This Is Fly – photography article
- This topic has 79 replies, 31 voices, and was last updated Oct 8, 2009 at 6:23 pm by
.
-
Posts
-
Interestingly- I have spent several hundred dollars on books- specifically technical/info loaded/reference
/bookmarks Tosh’s website 🙂
Personally, I think you and Zach are both right and this coming from someone just starting whos trying to keep my eyes open 🙂
Tosh I think your right about both “shooters” and editors burning out.
From the shooters perspective theres an initial rush when you get something accepted/sold.. that quickly turns to disillusionment when some hard realities set in.If you ]really want to make go of it, its work. Â For lot of people the novelty wears off when the fun becomes work, a lot of work for relatively little return. Some family say “you sold that for X”? and it sound nice, but they dont see the work that goes with getting that 1 sale. I suppose if I could do that every week a few times then maybe theres a living in it but………….:)
If your not ready for that, then keep it fun ( a hobby with a little gravy)
I’ve done very well this calendar year, couple covers, bunch of full page images, some half and quarter pages and Ive got more publications wanting me to submit to them.
I shoud/might show a small profit this year.
Need/want a particular shot of something? I drove 14 hrs for this, probably spent 150 to 200 getting it.
Hasn’t made me a dime yet 🙂Fly fishing specific?
I gave up any aspirations to that real fast. How many images of Browns/Bows on River abc do you really need? How many do your “clients” need? Ok, so you have a couple thousand images from your favorite fairly local river/species….Now what. How many articles can those images supplement? Travel every weekend for different locals, species? While I prefer fly fishing *personally*, if I want this to grow and get to a point where it supplements my *real job* there just isn’t enough demand for it.
Only so many publications, only so many issues/year each. Only so many articles, so many images per article (space and cost ) and only so many of those purchased from stock. Its a numers game on top of everything else.
harsh reality #2 Assignments
I’ve got one now, its for a fairly extensive feature article, that really I’d like 2 or 3 shoots in different locals to do it right. The AD was willing to go for two. I thought about it over a couple days and heres the simple truth.Providing weather and species co-operate during shoot #1 in local #1. If it/they don’t
Good points Zach..
I think the party for entry level photography as a paid full time profession is over for anyone who’s not very very good or very connected, and that should cut numbers of people doing it full time way down – maybe, in the long run that’s a good thing..
Simple market forces and another turning point in the industry.. 😉
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
good read this ..I think josh is right with one of his points about saturation of the market and the difficulties in editors etc finding good pics …Flicking through flicker, and other sites it is becoming apparent that there is a lot of dud images out there…when you see a good site and good images they really POP out and draw the eye if I was buying images I wouldn’t bother trying to buy sock but would employ the services of a good pro for a directed result … the standouts are easy to pick and the duds even easier …one could argue that while there is a saturation of duds the good pros will prosper …..
Over a year ago I started charging for my medical macro photographs. Â What an experience it has been. Â First lesson learned: medical device companies pay! Â Second lesson learned: they expect quality shots for the money! Â Third lesson learned: it is very thankless, demanding, challenging, unsexy work! Â During this time I have been incorporating the photographic macro techniques to fly tying. Â Final lesson learned: fly fishing industry doesn’t pay (at least not as well) and it is still a lot of work!
Greatest lesson learned: artistic directors and newly graduated marketing girls can be a tremendously difficult to work with, aagghh. They often require multiple revisions and even complete re-shoots which suck the life out of you.
Neal, thanks for not posting the medical stuff… ;D 😛
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Neal I would go so far as to say it starts with keeping track of what it cost to get your images, let alone hardware/office/sundries purchases and thats what I alluded to. If you end up spending hunreds of dollars (gas, hotels, fast food) to get images of ABC and you aren’t turning a small profit, its a road to insolvency. Its cost real money (and time) to go get images. Time that could be used getting images that sell. My sister is always pestering me to go to my neices Volleyball comps (beach now). Id like to, but I have to be blunt with her. Time spent doing that is time lost when I could be getting images that sell and thus pay for the gas I use to go get….and on and on.
