We all hear photographers lamenting about how great things were in the film days before just anyone could easily buy a camera and take a good photo, but are the golden days of this profession really behind us?
Having worked as a professional photographer for under 15 years, my career doesn't go back as far as many pros who I know. I have friends who worked only in the film days, those who tried and failed to make the transition to digital in the 2000s, and those who managed to make a great career on the other side.
I often hear people complaining that it is impossible to make a living from photography nowadays and that it should only ever be a hobby. Obviously, with it being my career path, I disagree with this statement. In this video, I go over reasons why I think people are unable to make it as a professional photographer: the excuses they make and the realities in 2020. The commercial photography world is about to go through a second huge change moving into 2021, so being aware of these things is really important, and having the ability to pivot and move your own goalposts will make the difference between having a career and losing a career.
Do you feel that the golden days of photography are now long past us? Or do you share my optimism?
Not even close. There is an incredible amount of opportunity and money out there. Yes, photography has been democratized for the average person, but that doesn't easily translate to a career. And we are living in an unprecedented time of media. The amount of media consumption and creation is at an all time high. Demand for content is high. Turn over is high. The process has changed, the requirements have changed, but thats part of the evolution of media. Same as it ever was.
The reality is that the easy entry into this career has created a lot of disillusioned artists who think by the very fact they play the part of a photographer means that clients will swarm to them. They learn the hard way that you still need skill and business savvy to make it all work. Its a hard pill to swallow, but sometimes clients aren't knocking on your door, because your work is just not good enough.
People will say "clients don't have budgets". Yes.....they do. Just as photography has been democratized, so has the business world. Its so easy to create a business and resell garbage these days. Those are not REAL clients and their "budgets" don't represent the real working business world. Photographers get disheartened when some broke kid starting a t-shirt line doesn't want to pay big bucks for their service and use that as the benchmark for the marketplace.
Another point is that today, a poor phoyographer, can manipulate a photo or correct a mistake using photoshop, which hides thrir weaknesses. It gives them the impression that they are good tto themselves, wheras in the past, it was almost impossible to do. Anyone can snap a photo. But can you create a photo based on a Directors/clients needs? This is where the majority of so called photographers would fail. Its a hard trade, and not everyone has the ability to see and create a photograph.
You hit it right on the head I been making a living in Photography for over 40 years wearing a few hats since the beginning one thing that i have learned is that your work has to prove its self along with the next shot has to be be better than the last one to survive. Being considered a photojournalist which covers a wide range of types of work where there is no going back to reshoot. The learning curve in this end of the photo world is a long and tedious where only the strong survive.
With out any formal training in photography until latter in my career and it was on the legal end of media photography. It takes a special kind of person to be successful behind the camera which cant be taught in a classroom bottom line is you can't teach folks how to recognize a good photo and capture it. The concept of photography is an easy field to make money as well as glamorous is a misconception which turns most beginners away real quick after the first blown shoot. The other issue with up and coming photographers is attitude that they are the best where the reality is there is always someone who paid their dues if they would just take the time to listen to the expirenced
As of the pivoting this present health scare has help me clear a back log of photos ear marked for my stock photo end of my business and prepare for what is coming when this is all over. After this COVID issue ends the shooters who where able to hold on are going to be in for a wild ride. My days of covering major sporting and media events is coming to an end it just doesnt pay enough to cover my time anymore. The goal now is to concentrate my skills on travel Photography which I have dabbled in over the past few years and enjoy.
One point I would like to make to those starting out in the field, if your in this to become famous you might want to consider an other field there are only a handful that will make it with that status. Not saying that it wont happen but its the wrong reason you need to have to love what your doing and be prepared to have your feelings hurt in the beginning. The key factor in Photography all the way around is good consistent results
You are absolutely accurate... this applies to nearly everything. People generally don’t have the patience and grit to accomplish things in many disciplines. It took my son 20 years to become established as a music composer.
Spot on.
There is a lot of good work out there but the inexperienced photographer has no idea what or where it is and even if they knew, there is zero chance they could handle it.
Your observation on time in the craft is also significant as the experience needed to just improve your book to levels that agents/clients take seriously is very great.
Our inst-fame mentality has people convinced that a few months and a couple of seminars will make them expert in almost any field.
