The photography industry is really focused on the ‘industry’ part and not so much on the ‘photography’ part. This is the greatest moment in the history of photography if your dream is to distribute as much photography as possible to as many people as possible, or if your goal is to make it as easy as possible to become seen as a photographer. There’s never been a time like this before.
So if your focus is on photography, it’s great. If your focus is on the industry part and the royalties, the lawyers, the magazine features and the print campaigns, it’s horrible. The shift that is happening right now is that the people who insist on keeping the world as it was are going to get more and more frustrated until they lose their jobs. People who want to invent a whole new set of rules, a new paradigm, can’t believe their good fortune and how lucky they are that the people in the industry aren’t noticing an opportunity… [click the ‘continue reading’ link below…] —
The above is an excerpt from an interview that information-age guru, Seth Godin, gave about the music industry, only I’ve hacked it. (Seth don’t sue me.) For purposes of illustration, I’ve simply replaced each occurrence of the word ‘music’ from his statement with the word ‘photography’, along with a couple contextual tweaks.
I’m guessing there’s no lack of opinions on the results of my edit, but I could be wrong…
there really is no business model for the future of the photography industry. that is something that we young photographers need to carve out for ourselves. there are a lot of variables that come into play and in the meantime there’s really nothing else to do except keep making pictures….and hopefully that’s something everybody is doing anyway.
Another point….
Is the photography industry is changing?
I get most of my work through word of mouth. I’ve never actively advertised my services via campaigns or direct mail. The internet enables me to have a website, facebook, myspace, blog, twitter, youtube etc etc.
I’m still getting work through word of mouth, but because of the internet, I’m able to get more mouths talking about me.
Nowadays you can be ok at something and good at business and be far more successful than someone who’s awesome at something and has poor business skills.
I find that quite sad.
I agree that the industry is changing and I am definitely one for changing with it… but… photography is a service industry. We serve images to other industries. Those industries are also changing and in some ways not in a way that helps us.
I’ve worked with too many companies who have the wrong people in the wrong job because they somehow ended up there through a series of promotions that were agreed to and signed off by other people who weren’t in the right job. These people now have the task of hiring us to create art…. only they don’t know what is good/bad/artistic etc. So they often hire friends, help those around them. Whilst I’m all for helping those around you, sometimes it still counts a lot for having the right person doing the right job. That’s when great things can happen!
Too many people focus on the technical and the business side of photography. The image isn’t even secondary to a lot of people anymore.
In many ways it’s a great time to be a photographer, but in some ways it is the beginning of a dark time!