About New York
New York City has something for everyone. If you’re searching for delicious food, world-class art galleries, or a vibrant live music scene, you’ll find it here.
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that NYC is one of the best locations in the world for creative professionals. So if you’re planning a photo shoot, you’re in the right place, with literally hundreds of photo studios to choose from.
Unfortunately, finding the right space for your shoot is far from easy. That’s why you need to compare a range of photo studios before deciding where to hold your photography session.
Keep reading for tips on finding the best photo studios in New York.
Photo Studio Professionals in New York
New York is a great city to consider for your next photo studio venue, and it’s full of creative people who can bring the entire shoot together. There are several options to consider, with high-end choices and budget-friendly services.
Lighting is extremely important for your New York photo studio venue, and it typically requires the help of professionals. A small tip is to ensure you have north facing windows for natural light and cardinal directions to track the sun throughout the day. Still life photography angles will matter immensely if you know the sun’s trajectory. An experienced company will have the expertise to make your vision a reality, whether a music video for multiple shoots in coffee shops or affordable photo studios.
Having some refreshments at your photo studio venue is a good way to ensure everyone stays happy and in a good mood. If you plan an all-day photo shoot, you can install coffee stations near the makeup stations or have someone cater to your conference rooms, meeting rooms, or seminars. It can show people you appreciate their work, and NYC is full of professional caterers who can help you achieve this. They can also offer catering to a second photo studio while ensuring your crew is satisfied at all locations. Most studios in New York offer an on-location caterer to help with food and beverages for the crew members.
An experienced planner can take care of nearly every detail and allow you more time to focus on the bigger features of your New York photo studio venue.
- Professional Photographers
If you plan to rent the best photo studio in NYC, you probably already have a professional lined up for your photo shoot. If you don't have an expert set of eyes hired just yet to capture your perfect pose, good news. You'll have no problem finding a photographer or photography studio in New York City. Armed with professional equipment, a knack for angles and lighting, and a creative process for all the versatile space you need, these experts deliver top-notch photo results in your preferred NYC photo studio rental.
Photo Studio Companies in New York
When it comes to your New York photo studio venue, NYC is full of professional companies who are ready to help out. Be sure to find local vendors and professionals who can take some of the work off your plate and provide you with the best equipment and unique props. Thankfully, most studio spaces offer an in-house professional photographer with the production facility, equipment, and production personnel to help ensure your requirements are met.
- Little Miss Party Planner
Little Miss Party Planner is an event planning company that aims to add fun to each event they work on. It has only been in the business for a few years but has established itself as a top planning company. Depending on client requirements, they plan events with a green screen, blank canvas, cyc wall, equipment rental, artificial lighting, sound systems, and more. The team at Little Miss Party Planner will plan your party or event from top to bottom.
Savory Hospitality has served New York City and nearby areas for over seven years. They have a diverse range to offer, including boxed meals and buffet-style catering for photo studios in New York. Savory Hospitality can work with you whether you want a full five-course dinner or appetizers.
If you are mainly looking to rent lighting equipment to set up on your own, then Tribeca Lighting Inc. is one of the best options in New York City. You can rent several different types of lighting equipment and other related supplies from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn. Lighting is one of the most important features in a photo studio, so make sure you get what you need since Tribeca Lighting is a one stop shop for everything light-related.
Pros and Cons of Photo Studios in New York
There are pros and cons to using a photo studio rental in New York. While there are some great things about the city, there are drawbacks to think about, even for the best photo studios. Ensure you are well-informed before choosing your New York photo studio venue.
Advantages
- The city never sleeps
New York earned its nickname as the city that never sleeps for a reason. There’s something to do at any time of day or night, which is a great perk for night owls. NYC and midtown Manhattan are full of bars, restaurants, and clubs open until the wee hours of the morning. From the bustling Midtown West business district home to the hip Brooklyn nightlife and entertainment scene in the Lower East Side, you can work around NYC one hotspot at a time.
- Public transport
One big advantage of planning a photo shoot is the efficiency of the public transportation network. You can get anywhere in this transport-friendly city, from New York to Brooklyn or Long Island City to midtown Manhattan, without needing your car. The money saved on not driving a car will also come in handy considering how expensive NYC is.
- Fashion
New York is one of the world's fashion capitals, which is apparent in how most New Yorkers dress; just look at the corporate dresscode of midtown Manhattan! The city always has new fashion trends and countless high-end shops to visit. Even with the famous fashion scene, locals are known for dressing like they are walking to different photo shoots. If you're planning a fashion shoot, you can't go wrong in NYC.
- Architecture
NYC features some of the most diverse photo studio rental sites in the U.S. Whether you want an industrial backdrop with high ceilings and aged brick walls or need a sleek, professional photo setting with white walls and natural light in upscale Soho, New York has some excellent spaces to stage your photo shoot.
