Where has all the business gone...

swintonphoto

Well, It is a sad time for me as a professional photographer. I have been in business for 8 years and have done very well over that time. However, I have noticed a steady decline in business in my area, as have many other professionals I know. With the development of affordable DSLRs that are quite capable, many people have bought such cameras and automatically qualified themselves as "professionals". They charge prices that won't even come close to pay my overhead, and the quality of the work is generally sub-par to be kind. My local bridal fairs and wedding websites are over-saturated with these photographers.
In my opinion the camera manufacturers have systematically dug the grave for full-time professional photographers. I have never believed that the camera made the photographer, but, the population in my area seems to think that.
I am not saying there will not be any in the future, but I am saying that many will no longer be able to make it doing photography alone. There are now WAY too many inexperienced DSLR owners calling themselves photographers that charge prices I can't even come close to and break even. All their friends and relatives hire them because after all, "they have a nice camera". For some reason in my area people make the following assumption:
Having the camera = quality professional work
I stand by my work, I have for years. It has always been what convinced everyone to hire me. I have been published in dozens of magazines and books all over the country, photographed a zillion weddings, and I have a college degree in photography. I have run a successful studio for years. Yet, depressingly this era seems to be coming to an end. Cheap, inexperienced wedding photographers are putting me and many of my fellow local professionals out of business. Not that one is systematically doing this, but hundreds of them have diluted the market too much. Everyone seems to be a "professional" now. I am not trying to slam people trying to be entrepreneurial, and I recognize I and the other experience professionals had to start somewhere. I just wish people still bought for quality rather than cheapness. They don't seem to see quality any more. I have people show me a pic that is underexposed, poorly composed, and out of focus - yet they say "don't you love this picture!". I think to myself "that one would have been deleted before anyone would associate me with that crummy work". Seems that the future of professional photography will be more and more poor work for prices that match. You get what you pay for I always say. I just wish others realized it as well...
Oh well... guess we can't win em all. I'm winning fewer all the time...

zoomer

Get a realistic assessment of your skills and the quality of your work.
If your work is really good raise your prices.
Do not compete with the low ballers.
There seems to be a big no mans land of pricing, those that are battling it out at the bottom under $1000.
Then the very bottom of the quality market starts around $2000.

When I tripled my prices my business tripled as well.
Just speaking from my experience.
If the work is really good raise your prices, if it isn't practice and work to get better until it is.

This is the age of RAP. Rap music, no skills, rap video (you tube), rap photography (uncle joe).
It seems to be everywhere that quality is not that essential anymore.
If enough people look at crappy pictures on Facebook, MySpace and all the multitude of bad to marginal photos posted online everyday then pretty soon...inevitably that becomes the standard or style.
The new edgier styles of photography bear this out, tilted photos, blown out backgrounds and skin, cut off body parts, heads missing. This is the new style of photography.
Photographers who take well exposed, well composed photos are now labeled traditional.

Yes it is a new day.

swintonphoto

I am not sure what to do. My prices are above most of the "cheap photographers" and comparable to most studios. I raised rates last year and saw a significant drop in business and recently lowered them to try to salvage something... Hmm...

zoomer

I know for sure the one thing that will not work is to lower your prices. The lower you go the more you are competing with a multitude of unskilled "professionals".

My best advice to you would be again, to access your skills realistically.
The quality level that put you in the upper tier of photographers 10 years ago will not cut it today. The good photographers have gotten so good, we all need to continue to up our game to stay in the upper tiers and to charge prices high enough to actually earn a living.
Go to the Fred Miranda site and check out the photography on the wedding forum there. That will give you a really good idea of what is out there.
The younger gals are shying away from traditional photography unless it is done so well they cannot resist it.

I know locally a lot of the long time photographers have had to move to more commercial photography, real estate, products, etc etc.
They were not able to adapt their styles to the look of today and they gradually lost business.

The first thing customers look at your website, if that doesn't grab them in about 20 seconds they are on to the next one.

Hang in there.

Art Scott

swintonphoto wrote:

I am not sure what to do. My prices are above most of the "cheap photographers" and comparable to most studios. I raised rates last year and saw a significant drop in business and recently lowered them to try to salvage something... Hmm...

Jonathon,
Don't actually lower your prices just run some really spectacular specials...so that your value stays high but the prices can come down for a short period.....ahhh man com'on....you have a PHD dude....what am I telling you this stuff for:D:D:D:D

All is good in Utah aside from the photography hindrances???

CoryUT

Jonathan, I know very little about business, but I just took a look at your site and figured I'd give you my thoughts.

Your work looks truly fantastic, and the website is laid out quite nicely. What bothered me were the videos in your sample galleries. There is FAR too much movement going on; too many effects and not enough letting the photography speak for itself. If I were an uneducated potential client this could turn me away because I just may not be able to get a solid feel for the work. I would consider redoing the videos and making them a little simpler.

Again, I am inexperienced so take the suggestion with a grain of salt.

Scott McLeod Photo

Well my input. I write this after spending 3 days at Imaging USA listening to speakers and see some awesome and truly inspiring images.

What organizations are you in? What do you do to keep up with the trends of those looking for photography services? What is your ideal customer?

I heard some very good insight into these topics the last few days. There are different opinions and ideas, and different people find different things that work for them.

