Making A Living with Nature Photography - Part 1

April 22, 2011 @ 6:40PM

Making A Living with Nature Photography - Part 1

Part 1. Can You Really Quit Your Day Job?

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Many photographers dream of making a good living doing what they love most: photographing in the great outdoors. Imagine spending every day, from brilliant sunrise to glorious sunset, pursuing works of art that will have magazine editors, collectors, and galleries clamoring (and ready to pay top dollar) for your highly composed, brightly colored and distinctive imagery. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but practically speaking, you might be better off to keep the day job you’ve got. Read on for a dose of reality.

The Good Old Days

Making a living in the field of photography means getting paid for what you create. A person who makes photography his or her full-time, compensated work is considered a “professional photographer,” no matter the quality of that work. Once, it was pretty clear that a person who earned the title “professional” had achieved a level of proficiency and creative production consistent with the title. In those good old days, a photographer’s work was constantly being judged by the gatekeepers of the market: photo editors, magazine editors, book editors, and galleries; stock agency editors (gatekeepers to the commercial advertising market); and the consumers of images, meaning news media, advertisers, the designers who work for them to create advertisements or packaging, and, to a much smaller extent, collectors. Not that many photographers or photo-writers got past those gatekeepers, who had an eye on the marketability, suitability and quality of the images they chose. And back in those days, a photographer admitted to the level of professional was compensated for his or her images accordingly. Under an image-use system known as “Rights Managed,” contracts were drawn, specific use agreements were reached, and all the parties were protected. For example, a cosmetic company paying top dollar for exclusive use to an image to represent its top of the line perfume would not discover the same image being used by another company to advertise its toilet bowl cleaner. Photographers and writers who had achieved the level of professional also held some power in the market, as compensation levels were generally predictable, published and thus standardized based on quantifiable criteria such as the level of exclusivity, the intended use, size of the image (number of words of an article), geographic distribution, and circulation.

The Good/Bad New Days

In the new world of publishing, there’s much greater demand for images and words and almost anyone can pass through the gate. There are still a few publishers, magazines, stock agencies and galleries where qualified editors apply quality criteria to their choices. But the porosity of the Internet, the proliferation of the blog or the on-line magazine or newsletter, and the advent of the Royalty Free image concept (cheap prices, no contract, unlimited use), are factors that have dramatically changed the marketplace. Face it, everybody has a camera (and some people even know how to use them well), everybody has an opinion (and some people know how to phrase them well), and it’s really easy to get your photography and your writing into the public sphere (where lots of folks feel it has become public property and will therefore use it without even acknowledging it’s yours). And if no one else will let you publish it, you can publish it yourself!

Greater access is the good part of this new world. The flood of imaging and writing, and the consequent devaluation of professional-level photography and journalism, is the bad part. A similar phenomenon took hold in another communication medium, news-casting, when the 24/7 model became the norm. Yes, you can find out what’s happening somewhere anytime of any day. You don’t have to wait for your favorite newscast at 6. But the never-silent news networks are filled 24/7 with ignorant babble, news flashes on tweets, uninformed opinion, shaky video or still images shot by somebody who was there or who came by later with an iPhone camera, and constant replays of same. It’s this dumbing down, this unfiltered junk pile of “creative” or “journalistic” production, that makes me a Grumpy Old Man who would never, ever suggest anyone undertake a career as a professional photographer today. And when in a really despondent mood, I might follow up with the hopeless remark that “Everything worth photographing in the world has already been photographed and written about by somebody good, so all that’s left is documenting the decline of Nature.”

And yet, people keep asking me how I did it, and how they can do it too. So if you really want to know, check back tomorrow for Part II: Publishing and, later, Part III: Stock, Print Sales and Commercial Assignments and, still later, Part IV: Teaching, and finally, Part V: Has Everything Already Been Done?

Comments

Paul Harcourt Davies

Pixiq Expert

1 year ago

George,

Your excellent, 'say it like it is' first article in the series is much appreciated by this fellow “Grumpy Ol’ Man” at his desk with the first espresso of the day at 5.30am. It is a subject much mulled over on another blog I contribute to and it exercises a lot of professionals. Hearing what it is like across on your side of the pond (as grim as on this side) brings a strange comfort, for most of us struggle alone, stumbling through the Valley of the Shadow. The world has changed and an ability to diversify both within photography related activities (running tours, giving talks, self-publishing) has become de rigeur.