This is no different than when I started in the 70's. At that time we had old coots complaining about color portrait studios stealing their business and wedding photographers whining about the avalanche of weekend warriors with Canon AE-1s.
We were also alive with photo/art school grads that could not really do much and also lacked the perseverance to rectify the problem. The time thing again.
Amateurs and smartphones will continue to eat into all the industries they already have been for the past 5-10 years.
Many businesses won't need a professional, they just handle the pictures on their phones, or an amateur. Those are no longer the businesses or segments to focus on. Imaging is and always will be an in demand service. Creating an image is so much more than just taking a photo, and if you want to separate yourself you will need to get very good at all of the elements of creating an image outside of being there with a camera. Photography has never been easier, and with the rise of fantastic image processing like Apple's iPhone cameras and tech like AI image editing it won't go back the other way.
Move with the wave, don't fight against it
Absolutely not. As a 23 year old who has heard a fare share of "your career is pointless" from ignorant people, the need for photography and videography (I went to school for digital filmmaking) is still there. Shockingly people still want there weddings and commerical ads professionally shot astonishing right? All kidding aside it's great that everyone CAN take a photo. But not everyone can translate it into a professional business.
You may be in a good position as you have no reference point of how things used to be. I just hope that you know the value of what you produce and charge accordingly. Us geezers look at $4000 jobs that are now being done for $500
Yes, I agree with the article that the golden days of photography are over. Smartphones & social media are taking over. Old media like print magazines/newspapers are dying out. No one wants to pay photographers for their work. They expect photographers to work for free. Most pro photographers have to spend a fortune on camera & lighting gear & years honing their craft. Its sad that they are now treated as a dime a dozen profession.
It is not the number of people taking pictures that is hurting professional photography. George Eastman put a camera into the hands of everyone, and professional photography grew into a business. AI's purpose is to reduce the cost of human labor and it has nothing to do with democracy. If a machine can create a product of equal quality as a human at a fraction of the cost, figure it out.
It amazes me how gitty everyone is about the progress of technology with a growing population and shrinking resources. There may be a big demand for combat photographers on the horizon.
Given the way modern wars are waged, I guess combat photographers will be using drones..... As you say, technology moves forward.
More than likely some will. The survival rate of those who don't will more than likely decrease, but the pay should be higher. Nice work and website Ed.
Thanks.... your work is impeccable. You are a great story teller.
Thanks, Ed I try grew up on Life Magazine.
So, we’re you a Tri-x man?
Mostly all my personal work was shot on tri-x, shot film until about 15 years ago.
I don't know what really defines golden days of pro photography, but to me, I see a lot of people putting most of their budget in camera gear and putting themselves in a dead end. Lighting is what we do and a capture is nothing without the light. Next I see a big trend of photographer / video guy / website artist / drone freak / graphic artist / IT and all the way to being a one person advertising agency. So what are you and are you that great at all your titles? Clients ask me if I do video and the answer is no. I'd be broke if I started purchasing the gear I see would be necessary for me to give such a venture a fair and good start. So I am very aware of the technology and what is going on in video, but I prefer being hired and work with video teams that trust I am not after their kind of work. I think there is more work than ever in photography but we have to adapt and keep up with the clients needs and figure out the market's changes and trends on our own. Versatility with lighting equipment is key and technology today offers a lot. Don't be cheap, don't over spend, just get what will bring you more work or potentially render the process more fluid and pleasing between you and the client.
I see that happening too but a lot of clients are hiring the hybrid shooter who does a decent job at both photos and videos at a good price and that meet the quality standards of both. I have done that and it's hard to change hats back and forth. So now I include the video guy / drone flyer in the bid.
I don't know if what you say is entirely true, but it was certainly passionately expressed. I've been in photography for about 40 years but not as my primary source of income as you have. Nevertheless, I see what you have stated so well. I didn't stop shooting film until 2013 for a reason that you expressed. I had a Hassy 500 C/M that was 1970s technology that was perfect. I have purchased two digital cameras in 7 years and each were basically obsolete within a year and a half. Now, they are telling us that we have to go mirrorless which means my entire system of bodies and lenses are obsolete. If you really think about it, music went in the same direction. There was a time that musicians were highly trained and skilled. Today, it's all electronics and software with very little pure skill.
