Professional photography dying?

**interested_observer** · 04-03-2010, 07:15 AM

I am putting this here in General Photography because it might be interesting to and viewed by a wider audience.
__________________________

I was reading this morning, and came across this article. Its about the "vanishing professional photographer" oriented towards the stock photography business. I thought that it was interesting in general even though it does not specifically address Pentax in any way.....

Flickr Killed the Professional Photographer — ANIMAL

For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - NYTimes.com

... in part ...

"Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether.

“There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News.

That has left professional photographers with a bit of an identity crisis. Nine years ago, when Livia Corona was fresh out of art school, she got assignments from magazines like Travel and Leisure and Time. Then, she said, “three forces coincided.”

They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market. "

LeDave · 04-03-2010, 02:23 PM

Too many people are buying a entry-level with kit lens and try to sell themselves now days. It's quite frightening...

Creative Wedding Photography

Wedding Photography w/files, Professional DJ

RioRico · 04-03-2010, 03:15 PM

Originally posted by LeDave

Too many people are buying a entry-level with kit lens and try to sell themselves now days. It's quite frightening...

Quip about many things: "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it."

And that's the problem with consumer dSLR shooting -- it IS easy, so everybody IS doing it. Just not very well, repeatedly. A photographic professional has to do it well much of the time, or find another line of work. Someone who shoots weddings on weekends has their day job to keep them fed whilst they screw around. T'would be better if such stayed away from the weddings and just went to the receptions for the free food and booze. Better an honest leech than a "creative wedding" poseur.

tokyoso · 04-03-2010, 05:28 PM

I think it's safe to say there are many talented amatures out there, some frequent this very forum.

It seems that everyone knows a cousin/nephew or two that takes great pictures and wouldn't mind doing weddings for pennies or booze.

George Lama · 04-03-2010, 07:26 PM

There's a similar thread going on in the Pro section of the forums and many arguments have been brought up about this. I've also heard it from the mouths of fellow photographers themselves who go on about how the guy down the street is taking their business away.

It's not easy to compete when people are shooting for almost nothing. My opinion is simple - I am not competing with them, they are competing with me and I wish them the best of luck.

Please don't think I'm cocky - I just know I can offer a level of professionalism, artistic vision, and guaranteed service they will never get from the shoot & burn to CD folks. I let my prospective customers know I am registered with my county as a business, have a Federal Tax ID, a State Sales Tax ID, and that I'm a member of professional photography organizations. If they care about the product they are purchasing, they will become my customer or go to one of the 2 other pros in the area.

That said, if you're a one trick pony which can be blown out of the water by Cousin Pepe or brother John, then it's time to rethink your business and your skill as a pro.

Nothing against the talented amateurs - I started there myself and still consider myself very much an amateur in some kinds of photography. For example - today I did a shoot in a new chocolate store in town. I've done food and product photography, but chocolates were new to me. Lots of questions came up - Do I eat them or photograph them? Can I sample first to get inspired? It was pure torture!

**monochrome** · 04-03-2010, 08:05 PM

There's some truth here, but it is bigger than Flickr.

My son is at a wedding right now. He was taking to his future mother-in-law - -

Bride's Family:
$2,500 = Church, Minister(s), Music, Valet Parking, Wedding Party Transportation
$15,000 = 200 Guests @ $75 / plate, table wine, Cash Bar(!!! why bother with Cash Bar?)
$3,000 = Reception Music (Live Band)
$3,000 = Bride's Dress
$1,500 = Flowers
$1,500 = Bridesmaids' Luncheon / Gifts
$575 = Cake
$3,500 = Photographer(s) (6 hours 1st, 3 hours each 2 assistants)

Groom's Family:
$6,300 = Bachelor Dinner
$6,700 = Wedding Trip (Florida)
$2,700 = Groomsman Travel, Groomsman Gifts
$????? = Bachelor Party

That's just the easy stuff - doesn't count hair and nails, underwear, Honeymoon clothing, etc. My God - of COURSE the professional photographer is being replaced by Uncle Larry - the whole thing has gotten out of hand!! Who has $50,000 these days for what is essentially a pagan bacchanal ritual?

It isn't so much the photographer that is dying as the entire wedding industry.