Disadvantages
- Cold winters
Both the summer and winter seasons in New York can get unbearable. Spring and fall have the best weather, but winter is known to be brutal. From November to March, you can expect snowstorms and bone-chilling winds. When planning your shoot schedules, remember that even the best photo studios need heaters and warmth for your models and crew.
- Blunt locals
When in New York, you’ll notice locals are blunt and to the point, which can be rude to many tourists. New Yorkers are so busy with their lives that they don't make room for strangers or other people. Unfortunately, this is true even for professionals, crew members at shoots, and cab drivers. Other cities in the U.S. are known for hospitality, especially in the South, but NYC isn’t like them. New York locals don’t waste time pretending to be nice and rarely try to sugarcoat what they say.
- Dirty
New York is known for many things, but having clean streets isn’t one of them. It was ranked the dirtiest city in the country in 2018; not much has changed in recent years. Some residents toss trash bags onto the sidewalk during garbage pickup days, making the streets just as smelly as they are dirty.
Famous Photo Shoot Locations in New York
Coney Island has been an escape for New York locals for years and has gained a reputation as one of the best places to visit in the city. It was once an island until it was filled in with land to connect it to Long Island. It boasts multiple studios and plenty of space, has active video shoot locations and is known for its versatile photography. One of the biggest appeals of Coney Island is the wooden roller coaster built in 1927. Many photoshoot studios prefer to conduct photo shoots at Coney Island because the rent is cheaper here than the rent in New York. It offers professionals full control over the production rather than dealing with interruptions while helping crew members, and the studios save money on overheads.
Broadway has become a staple of pop culture today and is known around the world. Altogether, there are 41 venues on Broadway, each with over 500 seats. It’s become a rite of passage for NYC locals and tourists alike to catch a Broadway show as soon as possible. Broadway is also known for its shooting, amazing location, popular productions, and photography, and is a known haven for content creation. It is easy to create a set on location at Broadway rather than having a
Some of the most famous art pieces can be found at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art. There are 150,000 art pieces in the museum, including the famous Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. They also host short-term exhibits throughout the year. The Museum of Modern Art is also available for video shoots, fashion photography, professional photos, and for those wishing to introduce their new production ideas.
Renting photo studios or opting for a photo shoot at a different site or location, can help with some excellent video prospects, a music video, and any other productions you have in mind. When booking such a space, always consider all the amenities the studio offers, and check whether the space will be enough for your shooting requirements. You can make the most of your photo studio space by mastering the ideal shoot in a photography studio of your choice.
Irving Browning/The New York Historical Society // Getty Images
Written by: Madison Troyer
20 photos of NYC in the 1920s
One of the nation's first metropolises, New York City has always been a center for commerce and culture. The 1920s were a vitally important decade in the shaping of the city, in that those years affected everything from industries to population makeup to the physical layout of its streets.
By the end of 1929, the city's population had almost topped 6 million. Although immigration restrictions were put in place in 1924, the tide of newcomers hardly stemmed, and nearly 35% of the city's residents were foreign-born. These residents—who largely came from Russia, Italy, Ireland, Germany, and China—brought with them years of experience and expertise in dozens of fields, but primarily in apparel. It was their contributions to the clothing and textile industries that helped to solidify New York as the fashion capital of the world.
The arrival of all these new folks, as well as the business and industries they brought with them, also meant New York found itself in dire need of more space to house families and companies. So the city built up, and the 1920s saw a skyscraper boom—the Chrysler Building was erected around this time. It wasn't just Midtown that underwent these massive changes, but Harlem as well.
The First Great Migration (which hit its peak during the '20s) brought some 200,000 Black Americans from the Deep South to Harlem. The Uptown neighborhood became something of a mecca and inspired a renaissance in Black music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship that the city is still benefiting from to this day.
It's hard to paint a true picture of how greatly the 1920s changed New York City in words alone, so Giggster scoured historical archives to compile a collection of 20 photos that best illustrate what life was like in the city that never sleeps 100 years ago. From aerial views of neighborhoods to street-level glimpses of daily life, these photos bring the city to life in a whole new way.
FPG // Getty Images
A bird's-eye view
Taken in 1923, this aerial view of Lower Manhattan features Battery Park, the South Ferry Terminal, and, in the distance, the Woolworth building, which was the tallest building in New York throughout the 1920s.
Bettmann // Getty Images
Times Square
Named after the New York Times building that was erected on its southern end in 1905, Times Square didn't become the hub it is today until the 1920s—when all of the subway lines, elevated railroad lines, and bus lines added stops along 42nd Street.
PhotoQuest // Getty Images
The Palace Theater
Near the northern end of Times Square lies the Palace Theater, one of New York's oldest and most popular Broadway playhouses. Pictured here in the 1920s, the Palace would have been a thriving vaudeville theater, considered the flagship destination for the genre's performers.
Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images // Getty Images
The El
By the 1920s, the elevated train—one of New York's first attempts at a borough-connecting public transit system—was on its way to extinction. With the development of the underground subway (which, by this decade, connected Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens), the slower-moving above-ground trains were quickly becoming relics of the past.
