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Archive 2012 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildin...

KaaX
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p.2 #1 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

millsart wrote:
I'm all for following dreams, yet at the same time think its important to be realistic.

I completely agree -- see my post above mentioning marketable skills. My point is just that IF you believe you have marketable photography skills (which roughly means people are willing to pay you lots of money for your images), then all the talk about how professional photography is a wasting dead end job doesn't mean much.

Generic advice applies only to generic people.

millsart wrote:
Nothing wrong with having that dream, but you probably should take that cushy sales position your brother in law in hooking you up with, pull down a nice salary, have a wife and kids in the suburbs and live a pretty good life. Its not the exact dream but for many its a pretty good overall substitute.

On the one hand, you have a valid point.

On the other hand, this :-) (not really safe for work, and not in the porn sense :-P)

millsart wrote:
There simply is no one path in life anyone has to follow. Sometimes you take the wrong turn and have to backtrack, other times the path less traveled turns out to be the best choice you've ever made, and sometimes, the easy and direct well labeled route gets you where you really want to go.

Yep. The problem is, you don't know beforehand, now do you? :-)

May 14, 2012 at 01:18 PM

douglasf13
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p.2 #2 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

I hear you, millsart. I moved out to L.A. from Indiana in my early 20s, went to the Musician's Institute, and played guitar in local bands for my entire 20s making very little money. I had also been shooting part time, and made a little more money doing that, but not enough to live on, so I still had a 9-5 office job to make ends meet. At one point in my late 20s, I was working a 9 to 5, playing guitar at nights, shooting my own jobs in my own little studio AND assisting for a well known photographer for free on the weekends.

When was around 31, I interviewed to be a free assistant for Michael Grecco, got the "job," and then I thought long and hard about it with my fianc� at the time and decided to turn it down. I had been assisting for free for other well known photographers, but this job was different, because I would have had to give up my day job for a job that paid me nothing, and, despite the doors that could have opened, I'd had enough, and the grind finally caught up to me. That was kind of my crossroads with art.

Oddly enough, that 9-5 job that I'd had for so many years starting being mismanaged by the owners, and it became a sinking ship. However, since I'd stuck it out with that company for so many years, I'd learned just about every aspect of that business, and I left right before it went belly up. I ended up starting my own business in the same vein, so now, at 35, I own and run a business in the television industry and doing fine now. Go figure!

I think my biggest hangup in trying to make money with art is that I have a hard time being overly self promotional with my own work, be it music or photography. It's strange. I don't have an issue with that in my current business, but there's something about art being so personal that I always had a hard time talking people's ears off about it, and that is a trait that is very useful when pursuing an art...especially out here in Hollywood.

May 14, 2012 at 01:51 PM

Coltrane
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p.2 #3 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

great post Douglas!

May 14, 2012 at 02:10 PM

15Bit
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p.2 #4 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

rscheffler wrote:
Photography has steadily become a mass commodity. The more the technology improves and allows basic competency to be achieved by the masses, the less value there will be in most images.

Precisely.

For a significant section of the industry it's not about "good" or even "great", its about "good enough", and most normal folk with a digital camera can do that now. Professional photography is a shrinking industry, possibly a dying one in many areas. Crowdsourcing feeds the news, parents do their own kid's portraits (or have a friend do them), and i even know one couple who for their wedding just had everyone attending send them the photos they took. That latter worked really well too.

Progress does not come without victims, and just as automation killed off manual labour in both farming and factories, cheap and ubiquitous digital imaging is killing professional photography. We can argue back and forth about whether it is right or wrong, but it is happening, and if i were a professional photographer i would now be seriously looking for a new career. I can't see any "adapt and survive" option for most in the industry when the majority of "customers" are more than happy with pics from their cell phones, and those that aren't can pick up a DSLR with lenses for a thousand dollars.

May 14, 2012 at 05:14 PM

anthonygh
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p.2 #5 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

Forget gear.....think talent.

I was looking at a quality portfolio in a UK photo mag last week......the images were taken with a 35mm film camera (something instantly forgettable and quite ancient) and developed/printed in a home darkroom.

They were B+W images but I was green with envy.....

May 14, 2012 at 06:40 PM

dasrocket
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p.2 #6 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

HopeIsEternal wrote"

"...Does anyone know the process used by building managers, architects, interior designers etc.. to select photographic artwork to hang in buildings? What kind of prices do these photographs go for and are the photographs and the prices justified more by the cachet of the artist's name than by the content?..."

From an Architect's and interior designer's perspective, we pick photos to complement the space we are designing; for the most part, B&W photos are the majority...
...Exceptions would be photos put up in mid and low class International chain hotels, and fast food and QSR (Quick Service Restaurants).

Oh and since they are printed materials, they are almost exclusively printed stock, not limited items, with usually a very low pricepoint..

