Consultant Bobbi Wendt questions the notion that photographers must have their own studios.

As long as there has been a photography industry, commercial photographers have required studios to create and print their images. However, in today’s economic climate, the wisdom of this convention is being questioned.

I can speak from experience. Early on in my career in the photography business, I worked as an in-house artist agent and executive producer for a successful photo studio in Denver. The environment was stunning. It was a remodeled, 5,000-square-foot movie theater with a 17-foot tin ceiling and four large skylights that allowed us to go from bright and sunny to pitch-black in a couple of minutes. It was studio heaven.