“How can we become nature photographers?” . Thus say the accountants, lawyers, investment bankers fed up with a mammon-driven life…an existence that has given them the funds to buy the top of the range kit. The grass is always greener on the other guy’s back lawn and it looks pretty lush on ours but then we do tend to use Photoshop, real or metaphorical, to sustain the myth? The first brutal fact is the realization that their generous (and doubtless well-deserved?) stipends will have a zero (or two knocked) off the end.

Talent is important but not paramount. What counts most in our world is supreme self-confidence of a kind the truly able will never be able to muster -pushiness. In all creative fields those of genuine perception and intelligence tend to know just where they stand and how far there is to go. That awareness brings humility and those who ‘make it’ tend not suffer from the crippling handicap of self-doubt.

Every (honest) UK and Italian photographer I know is finding it hard – especially those with younger children who hope one day to pay for their university education. My little old Welsh mother, 88 and still fighting, has always said (with the best of intentions) how nice it would be if I was an accountant like another in the family and had a ‘real job’.

Some aspirants are driven by what they perceive to be a certain ‘glamour’ in the business we work in and I know a few fantasists who walk the walk, talk the talk and are the big white hunters with their rifle substitutes (600 mm f/4 calibre that is)…and many are taken in as they reinvent themselves as conservationists/gurus. Then there are those who write – anything. There are the good and then the bad… does not matter a fig what aspect of photography it is, they can vomit forth in authoritative (but turgid) prose in magazines and books where the only editing and control is from people who, just a week before, were sub-editors on “Dog Fancier’s Monthly”. There is a niche and they will fill it, you bet they will, and be out there before others with a better grasp get to it... only to find the ‘no entry’ sign pinned up: Nature red in tooth and claw

My concern is for those who are dedicated in a next generation of photographers who can take things forward and use their work to further the interests of conservation. I envisage a crisis where few have any interest in the world around for they are at home glued to their screens or drooling behind virtual reality specs…I see signs in groups of kids with whom I have had contact.

I left the UK over seven years ago because the mediocrity and dumbing down you mention simply stuck in my craw. Many strive for mediocrity and just about attain it…it is their art form and they are lauded for it by fellow mediocrats. Success is not prized in the UK – it is deep down the land of the amateur-the good chap (and chappess). It is what made Britain Grate (on everyone)…

Italy offers an interesting model for here, in Berlusconistan, young photographers have to exist in the reality of what must be the most corrupt western country imaginable where many of its politicians are cited for their Mafia links (allegedly!). You get nowhere unless you have strings to pull from family – nepotismo -so the talented, but devoid of influence, leave and other countries gain. However, I now know quite a few creative and dedicated people driven by a love of nature. It is not an easy life in a land where the question most will ask about a bird is can we eat it and (yum) an animal –do we roast with rosemary or thyme? Most of them have the day job you mentioned for in Italy it has always been thus with creatives. The few that do not have that job live frugally and supply outside markets.

When in Rome they say do as the Romans do…the Italian model might help a lot of aspiring photographers for they just get on with it. First take those cucumber slices off the eyes and realise if you love nature you must find a way…do as much as you can consistent with surviving. Talking recent with a group of top UK pros I realised, I was lucky. When we moved here and set about converting a rockpile to a home we decided that was the goal and we would do whatever it took. So, I occasionally make things in wood (big things), it is intermittent but it pays and I love variety. No-one here can afford to pay for a photo seminar or course (typical monthly wage about 1000 euro…yep, incredible). This way I can do it at low cost, get a great deal from it, and choose projects that matter to me and to others.

Books well, like you George, I despair of the tsunami of worthless ‘facecal material’ that is out there and could wax lyrical about the way good ideas I have had were plundered when an editor talked to someone else…the niche fillers (and filchers). Some of us want to write books that achieve something besides offending trees pulped to create another discounted volume...

A pro does not have to be fulltime…it is a bastardised term anyway and more an indication of attitudes. A real ‘pro’ does not compromise on standards or idealism…now that really makes me a dinosaur. Let’s hear it for the Grumpy Old Men - long may we survive (well creak on for just a few more years at least) – the world has need of our bile whether they want it or not!

I eagerly await you other instalments - essential reading!

Paul