I agree.
I often say that the profession of photography, as it used to be, is dead, it just refuse to lie down (and I get hammered for saying that).
Seems like everyone making a good living where the camera is a tool has to expand their views and ways a bit.
You take photo stories, and publish a book. The book makes the money, the photos are just the platform.
You travel to destinations, maybe exotic, and sell travel stories in pictures.
You take photos and use them as a base for graphics work (commercials for instance)
You get hired to take pictures (wedding for instance) and you get paid for your work, but not for the photos.
News photography and sport photography, events in other words.
You team up with a good writer, you do the pictures, he do the text.
Documentaries.
Much of the shrinking market of just selling photos are already hijacked by us who has been around for a long time, and it is very difficult to get into this shrinking market as a newbie.
Just my thoughts.
On 31-Mar-2011 4:04 AM, Pete Jenkins wrote:
New member wrote: (incidentally might be nice to sign your posts so we all know who we are talking to :-) )"found myself getting discouraged by local professional phtographers who have told me that you basically have to sell off everything you own to make it in photography"Photography as a profession has taken a huge beating over the past fifteen years or so, and many of us who are very experienced and successful have found that things ain't what they used to be. Whilst your local professionals may have been exaggerating slightly, they were probably trying to do you a favour. Photography is now one of the hardest jobs to make work, and the rewards are not good for most practitioners these days."I would love to learn more about the stock photo sales, and welcome any and all feedback on some of my photos."The Ashley Nicole picture is very nice but where exactly do you expect such an image to sell. Who do you think would be wanting this as a stock image? These are the questions you have to ask yourself before you press the shutter on every shot.In my experience it is (for example) a very nice arty type shot, but would not sell well editorially because of the sepia filtering. best not to 'mess' with images if you want to sell stock successfully. Most publishing houses employ designers who live for tweaking pictures and they get uppity if they feel that the photographer is trying to do their job for them. And what if this is not actually the effect that the client needs?Vibrant Mum is interesting and looks competently shot BUT... As a stock shot many clients will want to see all of the flower. Clients can easily crop a shot, but it is not possible for them to pull further away. Best to provide them more of an image like this and allow the client to crop if needed. (IMHO)Clover - Macro.Clients looking for such material will be searching for specifics, and this will mean you have to have the Latin name and know exactly what you are shooting.etc etc.A good start, now you need to go away and do it all again, thinking:Why am I taking this image?Who will want to buy this image?Why will they want to use this image (as opposed to someone else's)?Why is this image better?With so many people all producing so much imagery today if you are going to take stock pictures they have to be different to what is already available, and better than what is already available to make them stand out and make them saleable, otherwise they just sink into the huge reservoir of imagery produced every single day.Kind regardsPete Jenkins
www.petejenkins.co.uk
www.onlinepictureproof.com/petejenkins
www.photographerspro.eu/pete_jenkins/
www.petejenkinsphotothoughts.blogspot.com/Member of: The National Union of Journalists
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