How about professional business portraits - how many of us still have those beautiful black & white formal prints done for the newspaper? What's a newspaper? We can post a digital image, even if we pay a pro to shoot it, that's just $2,000 - a one-shot, no ongoing PP work.

tokyoso · 04-03-2010, 09:17 PM

why of course, the frugal father-in-law may want to use that $3500 towards a Canon 5D instead.

**monochrome** · 04-03-2010, 10:32 PM

Originally posted by tokyoso

why of course, the frugal father-in-law may want to use that $3500 towards a Canon 5D instead.

Uhmmm, if you aren't being sarcastic, it isn't the $3,500 photographer fee that's the problem.

Its the $46,500 for everything else that has me ( father of two girls) petrified.

I'd do 100 people in a chapel, make the dress, no dinner, no dancing, string quartet, cake, real photographer and "outta there" any day.

fractal · 04-03-2010, 11:39 PM

The article has been posted and discussed in General Talk.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/general-talk/95965-photojournalism-shrinking-field.html

RioRico · 04-04-2010, 05:05 AM

Originally posted by monochrome

Uhmmm, if you aren't being sarcastic, it isn't the $3,500 photographer fee that's the problem.

Its the $46,500 for everything else that has me ( father of two girls) petrified.

I'd do 100 people in a chapel, make the dress, no dinner, no dancing, string quartet, cake, real photographer and "outta there" any day.

Mine, and my daughter's, weddings were DIY. Mine was in the shady front yard of our rural rented Victorian, with lawn-bowling and horseshoes and sheep to play with, with some guests staying a week to help with cooking etc, with a couple hired to paint the place and serve the goodies. Handel on the boom-box. My dad (semi-pro photog) and anyone else with cameras covered the event. With the 6 cases of cheap champagne and catered cake and all, it cost a couple grand.

My rave daughter hired a Baroque hall in San Francisco for a stormy Hallowe'en night and staged a Gothic formal masque wedding. Her man is a gourmet chef. All their chef friends competed to provide food, rave photog friends covered it gratis, and a punk-band friend played Bach's TOCCATA & FUGUE IN D on the house pipe organ as the processional. It cost about 10 grand. Objectively, these are the two greatest weddings I've ever attended.

Hint: Get your kids to pay for their own weddings. If they're creative, great, and their marriages might last. If not, it's their responsibility, not yours.

mel · 04-04-2010, 05:16 AM

I have a brother and a sister and we all three had weddings. There was nary a professional photographer in the bunch. My dad took the pictures (and as for the rest, my mom made my dress, we had no wedding party and the reception was an open house at my parents' home. Shooting vintage lenses from ebay probably has a genetic base).

ziggy7 · 04-05-2010, 05:56 AM

We have been involved in the wedding biz for years. My daughter does cakes, flowers, linens, centerpieces, and the chocolate fountain. My wife is a very good sugar artist. We have seen the prevailing prices slip as families cut their budgets during this depression. The custom cakes, made from scratch, have to be priced below the frozen cakes from the supermarkets to sell. Index

I shoot weddings. Home
And many brides are deciding to skip the pro photographer and rely on their friends to take snapshots, while spending $5K on the reception meal. The pro shooters in our local Pictage user group who still get $2K are working from referrals from previous well heeled clients. There are a lot of brides out there now who will only use a pro if they can get one for around $500. So I take the job, provide an edited disc, and give a $50 album credit hoping I can sell a $200 album that costs me $76. The highest priced job I did last year was $1200. I was at the church at 11 AM and left the reception at 9PM.

lithos · 04-05-2010, 10:23 AM

Originally posted by fractal

The article has been posted and discussed in General Talk.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/general-talk/95965-photojournalism-shrinking-field.html

Don't go comparing PJ's to wedding photogs.

LeDave · 04-05-2010, 01:37 PM

It's who they're marketing these cameras to now anyways; selling half-baked, stripped-down advanced point and shoot, look-a-like DSLR's to a bunch of 13 year olds so they can move up to semi-pro's when they feel they need better automatic mode.

2012 is going to be the end as we know it, someone will announce a $500 DSLR with touch-screen, built-in MP3/Movie player, autofocus movie-mode, and comes with a free "Shooting Weddings For The New DSLR Owner's" guide for pre-ordering the brand new Sony Alpha Pro 6050 entry-level DSLR.