May 14, 2012 at 09:20 PM

HopeIsEternal
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p.2 #7 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

Thanks dasrocket for the first-hand information. Are you free to give an idea of what the ballpark price would be for the typical stock B/W art used?

dasrocket wrote:
HopeIsEternal wrote"

"...Does anyone know the process used by building managers, architects, interior designers etc.. to select photographic artwork to hang in buildings? What kind of prices do these photographs go for and are the photographs and the prices justified more by the cachet of the artist's name than by the content?..."

From an Architect's and interior designer's perspective, we pick photos to complement the space we are designing; for the most part, B&W photos are the majority...
...Exceptions would be photos put up in mid and low class International chain hotels, and fast food and QSR (Quick Service Restaurants).

Oh and since they...Show more →

May 14, 2012 at 10:33 PM

dasrocket
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p.2 #8 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

The best coin when we speck photography comes from hotels, where an image may be used 100-200 times, depending the hotel size. Each usually printed and framed at 18"x24" usually comes to $50-$75 each.
One-off large prints, say 30"x40" plus for special areas like lobbies and banquet /meeting facilities can run up to $1,500-$4,500 professionally mounted and framed.

There was a time when we'd commission a shoot specifically for a property, but these days there is so much photography available online that we go to the big stock sites and speck them from there. Then have the image(s) downloaded to a local framer to prepare the order.

May 14, 2012 at 10:51 PM

RustyBug
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p.2 #9 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

New hospital being built ran an article in some trade magazines to solicit contributions and also solicited local university students for submissions. They have amassed their imagery for free (sort of) ... in concert with the design house selections and local framer. So, the design house gets paid $$$ to pick out the images and provide the prints, the framer gets paid $$$ to frame them, the contributing photographers get their name in a book.

The design house already had a photographer lined up for "commission work" for the "select" few larger images.

Not much help, but just some reality that exists to be aware of. I could have supplied them with superior imagery, but when they can get adequate imagery for free, mine was still only worth "free" to them. I'll be curious to see what they came up with when they open this fall.

May 14, 2012 at 11:32 PM

millsart
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p.2 #10 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

Sometimes that free student work is frustratingly good too. Work for credit is never a good thing IMHO, even if its really poor stuff that only acceptable because the price is right, ie; free. When its actually really good work that you know clients would otherwise pay for though, that's the worst. It sucks for the photographer who got sucker out of getting paid because they didn't know better and it sucks for the industry as a whole because even trying to compete with free crap is a battle at times, but man, if its good quality stuff AND its being given away....that just sets a bad precedent.

May 14, 2012 at 11:38 PM

RustyBug
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p.2 #11 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

Yup ... I didn't play. It'll probably "sting" to see what they wound up using ... especially if they've found images better than mine that someone is giving their stuff away for free.

May 15, 2012 at 01:02 AM

thrice
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p.2 #12 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

I sell pictures from time to time, all landscape and almost all captured on the 5D mkII (21 Megapixel) Leica M9 (18 Megapixel) and 4x5" film (~100 Megapixel) and use the best glass money can buy.

Also get paid (properly) to shoot events for BMW, insurance agencies and private venues occasionally, these I shoot on the M9. I used to shoot real estate professionally on a Canon 500D.

I am probably not who you want to hear from

that being said, I could do everything (except the landscape shooting) on pretty much any DSLR.

May 15, 2012 at 04:03 AM

RCicala
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p.2 #13 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

telyt wrote:
If you want to make money in photography, don't make photos. Make tools and supplies for photographers.

No question about the truth of this. George Eastman made more money in a day than Ansel Adams in a lifetime.

On the other hand Kodak is now an afterthought and Ansel Adam's work is more valuable and appreciated than ever.

May 15, 2012 at 06:03 AM

dasrocket
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p.2 #14 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

Being a Designer and having a photographic background, I also cringe sometimes in the overall process. Having said that, unlike a gallery, in our field photos are part of a larger picture (punn intended) and are not necessarily picked on their own merit alone, but on how they interact with the space /venue /function /purpose. They take the same role as illustration, which becomes a different entity than fine art.

I'd say the large online "walmarts" of stock photography have made the most pronounced difference in how we spec imagery for our work.

RustyBug wrote:
New hospital being built ran an article in some trade magazines to solicit contributions and also solicited local university students for submissions. They have amassed their imagery for free (sort of) ... in concert with the design house selections and local framer. So, the design house gets paid $$$ to pick out the images and provide the prints, the framer gets paid $$$ to frame them, the contributing photographers get their name in a book.

The design house already had a photographer lined up for "commission work" for the "select" few larger images.

Not much help, but just some reality that exists...Show more →

May 15, 2012 at 08:45 AM

telyt
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p.2 #15 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

Ansel Adams advised aspiring photographers to get a job in a shoe store.

May 15, 2012 at 08:46 AM

FlyPenFly
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p.2 #16 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

It seems in all creative fields, be it painting, design, music, photography, or dance... only the top 2% really make money relative to their effort.

