Making Money in Photography

jtk · Jul 19, 2018

Think about the incredibly fine and huge televisions that seem to foul every nest.

Think about the even finer displays in most good galleries and museums.

What make anyone think silver paper will be part of the game much longer, especially considering the relatively mediocre quality of the few remaining silver papers compared to the huge array of better inkjet paper options ?

faberryman · Jul 19, 2018

jtk said:
Think about the incredibly fine and huge televisions that seem to foul every nest.

Think about the even finer displays in most good galleries and museums.

What make anyone think silver paper will be part of the game much longer, especially considering the relatively mediocre quality of the few remaining silver papers compared to the huge array of better inkjet paper options ?

Because all the video installations I have seen in galleries, including NY, Chicago, and SF, have sucked. The gallery tries to make the installation too large and the technology falls down on its face. Who wants to go to a gallery to watch art on TV. The print as artifact is still ascendant.

jtk · Jul 19, 2018

faberryman said:
Because all the video installations I have seen in galleries, including NY, Chicago, and SF, have sucked. The gallery tries to make the installation too large and the technology falls down on its face. Who wants to go to a gallery to watch art on TV. The print as artifact is still ascendant.

Sorry about your experience. Unique.

https://arts.uchicago.edu/logan-cen...da-photographs-get-moving-potatoes-and-shells

Berkeley Mike · Jul 21, 2018

faberryman said:
Because all the video installations I have seen in galleries, including NY, Chicago, and SF, have sucked. The gallery tries to make the installation too large and the technology falls down on its face. Who wants to go to a gallery to watch art on TV. The print as artifact is still ascendant.

I hear you but consider this; digital cameras have improved in quality in the truly exponential fashion of computers. If you aren't impressed by the displays now, just wait a bit. As they find their way into more venues the management of them will become more streamlined.

faberryman · Jul 21, 2018

What is the gallery going to sell you? A TV? An SD card?

Berkeley Mike · Jul 21, 2018

Well...at least a t-shirt. In a less charming mode...rights to a work, which will be pirated. Information exchange has come along ways from cave paintings and canvases which controlled access to art. This is a whole new set of problems.

jamesaz · Jul 21, 2018

Berkeley Mike said:
Well...at least a t-shirt. In a less charming mode...rights to a work, which will be pirated. Information exchange has come along ways from cave paintings and canvases which controlled access to art. This is a whole new set of problems.

And you'll be able to plug into your data port and just imagine something that will be projected on a screen. This will result in an exponential increase of bad imaging and storytelling that goes nowhere. Since the technical side will be turned over to A.I., perhaps the education needed is more along the lines of "Storytelling 101" and "communicating visually 352 (prerequisite communicating visually 351 or permission of instructor)." I mean as long as we are guessing about the future.

Berkeley Mike · Jul 21, 2018

Communicating visually is central to our program. You can't teach it all at once in a workshop or a class. It is a skill acquired from lots of shooting and producing and shooting and producing.

Galleries will change just as the music industry has changed.

faberryman · Jul 22, 2018

Berkeley Mike said:
Galleries will change just as the music industry has changed.

Streaming images for a nominal monthly fee? That won't pay the galleries' rent.

Berkeley Mike · Jul 22, 2018

Maybe. Think in terms of someone trying to make money, a motive much more general and powerful than preserving traditional art. As far as paying rent, will galleries go by the wayside as have many other brick and mortar locations? How many vinyl record stores can pay rent since the advent of the iPod and online streaming? How do those musician make money?

Will galleries become places to for people to see full-sized art, and then they go home and purchase it online? Even cars are being sold online, delivered to your door. Do purchasers do their viewing at dealerships and buy online?

Think of a new generation of stereophiles called screenophiles. Geeking after the ultimate in resolution, viewing from the most oblique angles, color fidelity, depth that shows brushstrokes.... nothing new really in terms of motivations, just technology.

Yeah, its a shame but what's to stop it? How large is the community that considers themselves in-the-know, will decry the loss oft the experience, and tsk-tsk at all of the plebs they consider too primitive to really understand and enjoy the in-person viewing of a piece of art? They will extol the virtues of the old technology, its "magic", and bemoan what is lost.

I'm just speculating but we have countless examples from other disciplines and market that tell us how things can go.

