Selling vintage online in conjunction with my brick-and-mortar boutique has been a plan of mine from the beginning, but I've been putting it off for months. I am a master procrastinator and I have managed to come up with several reasons why I'm not ready to shoot, list, and sell online just yet:
my size XS mannequins have poor posture, it's really hot and my shop doesn't have A/C, the lighting is never right, there aren't enough hours in the day, I don't have enough to list yet, I don't know what I'm doing... And so I've been telling myself to wait. Wait until I buy an average-size "professional" mannequin without scoliosis, wait until the weather cools down, wait for the time and day with perfect lighting, wait until my schedule allows for 8 hours of uninterrupted work, wait until my inventory is full, wait until I've read all the resources on photographing vintage... The thing is, I could put this thing off for
years because the perfect conditions are never going to add up in a way that makes me fully comfortable. That's not how life works, and I'm learning that's not how business works either.
On Friday I was feeling particularly inspired and motivated by all the new vintage I'm introducing to
the shop this weekend, and with a full day off and somewhat temperate weather I decided to take the plunge and at least set up for a few test shots. I'm learning that when a seemingly huge task comes my way, the best thing is to break it down into more manageable chunks of activity. The plan for the day was to figure out the best spot in my shop to catch the natural light coming in, to create a backdrop and to style a few outfits for a trial run.
There were a few things I realized that will help going forward. Setting up for the shoot was more time consuming than I expected, and most of that was due to poor time management and not having a specific step-by-step plan of action. I did get 6 pieces photographed in 3 hours before my camera battery died, including time spent setting up the backdrop and tripod and getting everything onto hangers and steamed, but I expected the whole process to move more quickly than it did. Dressing Enid and Andie (my mannequins are affectionately named for two vintage-loving ladies of cinema and double points if you get the references) is a cumbersome task and in the future I need to have each outfit planned out from head to toe (or neck to shin, as it were). I wasted a lot of time trying to pair the right belt and necklace, which was fun but not a good use of my time. Going forward, I see how crucial it is that I do the prep work ahead of time and that I have a detailed plan and order of photography to get though each piece quickly and efficiently. I also need to get more lighting into the space, somehow. I don't know if I'll use the shots I took for my listings or not, but it felt good to dip my toes in and get a feel for how to do things in the future.