I get your point, but I think it does not contradict the video. Both points are valid: The quality of work of real pros and the availability of numberless people who deliver acceptable work for a low or no price at all thanks to the technique of today. I think the video and your posting come the the same conclusion in the end: Only a few will make it. But is it harder than before? Yes. Are the golden days over? Not until the demand for real quality work is over. It never will be.
To say that the "golden days" of photography are past is not to say that it's now impossible to make a living at photography.
But it is to say that there are fewer avenues for making a living at photography today than 30 or 40 years ago. There used to be staff photography positions on newspapers every significant city. That's pretty much gone away. There used to be scads of photographers paying their mortgages with stock photography...that's pretty much gone away. Every other area except perhaps wedding photography has severely contracted.
The "golden age" is over. This is more like an iron age. It's possible to make a living hammering out iron, but it takes a lot more work than gold.
My first few cameras all paid for themselves, but did not feed me. Realised I did not have the creativity to make first class photos six days a week, so took up banking, travelled the world, took good pix, but did not have to sell them.
A great pass-time but not an easy living.
If you are first class, a great joy...
Being a good or even great photographer has little to do with success in the business of photography. In order to be successful you need to be a great sales person, or have some charisma, or engaging way with people. Better yet all 3 of those. It's not what you know it's who you know. And yes the influx of cheap equipment, software and the internet has leveled the playing field between those with and without financial means. Yes it's harder to make a living. It's not impossible if that's what you want to do and have a way with people.
Oh 'professional' photography, which is to say (in the 1970s thru 1990s) was — just like now — always about reputation, artistic eye and back then unlike now rather daunting levels of technical skill in handling equipment which at the higher end did 'nothing automatic' for the photographer.
It didn't matter really: the equipment was solid, the optics surprisingly (to a modern photographer) good, the tradeoff choices between film speed and grain had been well worked out, and for an equipment investment roughly that of a mid-range Mercedes sedan one could have all the medium format equipment one might absolutely need to get a freshly broad range of photography 'gigs' done. Competently, efficiently, quickly, and with plenty of wiggle room for all the statistically irreducible 'bad shot errors'.
Today of course we have profoundly amazing digital cameras and jaw-dropping-ly competent lenses ALL backed up by endless layers of shooter-hasn't-a-deep-technical-background integrated sensors, 'automatics', and so forth … so that people (nominally having, but needing to have) great 'eyes' can shoot most anything, quickly, competently, inexpensively and efficiently.
So, what?
The 'what' is hidden in that last hyphenated compound condition. 'shooter-hasn't-a-deep-technical-background'.
Used to be that the rather high cost of pro-grade equipment, AND pro-level technical chops, AND no-Internet reputation dependence really limited the 'player field' of pro photographers to a tiny highly regarded cadre.
Legendary. Almost apostolic.
Any of us could trivially wing off 3 dozen 'great names' of mostly living (a few sadly RIP) photographers who regularly did amazing things with their 10-Mercedes-and-an-Airplane investments in darkrooms, shelves of lenses, backs, wickedly cool tripods, lighting equipment and 'libraries' of gels, filters, reflectors and processing chemicals. But the much more numerous single-Mercedes invested pro photographers were still equally 'filtered out' of easy-come-easy-go doyens because of the pretty serious technical hurdles that high-end pro-level photography required.
No more, that.
Oh we get ENDLESS articles (here and elsewhere) of all the technical stuff and 'reinventing the wheel'. Sure. I'm approaching my 70s, and once I was hurtling into my 30s. I knew as little in my 20s as almost any similarly enthusiastic 20-to–30 year old today knows, technically.
The fly chick today tho' doesn't need to invest a Mercedes of green into her pro-quality rig. AT ALL.
She only really need take the last-generation hand-me-downs from all the crack fan-boy photographers who can't really shoot worth sheet, but always must have the newest and best, no matter what. PLENTY of last-generation beauties to be had. At like 60% to 80% off original purchase price! And NOTHING wrong with it either.
