Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth and Elyonna Jackson.
Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Co-founder and IPS creative director, Elizabeth, a 20-year-old photographer, wanted to start up a business that would help those not have to go through some of the obstacles she went through, not knowing simple photography skills, such as lighting and editing techniques as well as not being able to afford the high $75-$100/hr studio times.
Elizabeth grew up on the south side of Chicago in Englewood, with her sister, IPS liaison and co-founder Elyonna, not having many outlets to turn to for her passion for photography. Along the way, she was lucky enough to meet compassionate professional photographers who were willing to take her under their wing and teach her the skills they have acquired.
Together Elizabeth and Elyonna started Izzys Photography Studios. For each photography workshop recruiting working photographers and models to offer the same experience Elizabeth received.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Finding funding for our classes can be pretty tough sometimes. We don’t have our own studio space as a company yet so for a lot of our classes we have to outsource “who’s going to host this class for the cheapest price and it be a good space”.
We’ve been lucky enough to get a decent amount of our class spaces so far for free. There are a few times when we can’t find a space to match our nature photography or lighting class because the space offering doesn’t have plants or not a ton of light to work with. Occasionally we get a little creative and make whatever space we have, the space we need through a ton of DIYing and imagination. We highly encourage everyone to use both of those when think of where to shoot.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Izzy’s Photography Studios – what should we know?
Izzy’s Photography Studios, IPS for short, is an organization that host workshop classes for all levels and skills in whatever subject the class focuses on that day. We started off as solely a photography workshop organization but we saw demand for a stylist workshop and a modeling workshop and ran with that by hosting one of each in our time.
While we do dabble in other forms of artistry photography is and will always be our baby. It’s where we started and where we plan to stick, hosting one or more photography workshops a month.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
We constantly press the idea that you don’t have to be the best or the worst to learn. We want every person who attends one of our workshops to leave with new information. We’re diligent enough to say everyone has always.
In our first months of being, after every class we’d get students to send in what they learned in the class similar to that of an exit slip from traditional schooling. The things we’ve read filled us with so much joy because we’d get great responses on how much a person learned, even the teachers would say they learned new things. We love that because we can say “hey you see this, no matter who you are you’re constantly learning, there is no cap on knowledge”.
Pricing:
- Most of our classes if not free range from $10-$20
- How much our classes are depends on how much IPS spends to deliver the class. One of the big reasons we always hope to acquire everything cheap.
- We are constantly accepting donations. Can be made to our PayPal account elizabethjackson59@yahoo.com as the email
Contact Info:
- Phone: 312-965-2043
- Email: izzysphotographystudios@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/izzysphotographystudios/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/izzysphotographystudios/
Image Credit:
Loren Marie
Elizabeth Jackson
Leslie Fremong
Nolis Anderson
Elizabeth Jackson
Colleen Carney
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