Studio’s customers preserve memories
of images created in adjoining salon
By:Jon Steele
Some things make so much sense that you wonder why you don’t see them more often.
Take, for example, the marriage of a photography studio with a style salon, which was celebrated last month when the daughter-mother combo of Jennifer Hoffman and Mary Tabbit began sharing space in Manville’s CVS Plaza.
Ms. Hoffman, owner of Classic Portraits, says she first began thinking about a career in photography when, as a student at Hillsborough High School, she discovered she had a knack for taking good pictures. That interest held true during a stint as a photographer in another studio and survived a course of study at Mercer County Community College.
"A lot of my friends at school started out in photography, thinking it would be a fun way to make a living," she said. "Then they discovered that it was just not their field. They didn’t have the ‘eye’ it takes to do it for a career.
"There’s a big difference," she noted, "between doing something as a hobby and doing it as a professionally."
Although her own shop has only been open about a month, her business has been in existence for more than a year. In the interim, she worked out of her home ( and out of her subject’s homes and out of doors: "I did a lot of shoots in parks and gardens!"
But the opportunity to get some space in her mom’s new salon, Hair House International (formerly Best Little Hair House), was too good an opportunity to turn down. Aside from the fact that it gives her a space of her own ( and one where she doesn’t have to schlep everything she needs to every job ( there’s also what MBA types might call the "synchronicity" of the operation.
In this case, it arises from the fact that photographers and stylists share a lot of the same customer base. When someone calls to set a date for a wedding photograph, she can send them next door to get the hair done.
Or, when they call her mom to make an appointment to try out a wedding hair style, she can point them next door to get the photos made.
And, since her mom has been in business for herself for about 20 years, she knew there would be lots of such opportunities coming her way.
But it hasn’t been just weddings.
"Once," she recalled, "a woman had come into Hair House to get her hair done before a presentation at work, and she decided on the spot to have photos made that her company could use with press releases."
Similarly, when models, dancers or actors want to build portfolios or photos to include with their resumes, they naturally want to get their hair done first.
These are the kinds of opportunities she expected when she opened her studio. Others have caught her by surprise ( as when Sacred Heart held its first Communion.
"A lot of the boys and girls had their hair done first, then came right over to me," she said.
Which is another example of how much sense it made for her decision to join forces with her mom: it puts her in the right place when the right time comes along.
For more information, call (908) 722-2049, e-mail Ms. Hoffman at [email protected] or visit her Web page at www.infogrove.com/classic-portraits.