Interesting NYTimes Article on the Photo Biz 3/30/2010

[Jack Dahlgren]

I didn't say that fine art would escape that, the fact that it's easy for people to produce their own books is another dumbing down and over saturating of a market. In the past having a real publisher invest hundreds of thousands of dollar in printing your book was a sort of vetting process. Only artists who they felt had a significant body of work, or a readily available market would meet that criteria, and that in affect kept a lot of poorly done photography off the book shelves and kept the credibility of being published intact.

I think that the change is just starting. Sure the publishing gatekeepers imposed a sort of quality control, but they also limited what was available.

I'd claim that the real difference between 35mm shooting and digital is the means of rapid transmission and availability, not the loss of careful composition and considered manner.

Without the editor as quality control, there will arise some other way to weed the good from the bad, but there are still good photographers and bad ones and there always will be.

And there will always be people complaining about the good old days. Just remember that right now is going to be someone's good old days. The potential to make and share great images is better than ever. Figuring a way to wring monetary success out of that is the challenge.

[rdenney]

I think that the change is just starting. Sure the publishing gatekeepers imposed a sort of quality control, but they also limited what was available.

Yes, and they established photography as a priesthood. (By "priesthood", I mean that one must be ordained before being taken seriously.)

Music is the same way. Professional musicians (vis a vis pop stars) are finding it more and more difficult to find work sufficient to pay the bills. But that doesn't necessarily mean fewer people are making music, just that fewer people are making music for money.

As photography gets easier, more people will do it. More and more, it has become a folk art in its truest sense.

One question for which the answer is always contentious: Does making money at something confer some assurance of excellence, or even competence? Yes, in the commercial sense. But probably not so much in the artistic sense.

Rick "for whom art is an avocation" Denney

[al olson]

. . .
I think the extreme ease with which photographs can be produced today has dumbed down photography to a major extent. In the past mastering photography took a great deal of time and effort. It was a slow and arduous process but one that was rich with a depth of understanding and knowledge, it's very length made for a more deliberate and thoughtful photograph. Now it's blast away at 5000 things with a digicam and hope that something "cool" appears on an image. We devotees of large format are very much a dying breed as few today have the patience to learn, the patience to shoot.
. . .

I have reached the point where, while I still expose and develop film, I seldom print the images. Instead, I scan the negative for a digital image that I can place on my WEB site. This is done for my personal fulfillment (ego?), not because I expect to make money to cover any of my costs.

People today do not appreciate the work that went into making the photograph, the planning, the travel (in my case the 2 hour trips to get up into the mountains on primitive roads), patience in waiting for the right light, the disappointment when things do not turn out as envisioned, getting that large format look. If all turns out right, people will compliment the image but you know they are thinking, "lucky shot."

Digital photography has democratized the art so that everyone has become a "photographer". Amateur photographers now get instant gratification knowing whether their exposure is good, and if it is not they will "fix it in Photoshop". They have no appreciation of the work that many of us will go to for the photograph the we envisioned. Most buyers think that a fine art photograph just "happens" and that is how they value them.

A colleague of mine was exhibiting at his tent in a local arts and crafts show. He had numerous prints that from my personal knowledge he had gone to great lengths to get the shot. A couple came by his tent and were especially interested in one of his prints, but they wanted to go off to discuss the purchase. Later that afternoon the husband came back to say, "I really like that picture, but my wife says, 'You have an expensive camera, you can make one just like that.'"

In the past I have had my prints exhibited in numerous art shows, photo shows, galleries, and on the walls of businesses. It is my impression that most amateur photographers who attend photo shows and galleries, do so with the purpose of looking for photographic ideas that they can appropriate for their own images.

Currently I am printing (darkroom) a series of photographs that will be exhibited at the Open Shutter Gallery in Durango during the months of May and June. I estimate my expenses to matte and frame will be between $500 and $1000. There will be compliments I am sure, but I have no expectation for sales. This will be the last time I will be spending my money to decorate someone else's walls.

[Bill_1856]

Just a reminder that for some of their professional careers, two of the greatest photographers, Edward Weston and W. Eugene Smith had to depend on the generosity of friends and family to feed and shelter them. And in fact one of the greatest documentary photographers of all time, Louis Hine, quite literally starved to death when he coudn't get work. So it's not just a problem of today's economy.

