
Yes, absolutely. Obviously, I spend most of my week being creative because of my job, but I’m also always trying to be creative outside of work. I try to take pictures for pleasure as often as possible. And when I’m not creating myself, I like to enjoy the work of other creator’s through going to galleries and museums, or by filling our house with things that people have made. I think that creativity – both my own and others’ – is a really important part of my life.
My dad has always been interested in photography, so I grew up around cameras and I think that enthusiasm for taking pictures rubbed off on me. At school, I was interested in visual art generally, but photography was the thing that I became really passionate about.
I started trying to earn money from photography during my last year at university. Like a lot of photographers, I started out doing things like weddings and taking any paid work I could get, but when I began doing product photography it really clicked for me. Back then, it didn’t seem like there was a lot of other product photographers around, so I built a strong reputation for that kind of work. For a few months after graduating, I did a little bit of unrelated work part-time to supplement my income, but quckly realised I had to throw myself into it full-time and that’s when I properly started the business.
To be honest, we don’t really have a typical week and that’s a big part of what we love about our job! We do a real range of work, from remote product photography, to working with clients on location. Each week can be a bit of a mix of all of the above. We try and allow at least one day a week to make sure we’re up to date with all of the admin and prep that we need to do. And we also think it’s really important to ensure a good work/life balance, so we make time for dog walks, coffee breaks etc.
It started out just me and a camera, picking up whatever work I could get and either working from home or hiring spaces to shoot in. Over the last fifteen years, I’ve had a number of studios of various sizes – either on my own or sharing with friends. For the last few years, my husband, Pete, has been part of the business and we work from either our private home studio or on location with clients in their workspaces. Working together is great because the extra pair of hands means we can get more done and offer extra services such as video. Sharing the workload, particularly some of the less glamorous bits of the business, also allows us both to be more creative when we’re producing content.
I think the highlight has been watching all of the clients we work with grow alongside us. Many of the creators we work with started their businesses around the same time we did, so we’ve watched them go from really small ventures into big, successful businesses. Because of that, I think we’ve got really strong relationships with each other and a desire to champion each other. One of the biggest milestones was reaching a point where the business was big enough to support me and Pete financially so that he could quit his job to come and work for me.
In 2021, we moved into a big studio in the city centre. I think we were looking at other photography businesses online and comparing ourselves to them and thought that we needed to make the move to a big studio because that was the next step for the business. We were there for two years and to be completely honest, we really didn’t enjoy being there, so we ended our lease and went back to working from home. For a little while we felt like we’d failed or taken a backwards step, but having had time to reflect, we now know it just wasn’t right for us and we’re much happier working from home.
I think it means being part of a really lovely community. I get to work with lots of other female-led businesses and we have a really supportive and inspiring network. We show up for each other and lift each other up and I think that’s really powerful and important.
We’ve always talked about running a shop selling things like stationery and homewares. When we travel, we always try to find local independent shops that sell beautiful handmade things. Having worked with lots of makers and designers over the years, we’d love to have a shop stocking some of the gorgeous things they make. Pete’s always wanted to run a little artisan coffee shop, so maybe that could be part of it as well – a bit like Stiffkey Stores, which is one of our favourite places to visit when we go to Norfolk.
It’s clear why Holly enjoys and is so successful in her business… her passion for creativity and championing other independent businesses is woven into everything she says and does. It’s also interesting and inspiring to hear that bringing Pete on board has meant they can share the harder parts of running a business, and each get to be more creative as a result. Finding someone you trust to help in your small business (whether that’s a partner, friend, or creative stranger) must be very rewarding.
If you’d like to find out more about Holly’s services (and Pete’s, of course!), head to their website: hollybooth.com – and for a regular hit of gorgeous imagery, and behind the scenes content, take a look at their Instagram: @hollyboothstudio
If you haven’t already found us over on Instagram – why not come say hi and give us a follow. We would love for you to join the conversation and help spread the movement by liking and sharing our content.
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