“You can’t do that anymore. The market is full of photographers.”

“Nobody is making any money in this business.”

“Why the hell would anyone want to go into the professional photography now, all the clients have dried up.”

I know. We hear that all the time. Nothing new here – especially if you spend any time on Facebook, or the current “photography media” sites. And don’t even mention Photo.net forums… good God what is it with those people?

Now the interesting thing about these statements above is that they were said to me directly. To my face.

In 1978.

Surprised?

You shouldn’t be. The death of professional photography dates back to about the birth of professional photography.

In the early days of the turn of the century – last century – a small company in Rochester, NY had an idea. Put a camera into the hands of every day people and let them make a photograph. What held most people back was the alchemy of it all… needing to develop the film and print in a darkroom. Those things were luxuries only fit for the most astute craftsmen and professionals. The cameras were big, heavy and must be swung and tilted to create an image on the ground glass… very sophisticated you know.

So was born the Kodak “Brownie”. You take the picture and we do the rest… or something like that.

And the caterwalling of professionals began. The thought that just anyone could have a camera meant the end of professional photography. (Don’t believe me, look it up.)

“While it might seem like photography was universally liked, professional photographers were actually against seeing their art becoming popularized by amateurs. Supposedly paid photographers did not appreciate these “Kodak fiends” who became completely engrossed with taking weird and often out of focus shots.”
Read more >

It continued on through the invention of the smaller professional cameras (the end of photography as a profession).

It continued on through the introduction of the 35mm system cameras (the end of photography as a profession).

It continued on when the camera manufacturers put meters in the camera (the end of photography as a profession).

It continued on through the introduction of auto-focus (the end of photography as a profession).

And of course it is still in full swing with the introduction of inexpensive, pro level digital cameras (the end of photography as a profession).

To which I say, ahem, Bullshit!

I cannot speak for you, but I am simply tired of it. It is boring and sad.

Has the business changed? Hell yeah it’s changed.

Quick – tell me an art form or small business that has not changed in the last twenty years. (Except for government… no fair using those dolts.)

EVERYTHING has changed. Lawn care has changed. Dog grooming has changed. When is the last time you called a travel agent? How about typesetting? Printing?

Publishing… LOL.

See this is the thing… it is all changing, and that is both a challenge and an opportunity. Just depends on how you view it.

“A Pessimest makes difficulties of his opportunities and an Optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties”
— Harry Truman

Same situation seen by different people.

And it is not all their fault nor are they stupid or silly. They are caught in one of the oldest traps of mankind; the desire for things to stay the way they are and not to change beyond our comfort zones.

Wow – have they changed beyond a lot of folks comfort zones. And that causes angst and anger, regret and disappointment and it will build a tsunami of resentment and blame.

I call it “The Overwhelming Mystique of Negativity”. It is so much easier to be negative. It attracts more attention – especially these days when people are nearly begging to be victims. They want to be seen as a “survivor” in an attempt to feel like they are on Oprah’s couch spilling about the most aggrieved violations of their egos.

Notice posts online: Someone posts something positive, or something to share that is pretty cool and it gets from moderate to high hits depending on how good it is. Post something negative and the outpouring of whining and bitterness is nearly overwhelming. As though being negative was in itself a mystique and an element of being a photographer.

The toughest ones hit are the ‘old guys/gals’ who have been doing it a long time. They have set in their ways and are comfortable and along comes this digital thing and they can’t keep up and what the hell happened to film and OMG Lightroom will do WHAT with an underexposed POS capture?

And so they start with the resentment and the blame. They resent the new ways vehemently… “stupid twitter, stupid Facebook, stupid Instagram. I’ll never be caught dead with a blog? Screw Tumblr, it’s all just a fad.”

But it’s not a fad, it’s now and it’s real and they don’t want to change.

So out it comes…

“You can’t do that anymore. The market is full of photographers.”

“Nobody is making any money in this business.”

“Why the hell would anyone want to go into the professional photography now, all the clients have dried up.”

Sigh…

Look. There are clients out there. There are photographers doing well. There are new photographers in the market starting out who are making ends meet. That is how it has always been. I believe it takes between 7 – 10 years to hit your stride in this business. We start out working to pay the bills and putting a ton of money back into the business. It is NOT a quick start business.