RioRico · 04-05-2010, 05:59 PM

Originally posted by LeDave

It's who they're marketing these cameras to now anyways; selling half-baked, stripped-down advanced point and shoot, look-a-like DSLR's to a bunch of 13 year olds so they can move up to semi-pro's when they feel they need better automatic mode.

2012 is going to be the end as we know it, someone will announce a $500 DSLR with touch-screen, built-in MP3/Movie player, autofocus movie-mode, and comes with a free "Shooting Weddings For The New DSLR Owner's" guide for pre-ordering the brand new Sony Alpha Pro 6050 entry-level DSLR.

You forgot to mention the GPS phone and personal vibrator attachment. ;(

This has happened before. George Eastman's "first product aimed at the consumer market was a Kodak camera, unveiled in 1888 and priced at $25." This unleashed ravening masses of aggressive Camera Fiends who invaded private and public spaces everywhere, and were often considered fair game for pistoleros. See this article. Many itinerant photographers earning their livings doing formal portraits and weddings and family gatherings were forced to find new work, hopefully not as buggy-whip makers. It happened again in the 1950's with the introduction of Polaroid Land cameras; those specializing in Instant Photos at fairs and other events were obsoleted.

So the survivalist question is, "How to compete against cheap competition?" Well, how did the film industry compete against TV? By mounting huge lavish productions. How did fin de siècle studio photographers withstand the one-buck-Brownie onslaught? Likely the same tactic. So how can the modern wedding photographer survive? Probably by expanding totally, becoming a vertically-integrated Wedding Event Producer. Deliver the entire package: site, solemnizer, music, costumes, food and drink, transportation, before-and-after parties, medical-psychological assistance -- and automatic cameras, carefully placed. And do it on an assembly-line basis. Take over an old CinePlex, turn it into a ChapelPlex. Services downstairs, receptions upstairs. Recycle the bouquets, decorations, leftovers, etc. It'll be like a modern Dental Group office, without the drills.

04-03-2010, 07:15 AM	#1
interested_observer Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Tumbleweed, Arizona Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 5,707	Professional photography dying? I am putting this here in General Photography because it might be interesting to and viewed by a wider audience. __________________________ I was reading this morning, and came across this article. Its about the "vanishing professional photographer" oriented towards the stock photography business. I thought that it was interesting in general even though it does not specifically address Pentax in any way..... Flickr Killed the Professional Photographer — ANIMAL For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - NYTimes.com ... in part ... "Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether. “There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News. That has left professional photographers with a bit of an identity crisis. Nine years ago, when Livia Corona was fresh out of art school, she got assignments from magazines like Travel and Leisure and Time. Then, she said, “three forces coincided.” They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market. "

04-03-2010, 08:05 PM	#6
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	There's some truth here, but it is bigger than Flickr. My son is at a wedding right now. He was taking to his future mother-in-law - - Bride's Family: $2,500 = Church, Minister(s), Music, Valet Parking, Wedding Party Transportation $15,000 = 200 Guests @ $75 / plate, table wine, Cash Bar(!!! why bother with Cash Bar?) $3,000 = Reception Music (Live Band) $3,000 = Bride's Dress $1,500 = Flowers $1,500 = Bridesmaids' Luncheon / Gifts $575 = Cake $3,500 = Photographer(s) (6 hours 1st, 3 hours each 2 assistants) Groom's Family: $6,300 = Bachelor Dinner $6,700 = Wedding Trip (Florida) $2,700 = Groomsman Travel, Groomsman Gifts $????? = Bachelor Party That's just the easy stuff - doesn't count hair and nails, underwear, Honeymoon clothing, etc. My God - of COURSE the professional photographer is being replaced by Uncle Larry - the whole thing has gotten out of hand!! Who has $50,000 these days for what is essentially a pagan bacchanal ritual? It isn't so much the photographer that is dying as the entire wedding industry. How about professional business portraits - how many of us still have those beautiful black & white formal prints done for the newspaper? What's a newspaper? We can post a digital image, even if we pay a pro to shoot it, that's just $2,000 - a one-shot, no ongoing PP work. Last edited by monochrome; 04-03-2010 at 10:25 PM.

