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Thread: Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

  1. #21

    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    Richard,

    I think an important difference between "art photography" and "commercial photography" in terms of your post is that the "art print" is an object and the "commercial photo" is a service. An art object seems to be valued aesthetically and as an investment - some combination of these anyway. A hobbiest can easily move into selling some work if someone thinks it is good enough to buy. If it would "look nice over the sofa", (or "we should have that in our collection") that just might make the sale. Anyway the customer is buying a thing or object.

    Commercial work is more of a "service" that at the lowest levels is not a lot different from paying to have your lawn cut, garbage hauled or leaves raked. Moving up the ladder, some commercial work might be equivalent to plumbing, auto repair, dentistry, requiring higher levels of skill, esthetics and knowledge on the part of the photographer. At its highest and best paid levels the commercial photography "service" approaches/assumes a postion of art. But the customers (at this point art directors, agencies and their clients) are still going to hire based on the apparent ability of the photographer to deliver the service they want. That service is a picture that sells bazillions of whatever it is they are selling.

    At its base level there might not be that much difference between commercial photography and garbage hauling. Hauling garbage is not fun, cool or a pleasant hobby -- its just work and no one wants to haul your garbage for free. But photography is a fun, cool and pleasant hobby and people WILL do it for free or cheap.

    The ability to deliver is underestimated by the unsophisticated client and is often completely overlooked when the price is low enough. There are plenty of photographers in the world scratching for a living. If a buyer has low standards and lots of vendors to choose from, prices will be held low.

    I can not prove the amount of commodity photography thats been lost to improvements in technology but it is significant. Lots of the old bread and butter work is now easily done by a secretary with a digital camera. Perhaps not as well as it might have been done by a professional but its gets done and its cheap. Anyone who depended on this kind of work for a living is out of luck these days.

    Anyway thats my rambling, semi-coherent take on the subject.

  2. #22
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    "Sorry paulr. Your engaging in esoteric photographic bullshit. Of which you wrote about three pages down"

    actually i was making a simple observation that's been made by others before me. tell me what part of it wasn't clear.

  3. #23

    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    My congratulations to Henry Ambrose for a well written example of the differences between a photographic amateur and a professional. Bulls eye. I agree generally with all you say, with just a few caveats.

    The service professionals provide is a service, but it does provide a product. That product is not the end result to hang over a sofa, but part of the total advertising matrix, that will include copy and printing of the finished ad in some publication. The product we provide is a ultra high quality photographic image which is the foundation building block for the ad. Photographers in my field are often referred to as....graphic problem solvers.

    In pricing, the greater the end cost for the ad, the greater the skill to be purchased to make the graphic image, the greater the cost to the client, and fee necessary to buy that photographic skill.

    Also in proportion is the degree of perfectionism with the art director or the editor. The more expensive the ad the more 'picky' the art director or editor will be. Some can be absolute monsters to deal with...but that is the highly competitive nature of my field.

    In general, Henry Ambrose nailed the very basic difference between amateurs and professionals, although the professional side of his post is a little over simplified. None the less, well done, Henry.

    Fresh Eyes.....Richard.

  4. #24
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    Of course, so much depends on what type or area of photography we are talking about. - Even within "Commercial Photography" there are big differences - Editorial/Ad photography is somewhat different to architectural photography in certain areas, both can be different from photojournalism and are obviously very different again from art photography and the work of a professional Scenes of Crime (SOCO) photographer

    That said, sometimes a better distinction would be between professional and hobbyist.

    Amateur would, in many ways, a word that should be allowed to revert to one of it's more widely accepted, if older, definitions.

    After all, much of history's best and most creative photography has been produced by "amateur photographers"
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  5. #25
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    also: it might be more important to distinguish between professional and amateur photographs than professional and amateur photographers. A lot of photographers are both. Many great historical photographs were taken by professional photographers, but were done as personal work on the side. Ansel Adams and Paul Strand come to mind, as does Henri Cartier Bresson and just about everyone else at Magnum. Only a small fraction of great or historically important photographs has been produced by pros while on assignment.

    Remember that "Amateur" is the French word for lover. Depending on the context, "Professional" has connotations of prostitution, in every language.

  6. #26

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    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    I think a good example of "Amateur" Would be the golfing great Bobby Jones. Look at all the majors he won for "the love of the game" never giving up his amateur status. There were a lot of pros in the field that couldn't come close to measuring up to Mr. Jones.

  7. #27

    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    There is a bit of 'myth' starting in this thread that needs to be corrected. Some of the most historically important photography ever done has been reflected in the Pulitzer competition.

    One of the most memorable photographs is Joe Rosenthal's shot of the flag raising on Iwo Jima.
    Joe was a professional, in the employ of Associated Press. Pulitzer 1945.

    Eddie Adams ( friend) won the 1969 Pulitzer for his shot of Vietnam Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, executing a prisoner on the streets of Saigon. He was an Associated Press photographer.

    The list is endless and 99% of Pulitzer shots, important to history, were made my salaried photographers.

    As for Magnum, ...the organization was formed by Capa, Chim Seymour, Bresson and others in 1947 to control the copyright and usage (read financial reward) of their work, and they were all assignment professionals. Magnum was a Photo Agency - For Profit. Magnum was a business venture, not a hobby.