May 15, 2012 at 08:58 AM

KaaX
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p.2 #17 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-fastest-dying-jobs-of-this-generation-and-what-replaced-them/257154/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-shutterstock-made-120-million-last-year-selling-photos-on-the-internet/257172/

:-)

May 15, 2012 at 10:24 AM

millsart
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p.2 #18 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

RCicala wrote:
No question about the truth of this. George Eastman made more money in a day than Ansel Adams in a lifetime.

On the other hand Kodak is now an afterthought and Ansel Adam's work is more valuable and appreciated than ever.

All very true, however its also true that 99.9% of Ansel Adam's admirers have what are basically high quality posters they ordered from places like art.com of his work rather than displaying a true original.

When it comes to paintings, not that many would be happy with just a poster print, but when it comes to photography, the public largely doesn't care, nor actually thinks of photography as true "art"

May 15, 2012 at 10:25 AM

rscheffler
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p.2 #19 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

RustyBug wrote:
New hospital being built ran an article in some trade magazines to solicit contributions and also solicited local university students for submissions. They have amassed their imagery for free (sort of) ... in concert with the design house selections and local framer. So, the design house gets paid $$$ to pick out the images and provide the prints, the framer gets paid $$$ to frame them, the contributing photographers get their name in a book.

The design house already had a photographer lined up for "commission work" for the "select" few larger images.

Not much help, but just some reality that exists...Show more →

Someone in the city's administration went trolling through the locally themed Flickr groups on several occasions soliciting photography for use in promotional materials for credit only. Naturally there were plenty of group members wanting to contribute, some of them justifying it as keeping property taxes in check. BTW, our city is a corporation with an annual budget of $1b. At least on Flickr there is the opportunity to debate the merits of such 'proposals' with other group members. Emails to councillors were effective in pointing out photographers deserve to be paid for their work. But it's likely the search for free photos continued with a less visible approach.

Also related to the city, one of the departments contacted me about using my War of 1812 reenactment photos to promote the 200th anniversary starting this year. They wanted images for very broad and loosely defined use in print, web and TV. I proposed a licensing option at a very reasonable price, knowing they would likely balk if 'too high' but balk they did anyway, and probably moved on to the next Flickr member. The email responses are almost humorous in some respects, in that one can detect they took personal offense to the licensing terms and costs.

Our port authority (we're one of the largest cargo ports on the Great Lakes) is celebrating its 100th anniversary and is running a photo contest to coincide with it. As you can probably guess without my explanation, in the contest rules and regulations is the inevitable clause: All photographs submitted become the property of the xxxx, along with another stipulation that submissions be at least 2000 pixels long. So they're obviously looking for free print rez files to nicely add to their existing image archive. Nothing new with this as most photo contests have very similar entry requirements.

dasrocket wrote:
The best coin when we speck photography comes from hotels, where an image may be used 100-200 times, depending the hotel size. Each usually printed and framed at 18"x24" usually comes to $50-$75 each.
One-off large prints, say 30"x40" plus for special areas like lobbies and banquet /meeting facilities can run up to $1,500-$4,500 professionally mounted and framed.

There was a time when we'd commission a shoot specifically for a property, but these days there is so much photography available online that we go to the big stock sites and speck them from there. Then have the image(s) downloaded to a local...Show more →

So in other words, the printing/framing comprises the majority of the cost. Interestingly, Costco is doing something very similar, where you can select stock imagery for free from their catalog and have it printed and/or framed at their regular printing and framing prices. IMO there is something wrong when the printer/framer makes more money than the photographer. Maybe I'm biased

but it's just one more example of the commoditization of photography.

May 15, 2012 at 10:41 AM

RustyBug
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p.2 #20 · "Professional" Photographers , sold artwork hanging in buildings and Nikon D800E

dasrocket wrote:
, in our field photos are part of a larger picture (punn intended) and are not necessarily picked on their own merit alone, but on how they interact with the space /venue /function /purpose. They take the same role as illustration, which becomes a different entity than fine art.

Understood ... the hospital was calling for peaceful, calming "nature vibe" imagery. I met with them and they would only consider images if you uploaded them (one at a time via individual email), which included release for free usage ... despite lauding the work I brought to them for review ... it was upload or nothing.

I'm sitting on thousands of such images right here in town that they could have worked with a dedicated photographer to the subject and project ... instead, the charter was through solicitation of free contributions. The local framer working on the project has even asked for my advice on matters at various times. My work has been displayed in the local museum and lauded by the Chamber of Commerce. Even so, unless I was willing to give my work away for free, the hospital wasn't interested ... the allure of "free" pictures is a powerful thing.

Suffice to say ... I understand the OP's question and have felt the dismay of such, both recently and decades ago. Talent vs. $$$ ... the talent is only important in business as to how it impacts the $$$. For much of business, $$$ trumps talent ... hence the 90/10 & amateur images vs. pro images.

Edited on May 15, 2012 at 11:10 AM · View previous versions

May 15, 2012 at 10:53 AM

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