04-05-2010, 05:56 AM	#12
ziggy7 Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Florida Posts: 54	A family wedding business We have been involved in the wedding biz for years. My daughter does cakes, flowers, linens, centerpieces, and the chocolate fountain. My wife is a very good sugar artist. We have seen the prevailing prices slip as families cut their budgets during this depression. The custom cakes, made from scratch, have to be priced below the frozen cakes from the supermarkets to sell. Index I shoot weddings. Home And many brides are deciding to skip the pro photographer and rely on their friends to take snapshots, while spending $5K on the reception meal. The pro shooters in our local Pictage user group who still get $2K are working from referrals from previous well heeled clients. There are a lot of brides out there now who will only use a pro if they can get one for around $500. So I take the job, provide an edited disc, and give a $50 album credit hoping I can sell a $200 album that costs me $76. The highest priced job I did last year was $1200. I was at the church at 11 AM and left the reception at 9PM.

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04-03-2010, 02:23 PM	#2
LeDave Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Minneapolis - St. Paul Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,067	Too many people are buying a entry-level with kit lens and try to sell themselves now days. It's quite frightening... Creative Wedding Photography Wedding Photography w/files, Professional DJ

04-03-2010, 03:15 PM	#3
RioRico Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Limbo, California Posts: 11,263	Originally posted by LeDave Too many people are buying a entry-level with kit lens and try to sell themselves now days. It's quite frightening... Quip about many things: "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it." And that's the problem with consumer dSLR shooting -- it IS easy, so everybody IS doing it. Just not very well, repeatedly. A photographic professional has to do it well much of the time, or find another line of work. Someone who shoots weddings on weekends has their day job to keep them fed whilst they screw around. T'would be better if such stayed away from the weddings and just went to the receptions for the free food and booze. Better an honest leech than a "creative wedding" poseur.

04-03-2010, 05:28 PM	#4
tokyoso Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Tokyo Photos: Albums Posts: 723	I think it's safe to say there are many talented amatures out there, some frequent this very forum. It seems that everyone knows a cousin/nephew or two that takes great pictures and wouldn't mind doing weddings for pennies or booze.

04-03-2010, 07:26 PM	#5
George Lama Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Buffalo/Rochester, NY Photos: Albums Posts: 1,133	There's a similar thread going on in the Pro section of the forums and many arguments have been brought up about this. I've also heard it from the mouths of fellow photographers themselves who go on about how the guy down the street is taking their business away. It's not easy to compete when people are shooting for almost nothing. My opinion is simple - I am not competing with them, they are competing with me and I wish them the best of luck. Please don't think I'm cocky - I just know I can offer a level of professionalism, artistic vision, and guaranteed service they will never get from the shoot & burn to CD folks. I let my prospective customers know I am registered with my county as a business, have a Federal Tax ID, a State Sales Tax ID, and that I'm a member of professional photography organizations. If they care about the product they are purchasing, they will become my customer or go to one of the 2 other pros in the area. That said, if you're a one trick pony which can be blown out of the water by Cousin Pepe or brother John, then it's time to rethink your business and your skill as a pro. Nothing against the talented amateurs - I started there myself and still consider myself very much an amateur in some kinds of photography. For example - today I did a shoot in a new chocolate store in town. I've done food and product photography, but chocolates were new to me. Lots of questions came up - Do I eat them or photograph them? Can I sample first to get inspired? It was pure torture!

04-03-2010, 09:17 PM	#7
tokyoso Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Tokyo Photos: Albums Posts: 723	why of course, the frugal father-in-law may want to use that $3500 towards a Canon 5D instead.

04-03-2010, 10:32 PM	#8
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	Originally posted by tokyoso why of course, the frugal father-in-law may want to use that $3500 towards a Canon 5D instead. Uhmmm, if you aren't being sarcastic, it isn't the $3,500 photographer fee that's the problem. Its the $46,500 for everything else that has me ( father of two girls) petrified. I'd do 100 people in a chapel, make the dress, no dinner, no dancing, string quartet, cake, real photographer and "outta there" any day.