However, what our budding pro needs remains the same as it always did. An EYE. A sense of artistic composition; attention to seemingly wan detail. Patience. Bold, tireless pursuit of 'the goal', even when either/both economics and 'her friends' tell her to change course.
Being, or rather becoming a pro today … requires that. JUST AS it always did. Same as it did for Winograd, R. Frank, McCurry, Erwitte, Avedon, Crewdson, Lange, Maier, Imogen, Chou, Herd, and the others.
Determination, an artistic eye, tireless attention to detail, professional followup, decent, broadly applicable equipment, a BIG bag of lighting tricks, and an unflagging pursuit of business opportunities.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ <b>Goat</b>Guy ✓ ≡=-⋅
I respectfully disagree. While I can appreciate the time you've put into the grind, the reality is that the business of photography is still alive and well. The business has changed, and the ways of working from 30-40 years ago won't be the same, but there are new models of business in place that have evolved in tandem with the advent of digital media.
I'm in my early 30's, been at photography for about a decade now, and it is my sole source of income. I can afford vacations, a house, a car, a 6000 square foot studio, and have all the equipment I could want. By all measures I live a great comfortable life. From personal experience I know it is possible. And I have friends in the industry who are doing just as well.
Its not all doom and gloom out there. The world changes and business is all about adapting to those changes.
Where I have my office, in a building with several other self employed people ore small companies, out of the 8 companies 3 are photographers (although one just moved to an other location). They all make a living out of it, have families and are doing that for many years now.
Jerry C is spot on with the realization of how its all changed. If your a contracted / commissioned it might be a different story but those are far and few for the mass of us who would like to make 100,200,300K I just dont see our biz support all of use. What I have noticed in the last 30 years is that the phones dominate the general public and they are very happy to stand in the same spot that you do with your fuji gfx or hass,Canon,Nikon or whatever you got and they will pop off the pic and walk away and print them,insta them or whatever they do and they are not going to pay you $$$ for what they can do and be happy with it. IT'S over. I know a former National Geo award winning fellow who uses all types of cameras, he has huge prints,glass encased in all the hospitals around where I am at. They are all nice pictures. The big joke, he cant even make a living, not enough turnover and the hospital took them as a courtesy.becuase he knows that would never pay 2,5,10K for those. Most anyone can go to those same spots and produce a nice shot. Its over, but you can still make $$ with weddings and senior head shots and maybe a few other genre but the days when only a select group had access to the best equipment is over and the taste of hanging it on the walls is minimal. ITS over.
Collecting images and transmitting them may have become much easier thank to technology, but in my opinion recording a truly beautiful, well-composed and properly exposed image is just as difficult as it was using film. Digital camera sensors have nowhere near the image resolution or latitude of good analog film (e.g. Kodacolor 200/400 or Fujifilm 400, which I used to great effect years ago). This makes seeing inn your mind what the sensor will record much more difficult. I have been learning how to do this with digital cameras for 15 years, and am just now sometimes able to record an image that requires no post-processing to express what I wished to record when I triggered the camera. This despite using cameras with live view (DSLRs) or digital viewfinders that give a very good idea of what the sensor will record. Doing this professionally clearly requires a level of skill (not to mention grit, determination, and business sense) that is clearly difficult to acquire. As in other fields, some who gravitate to photography as a career will be unusually talented and shrewd) and will achieve success relatively quickly. Everyone else will have to slog through the difficulties to achieve success, just as in my chosen profession, Medicine. We call it Medical Practice, in the hope that if one does it often enough, one will eventually learn how to do it well.
I have been mostly a medical photographer for over 42 years. In Cleveland one of the better-known photographers of Cleveland's skyline was or is still is a radiologist. He told me that when they talked about outsourcing jobs he never imaged it would be his. While I attended college for photography when anyone asks me what to take in college I tell them, major in business if you want to become a photographer. Unless you are doing it for the fun of it a just like medicine you need a strong business sense to survive.
So the "Golden Age" of photography was about making money?
In the commercial/advertising photography world, money was a driving factor.
This year has been an exception for me for obvious reasons, that said, we have still been reasonably busy, I have been in business for three years now and I am up to a very healthy turnover. What's more important than photography itself, in my opinion, is the ability to go out and find the work in the first place. There are lots of opportunities out there, just go find it.