"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat, "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" asked Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
Introduction
When I first thought of getting into the travel photography business,
just about everyone already in the business said the same thing:
you must be mad. "The field is saturated," "there's no money to be
made," "it's very competitive," and the obvious statement, "there's
a huge amount of really good material already out there." In short,
the advice was a resounding, "you don't have a chance." Not one bit of
encouragement from anyone. I soon discovered why. It has nothing to do
with photography. Success in this business depends on one and only one
thing: good business sense. If all people were equal, the advice I
got would have been right. It'd be just like a lottery, where your chances
of success are equal to everyone else's. In the photo business, there are
so many players—in fact, more people in the world take pictures than ever
play the lottery—your chances of success are worse.
Thing is, not all people are equal. What's more, there are huge
numbers of very skilled photographers who aren't successful. Is success
distributed only to those who are skilled? I probably don't need to
tell you the answer to that one—we have all seen pretty awful images
in everything from ads, to magazine stories about travel, to brochures.
The point of differentiation is not skill, nor how many people are
in it, or any of the typical explanations. The one factor to success
is how smart you are. Sure, you need to be "good enough" with your
photography for people to really take you seriously, but that standard
is sufficiently low that just about anyone truly serious about photography
is probably a good enough to make money with it. So, if you're wondering
whether your photos are good enough to get into the business, the answer
is probably, "yes." But, that's not important right now. The real objective
to be smart about how you go about it. The photography part is easy;
being smart is the hard part.
Thus, my favorite quote about the photo business is,
"If it were easy, everyone would be making money."
Another notion to dispel: "hard work" doesn't translate to success.
Nor does working hard earn you rights to be compensated. "Work" in
its various forms is not valued equally. Someone who cold-calls art
directors, sends unsolicited portfolios and emails in hopes of getting
noticed is someone who is working hard, but dumb. Whereas, someone that
focuses on industries they already know and understand, and leverages
their knowledge of those businesses beyond photography, and who
establishes relationships with influential people within those industries,
is someone who will quickly bypass all the other photographers cramming
to get in through the front door. This is someone who is working smart.
B ut it's also time-consuming. It often takes years to know a business
and its various nuances to speak about it intelligently. It also takes
time to foster relationships with important people outside of the context
of photography. In short, it's having an intuitive understanding of how
people work in a particular business, and making clear, concise decisions
that are consistent with that understanding. Whether your interest is cars,
architecture, fashion, fine art, or socio-political documentaries of the
late 20th century, the more imersed you are in those fields of knowledge,
the better you will compete with photographers who don't know the subjects
or people as well, even if they do have superior portfolios. And because
of this, photography is like many other professions: the smart ones are
more successful than talented ones.
And that's the focus of my books on the photography business.
The best way for me to help you is to split our responsibilities: your job
is to know your specific target industry that you'd like your photography
to focus on, and my job is to help you understanding the basic templates
of a photography business in a manner that helps you fuse them together.
Now, if you don't specifically have a known business sector that you'd like
to focus on, that's fine. There are many who make money by shooting general
photography and sell their photos as "stock" imagery in the open market.
There are others who are just undecided on what they want to shoot. You
can and should learn about the general photography industry as a whole,
regardless of how your personal business focus evolves.
In that spirit, the best way to learn this business is not to look
for step-by-step instructions for doing specific things like accounting,
balancing a checkbook, or understanding tax returns. Nor do I explain
how to create a portfolio or a website, or the "best" way to promote
yourself. These tasks are for operating a business, not succeeding
at one. Some business operations can be handled by specialists, such as
accountants and software programs. Others, like self-promotion, are
very specific to details like geography, photo subject, industry,
buyer demographics, and so on. Instead of spood-feeding you instructions
on how to do these things, I will examine all of them, and deconstruct the
many approaches that are used, and help you determine when such approaches
are applicable for you. For example, I do discuss the principles behind
the various ways to form a company, and what the tax considerations are
for choosing them, even though I don't explain specifically how to
form a corporation. Similarly, I do discuss general web design issues
and principles that may apply to different kinds of photography businesses,
and when to use certain kinds of approaches, even though I don't teach you
how to specifically build a website. There are other applicatons that can
help you do that.
Lastly, understand that photography is not a business you go into to make
money. It's not like getting a job at as a waiter and the money just
starts flowing in. Photography is chosen because of its lifestyle and
creative outlet. Yes, one can make a good, comfortable living in
photography, but don't get into photography with the primary goal of
making money. That said, there are a lot of people who have a hard time
thinking about what they can do to make any money, let alone a living. But
even still, that takes a long time too. Be prepared to have another source
of income for a while. (Or, at least, parents you can move back in with.)
Hence, this final word of warning/advice before moving ahead:
"Trying to make a career out of photography is a sure way to ruin a
perfectly lovely hobby."
And this is precisely what happened to me. I started with photography
as a hobby. I traveled a lot, I enjoyed it, and I came home with great
photos I shared with friends and family. Then one day, I thought it'd
be a notch more fun if I made some money with my hobby. Fast-forward
ten years, and I find myself far more "successful" at photography than
I ever thought I would be. But this has come at a cost: I spend 90% of
my time not doing photography; I'm running a business (the details of
which are discussed in my books). I still love those two and three week
trips I do several times a year to exotic lands around the world, taking
pictures, and basking in what others thing is the easiest job in the
world. I adore the people I work with, and I relish the creative thrill
of taking pictures and seeing them in magazines or on billboards. But,
this is a tiny sliver of what comprises my days, weeks, and months or
real work. In fact, you could say my life is no different than any other
real job that's hard: I work, work, work, and then I get to take a few
weeks off and go somewhere on vacation.
Final closure: this is by no means an attempt to talk you out of the business
like everyone else tried to do to me. I would never talk someone out of
trying to make money with photography, unless they have already clearly
demonstrated their inability to understand reality. I'm just trying to
give you a realistic sense that photography is not an easy business
to be in, and you really have to set your expectations on what it'll to
do to your lifestyle. This is where the chapter, Photo Careers picks up.
You'll notice that there are no chapters on photography techniques.
For that material, see Frequently Asked Questions about Photography, technique and business.
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