Arklatexian · Jul 22, 2018

Berkeley Mike said:
I teach photography at a local college. Ours is a vocational program, that is, we develop photographers who can go out into the world and make money. So, I thought I would ask you all this question:

In the greater Photographic industry and marketplace, is it more practical to train to make money in Film or Digital Photography?

Let's assume that you want to make a living as a photographer.

To answer the OP's question, Most customers, today, want color, i.e. Digital. For those few (and increasing) who want B&W, your students should be able to also offer film, though the customer might be satisfied with Digital also.. Digital definitely. I don't do professional photography so I get to use Film........Regards!

removed account4 · Jul 22, 2018

OP
did the thread help the university / school find a direction for their program .. and what did it end up as?

Cholentpot · Jul 22, 2018

Arklatexian said:
To answer the OP's question, Most customers, today, want color, i.e. Digital. For those few (and increasing) who want B&W, your students should be able to also offer film, though the customer might be satisfied with Digital also.. Digital definitely. I don't do professional photography so I get to use Film........Regards!

Did a party and the birthday girl wanted black and white film. 12 years old, said it was 'Cool' and would get loads of likes on Instagram. Hurray for Bar Mitzva's.

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 22, 2018

Arklatexian said:
To answer the OP's question, Most customers, today, want color, i.e. Digital. For those few (and increasing) who want B&W, your students should be able to also offer film, though the customer might be satisfied with Digital also.. Digital definitely. I don't do professional photography so I get to use Film........Regards!

Not particularly, nor strictly, but colour is more dominant that B&W. If an established photographer has a respected client base, they will happily accept analogue or digital production, and in any case, digital production prints (RA-4 or wide-gamut giclée).

You need to know your photography and your market thoroughly rather than blow trumpets and bubbles about digital or film when, in professional spheres, either and both are successful. Experience and knowledge counts a lot. Equipment and methodology does nont.

MattKing · Jul 22, 2018

Cholentpot said:
Did a party and the birthday girl wanted black and white film. 12 years old, said it was 'Cool' and would get loads of likes on Instagram. Hurray for Bar Mitzva's.

Wouldn't that be a Bat Mitzva?
Just curious.

Sirius Glass · Jul 22, 2018

Bar Mitzvah for boys, Bat Mitzvah for girls.

Berkeley Mike · Jul 22, 2018

jnanian said:
OP
did the thread help the university / school find a direction for their program .. and what did it end up as?

I promise to let you all know when we get back into Fall Semester.

removed account4 · Jul 23, 2018

Berkeley Mike said:
I promise to let you all know when we get back into Fall Semester.

thanks ! as someone who has done assignment work for decades it is interesting to hear how a school trains people, seeing when i was trained
it was in an arts program in a university, and then assisting and apprenticing local pros doing schlep + settingup lighting stuff,
and retouching/proof+archival printing+LF camerawork ) the world is on its head these days and the commercial world of photography
is a bit more democratized and less democratized at the same time ... i hope you consider a business class or 2 because like most
things freelance the business end of it is sometimes the most daunting of all the tasks a freelancer has to deal with..
good luck

Cholentpot · Jul 23, 2018

MattKing said:
Wouldn't that be a Bat Mitzva?
Just curious.

Sirius Glass said:
Bar Mitzvah for boys, Bat Mitzvah for girls.

You are both absolutely right. Stupid me for thinking that APUGers wouldn't know better.

In Non-Traditional sects they've decided to call both a Bar-Mitzvah because of...stupid.

Yes, it was a Bat-Mitzvah and the Bat-Mitzvah girl saw some of my black and white film work and requested (squealed) it. I obliged and shot a short roll of Tmax-100 and got some wonderful shots. I tend to shoot a roll or so on most jobs, I've finished many Bar-Mitzva shoots with a roll of B&W and delivered a nice 8x10 on RC paper a few months late.

Repeat business is good business no?

jtk · Jul 23, 2018

faberryman said:
What is the gallery going to sell you? A TV? An SD card?

"The gallery" has always facilitated whatever its favored artists favor. These days (and for the last decade) that has increasingly become inkjet prints, often very large.

Patrons want what their favored artists produce. The artist rules (film or digital), good galleries play second fidlle. .

The work sells the work, as does the photographer in good galleries. The gallery only facilitates (tourist galleries aside). Nothing new in that.

