Most Photographers Do Not Understand

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 16. January 2012 - 6:42

Yan of http://yanphoto.com wrote a blog post: sick of it, in which she states how hard the life of a photographer is: no business, dead… Her photos are good, so why can't she get any work?

Because like most photographers, she doesn't understand the business of photography. First the facts, then the solutions.

  • Photography is booming
  • Photography is exploding. “On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day” according to Facebook itself: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics as of 11-Jan-2012 and that's only Facebook what about Google+, Flickr…?
  • Everybody has a camera, mostly a smart phone or a small point and shoot

So why should they spend any money for photos? “But my photos are better!”

What photographers need to understand is that:

  • If people buy, they always, always look to buy the cheapest.

    Look at rice, usually there's a specific type of rice that people like, then it's matter of buying where it's the cheapest. It's not the cheapest rice, but the cheapest for that type/brand of rice.

    Look at gasoline. The oil companies spend billions in advertising to convince you and me that Exxon/Esso is better than Chevron or Shell is better than… If it's ½ cent cheaper down the road, I go down the road to fill-up. Clearly one's better than the other. One has a tiger, one is used by Ferrari…

  • If people are sold, they will usually buy the higher priced item with more options included.

    Look at cars, there's always a sale person, the vast majority of the customers don't like the sale process, but it works. Saturn and their fixed price went out of business.

    Look at big screen TVs, even at Best Buy where the sales people are not commission, they sell the larger TV with the extra insurance…

Photography by professional photographers is a luxury. “Everybody” has a small camera in the form of a point and shoot or of a smart phone. “Everybody” knows an uncle Harry that just bought a brand new Nikon. That's a camera that take great photos. “Every company” has an Harry in accounting who just bought the latest Canon. Those are cameras that take outstanding photos. Harry will take the photos on Sunday afternoon and have everything delivered on Monday by lunch time.

There are some other industries that are in the same boat or even worth. Take a look at the watch industry, it ranges from the $10 watch to the $10,000 and more watch. They all tell you the same time. A 4:53pm is the same time on a $10 watch or on a $5,000 watch.

  • The real expensive watches are the least accurate watches. Rolex only makes mechanical watches that are so much less accurate than the cheapest $10 digital watch.
  • You can buy the cheap watch on the Internet, but Rolex, Patek Philip… do everything that they can to not sell their watches on the Internet. They have big, expensive website but no sales.
  • To buy the expensive watches, you have to go to a jeweller.

Back to the photography:

In today's world, you do not sell prints, you sell memories (weddings, portraits…), you sell hope (advertising, commercial…), you sell peace of mind (guarantees, liability insurance…) And this has nothing to do with being the cheapest.