I took a look at your site, and wasn't really impressed, actually disappointed. Maybe after seeing so much specatular work this week in comparison. I see technically good work, but little variety. Everything seems to have the same lighting, no use of shallow depth of field, and images have no pop. I see very little creativity.

Here is a link to a couple of photographers (its a husband wife team, but he hasn't added her to the site just yet) that spoke at the conference and have only been in the industry 2 years with no formal photography training(could be an advantage, doesn't try to stick to "rules" that limit his creativity). http://www.scotthaynephotography.com/ Check out what they are producing. The first time he picked up a camera was six years ago. He has some good work.

I used to work for a photographer that had been in the business for 20 years, but at some point he thought he had mastered everything and got satisfied and complacent, and stopped learning, tried to save a few bucks and didn't go conventions, then stopped the magazines, etc. He had a hard time transitioning to digital from film. He wasn't a great computer person, but he didn't invest the time to learn, when I worked for him, I was a newbie at photoshop and knew more than he did. He business slowly died, because one day he was so behind and out of style that no one was coming and he also had developed such a negative attitude that the customers who did, had to hear him bitch, that he lost them as well. I hope this isn't you.

The only constant in life is change. So to be successful you must stay current. One gentleman who won the PPA lifetime achievement award (sorry can't remember his name) had been a photographer since 1949, and they showed many of his images, and you could tell that they were all very current and they were awesome. He is 80 and imagine what he has had to do to keep up.

I think the best thing you could do would be to find a successful pro in another community that would be willing to come in and evaluate your business, marketing, work, workflow, etc. I also think you need to work on creating a more unique style.

Well that is my opinion, and everybody's got one.HTH

hkbphoto

swintonphoto wrote:

Well, It is a sad time for me as a professional photographer. I have been in business for 8 years and have done very well over that time. However, I have noticed a steady decline in business in my area, as have many other professionals I know. With the development of affordable DSLRs that are quite capable, many people have bought such cameras and automatically qualified themselves as "professionals". They charge prices that won't even come close to pay my overhead, and the quality of the work is generally sub-par to be kind. My local bridal fairs and wedding websites are over-saturated with these photographers.
In my opinion the camera manufacturers have systematically dug the grave for full-time professional photographers. I have never believed that the camera made the photographer, but, the population in my area seems to think that.
I am not saying there will not be any in the future, but I am saying that many will no longer be able to make it doing photography alone. There are now WAY too many inexperienced DSLR owners calling themselves photographers that charge prices I can't even come close to and break even. All their friends and relatives hire them because after all, "they have a nice camera". For some reason in my area people make the following assumption:
Having the camera = quality professional work
I stand by my work, I have for years. It has always been what convinced everyone to hire me. I have been published in dozens of magazines and books all over the country, photographed a zillion weddings, and I have a college degree in photography. I have run a successful studio for years. Yet, depressingly this era seems to be coming to an end. Cheap, inexperienced wedding photographers are putting me and many of my fellow local professionals out of business. Not that one is systematically doing this, but hundreds of them have diluted the market too much. Everyone seems to be a "professional" now. I am not trying to slam people trying to be entrepreneurial, and I recognize I and the other experience professionals had to start somewhere. I just wish people still bought for quality rather than cheapness. They don't seem to see quality any more. I have people show me a pic that is underexposed, poorly composed, and out of focus - yet they say "don't you love this picture!". I think to myself "that one would have been deleted before anyone would associate me with that crummy work". Seems that the future of professional photography will be more and more poor work for prices that match. You get what you pay for I always say. I just wish others realized it as well...
Oh well... guess we can't win em all. I'm winning fewer all the time...

I have read the post on this thread, but I have not looked at your site/work. I will, but if I say anything about your work it will be because I want to help you. Some people on here are very highly educated, and very stupid. I have driven truck for 35 years, but I do not think I am God's gift to the trucking industry. I started doing digital work 3 years ago, and have learned a bunch, but would dearly love to take some courses. The last two days has been remarkable in that I am learning to "POP" my work. Reading some of the remarks on these forums make me want to pop people in there over educated ill mannered mouths. They need to look in a mirror once in awhile if they are unafraid of what they will see.

When my work slows down, whether it be trucking, photography, music, or writing I simply look for a new market/client. It keeps the game interesting. And, I always try to improve my work. I am in competition with no one but me. They say that copying the work of others is the sincerest form of flattery. I noticed last night that a very high priced photographer in New York City that I have been talking to is now posting shots very similar to my art gallery. Maybe one of us will make some money from it. In other words if what you are doing don't work, try something else.

I have rambled enough. Good luck.

tlphotos

Maybe branch into correcting bad wedding photos
With your wedding photography business, you might think about branching it out with your editing skills and have a "we fix $500 wedding photographers' crappy photos" as there seems to be a market, as you allude to above, people hiring cheap photographers and not realizing their mistake until too late. Many of the wedding photogs you refer to just hand over a cd of the images, so many will not have any copywrite issues. There is obviously only so much photoshop you can do to a photo, but it could be a good way to recoup lost dollars. It certainly gets the point across to potential clients (hire me to get it done right the first time, or come back to me later after receiving subpar images). It's another way to make some $$$ since you seem to have more time on your hands.
Anyway, just a thought.