I've seen stunning semi-stills displayed on the extremely large flat screen monitors typical of better galleries...one photographer's images from her Antarctic year project were delivered on dedicated hard discs (displayed right next to similar-sized and smaller inkjet prints) and another with semi-stills of moving water by another photographer...I don't know if the only delivered form is dedicated hard disc (which museums use), but I suspect they're more expensive than the small B&W prints of moving water that we see so often. Both photographers used garden variety expensive DSLRs (Nikon/Canon) with better lenses.

Berkeley Mike · Jul 23, 2018

My LA Gallery contacts tell me that images are sold by the square inch; the larger the better.

removed account4 · Jul 23, 2018

jtk said:
"The gallery" has always sold whatever its favored artists favor. These days (and for the last decade) that has increasingly become inkjet prints, often very large.
The patrons want what their favored artists produce. The artist rules.

Berkeley Mike said:
My LA Gallery contacts tell me that images are sold by the square inch; the larger the better.

and the elephant in the room is when the very large prints that cost thousands of dollars fade or shift &c does the artist make a replacement, even when it is a limited edition print
were only a few are made? certainly ink jet or pigment prints are the way of the future and paper stocks can be very nice, but the images are treated like posters in a department store.
this has been a problem with cprint makers as well...
and this has been a problem originally faced by photographers and written about in the 2nd quarter of the 2oth centure by walter benjamin ( http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf ).
as far as many are concerned,
when millions of images can be produced none of them have any value. this has been the case when the negative was celluloid, and there was still human intervention in the printing stage
it is evident now more than ever when reproduction is even more mechanical.

jtk · Jul 23, 2018

My heart goes out to those of us who still imagine that tiny "analog" prints will last longer than digital versions, and that digital phenomena such as the current Lawrence of Arabia, or ...for that matter... most of Edward Weston's current images, will not continue to be there, in all of their digitally delivered glory, for our great grandchildren

removed account4 · Jul 23, 2018

jtk said:
My heart goes out to those of us who still imagine that tiny "analog" prints will last longer than digital versions, and that digital phenomena such as the current Lawrence of Arabia, or ...for that matter... most of Edward Weston's current images, will not continue to be there, in all of their digitally delivered glory, for our great grandchildren

keep drinking the koolaid !
==
how's eddie doing, still having trouble ??

Berkeley Mike · Jul 23, 2018

jnanian said:
thanks ! as someone who has done assignment work for decades it is interesting to hear how a school trains people, seeing when i was trained
it was in an arts program in a university, and then assisting and apprenticing local pros doing schlep + settingup lighting stuff,
and retouching/proof+archival printing+LF camerawork ) the world is on its head these days and the commercial world of photography
is a bit more democratized and less democratized at the same time ... i hope you consider a business class or 2 because like most
things freelance the business end of it is sometimes the most daunting of all the tasks a freelancer has to deal with..
good luck

I don't know one photographer who got into photography to do its business. That said, it is not unusual to see photographers who were raised in business families do well. Business behavior is less foreign and more of an accepted way. That is a natural segue into the photo business.

But it's the imaging that feeds us. It is the craft.

Your own path shows that; all the nuts and bolts acquired, become integrated and automatic, even incidental, to pure image creation. If we're lucky we don't mind the schlepping and menial problem solving. In the end it builds "muscle memory", a foundation of gathered and integrated support behaviors, the movement within the photo community, the non-shutter pressing behaviors, that carries us through our professional careers. From sweeping the studio to getting permits to delivering a 50-foot man lift on site, we come to appreciate it as all a part of the whole.

Somehow the business end of things gets short shrift. Even my instructors who have long commercial experience tend to focus on what one does with the camera on-set. Photographers would rather have a Rep to hustle work and a bookkeeper to keep track of the numbers to free them to press the button.

Making Money in Photography

Does it make more sense to train to make money in Film or Digital Photography?

Film Photography

Digital Photography

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faberryman

jtk

Berkeley Mike

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Berkeley Mike

jamesaz

Berkeley Mike

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Berkeley Mike

Arklatexian

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Cholentpot

Poisson Du Jour

MattKing

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Sirius Glass

Berkeley Mike

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Cholentpot

jtk

Berkeley Mike

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jtk

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Berkeley Mike

Making Money in Photography

Does it make more sense to train to make money in Film or Digital Photography?

Film Photography

Digital Photography

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