04-03-2010, 11:39 PM	#9
fractal Inactive Account Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Melbourne Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,547	The article has been posted and discussed in General Talk. https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/general-talk/95965-photojournalism-shrinking-field.html

04-04-2010, 05:05 AM	#10
RioRico Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Limbo, California Posts: 11,263	Originally posted by monochrome Uhmmm, if you aren't being sarcastic, it isn't the $3,500 photographer fee that's the problem. Its the $46,500 for everything else that has me ( father of two girls) petrified. I'd do 100 people in a chapel, make the dress, no dinner, no dancing, string quartet, cake, real photographer and "outta there" any day. Mine, and my daughter's, weddings were DIY. Mine was in the shady front yard of our rural rented Victorian, with lawn-bowling and horseshoes and sheep to play with, with some guests staying a week to help with cooking etc, with a couple hired to paint the place and serve the goodies. Handel on the boom-box. My dad (semi-pro photog) and anyone else with cameras covered the event. With the 6 cases of cheap champagne and catered cake and all, it cost a couple grand. My rave daughter hired a Baroque hall in San Francisco for a stormy Hallowe'en night and staged a Gothic formal masque wedding. Her man is a gourmet chef. All their chef friends competed to provide food, rave photog friends covered it gratis, and a punk-band friend played Bach's TOCCATA & FUGUE IN D on the house pipe organ as the processional. It cost about 10 grand. Objectively, these are the two greatest weddings I've ever attended. Hint: Get your kids to pay for their own weddings. If they're creative, great, and their marriages might last. If not, it's their responsibility, not yours.

04-04-2010, 05:16 AM	#11
mel Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Virginia Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 2,531	I have a brother and a sister and we all three had weddings. There was nary a professional photographer in the bunch. My dad took the pictures (and as for the rest, my mom made my dress, we had no wedding party and the reception was an open house at my parents' home. Shooting vintage lenses from ebay probably has a genetic base).

04-05-2010, 10:23 AM	#13
lithos Inactive Account Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Brisbane, QLD, AUS Posts: 3,261	Originally posted by fractal The article has been posted and discussed in General Talk. https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/general-talk/95965-photojournalism-shrinking-field.html Don't go comparing PJ's to wedding photogs.

04-05-2010, 01:37 PM	#14
LeDave Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Minneapolis - St. Paul Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,067	It's who they're marketing these cameras to now anyways; selling half-baked, stripped-down advanced point and shoot, look-a-like DSLR's to a bunch of 13 year olds so they can move up to semi-pro's when they feel they need better automatic mode. 2012 is going to be the end as we know it, someone will announce a $500 DSLR with touch-screen, built-in MP3/Movie player, autofocus movie-mode, and comes with a free "Shooting Weddings For The New DSLR Owner's" guide for pre-ordering the brand new Sony Alpha Pro 6050 entry-level DSLR.

04-05-2010, 05:59 PM	#15
RioRico Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Limbo, California Posts: 11,263	Originally posted by LeDave It's who they're marketing these cameras to now anyways; selling half-baked, stripped-down advanced point and shoot, look-a-like DSLR's to a bunch of 13 year olds so they can move up to semi-pro's when they feel they need better automatic mode. 2012 is going to be the end as we know it, someone will announce a $500 DSLR with touch-screen, built-in MP3/Movie player, autofocus movie-mode, and comes with a free "Shooting Weddings For The New DSLR Owner's" guide for pre-ordering the brand new Sony Alpha Pro 6050 entry-level DSLR. You forgot to mention the GPS phone and personal vibrator attachment. ;( This has happened before. George Eastman's "first product aimed at the consumer market was a Kodak camera, unveiled in 1888 and priced at $25." This unleashed ravening masses of aggressive Camera Fiends who invaded private and public spaces everywhere, and were often considered fair game for pistoleros. See this article. Many itinerant photographers earning their livings doing formal portraits and weddings and family gatherings were forced to find new work, hopefully not as buggy-whip makers. It happened again in the 1950's with the introduction of Polaroid Land cameras; those specializing in Instant Photos at fairs and other events were obsoleted. So the survivalist question is, "How to compete against cheap competition?" Well, how did the film industry compete against TV? By mounting huge lavish productions. How did fin de siècle studio photographers withstand the one-buck-Brownie onslaught? Likely the same tactic. So how can the modern wedding photographer survive? Probably by expanding totally, becoming a vertically-integrated Wedding Event Producer. Deliver the entire package: site, solemnizer, music, costumes, food and drink, transportation, before-and-after parties, medical-psychological assistance -- and automatic cameras, carefully placed. And do it on an assembly-line basis. Take over an old CinePlex, turn it into a ChapelPlex. Services downstairs, receptions upstairs. Recycle the bouquets, decorations, leftovers, etc. It'll be like a modern Dental Group office, without the drills.