We build traction, get more clients, make more money (invest back into the business and marketing) and so forth.

But now we have photographers complaining that they are not able to get gigs – after being in the business for 6 or 7 months. Meh… they aren’t in business, they are still trying to figure out what this business is all about.

Time to suck it up and understand some hard friggin facts, Jack.

This is one fkn hard business to be in. The bar is set way high… WAY HIGH! There has never been this much talent behind a lens ever… EVER.

So does that mean we give up? Do we just throw our hands up and whine about the ‘over saturated’ market or do we get real dirty workin’ real hard, and real smart. It isn’t always the best photographer, you know. Sometimes it is personality, perseverance, likability, consistent delivery, and a straight up approach that makes clients want to work with you.

Get some of that. Now.

Or give up. S’all good, and quite frankly maybe you weren’t really cut out for self employment in a devilishly difficult field with competition at every curve. Get a cushy desk job and bust your ass for a 401K and two weeks off. There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with that. It is noble work.

Far better than beating yourself into the ground over something that is kicking your butt. (BTW, I have written about the possibility that it may not be the business at all, and quite possibly could be something you are or are not doing… you may want to read it.)

Of course some people will try to cover for their inability to make it by blaming others. And there are so many others to blame it is a quite attractive  target.

There are nubes. The ones who are just having fun and taking photographs… the thought that they would ever want to charge someone something is malevolence incarnate. They will “undercut us”… oh heavens no. Blame them for our disintegrating business.

There are workshop teachers and educators. We all know they are all lousy photographers only wanting to make a buck off of delusional nubes. Never mind that there are some terrific workshop teachers out there, and really, where else would someone learn how to be a pro other than learning from a pro? (Yes there are some bad ones, but for the most part they are pretty darn good.) But what the hell, let’s blame them for the fact our business is not growing… and no, we aren’t marketing this year – too busy whining on FB to actually market, but it wouldn’t do any good anyway because workshop teachers!

And God forbid a photographer have an idea for a product that would help other photographers… that is pure moneygrubbing and should never be done by photographers who should ONLY PUSH BUTTONS AND MAKE PHOTOGRAPHS…  Where will the new products come from? Well, from new product engineers who went to college and stuff, and who never ever used a camera cause they make the best camera stuff, by golly.

It is so far off the reservation of rational thought that one cringes from the sheer lack of cognitive reasoning.

So they don’t market, make mediocre photographs, spend too much on gear and now they are gonna tell you that there is no business left and it is because of nubes like you that ruined an otherwise healthy (LOL) industry.

And you should quit and get a job at Walmart making videos of poor people for rich college kids to laugh at. (What? Someone makes those videos, right? Probably a nube video photographer undercutting the video market with them new fangled Youtoober things…)

Don’t.

Just don’t.

Make a stand. Learn your craft. Learn the business. Find a mentor and give it a hell of a shot.

Not a year, with intermittent marketing. Give it a full on killer shot with a lot of effort and spunk and gumption and guts. (Did I just write gumption? Sure… whatever.)

Tell the naysaying nabobs to tell it somewhere else and get after making YOUR dreams come true. Be smart about it of course, but NEVER let them set your boundaries. That is something reserved for YOU and YOU ALONE.

I will be changing up the newsletter in 2015 to discuss winners, and successful photographers, entrepreneurs, designers and artists who have bucked the bullshit and made big waves on their own. I will be using it for fodder for my next book; “Consider It Granted: Stop Seeking Permission from Those Who Will Never Give It For Reasons You Will Never Know”.

(You can sign up for that every Sunday jolt of positivity on the top right sidebar. No spam, not much selling, lots of links to positive and powerful stuff each issue. We call it “In the Frame”.)

That’s what we do, you know. We constantly seek permission. And we seek it from people who will never give it. We have no idea what their motivation is, but we listen anyway.

Sometimes their motivation is NOT IN OUR BEST INTERESTS, but in theirs.

If you succeed at photography and they failed… well, that simply can’t be allowed to happen so you never get permission from them. And some people simply do not want you to succeed at anything for a vast amount of reasons. Most you will never know, but most are not really about you anyway. They’re about them.

So stop seeking permission from naysayers, whiners, complainers and those who didn’t make it for whatever reason, and consider your permission granted – from YOU.

It’s OK…

Just do it.