Competition

How to deal with other photographers that compete with you

I Copy Everything

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 23. January 2012 - 6:33

The photography business is all about copying what the other does. The current “fad” is HDR. In the “good old days”, every landscape was taken with 2 to 3 color polarizer. Now, all the weddings are “documentary style”… Photographers often get a friend or a family member to call their competition and ask for the prices… then copy it almost exactly.

The best that happened to me was: when people shoot from over my shoulder, literally, which not too difficult since I'm often on my knees. The worst was just a week ago, when a “turkey” instead of going behind me, just went straight in front when I had to shame him to get him to move. There are magazines, conferences… that show you how copy other successful photographers.

What the duck has captured it very well, except the most important, what makes me unique and that nobody can copy.

I Copy EverythingThe photography business is all about copying what the other does. The current “fad” is HDR. In the good old days, every landscape was taken with 2 to 3 color polarizer. Now, all the weddings are documentary style… Photographers often get a friend or a family member to call their competition and ask for the prices… then copy it almost exactly.The best that happened to me was: when people shoot from over my shoulder, literally which not too difficult since I'm often on my knees.What the duck from www.whattheduck.net has captured it very well, except the most important, that makes me unique and nobody can copy.My name lists. My name lists with an “S”. I have a list of:* Prospects* Occasional customers* Regular customersI just spent the last month updating, refining my lists. Even if you got hold of my lists, it wouldn't help you, it's me that they know, they receive my mail (yes, I still use a lot of first class mail.)what-the-duck-getting-new-customers.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Kodak: the Debacle and the BS

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 20. January 2012 - 6:20

By now, you must have heard that Kodak has filed for bankruptcy. All the noise from the web is that Kodak is a bankrupt company because, although they invented many of the digital technology, they were not nimble enough… Those are mostly people that repeat what everybody else copied from the web. The problem is that these people don't have a “long enough” memory. Kodak's problems started long, long before the digital area.

What The Duck has this great cartoon about “Kodak's death”

Kodak filing for bankruptcy Kodak filing for bankruptcy according to What The Duck of www.whattheduck.netwhat-the-duck-kodak.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Here are the 3 main events that caused “Kodak's death”:

How to Specialize

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 3. November 2011 - 5:33

With some many photographers, everybody screams at the top of their lungs that you should specialize. Notice that this is often coming from a generalist that specializes in pressing the shutter button.

Here's a guy that takes specializing to the nth degree: Martin Waugh of Liquid Sculpture. He lives in Oregon and makes a very good living making photos of water/liquid drop. Very nice, very profitable.

If you are looking for water drop photos or videos, he's your man.

Customer Requesting All RAW Files

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 25. October 2011 - 17:39

I've had this customer for a few years. Peter used to phone, but over the last couple of years, it's been all via email. The jobs were not big, half a day here, a day there… Last spring he told me that he was leaving. I took him out for coffee and a nice cake.

Last month, September, I got a request from Hank, who took over Peter's job, to photograph…

$149 Wedding

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 23. October 2011 - 19:10

The problem with a race to the bottom is that you might win

— Famous saying that too many people attributed to themselves

Wedding Photos: $149* Up to 2 hours* Up to 2 Gb of photos, if you want to buy more…* JPEGs only, ready for pickup on a DVD*

Wedding Photos: $149   click on image for gallery

The Next Wave for Photography

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 5. October 2011 - 5:27

I was in Seattle at the Pike Street Market. It's a tourist magnet, hundreds and hundreds of tourists, including me. Here's the next wave for photography.

The Next Wave for Photography I was in Seattle at the Pike Street Market. It's a tourist magnet, hundreds and hundreds of tourists, including me. Here's the next wave for photography.He's using a iPhone 4 for making a small movie. He's using an app that also take some photos with the “mini-movie”. He had a team with him, a producer/script manager, a photographer and an assistant. He's from Brazil (he smokes!) They spent most of the morning making mini movies.At the Pike Street Market, half of the people used a small point and shoot, a third of the people used their smart phones (more on that later) and the rest of the people had lower-end dSLRs like Canon Rebels and Nikon D3000/D5000. I saw only one Leica M9 and a couple of Nikon D3s.This is very good news for professional photographers. It's very easy to see the difference between a “real” camera and a smart phone even at 8 megapixels like the new iPhone 4s. Also, it's much more difficult to make the transition from a smart phone to a “real” camera.seattle-20111002-5576.jpg — Copyright © 2009 Syv Ritch: http://http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

The Next Wave of Photographers   click on image for gallery

Sony NEX-5N

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 31. August 2011 - 6:07

The Sony NEX-5n is one of the new mirrorless cameras from Sony. I was able to play with it for about 15 minutes! Yeap, that's ¼ of an hour. I'm not allowed to show the photos, “he” kept the sd card. I wasn't really allowed to try it, but some Starbucks, some “slick” talking and I spend 15 minutes with it.

