Commercial photography stressful?

[brian mcweeney]

Just thinking about this topic starts to stress me out ...

[Ron McElroy]

I've done this so long it all seems normal, but this article got me thinking.....is it all that bad? I can't imagine doing anything else for a living.

http://www.exposingfashion.com/?p=435

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/...ul_jobs/8.html

I tried back in the 80s and early 90s to work in commercial photography and basicly sucked at it. Stressful you bet. My "night job" in commercial printing paid and the bills with similar stress, but I seemed to deal with it better. Ultimately printing won, but since 2000 that stress has ecsalated a bunch. Often wonder if I've have a job within the next quarter.

[Armin Seeholzer]

Today its not anymore stressfull, but in analog film time it could really be.
Today you just look on the monitor of the cam and you see what you get. But in the film times there was sometimes really stressfull moments. Many times I had to drive the films direct in the pro lab and to pic up 3 hours later because the costumer wanted them at the same day in the evening so he could start with the layout of the pages etc.

Cheers Armin

[Henry Ambrose]

Kirk

I absolutely love what I do. What is stressful is an economy that doesn't want to hire me to do what I love to do.

Cheers.

Walt

This is it for me.
The actual photography part is not nearly so tough.

[mandoman7]

Commercial photography is a game of snakes and ladders. Screw one job and you are down three rows waiting for the dice to put you at the foot of a another ladder (or another snake).
You wake in the morning of a shoot with a hole in pit of your stomach worrying about the performance you have to put on for 4 or 5 suits from client and agency and for the art director who has put his job on the line for you. You are probably ill-equipped and unprepared for the job.
The enthusiasm you raise during the shooting performance will determine the level of defense the shot gets when you hand it in two days later. It is vitally important to involve the spectators (so you don't shoot polaroids, ever).
Not that you ever get any real approval because no one wants to risk it until the company director's wives have seen the shot.
This approval/non-approval thing is about who's mistake it was and who is going to pay for the re-shoot. (studio, home economist, stylist, model, makeup an hair artists, sandwiches etc.)
You learn to never break up a set until the agency has sent the trannies off to post-production (there will be mildew on the soup).
The re-shoot always coincides with another booking. Which is why, on the verge of nervous breakdown, I had to get a second studio. I've met New-Yorkers who had studios on four different floors, before they were reduced to living in cardboard boxes because of the snake thing.
Approval or recognition dawns when the campaign has been out a week and the good sales figures come in. It is not that you did it right - the marketing manager, product manager, the account supervisor, the account, copy and art director did it right and they happened to choose the right photographer.
Plenty of stress, and you have to keep at it for at least fourty years.

Yet your work seems to have a kind of serenity. I have a feeling your clients may not be expressing their appreciation but hold you in high regard, nonetheless...
JY

[cjbroadbent]

John, the stuff in my portfolio was mostly shot on holidays or for editorials.
Nowadays I wake up worrying where the next job will come from.

[Don Dudenbostel]

After forty two years shooting commercial work there's no stress in the photography part but there's plenty of stress in the business part. I know my capabilities and virtually all jobs are replays based on some previous shoot or experience. The number of jobs you shot in four decades creates quite a large data base of experiences. Confidence and experience are the key to enjoying the photographic part. On the other hand you never know what's coming down in business. No matter how good your work is or how you manage your accounts, clients come and go particularly in a poor economy. Business has aged me almost as much as my ex wife. For me photography reverses the effects of business stress. It's very relaxing to solve photographic problems and deliver a superior product to the client.

As to income I wonder how many of the surveyed are part time shooters. The numbers seem extremely low.

[tgtaylor]

I don't know. Did you guys see "The Invisiable Man" documentary on the ABC Evening News with Charles Gibson this evening? The artists cooperative where this Chineese painter worked was bulldozed down and he got the idea of painting himself into the scene to the point where he could hardly be differentiated from it and then photographing the result with a large format camera - it looked like a Toyo. An interesting and fresh idea.

[arca andy]

After forty two years shooting commercial work there's no stress in the photography part but there's plenty of stress in the business part. I know my capabilities and virtually all jobs are replays based on some previous shoot or experience. The number of jobs you shot in four decades creates quite a large data base of experiences. Confidence and experience are the key to enjoying the photographic part. On the other hand you never know what's coming down in business. No matter how good your work is or how you manage your accounts, clients come and go particularly in a poor economy. Business has aged me almost as much as my ex wife. For me photography reverses the effects of business stress. It's very relaxing to solve photographic problems and deliver a superior product to the client.

As to income I wonder how many of the surveyed are part time shooters. The numbers seem extremely low.

I agree.. I guess making money is always a hassle no matter what you do.

Working for a number of NHS Care Trusts here in the UK I get to photograph many wonderful family therapists and substance misuse workers, who were also mentioned in the article. If I compared my problems being a photographer to the pressure and stress that they are under they would propably get quiet angry.

Andy

[Gene McCluney]

The only thing stressful about Commercial Photography (in my 35 years experience) is clients that want a certain thing, but can't tell you what that "thing" is. But they recognize that what you have delivered to them is not the "thing" they wanted.

I earn 100% of my income from Commercial Photography. Most shoots are similar to previous shoots and therefore are easy to execute.