Bettmann // Getty Images
The city's famed yellow cabs
Arguably the most iconic New York City yellow cab, the checkered taxi, first began picking up passengers in 1922. Unlike later iterations of this famous line, the original yellow cabs were mostly black, with the now-iconic yellow in evidence only on the cab's doors. In that decade, there were some 7,000 yellow cabs rolling up and down the city's streets.
Bettmann // Getty Images
The Harlem boom
While the city was largely still segregated throughout the 1920s, Harlem had become the Black capital of the nation. Between 1910 and 1930, the Black population in the neighborhood grew by a whopping 40%, transforming into the flourishing center of Black culture and art.
Irving Browning/The New York Historical Society // Getty Images
The Lower East Side
Another of the city's most culturally diverse neighborhoods in the 1920s was the Lower East Side. For decades, the neighborhood had been welcoming many of the city's immigrants, and in the early parts of the 20th century, it became home to thousands of Eastern European Jews, many of whom were fleeing conflicts in their home countries.
George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
The fashion capital of the world
New York has long been considered the fashion capital of the world, and in the 1920s socialites like Cornelia Prime (left) and Katrinka Suydam (right) were setting trends with their simple lines, shorter hemlines, and cloche hats.
Bettmann // Getty Images
A skyscraper boom
The late 1920s ushered in a skyscraper construction spree. As the city's population boomed, more space was needed for apartments and offices. Here, several workers take a break, stories above street level, while working on a Vesey Street tower.
Irving Browning/The New York Historical Society // Getty Images
Shop til you drop
In the late 1800s, Herald Square (located in Midtown Manhattan along 34th Street) was known for the various newspaper headquarters that were scattered around it. But by the 1920s, those newspaper buildings were gone, replaced by some of the city's biggest department stores—Macy's, Gimbels, B. Altman & Co.—making it one of the city's premier shopping destinations.
Irving Browning/The New York Historical Society // Getty Images
The Bowery
New York City's oldest street, best known for its "skid row" reputation, was packed with speak-easies during the 1920s. With prohibition in full swing, bars offering a cocktail called Smoke (a mixture of water and fuel alcohol that cost just 15 cents) were crammed in the back of ordinary shops and frequented by the area's most shady characters.
Bettmann // Getty Images
Pushcart culture
Many of the immigrants who settled in the Lower East Side were unable to find jobs in line with the ones they had held in their native countries, so they turned to pushcarts. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, you could buy anything—from food to eyeglasses to dishes—from the hundreds of pushcarts that lined the neighborhood's streets. Here, Jewish New Yorkers peruse the wares as they prepare for Passover.
Bettmann // Getty Images
A summer swim
Due to pollution and litter, today's New Yorkers would never think to take a swim in the dirty East River. However, 100 years ago, the river's chilly, mostly clean water was the perfect remedy on a 100-degree day.
Bettmann // Getty Images
Celebrating a record-setting flight
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh left New York City in his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, to attempt to become the first man to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. His departure and successful arrival in Paris were celebrated far and wide, including by these young men in Central Park who competed in a rubber band airplane derby.
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New York City tackles Prohibition
New York City treated Prohibition like a mere suggestion rather than a hard-and-fast law. While the city shut down its various bars and champagne rooms, an equal or greater number of speak-easies popped up in back rooms and down back alleyways. Occasionally, these underground spots would be raided (as pictured here), with the city claiming possession of the illegal wine and spirits.
Irving Browning/The New York Historical Society // Getty Images
A dream come true
Millions of people flock to New York City desperate to make their dreams come true. Israel Miller—the Prussian immigrant behind I. Miller & Sons (a shoe company worth $8 million in 1929)—was one of the lucky few who succeeded. Above, several women lust after his footwear in the window of a retail shop near Grand Central Station.
George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
The Apollo Theater
When it first opened in 1913, Harlem's Apollo Theater was named Hurtig & Seamon's Music Hall. Shown here with its original name and marquee, the famed theater hosted burlesque shows throughout the 1920s and wouldn't become a hot spot for Black musicians and performers until the early 1930s.
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Loew's State Theater
A massive movie palace, Loew's State Theater opened up in Times Square in 1921. Here, moviegoers flock around the theater's front entrance, hoping to get a glimpse of Leo, the MGM lion.
Bettmann // Getty Images
The Cotton Club
The Cotton Club—Harlem's premier nightclub during the 1920s and the launching pad for dozens of the era's greatest Black performers—opened its doors in 1923. Although nearly all of its performers and staff were Black, the club initially only admitted white patrons.
Bettmann // Getty Images
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Now considered a staple as essential as the turkey and mashed potatoes, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade isn't actually as old as the holiday itself. The department store sponsored the first event back in 1924, and it has run (nearly) every year since. Here, Santa Claus closes the festivities, ringing in the Christmas season just as he does today.