[Brian K]

Are olympic athletes today better than they were 50 year ago? The average times and measured performance levels as well as the shattering of records would strongly indicate that's today's olympic athlete is vastly superior. Why? I think it's partly because of improvements in training and technology, but mostly because today's Olympic athletes are professionals.

They do not do their sport part time. It's ALL they do. They have hired the best coaches, use the best equipment, train at the best facilities, travel in advance to the locations of the events so they can climatize, etc. The athletes of 50 years ago, usually had jobs, might have been college athletes who also had to study, did not have the time and resources to perform at their full potential.

What we are coming to in photography is a reverse of this process.

How many amateur photographers can make the kind of commitment that a professional can? And with the increasing difficulties in making a living as a photographer, there will be fewer and fewer true professionals out there, fewer people who's lives are almost solely dedicated to photography. I think the quality of photography will suffer and I think that is a great loss.

[Wallace_Billingham]

I remember quite well back in the 1980s when I worked at a Camera store hearing pros complain that the new SLRs with autofocus, and advanced autoexposure would kill their business, then a few years later when P&S 35mm cameras came on the scene that had pretty decent lenses and one hour mini-labs started popping up everywhere once again working pros would complain about how that was going to kill their business.

I think these conversations have been going on ever since Mr. Eastman introduced the Kodak where you pushed the button and they did the rest

[rguinter]

Katrin Eismann, is correct. I can see however that if you don't have your feet in the door and have some kind of publication history eventually it will be next to impossible to get anything like recognition, publication and ultimately make money doing photo as a career. Being I photographer would be a career path I would very suspiciously consider if I was starting out now. Just to be an editorial shooter.

Photographers are not alone! I have a graduate degree in a very specialized area of engineering known as "Human Factors Engineering." For many years I was one of about 3-5 specialists with similar credentials working for one of our fortune 5 companies with perhaps 200 or more additional professionals in various niches of Environmental Health & Safety. Overall the company had over 300,000 employees worldwide and the demand for our professional services was off the chart. Everything from manual workstation design for opto-electronics parts up to keeping the post-doctoral researchers safe while they worked with nuclear energy or tri-methyl-death in their labs.

That was the 80s and 90's for sake of this discussion.

Now the company has split so many times that few of us who worked there even recognize the names of the new spin-offs. And most of the employees are gone.

The demand for our services has dropped so far that I would not recommend anyone follow in my footsteps either. Just no apparent future in it with most manufacturing having already gone over-seas.

So professional photographers are not alone with declining demand for their services. I suspect many professions are in the same decline.

Sad it is to say, isn't it. Bob G.

[rguinter]

In the past I have had my prints exhibited in numerous art shows, photo shows, galleries, and on the walls of businesses. It is my impression that most amateur photographers who attend photo shows and galleries, do so with the purpose of looking for photographic ideas that they can appropriate for their own images.

Al: I am an amateur photographer and always will be. And yes, when looking at professionals' work I am almost always mulling over thoughts and ideas of how the photo was made, is it a pleasing composition, and could I use the technique in some way for my own work.

This is how we learn and I'll bet that professionals and amateurs alike do the same thing. Bob G.

[Brian K]

Al: I am an amateur photographer and always will be. And yes, when looking at professionals' work I am almost always mulling over thoughts and ideas of how the photo was made, is it a pleasing composition, and could I use the technique in some way for my own work.

This is how we learn and I'll bet that professionals and amateurs alike do the same thing. Bob G.

Bob, while all photographers learn from seeing other good photographs, believe the differences between a professional photographer and an amateur are far greater than that.

[Rakesh Malik]

Bob, while all photographers learn from seeing other good photographs, believe the differences between a professional photographer and an amateur are far greater than that.

Definitely. I have a friend who's definitely an amateur, and as far as I can tell his motivation for looking at other people's photographs is to find shots he wants to collect. He sees shots he likes and says that he wants that shot for himself... which I think means that he wants to take it himself so that he can print it at Costco rather than spending the money on a fine art print by another photographer.

Most of the serious photographers I know say that they want to "go there" when they see a shot they like... and rarely end up showing an image that looks like the one that made them want to visit the place in the first place.