Marketing your photography

[CLAdictic]

I started out in the 80's. I was developing a technique which seemed to me produced good images. I sent off samples to many publications without any results. Browsing a bookstore I found a book which talked about representatives. I pulled a name and address from the list, sent off some samples and waited. He wrote back that he was willing to take me on and represent my work. That was the beginning of my professional career. He specialized in the publishing trade, books, magazines. I was becoming an editorial photographer, and when I received my first check, along the invoice I was happy. My agent would send me want sheets from publishers, editors, looking for specific images. I also was building up a decent sized stock agency. I made money, but more important to me was the satisfaction when one or more images were published in textbooks. I had images in children's books, grammar school, high school, college and specialized texts. It always pleased me to know that for many years students would be looking at an image I made. Along the way I would also take an occasional assignment for a specific publisher.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

That kind of work has almost entirely died. Book publishers get stock photos from microstock sites for pennies; they don't have to pay photographers enough to love off their work anymore.

 

[gabrielelopez]

There's no space anymore for this kind of Job. It's just evolved in different directions.
Like many other jobs it just became different.

 

[Bolo Kukus]

The OP ended his (most informative and well-structured) personal narrative in the 1990s, when the going in the film photo image industries was still good and we all thought the good years would never end.

Roll on the new millenium and in a few years almost all stock photography markets were decimated. The killer knives in the industry came out about 2005 with the proliferation of inexpensive 'prosumer' digital cameras on the retail scene, and when art directors and photo editors realised there was a wealth of free or dirt cheap images available online for the taking.

Many of the stock image agencies sold out to the bottom-feed markets, shooting themselves in the foot but giving us all a bullet to the heart. Almost overnight the gravy tap was turned off for good.

I did well out of stock image sales in the '70s and '80s, selling to calendars, travel and specialist books, and column filler shots for mass magazines. By 2000 the stock industry had contracted, sales were way down and a few dedicated shooters I knew in Australia moved into small photo studios, selling camera gear, films, darkroom supplies and what they saw as a lucrative portrait-wedding-business market to.

I had three offers of partnership in what they saw a cash-cow business. At the time I was building my architectural practice, so I declined - wisely. In five years all had closed with massive overdrafts and personal losses, defeated by digital camera sales by city retail outlets to the amateurs who then used this cheap gear to, you guessed it, take home portraits, shoot weddings, and produce stock images, largely for free or almost no return other than a published credit.

Here in Oz we are seeing even the big retail photo shops closing, due to online sales and Covid. 21st century reality.

Time passes and things change. In my time I did okay in stock photography and then architecture. My design practice was battered by the GFC but we survived, and in 2012 I sold out, partly to retire but also as I saw a coming decline from oversupply of talent and lack of demand. Eight years later, last November, my ex-partner closed the by then greatly diminished agency.

What to make of this? Well, for me it was that as in all things in life, business-oriented photographers must stay on their toes and when the crunch hits, move sideways or out the door. The problem with the latter is we often don't see outcomes before they land in our laps - hindsight is NOT 20:20.

 

[charjohncarter]

(S)tay on (your/)their toes and when the crunch hits, be prepared to move either sideways or out the door entirely. The problem with the latter is we often don't see outcomes before they land in our laps - hindsight is NOT 20:20...

By luck, what the OP said happened to my industry too (nothing to do with photography). Somehow (and I don't think I'm really perceptive), I saw it and got out. That was in 2003 some of my friends in the same business are still working.

 

[Out to Lunch]

And change is occurring much faster than, let's say 10 years ago: 5G and AI will revolutionize the global economy and affect many societies.

 

[nzeeman]

i have friend in big weekly newspaper in serbia-lets say its serbian equivalent to time magazine. and even they are pretty "relaxed" about photography - they basically use anything they find online - not even wrote down where they took it... i was always telling them how that is copyrighted and its not fair but they see those photos as something totally secondary and just thing to fill page. so weird....

 

[AFenvy]

Before I graduated college in 2013 one of the photography instructors sternly warned me not to pursue a photography career under any circumstances. Given the state of the market and his perspective I can understand why, but I still didn’t follow his advice. I managed to find work doing commercial photography and online marketing. With full benefits and commission based pay I did better than many established professionals in town. After a few years I established a department of photographers and online salespeople and switched to a different career. I still do freelance work on the side but I enjoy photography more without it being my full time job. I still get job offers if I ever wanted to do online marketing photography again. While the industry is a shadow of its former self, there are still ways to make it work.

 

[nzeeman]

but also good photographer can easily find job in marketing agencies that do brand campaigns for billboards, banners and stuff. that cant be bought from stock photos.
one insight from client side - my wife works for a big company as a brand manager and she does a lot of commercials and similar stuff. she is also into photography and independent movies her whole life - two of us had independent film lab where small 8mm movies and photography was lroduced - so i can take her word as something objective. she says worst experience she had with photographers that came from instay world - they have pretty portfolios and they do lovely colors when they do oersonal stuff but when working for corporation they are really bad. they don't understand that product have to have constant colors always - you can make coca cola logo pinkish or heineken bottle yellowish. they just think they have to continue foing stuff as they do for their instagram-while more rigid oldschool photographers deliver constant colors and respond to requests and in general more precise. unfortunately many agencies are blinded by instagram output and they employ guys based on that instead educated ones. but sooner or later they will realize they get too much photographs returned to another rpund of editing and real ones will come back to work - but its needed to wait for it for some time....

 

[Bolo Kukus]

but also good photographer can easily find job in marketing agencies that do brand campaigns for billboards, banners and stuff. that cant be bought from stock photos.

"...easily find jobs in marketing agencies"? Whoa! I just a fast internet search and found 11 such agencies in Melbourne, so hey, that's 11 jobs, IF you can in the door and (more likely) you know someone at the top who will give you the the work. That's the reality of the 'career track', so-called, in photography today - too few jobs, too many applicants, many with dodgy credentials, fictitious CVs, little/no job experience. As an architect, I've seen this, and since I retired in 2012 it has got worse, not better.

The color consistency problem is one amateurs in the field often make. They have expensive gear and pretty CVs/portfolios (mostly pinched from online sources) but when it comes to producing the goods, they fail, that is if they turn up to the job in the first place. In my time shooters would contact to plug for work but were unable to produce a portfolio of RELEVANT work (so many pretty landscapes and nice flower shots), no web site, no ABN number, often no a business card. Many had MF cameras and insisted film put digital to shame. I knew better, so out they went to peddle their fantasies elsewhere.

AFenvy's post presents a more credible alternative to this scenario. The good'uns who know how to plan and prepare for the hurdy-gurdy of job hunting in the field, can do well - but one success story doesn't change the situation that photography today is a declining business in an oversaturated market made worse by internet freebies from amateur wannabees willing to do anything, give away their work for nyet, for ego-validation. I saw it in architecture before I retired from the field and I see it now, the cashed-up shooters with tens of thousands in new gear all wanting to play pro and desperate to be noticed.

The good times are gone. They won't be returning. A few sidelines still earn money, but not as they did in 2000. Compared to the end of the film era, today's stock photo markets have moved on and found new sources. That is the reality and we had all best get used to it.