The same person who gave me the advice of treating it like a business, also stressed the importance of trying to maximise my time, if I really want to find a measure of success.
Meaning: Its Thursday and im trying to decide what to do/shoot this weekend. My personal preference might be to go fishing for Carp..Not much of a market for Carp so while I may get a couple great images what Im not doing is getting images of something thats actually in demand.
Late October/early Nov:
I will want to fish for Migratories and maybe fall Musky.The Market for Whitetail bucks and Moose images trumps those by a country mile. So guess where the majority of my time (and expenditures) will be. If Im out getting Steelhead on any given Saturday……Im not getting those Buck images.
The difference between a hobby and business
My “seasons” are governed by whats going to be needed “next year” as its very much a seasonal business as well, and there are short windows to go get the images. No market for White tail bucks come January. By thenits Rabbits, and predators or hardwater fishing etc.
John & Neal, I’m going to come work for you guys… 😕
I just spent 2 long days shooting kids in the supermarket and a kitchen with various dairy products and I think I’m loosing my will to live..
My advice now to the new guys is going to be – learn to shoot everything and anything, be a jack of all trades with a camera,but most importantly, avoid kids and animals.. ;);Dwww.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
It could take someone like this to change the current situation where its mostly free on the net. Then again I’d hate to be negotiating image prices with him unless – I had a shot of Madonna cavorting with an alien…….
Maybe this is the beginning of something new……..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8186701.stm
Morsie
That’s a nasty picture of Rupert – thankyou very much Getty… 😉
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
As said by Rupert in that article:
“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting,” he said.
In order to stop readers from moving to the huge number of free news websites, Mr Murdoch said News Corp would simply make its content “better and differentiate it from other people”.
He may be onto something, here. He’ll probably get devoured by the Free Web Militia, but I hope he pulls it off.
What we all need to hope for is a day when people will readily pay for quality online content, which in turn SHOULD lead to quality pay for the content providers. At that point the free-zines will either have to ramp it up or fail.
GO RUPERT GO!
…I just spent 2 long days shooting kids in the supermarket and a kitchen with various dairy products and I think I’m loosing my will to live..
My advice now to the new guys is going to be – learn to shoot everything and anything, be a jack of all trades with a camera,but most importantly, avoid kids and animals.. ;);DI can relate. Photographed loads of kids for commercial gigs. It’s like herding cats.
Lol David.
You know I’d gladly be your assistant for 6 months.Rugrats and all 🙂As an aside my real estate agent, after seeing my framed covers at home is going to try to hook me up with the person they use for their home promo packages. Looking at the guys work………..he’s good, very good. According to my agent he’s swamped as he does the entire geo region by himself, cant keep up and could use an assistant to handle the modest homes.
Migtbe a steadier weekend gig if hes willing to ramp up my learning curve. From what little I know this stuff is fairly lucrative.
Back to the topic of earning a buck rather than spending 5.
Anyone notce that the “buyers” who have the hardest time parting with $$ is Johny Q public who wants prints or copies of digital files?
The old can I have a copy/print and when you explain why your askin for $$ ( paper and ink arent cheap, my time/expenses getting the image in question) you dont hear from them again.Ive had people ask for copies of *all* my images from a shoot.
🙂We had a raging debate on an other forum about having to pay to be a member, which didn’t go down to well with the members. The Internet is considered “free” for most people and paying anything is almost taboo.
However, I would quite happily pay for my online copies of a few magazines, AA springs to mind immediately, Catch is another.
But how much??? with the amount of readers that would use the online version, is $5 too little, but $10 is stretching it, well with my shocking exchange rate. I have no idea what you guys pay for a top publication, so I am just throwing it out there.
I would love to know if Brian O’Keeffe has paid his contributors for work presented in his excellent on-line publication? I know I would pay to subscribe…
No Brian doesn’t pay……..
Neal I’m not a technical guy, I think its just a matter of doing it better. I think we need to learn to better use all those other times of the day when the light isn’t perfect and to develop the eye for slightly quirky or even the almost cliched shot better.
Morsie
Saw this article today and it reminded me of the discussions on IA about the future of print media vs digital
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.