The camera is nice, the focus is fast, almost as fast as a regular dSLR. It's not as fast as a Canon 7D but it's still darn fast. It feels lot faster than a Canon T3i or a Nikon 3100. The images on the back of camera looked very good, but it was JPEGs.

The Incompetents

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 19. July 2011 - 16:24

The standard line is that the Internet is killing “old media.” Almost every idiot argues that Google by showing the title and 1 and ¾ line of the start of the article with a link is infringing their copyright and killing their business.

It all started by the AFP, the Agence France Press, who didn't want Google to link to their news without Google paying for the privilege of linking to their websites.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. July 2011 - 8:32

In its post of the 8-Jul-2011, PetaPixel reported that CNBC has declared the end of the point and shoot cameras. This has been reported many times by many business analysts.

Point and shoot camera sales are down, significantly. The top 2 point and shoot camera manufacturers are:

  1. Canon
  2. Sony

And they represent 65% of the worldwide market. This year, Canon has introduced only 1 new camera, and Sony only 2 new cameras.

The Fools: Jay Maisel vs Andy Baio

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 3. July 2011 - 14:08

In the last week of June 2011, Thomas Hawk wrote an article about the copyright lawsuit between Jay Maisel and Andy Baio. It was the first time I heard about it. Thomas Hawk took the point of view that Jay Maisel's lawyers “extorted” $32,500 from Andy Baio and he could do it because Jay had deeper pockets and bigger lawyers than Andy's.

132 comments later:

  1. Most of the comments were in favor of Jay Maisel
  2. The comments became a discussion between a ½ dozen people

Should I Accept To Do My First Wedding?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 15. June 2011 - 16:18

I have been asked to do a wedding. I have ranted and raved about never doing weddings. It's not my cup of tea. Here are some the dozens posts of my swearing that I will never do weddings: http://www.foto-biz.com/search/node/wedding

I will get paid a big fat 0, zero, zip, nada, zilch, nothing. I already hear the screams:

  • He doesn't know what he's doing
  • He's stealing the job of real wedding photographers
  • He's devaluating the profession

Now may be you need the information:

  • Who? 2 people that are penniless.

I Am A Purist

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. June 2011 - 23:50

The other day, I met this photographer who shall remain anonymous because… He makes very nice black and white panoramic landscapes and he makes a good living selling the prints. Within 2 minutes of our conversation:

I am a purist, I only use black and white films. When I take the photo, that's it, that's how it's printed.

So, I asked him a few questions:

The Pirates

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 3. May 2011 - 20:06

Producing a foto-biz.com post is hard. It takes imagination, time and hard work. It takes me usually an hour to an hour and half every daily. It's tough:

  1. What to write about?
  2. What's the material? Research and verify.
  3. Write the post.
  4. Post the post.
  5. And finally publish the post.

I get ideas from everywhere, I have a text file that is 28,560 lines long of text and ideas with most of them half baked or not baked at all. I do follow a few websites. And that's where the pirates comes in.

$15,000 Promo

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. May 2011 - 15:05

The competition is so fierce that art directors and editors receive daily emails, postcards, business cards by the hundreds. Art directors, editors… need to discover new photographers but they still have work to do. So the hundreds and hundreds of emails, cards… mostly end up in the spam folder, in the physical garbage, in the…

Some photographers manage to cut through the wall of indifference, the garbage… Casey Templeton did. He sent 300 promo pieces and at least 30 have replied! A 10+% is huge! It's a fantastic success.

Turning Pro: The Experiment

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. March 2011 - 20:42

Ever thought of become a professional photographer, earning a living from photography? The “Dreaming of Turning Pro” will tell everything you need to know to start. The difference between the “Dreaming of Turning Pro” and the other e-books is that the “Dreaming of Turning Pro” deals with:

  • How to start?
  • How to get your first customer?
  • Which equipment to choose? (Actually the choice has already been done for you)
  • Where to promote your website? (And no, it's not Google)
  • How to contact the buyers?
  • What are the secrets (hint: lot of hard work and no real shortcut)
  • …

Dreaming of Turning Pro, How to Earn a Living Being a Professional Photographer

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