25 min. long....
I will get back to you on this...
*UPDATE* I watched.
Ok first off it was better than I thought. So good in fact that I took notes.
I agree that cameras are cheap and that pretty much anyone with half a brain can be a \"photographer\". This has been happening for a while now and is on an incline because of the amount of cheap technology that is really good.
How do we differentiate ourselves...how do we sell a commodity that is so easy to produce?
I agree that we have to be different. Taking good pictures is not enough. On the rare occasion a person will have such a different \"style\" that just taking those types of pictures works. But for the 99.9% of the rest of the people the quality of the picture alone is not good enough.
*We need to be selling someone (even an idea) besides just good pictures to make ourselves stand out. This IMO will be different for different people and depends a lot on our personality. This also is what will help the industry because we are not all going to be selling the same different thing. It will be individual because we are all different.
Could be the story, could be rock star treatment, could be way we use social networking to make people \"famous\". Any way we slice it we have to be different.
*We have to put on the over the top show.
Lady Gaga is my best example..she is over the top. I will leave it up to everyone to interpret for themselves why her \"brand\" sells but IMO it is pure genius and is making her a ton of money.
*Selling out.
A large portion of what he was talking about was along on the lines of basically selling out. Giving things away for free.
He has good points. If we don\'t do it someone else will.
So is doing a little bit for free to make more in the long run worth it....? Maybe, and I would think that when the bills come in and you need to put food on the table all rules go out the door.
If I gave away a few photoshoots for free just to spread images and my name in order to set myself up for more lucrative business down the road would that be bad...would I be a sellout, not worthy? Hard to say. I am sure people would agree both ways and truthfully I am not sure what I would do.
Example: I do not do much besides weddings. I want to get into maternity and infant documentary photography. My prices are high therefore no one that I know books because they just don\'t have the funds. I am confident what I to provide is unique enough, and people DO want it I know, but when the money is not there it is not there. It is hard to convince people to buy something when they cannot see the final product. So do I do a few for free and chalk it up to advertising...? Seth says hell ya.
He said \"Their might not be pay to make the first one, but their will be pay to make the rest...\"
This will be a hotly debated topic I think.
He also said that if we take average pics for average clients to just save ourselves the agony and stop. I agree only in the sense that we need to have a plan to move past the ordinary and set ourselves apart.
With the technological world we live in we have unlimited resources and also unlimited competition now.
We cannot be average, we cannot be just another person with a camera that understands f-stops and how to look for Rembrandt lighting. IMO we need to be different. Being unique and different and selling something that is not just good pictures might set us apart. That something really could be anything and is largely dependent on the personality of the photographer. And I *might* set us apart because quite frankly it is a crap shoot. You might make it you might not. No guarantees just because you are different.
All of he said was interesting to think about and he had a lot of valid points. Not saying I agree or disagree with it all but it was good food for thought.
\"We don\'t have a right to be paid money, we have to earn the money\" Freaking great quote.
IMO just the fact that we can take nice pictures is not enough. No one owes us anything for that. We have to be able to provide something truly extraordinary for clients in order for them to want to pay us what WE think we deserve.
If people actually take the time to watch the video and digest the content we should have a pretty interesting discussion on our hands.
