Venture - No More?

Many Photographers have a dislike of Venture (www.thisisventure.com), the Professional Photography news groups are full of people moaning about how much they charge and how much money they seem to be making. I, however, look at this slightly differently. Venture came along and took a pretty old and tired section of the Photography market, they fine tuned it, made it better and massively increased the value of high class family portraiture photography. Personally, I have a great deal of respect for Venture for what they have done. Other Photographers have 2 choices, they can carry on moaning about what Venture are doing or they can join the band wagon. What Venture do, technically, is not difficult and any Photographer with a few thousand pounds of Studio equipment, space and a modicum of technical ability can easily create these type of photographs. And, they can do it it a fraction of the price and still make good money.

Whether Venture are justified in charging the prices they do is a question that can only be judged by the clients. And that brings me to my point, Perth Venture is no more, they shut down in the last few months and all business has been transferred to Aberdeen. So far as I know Edinburgh and Glasgow are still trading as normal. Now, this might be due to the Credit Crunch or it might be just the fact that people dont want to pay hundreds of pounds for a print any more, or, it might be because people like me have come along and are doing it as well as them and charging less for it - who knows. Personally, I'd have thought that Perth and its surrounding area would have been a great place to open a Venture Studio but obviously not.