Meet Christine Gosch | Photography Studio Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christine Gosch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christine, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
There wasn’t much other choice, to be honest. As creatives, we have this pull to bring new ideas and projects to life. When I am in scenarios where I’m not creating, my mental health pays the price. I had a couple of late teens/ early twenties jobs that were not in the creative industry and I felt like I was drowning, simply hating that I wasn’t doing something I love.

Additionally, I don’t do well in strictly structured and monotonous routines. As far as work is concerned, I need something with loose structure. As a brand photography studio owner, I can work from home some days, head into our studio on some days, and travel on-location occasionally. It’s crucial that I also be able to work the hours that I want to, some days working 2 hours and some days working 10 to accommodate our workloads, my body’s capabilities, and the ebb and flow of the seasons. Variety within familiar settings really helps me, so it helps that we’re working with new clients and stories every month, along with being able to work with the same clients on a recurring basis.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Lightbulb League is my Houston brand photography business, where we work primarily with creative industry professionals to capture photo and video for their business. We specialize in capturing food + drinks, headshots, interiors, branded portraits, lifestyle shots, process shots, products, and more.

Our signature service is the subscription brand photo shoot offering. We work with subscription clients on a recurring basis to provide fresh, on-brand photos for their marketing purposes so they have new content to share year-round. This is a need that all businesses could utilize in some way, shape, or form.

The idea of Lightbulb League came about in 2017 when I was a full-time wedding photographer. I had so many wedding vendor friends who needed photos to take place outside of a wedding day, to highlight their businesses. A baker friend with her desserts and cakes, a hair and makeup artist friend with a client in her makeup chair, a mobile beverage company with their bartenders making drinks, etc. I was orchestrating the scheduling, timelines, props, shooting spaces, and details for their photo sessions with me, and loving every second of it. Even though the content of these sessions were still beautiful, wedding-related, and focused on aesthetically pleasing items, these sessions gave me one thing that weddings simply couldn’t; control.

I had complete control over the lighting scenarios, pace at which I work, what days I worked, who was in the workspace, and ultimately, the final imagery I was creating. As much as a wedding photographer’s opinion is valued for decisions on a wedding day (like where should the couple take pictures, what time should ceremony be in order to get the best light for post-ceremony photos, etc), a wedding photographer usually spends weekends away from family, lugs heavy gear around for 8+ hours straight, can be treated poorly by guests, and so many other elements that just aren’t worth the reward of creating beautiful imagery on a wedding day (for me).

So I made the switch from weddings to brands. I slowly added brand sessions into my wedding photography schedule from 2017- late 2019. I mostly shot in rented studio spaces or in the client’s workspace/ home. In 2020 I started photographing brand work in my home office, and was excited to finally be inviting clients into a space of my own, even if it was just my home for the time being. I still had a couple of wedding clients on the books for the upcoming year. March 2020 hits; COVID-19, pandemic, the whole works. It was actually such a huge blessing for my work, as it gave me the boost I needed to fully commit and pivot to brands full time and stop booking weddings.

March 2020- March 2021 I finish shooting the 2 weddings I had on the books, and have mostly been shooting brands in my home office and in our client’s spaces, masked up. In February of 2021, a friend that I hadn’t seen in 12 months reaches out and we grab coffee. I casually mention that I’ve passively been searching for a studio space, as we’re definitely outgrowing my small home office. She says she just looked at a space yesterday because she’s in the same situation. We both take it as a sign, and we co-sign a studio together in March 2021. In September 2023, we face the same (good) problem of needing more space to grow, so we each get our own individual spaces. We’ve been in our own studio for a year now and are simultaneously so grateful for what we have now, and excited for what will happen next.

Each time I take a gamble on my business, I win. I like to tell people that, “when I started to take my business seriously, that’s when I started seeing results that I wanted.” Sure, there are things that haven’t gone my way, but I look at those things as lessons learned and not something lost.

Having a creative business that you start out of a passion is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It is SO much hard work, and it isn’t mindless or easy work. I cannot emphasize that enough. But this is the work I’d prefer to be doing. I’d rather work 80 hours a week for myself than 40 hours a week for someone else.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I had someone visiting from out of town, my priorities would be to spend time with them near my home by taking walks along the creek in my neighborhood, enjoying bonfires in my backyard, cooking at home, and eating around my table.

When I do occasionally venture out, these are some of my favorite places to visit in the Houston area are:
– Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
– Houston Museum of Natural Science
– PostHTX
– Galveston
– Houston Zoo/ Hermann Park

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I don’t feel like there’s been any group, person, organization, etc. in particular that’s done that for me. That said, I feel like I learn something from everyone I come across. Every situation, person, and interaction is an opportunity to learn, so I deeply take in those moments with others and try to sieve through to hold onto & apply the parts that would work best for my life and my business.

Website: https://www.lightbulbleague.com

Instagram: @lightbulbleague

Image Credits
Lightbulb League