Ok, this is a very long overdue post. I’ve been editing the website today and suddenly realised how as we’ve started to use Insta and FB more and more, this ol’ blog has become sorely neglected.

As in, apart from an update about Covid-19, nothing much has been published in the past four years! Now, it’s not as if nothing’s happened in that time: In fact it’s been pretty much action packed!

Firstly, there have been some changes to our full time staff with a new photographer and production team. Both Velvet and Shaun have joined us in the past four years.

Velvet is a multi-talented photographer and artist, and as well as doing great work behind the camera, she’s also our production manager – in charge of getting our artwork to our customers.

Shaun is our specialist retoucher and assembler – he’s got a great eye for detail and a skilled and subtle approach to retouching which leaves our images without an obviously retouched look, while still lifting them to the next level.

More recently, we’ve also welcomed Robyn Cusack into the fold. Robyn is a very well known double-master of photography. Quite the coupe for us. Now, you know that cliche about the mechanic having the worst car? Well, we haven’t yet coaxed Robyn in front of one of our cameras. So her pic and bio will have to wait!

The other big theme over the past few years has been our search for a perfect new studio. Knowing that our lease over the South Fremantle studio would expire by late 2019, this kicked off in late 2017 with us joining the photographer’s collective known as Pearse St Studio, in North Fremantle.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

This was an amazing location and our first foray into having multiple studios (we kept operating the South Fremantle Studio, too). It provided a great learning platform where we experienced both the advantages and pitfalls of operating two studios. But alas it wasn’t to be.

Just a few months after moving in, the owner of the building decided to exercise a “redevelopment clause” in the lease, which meant that he could take back possession in order to renovate the site. It’s since been completely gutted. Back to South Fremantle we all went, and the search continued!

Full forward to 2019 and I broke my leg. Ok, that’s a bit random, but the upshot was I had a lot of time to sit on the couch and think through our next move. With my leg in a cast, I started plotting and making calls. And I found The Bird House!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

We opened The Bird House in Melville late in 2019, and between then and early 2020 we moved our operations from our South Fremantle Studio to our new site.

The Bird House is a free standing lifestyle studio in the format of an ultra-modern three-storey luxury home. As well as our traditional lit studio work, it presents opportunities for outdoor photography and beautiful natural-lit boudoir and family photography in our third-storey room, “The Aviary”.

A couple of months ago, I also made the sad decision to close the South Fremantle Studio – our headquarters for almost thirteen years, and the venue for some six thousand photo shoots. I had contemplated continue to operate both venues, but we no longer had a secure lease and the building had reached a point where major renovations (and some hard negotiations!) would have been needed in order to remain.

This was sad and a bit emotional for me, but we’ve made the right move.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the third floor of our new studio, pretty chuffed with how things have worked out. The Bird House is a great studio, a great place to entertain our customers, and a comfortable, modern and inspiring workplace.

UPDATE: We are now back at work, taking bookings and completing shoots!

We are still taking a number of precautions to comply with guidelines and at the date of writing (May 27, 2020) there are still some restrictions in place which limit the types of shoots we can carry out.

In particular, we remain unable to provide makeup services, but we are hopeful that this restriction will be eased in the first half of June. As such, we are now taking bookings for beauty, boudoir and nude shoots for late June and beyond. (Late June update: we are now able to do makeup again, with some additional, sensible precautions)

We continue to maintain our social distance policies. Shoots will be conducted without close contact, maintaining at least a minimum social distance.

We are also cleaning regularly (before and after every shoot).

And we have hand sanitiser available for customers and staff.

We are confident that we can provide a safe and compliant environment, and still have fun and create some great art.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

I’m writing to let you know that I’ve made the decision to close Cooper Studio for new shoots and viewings.

Our production team will continue working (either from home or all alone in one of our studios) and if you are waiting for artwork from us, generally you can expect your work to be finished within the agreed time frame.

This is not an easy thing for us to do, but it is the right thing to do for customers, staff, the community and the health care workers who are on the front line.

On Thursday last week, we implemented, and have been practicing, strict social distancing measures at Cooper Studio.

On the weekend I worked with my wife, a prominent Infectious Diseases specialist, to call on the State Government for a comprehensive lockdown in WA.

Coming back to work this week, it started to feel more and more inconsistent for us to carry on, while outside of work I was calling for tough measures to be taken.

• Effective immediately there will be no new shoots booked, and all current bookings will be postponed.
• We will still be available on the phone and by email and you can still expect great customer service.
• Artwork collection will still be possible at this point, or alternatively we are happy to arrange postage if you would prefer to not come into the Studio. (Please contact us to arrange a P&H quote).
• At this stage, in person collections will be from our South Fremantle Studio by appointment only, Monday to Friday, during business hours. 
• We request to allow for social distancing, that you book your collection appointment via httpss://tinyurl.com/y6pvxc29 once you have been notified it is ready. 
• If our suppliers cease operating, we wiil offer the digital parts of orders first, with the remainder completed when supplies are again available. 

On a personal note, I have deep connections in the medical community, and in the last few days I’ve seen how worried doctors are becoming. Virtually every doctor is now calling for a lock down of all non-essential services, including schools, and non-essential businesses like this one.

As a community we can still flatten the curve and save many, many lives, but the window to do so is closing rapidly. 

It takes around 12 days for social distancing measures to slow the curve, from the time they are started. In that time the number of cases will double three or four times. So the time to act is today.

If you can: STAY HOME. 

STAY SAFE. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. BE KIND. 

All the best, I’m looking forward to seeing you when this is all over.

Craig Cooper.

Father, husband, son, friend, boss, business owner.