Retirement usually means slowing down. For Chris Rowan, it meant starting a business.
After 38 years in the classroom, Chris stepped back from his role as Director of Music and started Class Picks. Today it’s a photography and videography studio serving schools, families, and businesses around High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, and it runs on a website Chris built himself.
About the Business: A Boutique Alternative to Volume School Photography
Class Picks operates from Hazlemere and serves clients within a 20-mile radius of High Wycombe. The range of work is wide for a studio one person runs:
- Class, sports team, and nursery portrait photography for schools
- Concerts, theatre productions, and musicals
- School and regional sports days, including high-action coverage at the Thames Valley Athletics Centre
- Portrait sessions, using natural light or a portable studio set up on location
- Commercial and product photography
- Pet portraits and dog agility events
- Promotional video and drone videography
- Milestone celebrations and private parties
The school work is where Chris’s background sets him apart. He spent 38 years in the classroom as Director of Music and Head of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), so he already knew how schools run. He understands data privacy and the rhythms of academic life, and he knows safeguarding, the standard UK schools follow to keep children safe, from the inside. On his own site, he describes moving through a school at a “respectful distance,” getting professional results with minimal disruption while still engaging the pupils.
The compliance setup is thorough for a studio this size. Chris holds an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, public liability insurance, and registration with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). He runs a strict zero-export policy on school records, password-protects every individual portrait gallery, and gives each school a pre-prepared Data Processing Agreement (DPA) that names Class Picks as the data processor under UK GDPR. Even drone work carries its own regulatory compliance requirements.
Large providers compete on volume. Class Picks competes on ideas. Rather than work from a template, Chris builds group shots around whatever a school actually has, its architecture, its grounds, its halls, and composites when that serves the picture, dropping a stadium backdrop behind a sports team. Nursery sessions get the same patience, which is what it takes to earn a real smile from a four-year-old.
The same problem-solving turns up in his commercial work. A nearby piano warehouse needed photographs of fine, glossy black pianos, which is one of the harder subjects in product photography, and Chris treated it as a puzzle rather than a job to get through.
The Origin Story: A Side Project That Kept Growing
Class Picks didn’t start with a business plan. Chris had a career-long interest in visual media, and for years he took publicity shots for the school where he taught. The business grew out of that habit. When he retired, photography became the outlet that kept him creative.
The motivation has stayed personal. “At 66, and being a creative with a strong interest in technology, it is important and necessary for me to have an outlet for creativity, remain mentally sharp, provide a treasured benefit to others and perhaps earn a little on the way,” he says.
The moments that tell him it’s working aren’t the big contracts. They’re the clients who come back. “Repeat clients who absolutely value what I create for them,” he says. Returning clients show him that the work matters to the people who buy it.
The Challenge: A Gallery Platform He Couldn’t Control
Chris’s first website came from a third-party platform built for selling passcode-protected image galleries. It handled the storefront, but it also set the rules, and Chris couldn’t change the ones that mattered most to him.
For a business built on careful handling of children’s images, the platform’s cookie handling fell short of the standard he needed under UK GDPR and the ICO. “Unfortunately, their cookie policy is non-compliant in the UK, and as I am providing a solution to schools, my GDPR and ICO compliance need to be exemplary,” Chris explains.
So the platform had to go. Replacing it meant rebuilding the website and the client delivery system behind it, starting from nothing.
The Solution: A Self-Taught Rebuild on Hosting He Controls
Chris has hosted with HostPapa since the year Class Picks began. “HostPapa has been the platform I have used since starting my business over six years ago,” he says.
That control is what made the rebuild possible. Rather than move to another closed platform, Chris taught himself WordPress and staged the whole project safely. “I had to ditch that provider and learn to use WordPress from scratch, building a new site in a subfolder and eventually replacing the old one,” he says.
Then he rebuilt image delivery on his own terms. A form on his client page now works as a secure portal for image orders, and the galleries sit on a password-protected gallery platform behind it. Chris sets the compliance rules now, not a third party.
He did the work himself, with our PapaSquad team on hand for the parts that got tricky. “All self-taught, with HostPapa support resolving a couple of difficulties along the way,” he says. He was more specific in a Trustpilot review a few weeks later, describing the root-folder swap that worried him most: “Japhiel was excellent in providing simple-to-understand, effective advice, clearly understanding the issues I was facing and responding with patience and warmth.”
What the Website Does for the Business
For a business where Chris does the selling as well as the shooting, the website carries a lot of weight, and he is clear about its job.
“My website provides evidence for why I am uniquely qualified to serve schools, as well as showcasing the variety of my talent, and providing a secure portal for people to purchase photos of themselves or the children in their care,” he says.
That’s three jobs for one site. Credibility comes first, because schools need a reason to trust a photographer before anything else. The portfolio does the second job, covering everything from theatre productions to dog agility to a warehouse full of black pianos. And the portal handles the third, selling photos in a compliant way so Chris no longer processes every order by hand.
What’s Next: Broadening the Base
Class Picks is at a turning point. Chris recently lost a significant school client after another company took the school over, and the decision came with the takeover rather than with the work.
It has prompted a rethink. “I now need to think more intensely about broadening my client base and type. This does not come easily as, so far, word of mouth only has been sufficient to find loyal customers,” he says.
There is more to build on than the school work suggests. Class Picks already covers commercial shoots, pet photography, portrait sessions and private celebrations, and the site is set up to take on more of all of it.
Advice for Other Small Business Owners
Chris’s advice skips the shortcuts.
Play the long game. “It’s a long game! Be prepared for very little to happen in the early years. It takes time to build a great portfolio and the skills required to provide a constantly excellent offering,” he says.
Make compliance part of the product. Chris rebuilt an entire website over a cookie policy, and he hands every school a Data Processing Agreement before anyone asks for one. If you serve schools, healthcare, or another sensitive sector, that paperwork is not overhead. It is a reason to pick you.
Own your platform. Hosting he controls lets Chris build a replacement site in a subfolder, test it properly, and switch over cleanly. If your website lives on someone else’s closed platform, you inherit their rules along with their features.
Value repeat business over volume. Loyal, returning clients have carried Class Picks from the start, and they are still the clearest signal that the work lands.
Find Class Picks
Visit their website here!
We’re proud to support small businesses like Class Picks that put quality, compliance, and craft first. You can read more stories like this one in our Customer Showcase series.
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