Five questions, but not five happy answers

June 27, 2011 @ 8:57AM

Five questions, but not five happy answers

(that making-a-living thing again)

Topics
Discover > Theory & Inspiration

I get a lot of questions through the mail, and I dutifully try to reply to all. But the enthusiasm wanes when the questions tend to be pretty similar, and that’s usually the case. Occasionally, however, I get asked some questions that either hit a nerve that’s tingling at the moment anyway, or intrigue me to find out more. That was the case the other day when a photographer, Patrick Tay from Singapore, wrote with five thoughtful ones. They ticked the two boxes just mentioned. I was going to run them all here today, but the answers were getting a bit long, so here are the first two, and they’re about the ‘profession’ (Ed: surely not?)

1. With the lines blurring between photographers, photojournalists and picture editors, what do you foresee will happen in the near future with regard to these professions?

I take it ‘photographers’ means photographers in general. The lines have indeed blurred, with the (positive) assumption that we can all now do a bit of everything and take more control over our images, but the killer part of your question is the word ‘professions’. They are all at risk as full-time professional activities, and you can take comfort or despair from this as you wish. Take the last first: picture editors, who traditionally have been associated mainly with magazines and newspapers. The great names, from Wilson Hicks at Life to M. F. Agha at Vogue (well, all right, he was art director) were highly influential in forming the look and content of their magazines, but they were able to do this only by being part of an organizational hierarchy and by having large circulations that generated advertising revenue. Magazines are on the downslope now, so the influence and importance of picture editors is fast declining, and that means fewer good new ones taking it up.

Next, photojournalists. According to some, there are very few still in existence. Former Magnum bureau chief Neil Burgess voiced this view in 2010 when he wrote, “Today I look at the world of magazine and newspaper publishing and I see no photojournalism being produced. There are some things which look very like photojournalism, but scratch the surface and you’ll find they were produced with the aid of a grant, were commissioned by an NGO, or that they were a self-financed project, a book extract, or a preview of an exhibition. Magazines and newspapers are no longer putting any money into photojournalism. They will commission a portrait or two. They might send a photographer off with a writer to illustrate the writer’s story, but they no longer fund photojournalism. They no longer fund photo-reportage. They only fund photo illustration.”

And photographers in general? The wonderful thing is that now photography has become truly democratic, popular and absorbing. But for these very reasons, only a very few people will make it as a well-paid profession. Read on for the unpalatable truth.

2. For a commercial photographer, what are the upcoming markets for photographers? Will it be stock photography, nature photography, portrait/studio photography, fine arts or something else?

This continues from your first question, and you’ll pardon me if I question ‘upcoming’. The real issue is which will survive at all. Being a professional photographer means earning a full and useful income from it - paying the mortgage and putting the kids through school and so on - as well as any creative pleasure you may get from it.

So, the answer is not pretty, and goes like this: the professional future is for pictures that ordinary people can’t take. In other words pictures that:

need permission
need organization

are to an unusually specific brief

And here are my unappetizing predictions:

SOLID PROSPECTS

Fashion (has to be current and creatively very good indeed)

Art-directed advertising (that is, set up specially as opposed to the art director trawling Flickr for something unexpected)

Portraits

Weddings

Hotels, resorts, food, hospitality

FADING PROSPECTS

Sports (increasingly needs permissions, BUT teams and sports organizations increasingly grabbing rights)

News (I’m not even going to discuss the term citizen journalist)

War (not only incredibly dangerous, but too many beginning photographers prepared to put themselves in danger to get a start)

NO PROSPECTS WHATSOEVER

Travel (everyone does it)

Nature and wildlife (more people love shooting than the market can buy from)

Stock (plummeting, obviously - market awash with images, price-cutting at ridiculous levels, and yet there are still people writing - even on this blog site - that it’s a way of making a living)

Lifestyle (anyone can and does do it)

UP FOR GRABS/YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN

Fine art (the market’s good for the market, but for individual photographers it’s a very broad-based pyramid indeed)

And by the way, writing about photography is NOT professional photography. I do it because I enjoy it and there’s a demand for my books, but I’m under no illusions that it’s my primary profession. In fact, it eats into the time I should be spending shooting!

Comments

Keith Skinner

10 months ago

As someone attempting to enter the market mid-life (having just retired from an IT career), thanks for your insights. From reading several of your books, I know you to shoot from the hip, so I know these are honest and informed predictions. I am focusing on fine art knowing it won't put a kid through college but may offer a nice supplement to my retirement income. I also do travel photography but only in conjunction with my travel writing. I've been considering stock but just can't get past the price people would be paying for my images, even if the volume delivers an overall profit. But then again, it's unlikely the stock market will have much interest in many of my images.

Steve Heap

10 months ago

Hi Michael

I think I'm with Keith - newly retired (or perhaps semi retired as I still do consulting from time to time) and looking for a way to enhance my income. I've seriously thought about selling prints (even thinking about opening a gallery), but am not very confident about the rewards versus the input. I'd welcome your thoughts about the economics of selling prints either at craft fairs or via a store!

