We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Victor Sanabrais a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Victor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Too often the media represents innovation as something magical that only high-flying tech billionaires and upstarts engage in – but the truth is almost every business owner has to regularly innovate in small and big ways in order for their businesses to survive and thrive. Can you share a story that highlights something innovative you’ve done over the course of your career?

Fashion is an ever changing volatile industry and trends can change rapidly and unexpectedly. To find success working as a fashion photographer requires you to find ways to draw attention to yourself in order to maintain bookings and keep the work coming in. No one wants to be a starving artist. It was right around 2010 when I started to realize that the traditional ways of how working relationships were established and maintained were about to see major changes. All of my long standing contacts within the industry were telling me and in some cases warning me of what was to come. Massive budget cuts, revamping of staff positions within their companies, and a big moves away from print collateral. All I heard was about this new thing called “e-commerce” that would take over the fashion landscape that I had worked so hard to break into. I knew I had to make a move of my own, or I would be left behind. It was sink or swim situation.

This is where the innovative mindset takes over. The first thing I saw was many of the photographers who were competitors of mine, were going hard into social media with Instagram. I also saw many photographers, stylist, and hair and makeup workers seeking out representation to maintain their careers. The hope was that by having a rep or manger, similar to a model would have, it would be the way to go to stay relevant and get bookings. Never the one to follow what others are doing, I decided to go anther route. I reached out to some key players who I met through my marketing contacts. These were the players leading this new e-commerce charge and asked for their advice on how I would best position myself for the coming industry changes. Their knowledge of what the fashion brands were being advised and how they would be implementing their game plans were the seeds to my new direction.
– [ ] Step one would be to rebrand myself not as a stand alone artist/photographer, but as a company. I went from using Victor Sanabrais Photographer to VSP Studios. I added the plural “s” at the end, because I worked in multiple markets from LA, to NYC to Miami. Plus it made the name look bigger! Perception is a big part to marketing yourself. I then did what the fashion brands were doing, and I went head strong into establishing my brand name on Google. Organic SEO was the new catch phrase, and I worked tirelessly to hustle my content on the search engines, adding key words to my website that helped me rank in what was to become the dominant key word of them all – e-commerce fashion photography. The results I saw from the first month of my new presentation were so successful, that one of my competitors contacted me and said “I just saw your new website and your images keep showing up on my Google searches. How did you do this and what do you mean exactly by e-commerce photography?” I knew then that I had made the right move. I did not seek out an artist rep to get me work. I had Google doing all the work for me. They say “early bird gets the worm” and in this case being early into the SEO game as a fashion photographer, was my innovative move. Fashion brand managers, and online retailers were all looking for someone to create top quality content for their new fashion ventures. One quick search online and they found VSPstudios.net, a company that specializes in e-commerce fashion photography for apparel brands looking to sell their merchandise online. By speaking their language, and entering into the same area listed right next to them, I brought my business into the new era with the wind in my sails. All due to innovative thinking. That’s was leaders do.

Victor, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

From a very young age I always had an interest in photography, but never imagined that I would do it for a living. When it came time to find a career, it was clear that photography would become my passion. I am truly blessed to wake up each day, put a camera in my hand and do what I love to do. I’ve been working as a photographer now for 30 years.

My career begad in Chicago, where I got my first big break working for Playboy’s Newsstand Specials publications. I then moved to LA and opened a studio on the west coast. Then it was onto NYC where I made my move into the fashion industry and worked at a studio in midtown Manhattan. I currently own and operate VSPstudios.net, an e-commerce photography studio located in Miami. My team and I work as content creators for fashion apparel brands and fashion designers who are looking to sell online. The photos and videos I create help to sell millions of fashion apparel merchandise each year for industry leading retailers worldwide.

The long standing industry contacts that I have established, and the knowledge of how best to present fashion apparel collections that optimize their selling potential is the backbone of what I bring to the table for my clients. My business partner is my wife Elena who runs the ghost mannequin photography department at VSP Studios. Together she and I have built the most successful studio I have ever had in my career.

