Crafting a career for yourself as a commercial photographer can come with a lot of upsides. But there is still one big caveat you will need to take into consideration before choosing your path.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work as a commercial artist for nearly two decades. The term “commercial artist” can mean different things, so I’ll take a short moment to define what I’m referring to before moving on. In the strictest technical terms, any artist who is producing art in exchange for financial compensation could be termed a commercial artist, as they are running a commercial business. So wedding photographers, corporate headshot photographers, e-commerce photographers, etc., could all be described as commercial photographers. These are people who shoot to a client brief, not necessarily shooting for fine art purposes without a specific buyer in mind.
In my case, what I’ll be mostly referring to is the category of commercial photography that deals specifically with advertising. This is what I fall into. I don’t make my living through selling art directly to my subjects, such as a headshot photographer might, just as an example. Rather, my work could be termed wholesale rather than retail. A company, agency, or production company comes to me to create art on their behalf. That art will then be utilized by the clients through traditional advertising to sell their products to their own end users. The art producers, creative directors, and so forth that I am selling to won’t be the subjects of the photographs themselves. The brand’s product or messaging is the “subject,” and my job is to show it in a way that helps my clients sell more products to their clients.
I chose this career path for a number of reasons. First was financial. Although, after decades in the business, I can tell you that the financial upside may or may not always pan out how you imagined. Second, many of the photographers whose work I most admired worked in advertising. So, part of me wanted to follow in their footsteps. Even my choice of specialty was highly influenced by one particular photographer, Carlos Serrao. One thing that slowed down my shift to commercial work in the early days was the fear that my work would become bland and uninteresting. I mean, how creative can one really get when photographing a campaign for dentures? Carlos was an artist whose work was made for commercial clients, but still retained the sense of authorship usually only granted to fine art photographers.
Using him as a model, I started seeing the possibility of a world where I could maintain my artistic integrity (for whatever that’s worth) while still earning a living. I knew I didn’t want to shoot weddings. I knew I didn’t have the patience for documentary photography. And shooting headshots was never going to be artistically fulfilling for me. By the way, I’m basing this on my knowledge of myself rather than making a comment on what other artists are able to generate artistically within those spaces. So, taking all that into account, I made the decision to focus my work on advertising clientele and I’ve lived happily ever after. Well, sometimes.
If you’ve ever found yourself reading one of my articles before, it’s highly likely that, at some point, you’ve heard me refer to the fact that my career as an artist began as a filmmaker. My career as a still photographer and commercial director/DP grew out of that. But film came first. I know many of you reading this article are tried-and-true photographers and couldn’t care less about the movies, but I often refer to my film work because I’ve come to understand that business is business. And many of the lessons I’ve learned on the film side are fully applicable on the still side and vice versa. So trust me when I say, this little diversion will relate to you even if your photographic frames don’t move.
When I say that I began life as a filmmaker, I mean specifically that I began life as a screenwriter. You know, that lowly person on the filmmaking totem pole that comes up with the idea, the storyline, and all the dialogue that the directors and actors end up getting credit for. I’m kidding. Sort of.
The dream of every screenwriter is that they will come up with the next great idea for a film in their head. They will go about hammering it out on the computer with the efficiency of a modern-day Hemingway. They will turn that script into a producer who will love it from the start and emphatically proclaim, “No notes!” The director will do the same and go about diligently making sure all of the actors speak your beautiful lines exactly as they are written, down to the comma. The movie will be released in theaters to great reviews, and everyone everywhere will proclaim, “Wow, what a script!” This exact scenario plays out every day. True, it only happens in screenwriters’ dreams, but what’s the point of an imagination if you don’t use it?