    Even the famous work of the Farm Security Administration photographers, in the 'Dust Bowl Era' reflect the great art of photographers..... on a salary.

    Professional is NOT a dirty word. Quite the contrary.

  8. #28

    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    I was inclined to let this run its course, as the first post wasn't sufficiently clearly worded to get the conversation going that I wanted. But I've decided to try again, just in case there were some misunderstandings.

    This is not an art photography vs commercial photography issue to me; I'm not interested in a person's qualifications or trade affiliations or any other restrictive (but sometimes of benefit to the public) practices employed. I wasn't trying to suggest a difference in skill level or attitude or responsibilities between amateur and professional - merely their motivations and demands arising therefrom. I suppose it comes down to: is the rise in photographers (typically fine-art, occasionally commercial esp weddings for example) who don't need to earn a crust from their work, affecting the working practices of those who do need to work at their photography to earn a living. I've heard that in stock photography, in wedding photography, and sometimes in architectural, people have complained about these 'hobbyists' (usually used in a derogatory tone), for whom the money made is less significant, 'undermining the profession' - ie the ability ofthe full-timer to charge enough to make a decent full-time living from their work.

    I see proportionately more LF photographers trying to make a few bucks from their photography than in the smaller formats, so thought some people here might have experienced it. Are there amateur (ie hobbyist/non-full-timers etc) photographers who seem to be bucking the normal trend in offering their services/goods? Are they charging more than a new fine-art photographer really should tolive off their work, on the basis perhaps that they don't care if they don't get 'enough' sales, it's just a hobby to them - and likewise, have there been 'hobbyist' architectural photographers who've charged under the market rate just to do a job, resulting in a full-timer losing the work?

  9. #29
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    One of the best portraitists of all time was Julia Margaret Cameron.

    One of the most extensive documentary projects ever undertaken was carried out by a photographer - August Sander - was pretty much done as a side "hobby" from his commercial work

    William Eggleston - considered by many as setting the groundwork for much contemporary colour work is basically an "amateur" who has funded much of his work from his inheritance.

    The highly influential work of Lartigue was done almost before he was old enough to hold down a job

    The wonderful work of Blossfeldt was really a sideline to his dayjob

    Gary Winogrands very influential work was nearly all produced "for himself" and not for the clients he worked for producing commercial work - that work having faded into oblivion, wile his personal "amateur" work (as it were) remains one of the important canons of photography of the last 50 years.

    And of course the inventor of photography - Fox Talbot, whose first images still stand on their own - was also very much an amateur.

    And many more - in fact there is a strong tradition of photographers supporting what they considered their real work(and are usually remembered for) with commercial photography of one sort or another - in that sense, they were very much amateurs in the true meaning of the word Evans, Winogrand (above), Kertesz, Bravo (he was an accountant and cinematographer among other things) - even Weston to some exent. The work wasn't produced as an assignment or for a client, but for the photographer. That some (though not all) also earned a livign at some form or other of commercial photography (Evans did museum photography at one point) is immaterial.

    Call them professionals if you wish, but the designation comes form the enduring quality of their work - not that it was produced for a client.

    The Pulitzer recognises perhaps some of the most newsworthy photographs, but it's also a fairly limited field as well - despite some historically important photographs
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  10. #30

    Amateur vs Professional pricing issues

    Richard Fenner,

    Go back and read the last full paragraph of my first post. That is a start to answering the questions you've added into the mix. But its not neccessarily hobbiest photographers who might drive the price of work down or otherwise compete with professionals.

    I know I miss jobs from time to time as a result of low-balling professionals. If its a small or not so important building or project the client may be happy enough with some so-so DSLR pictures of the building. If the guy who's calling on them happens to hit at the right time and will do it for 1/2 or 2/3s of what I would charge then he might get the work. Again this is if it is NOT an important job. When they want something better the other guy loses out. Of course if its a really really great project I probably lose out to H&B or some other out-of-town shooter. Or don't even get asked. Or sometimes I might get something they bid - I suppose then they talk about me - "that lowball local guy."
    ; >)

    So, we're all part of the food chain. The guys who complain about hobbiest or amatuer shooters stealing their work are probably just a notch above the guys they are complaining about. Photographers who are well up the chain do not lose to guys who do it for a hobby. A $500 wedding shooter will lose to the bride's cousin who can do it for free. That same cousin doesn't get asked to shoot the GM Annual Report or an advertising campaign with media placement of six figures.

    Richard Boulware,

    I did over simplify. Probably has something to do with the long term fate of most of the commercial work I've done. It gets used and then its thrown away. Its done it's job, they've sold loads of widgets and off to sell the next one. I very much prefer making a nice print of someones creative architecture work, delivering that to them and then seeing it on their wall knowing it will be there for a long time. I like being able to deliver my work as prints. It completes the process for me in a way that burning a CD or FTPing just doesn't do.

    So prints of things and people that are valued and appreciated for a while (longer than until the next catalog is in production) by the recepient are really my preference. And that opportunity has become rare in professional photography. But I digress from Richard Fenner's questions.

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