If you are a fashion retailer or wholesaler looking to sell online, VSP Studios is here to help.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

After rebranding myself and launching my new website with the focus on servicing the e-commerce fashion industry, I sought out something that would help me pull in more traffic. My main focus is and will always be photographing models wearing the latest apparel collections that my clients are looking to sell online. I have put in years of work establishing myself providing this service, but having a side hustles that would feed this endeavor was my next move. I wanted a new worm on the end of my hook, to pull in some whale accounts.

I was working in NYC and was going over my shooting schedule for the coming weeks when I called my hair and make up artist to go over the dates I would need to book her. She kept telling me that she was booked up by a new studio in Williamsburg Brooklyn and might not be as open as she used to be. I asked her “who is booking you more than me?” and inquired as to what was going on in Williamsburg. She told that Amazon is making a hard move into the fashion retail game and was shooting large amounts of apparel items. They hired multiple shooting crews to handle the large qualifiers of items and were growing quickly. I told her I would like to come by and see this for myself, and arranged a day that I would pick her up and take her to lunch. That way I could walk in, get a quick look and see what this was all about, This was what I called my market research move with a little insider assistance.

I walked in and saw large loft spaces filled with multiple shooting bays with dozens of photoshoot crews. I then turned and saw a bunch of mannequins that had their heads, arms and legs removed. I looked further and saw that they were dressing. the mannequins in the clothing after they had photographed them on real models in the other rooms. I didn’t understand what this was for until I looked online and saw the product shots that were being used along side the model images. At the time this was referred to this as the “hollow man effect” images. The mannequin is removed in photoshop and what is left is the clothing item that has the shape of a body, as if an invisible man was wearing it. Around this time more fashion retailers were starting to use this type of imagery to enhance their product page listings. If you have ever shopped online for clothing, then I am sure you have seen this thousands of times, but had no idea what it was called or how it is created. Today it is referred to as invisible ghost mannequin photography and is a staple of the industry. Think of it as the French fries, that you order with your burger, or in the case of a fashion retailer, it’s the product shots you need to compliment your model images.

I went home did some research on who was providing this service to the fashion industry and found that no one really came out and said it clearly. Many websites spoke about the technique, and how to create the images, but there wasn’t any photography studios offering this as a service with a menu to place an order online. I had a my Google marketing guru look into this and he quickly got back to me with great excitement. He looked at me and said “I think you found a gold mine!” and proceeded to show me how to start offering this to fashion masses. The thought process was to use this specialized apparel product photography service to gain more eyeballs on my website.

Once I activated this section of my website the orders came pouring in and my side hustle has grown into a monster business. It has pulled in some whale accounts over the years and with my wife Elena running this part of our business, I know its it good hands. When anyone asks me about this service, I always say – VSP Studios didn’t invent ghost mannequin photography, we were just the first to offer it to the masses online and perfect the process..

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding part of my career as a creative is what I call the proof in the pudding element. If the content I am creating is not selling, and fashion customers are not reacting well, then my clients won’t be hiring me again.
Im always super excited and fired up when I hear back from my clients when they tell me how well the campaign we just created has brought in big sales.

I would never have survived this long in the industry, and found the level of success that I have achieved if the work I was presenting wasn’t converting sales. This is really the bottom line. I take pride in knowing I have been able to evolve as an artist, and maintain long standing relationships with major fashion brands and retailers that relay on me to present their collections online.

I love what I do for a living and Im always pushing myself to stay on top of my game. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Well that’s not entirely true, but it sure is a blessing to get up each day and see how your vision comes to life within a challenging field.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://victorsanabraisphotographer.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorsanabraisphotographer/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictorSanabraisPhotographer/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-sanabrais-photographer/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@VSPstudiosMiami
• Other: https://www.vspstudios.net