A commenter noted that more people think they can be a photographer than can be a writer, and that the millions of new photographers are killing the industry. Sorry, no. That is NOT the case. My response is copied below. I am inundated with write your way to riches emails and online promotions. Best seller in a day workshops get ten times what a photographer workshop gets on average. The amount of write your way to success coaches outweigh photography coaches by 30 to 1 I would guess - or even more. And the misconception is that people who get cameras automatically want to make money from them. I do not find that to be particularly true. Not at all. I must admit though that I may be talking about a different industry than you are. If you are talking about weddings / seniors / maternity / babies / family photography - in other words Consumer based, then you are partially right. There is a large influx of inexperienced people coming into the market. But the problem I always have is if they are inexperienced, cannot deliver, and make sucky photographs and STILL pose a threat to those already working, then those already working have a MUCH LARGER PROBLEM than the competition. Perhaps it is the work itself. Consumers do not demand that much from most photographers if nubes with Rebles are making a dent. Fix it in Photoshop (now being lauded by the photographic press) is indeed a way of working that allows crappola captures to be edited to perfection - or at least filtered with a cool NIK to make it look awesomeauce. However, there are many consumer photographers who are doing quite well. They are NOT the ones here on Facebook whining about this or that supposed slight... they are working. Their visibility is to their client base, not to random people on a non-gated community. They have deliberate and well crafted marketing plans and follow them through. Too many times I meet consumer shooters who are complaining about losing work to nubes. In nearly every case it is because their work is no better than the nubes. This is where most people say sorry, but it is true... but I am not sorry. I am dismayed. I am disappointed and chagrined. Another situation is when the photographer has NO PERSONAL BRAND that would help them be visible to their constituency... and usually they have no idea who that is... where they live... how they buy and above all how to reach them. You are not gonna have a million dollar business in a blue collar part of town where unemployment is 30%. You are going to struggle if you want to build something in an area that is draining capital. It may be next to impossible to get people with no disposable income to believe that your digital image is worth twenty times more than the digital image that your kid makes with his D7000. When I do assessments with photographers I run into the same thing over and over and over. They do NOT know what their market is. They do NOT know how to reach their market. They can NOT identify a single channel of income. They are obsessed with fees and nubes and NOT with clients and repeat business. They have NO IDEA what they should charge because they have NO IDEA where their market is. Their business sucks because they dont actually have one. Now in the commercial world there are many challenges to be had for sure. But being worried about Nubes is not one of them. There is so much to be learned before even thinking about approaching design/ad agencies that most nubes simply dont. Everywhere I look I see talented photographers who were not professionals five years ago making their way confidently in the field of commercial photography. In this little group we have Eric, Paola, Stephen, Rob, Anjani, Sam, Erin, and more (sorry for not listing you). They were NOT photographers and then they are. The Adore Girls started 4 or 5 years ago and are now booked solid 6 days a week in Nashville. James in Florida is swamped right now... Why? Because they had a plan, and KNEW where to find their customers. For most consumer photographers that is just too much work. They would rather put up a FB page and wait for the money to roll in. Not all, but most. I have seen it too often to be wrong. I would never waste an ounce of energy fearing something that may happen. That is an ounce of energy I could be using to MAKE something happen - for me.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:54:10 +0000