In reality, most working screenwriters' lives are more like this: A producer and an actor are day drinking on a sailboat in Cannes one afternoon, and one of them screams out between shots of bourbon, “Why hasn’t there ever been a movie about a porcupine who runs for Congress?” The other, not even 100% sure what the first just said but wanting to be supportive, exclaims, “That’s a great idea!” Now all they have to do is find some poor sap to write it. So Joe Blow Screenwriter gets a call from his agent asking if he’d be interested in writing the porcupine script. He isn’t interested, but he is three months behind on the rent. So he says yes to the project and goes about doing the best he can to make this half-baked idea into an executable script. While all that is going on, the producer has managed to rope in the hottest director in town to come on board the project. That director takes one look at the porcupine script the writer has just spent the last six months whipping into shape and proceeds to tell him that, while the scene with the Australian octopus was pretty cool, the rest of it is going to have to be thrown out so they can start all over. The screenwriter is likely going to have to start all over multiple times over the course of multiple years until the point where the producer, the star, the director, the studio head, the financier, the distribution company, and the head of marketing all feel happy.
Given the number of cooks in the kitchen, it’s not hard to see why the script at this point is a complete mess, devoid of any singular vision, and likely robbed of the artistic voice the writer brought to the project in the first place. Eventually, the project goes before cameras, at which point the screenwriter who came up with the storyline is likely to be barred from the set. This is a director's medium, after all. And what good is the writer? It’s only his or her words that started this whole thing to begin with. So why would we bother including them in the production process? Finally, the film is released, and one of two things happens. One, it’s a raving success, and all involved try to take credit as the singular vision behind the project. Or two, the film is a flop, at which point all involved blame the film’s failure on an insufficient script.
That all might have sounded like a bit of a rant based on barely contained rage from personal experience. And I’m not saying that you aren’t right to assume that. But I bring up that semi-fictionalized example because the lessons I learned in my early life as a screenwriter are ones that have applied to both my film and photography careers in equal measure.
One thing you quickly learn as a screenwriter is that, even if the original idea is yours to begin with, you will ultimately have very little control over the final product. The system is set up to treat the person who originates the words as if they are merely there to write down other people’s ideas. This is not entirely bad, by the way. Filmmaking is a collaborative process, and the end product is usually better when all the creatives involved are able to contribute their best. But, after my share of negative experiences, I knew that if I was going to continue as a filmmaker, I would need to be a writer-director. Nobody is kicking Christopher Nolan off of his set for the films that he writes and directs (no, I’m not comparing myself to Christopher Nolan). If I wanted any measure of control over the execution of my story, I would need to put myself in a position to control more of the process. The director still has studio heads and money men to answer to, but at least the added title would keep me in the middle of the battle.
So what did that little story tell you about me that will be applicable to the life of a commercial artist? Well, one thing I learned early in the screenwriting-only phase of my career was that I’m not the type of person who is able to view my art as work for hire. That’s not to say that I don’t take assignments based on my clients’ ideas and needs. Of course I do. That’s literally the job of a creative artist. But, based on my experience as a writer, I knew that, sooner or later, I needed to feel some level of artistic control. It’s just fundamental to who I am. Realizing the artistic vision was always going to be more important to me than the paycheck. After all, you can make a good living as a hired-hand screenwriter just typing out other people’s ideas if you can maintain a healthy emotional disconnect from the final product. It’s when you are so obsessed with a specific artistic outcome that you set yourself up for heartbreak. I’m not saying one way is better than another. Rather, I’m saying that it is vital that you know which category you fall into. Are you someone who is making art for the art, and any level of compromise feels like death? Or are you someone who is happy to just be part of the team and is content to cede ultimate control to someone else? Again, I’m not saying one is better than the other. Most people fall somewhere on the spectrum between those two ends. But, wherever you land on that spectrum, it’s important to know that about yourself before you choose which avenue of photography you wish to pursue.
The other day I was speaking with a creative director at an ad agency. While discussing our mutual hatred of vertical video (old man rant successfully contained), he used a phrase that I’ve heard from a few people in the industry in recent years. It’s stuck with me because I think it is a perfect summation of the commercial artist’s paradox.
He said, “Advertising is pop culture.” This may sound simplistic, but in those four words, he had encapsulated so many challenging aspects for artists who choose to make their living by creating advertising. At the simplest level, an artist's job is to create art. Their job is to think outside of the box, pushing themselves creatively to constantly strive to create the best work of art within their power. An advertiser's job is far more clear. Their job is to move product. They don’t care how they do it. They aren’t motivated by any highbrow need to express themselves. Rather, theirs is a simple formula: The revenue for this year needs to exceed the revenue for last year, or someone is going to get fired.
