Just a question. Not trying to step on toes or start a fight. I'm just seeing more and more people who are fine with o.k. photography. Things that beginners shoot, or that their friend shot of them. Does anyone else see this trend, or am I overanalyzing? I hope it isn't the case.
I guess it could be sub-categorized into Weddings, Commercial, Portrait, but what are your thoughts?
For cheap weddings the "trend" has always been saving money. Uncle Bob is OK.
Except for the down and dirty easy stuff like the kind you can shoot in your cubicle, commercial photography requires training, experience, space, and equipment.
Portraits? Depends on who's requesting the portrait. A picture of your neighbor?.... no problem. A movie star, or someone who is featured in some magazine? ... don't bother... you aren't getting the job.
People have always been fine with o.k. photos. There's nothing going on now that hasn't been going on for years. Yeah there's more uncle Bobs due to digital, but there always have been "hobbyists" doing weddings and what not, even back in the day. Schlock photography is nothing new. Very, very few make big money, even among the famous. Research Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eugene Atget.......
I've read about the old wet plate photographers complaining that no one would ever make a career out of photography when flexible film came out, since everyone would be able to take pictures. That was circa 1890.
dirb9 wrote:
I've read about the old wet plate photographers complaining that no one would ever make a career out of photography when flexible film came out, since everyone would be able to take pictures. That was circa 1890.
There is no correct answer to this question because there are so many qualifiers.
It all depends on where you live.
There will always be demand for "professional" photographers who do contract work for big companies in places like NY, SF, CHI, DC, ATL, LA, etc. However there is very fierce competition which drives the bottom line down.
Likewise, places like Florida, California, Texas, etc where people actually WANT to live and can live comfortably year round, prices/salaries will be relatively low because of this as well.
I think the days of people living comfortably just on photographer wages are over except for a select few.
Less simple, technology and cheap business practices will likely dry up some of the demand, but there will always be demand. Like dirb9 noted there is always some tech advance that will bring out the doomsayers, but their Nostradamii senses are mostly hype.
Hell I hope so. I would like to try to focus my career in the direction of pro photog. 14 years in IT gets to be a bit tiring at times.
troy12n wrote:
places like Florida, California, Texas, etc where people actually WANT to live and can live comfortably year round
Yes, because I love walking outside in July and have it be 100 degrees outside. You can most certainly count me off the list of people that WANT to live in Florida, California, or Texas. I have spent plenty of time in all three and I have never been impressed.
troy, look at any weather data and you'll see that winters in Colorado are actually tamer than many on the East coast and especially in the Northern portion of the U.S.
In fact, nearly every month of the year in KS is cooler than CO with more snow than CO.
IMO it isn't a viable career now, let alone in 10 years. photography is something anyone can do and can be very good at with very little work and great gear is easily available and sold in large amounts. all of those factors add up to a huge potential market of competition and therefor makes it an unviable career if you want money, having as a hobby on the side or semi-pro is still a possibility. go on some photo hosting websites like flickr and you can see, when 4000-5000 images are uploaded a second and a selection of photos so deep are so good in many areas, it's easy to see that if many of those people wanted to be pro's they could. the market is already flooded in most aspects with photographers, all around- wedding, portrait, sports, wildlife, everything.
ontime wrote:
There are millions of restaurants out there... so starting a new one won't work.
restaurants provide a service- food, and many many many are not successful. photography is essentially art and the sale of art which is a creative aspect on something. photography is also much easier to master than painting, sculpting, acting etc and like i said can be done by anyone with little or no "talent or eye", there is a reason that the expression "starving artists" exists. my 0.02.