The line I took - perhaps the line of least resistance - was to enter the microstock game. As I had never sold any images before, the low payment per image was more that I had received before, and, after 3 years, I am trying to get to that $1000 a month level. Is this enough to live off and send children to college - no way, but it is an interesting supplement to retirement income. In many ways, we are the people who are making it difficult for people to make a full time living in some aspects of photography, but that is the tragedy of the commons!

I've recently written a book about microstock for beginners, building on my experiences and failures - Getting Started in Stock

Steve

Michael Freeman

10 months ago

Steve, I really wish I did understand the fine-art print market, but have to admit I do not. I keep working at it, talking to fine-art photographers and gallery owners (London's a good center for that). As a starting point you do, of course, have to identify your potential market accurately - who's likely to be interested in what you do, where are they, and then what ways are there of reaching them. But that's not very original advice.

As for stock, it's there, it's big, but the financial numbers speak for themselves. There's a present of sorts, but the future's downwards. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

Paul Harcourt Davies

Pixiq Expert

10 months ago

A very pungent and painfully accurate analysis Michael.

For some years I have been telling people who write to me that the question is not how you get into nature photography, for example, but how you stay. If there is a family with nest of gaping mouths then ''impossible" becomes the label. Your placement of this 'genre' in the "No Prospects Whatsoever category" is depressing but accurate. A few fantasists might boast of their incomes but look closer and you'll see their homes are being repossessed!

And for many of us who write books, blogs and the rest it cuts into image making time. For survival (and doing something one loves for at least part of the time) I draw (again) on the Italian example...they duck, they dive and it has been thus for 3000 years as they are ruled by one despotic group of parasites after another. The current crop of incompetent, corrupt filth is but a part of the progression...the descent to hell! Danté's vision pertains today as it did when he wrote it.

Most people here (and I am talking about graduates, too) clear about 1000 euros per month - without second and third 'jobs' they could not survive. They see how their elected leaders - 'pezzi di merda' all clear 15-18K per month BEFORE all their fiddles and backhanders. Ergo, they evade/avoid tax. Every talented photographer I know has to diversify madly and into all sorts of fields or work at something else. It's just not a one job life anymore.

Michael Freeman

10 months ago

Paul, I hadn't thought of it like that, but yes, I suppose living in Italy must really toughen you up when it comes to financial survival! Very funny, in a mordant kind of way. Easy for me to laugh, of course, living in the UK.

Although I've written books for ages, I never imagined that publishing on the practice of photography would become an industry in itself. I remain deeply suspicious, but at the same time there's more discussion, ideas and just sheer interest than there ever was, so I suppose it's a good thing.

Once the dyspepsia has subsided, I'll think about writing a POSITIVE article! I think there's one lurking in my brain somewhere.

Roger Overall

10 months ago

Hi Michael,

Thank you for an insightful post.

I'm a full-time professional photographer - for now. My business is half corporate work, half wedding work. With regards to the latter, I'd be less confident of the "Solid" prospects for full-time income in the furture.

The wedding photography market is one that most newcomers will look to. Relatively few new photographers wanting to be professionals will jump into corporate or advertising work. Weddings is seen as an easy profession, both in terms of entry and satisfying customers. As a result, it attracts a disproportionate share of new blood, be it full-time or part-time.

Sadly, most wedding photographers shoot to the same formula, which means that often the only distinction between them is price. In that situation, price generally heads in one direction: downwards.

At a recent meeting of professional wedding photographers here in Ireland, the general consensus was that wedding work and revenue was down for most by around 40-50%. I don't see this trend changing for most wedding photographers.

My own wedding work has fallen away dramatically. So much so that next year may be my last as a wedding photographer. The reason for the fall off is price. I'm not cheap. I'm not the most expensive either, but brides won't pay the money I need to charge for a sensible income.

Dropping my prices would hurt me in two ways. 1) less income and 2) it would be unfair on couples who have already booked me at my current prices.

So, what will happen? I'm predicting that I'll be forced out of the wedding market and have written about this on my blog (http://www.rogeroverall.net/blog).

To make up for the shortfall in income, I will 1) work harder on corporate photography and 2) launch two new businesses, making me a part-time professional photographer.

I've also argued that shooting work part-time for income doesn't make you any less professional than someone who shoots full-time for money. Going forward, we need to embrace a different understanding of what professional photography is. By doing so, existing professionals will free their minds to become flexible in the income opportunities they embrace. Many of us will have multiple income streams; some from photography, and others that possibly aren't.

Warm regards,

Roger

linda finstad

5 months ago

I totally agree the only way to not only survive but also stand out from the crowd is to do what others either cant or wont do.

I earn a really good living photographing horses - my specialty but it is seasonal - no one wants photos of their horses with long winter coats so I needed to find some other profitable market for the winter months

Kids are where the money is but unfortunatly it is the difficult period "pre school Photos" so from Birth to 5yrs is the window of opportunity but to compete for this market you have to create a photo experince that is worlds apart from - Walmart and Sears - but not worlds apart in price point

the marketing for this is pretty easy too after all parents tend to hang out with other parents at play groups/ day cares etc.