So how I personally feel about vertical video, for example, really doesn’t matter. What matters is that Gen Z seems to live on TikTok. TikTok is a vertical video format. Again, our customers aren’t hiring us to create high art. They are hiring us to create art that connects with their target audience. Since Gen Z are the current occupants of the most in-demand target market for many brands, it is the advertiser’s job to meet that customer where they live. That’s TikTok. That means vertical video. So I, as the artist, either have to quickly get over my distaste for the format or stand on artistic principle, refuse the job, and cut back on groceries for a few months.
Obviously, I’m just using that as an example. And, if you do want to work in commercial advertising, you need to be willing to adjust to whatever it is that your clients need. You are in the customer service business. You may have gotten there as an artist, but you are being hired to perform a specific task with a specific end goal: to help your customer move product. It’s great if you can do that in an artistically satisfying manner. But your main task is giving the customer what they want and helping them sell shoes.
Going back to my screenwriting analogy, as a commercial artist, you are not the one with final cut. Despite the outcome of the project being highly dependent on the level of your contribution, at the end of the day, it is the litany of other stakeholders (creative directors, agency producers, client art producers, legal teams, heads of marketing, etc.) that will ultimately decide what type of art you get to produce. And, again, just like the screenwriting example, this isn’t altogether illogical. The client is the one footing the bill in order to generate a specific product. You are there to service that need. So it makes sense that a commercial artist is not in complete control of the outcome. In fact, working with all the various creative stakeholders on a project can actually be one of the joys of commercial work.
Now, before you think this entire essay is an excuse for me to rant about vertical video, allow me to throw in one more curveball. Saying that “advertising is pop culture” cuts deeper than just the format of your next assignment. Almost by definition, pop culture is constantly changing. Especially in our current hyper-digital world, what is popular can shift and change with blinding speed. The only reason why vertical video became a thing is that social media apps started making content primarily for cell phones. Because a certain amount of the population couldn’t be bothered to turn their phones sideways, marketers began making vertical content. So, as a result, some kind of vertical content has become a frequent deliverable on many advertising assignments.
But what happens when the next big thing in social media comes along? It’s TikTok now. But, before that, it was Instagram. Before that, it was Facebook. Before that, it was MySpace. Advertisers have no more allegiance to TikTok than they do to my artistic integrity. They are only generating TikTok content because that is where much of popular culture currently resides. And their job, after all, is to get their advertising in front of their target demographic. But there’s a season for everything, and eventually, all things change. Things that were considered pop culture when I was still in the most desirable ad demo are now considered old-fashioned. Does that make them of lesser quality than the current trends? Of course not. They just aren’t in right now. Just like my parents would have looked at the things my generation enjoyed with skepticism, I now look with a similar gaze upon many current popular trends, and, one day, believe it or not, the next generation will look back on TikTok and complain about how uncool it seems to them.
I don’t mention this to suggest that you chase the trends. Rather, I mention this because a simple fact of life as a commercial artist is that much of your career will be spent answering to what is currently popular. Every now and then, you get to create a campaign so viral that it drives the conversation. But, most of the time, the jobs you will be offered will be based less on what you want to do artistically and more on trying to capitalize on what is already popular in the market. And because “pop culture” is constantly changing, you are inevitably going to find yourself in a space where what's popular conflicts with where you see yourself as an artist. In fact, as you get older, this dichotomy is only going to occur more and more frequently.
So, if it is your intention to make your living by providing marketing assets to advertisers in the commercial market, you’ll need to make sure that your temperament is one that allows your artistic voice to play second fiddle to the whims of the market from time to time. This doesn’t mean that your artistic voice doesn’t matter. This is how you are going to get the jobs in the first place. And a good commercial artist is able to both satisfy the brief and their artistic needs at the same time. But choosing to be in the commercial market means being willing to wage that battle every day, often having to give an inch, or two, or three. Or, what the heck, shoot the whole dang thing on an iPhone.
