Self Employed

[wyofilm]

I know that as an engineer/scientist in the USofA, the company owns any and all intellectual property that the individual creates while in the employ of the company. Often, this even includes anything created after hours, "on your own time". This is always the case when working as a contractor too...the only exceptions are those ideas that are explicitly excluded in writing up front, before the contract is signed. This has been the case for my entire 35 year career.

More or less the same as a scientist in the University system.

 

[CMoore]

I know that as an engineer/scientist in the USofA, the company owns any and all intellectual property that the individual creates while in the employ of the company. Often, this even includes anything created after hours, "on your own time". This is always the case when working as a contractor too...the only exceptions are those ideas that are explicitly excluded in writing up front, before the contract is signed. This has been the case for my entire 35 year career.

Thank You.
I had kind of forgotten about a person in your situation.
Some of those "Blanket" laws really bother me.
If you are trying to make a better door knob, and you design one with existing material and tech.....i suppose i support that the company would own that design.
However ....... during that door knob scenario, if you Design/Discover a new alloy, and THAT gets built into everything from Submarines to Hang Gliders.... i fell you should share in a "Meaningful" percentage of those future profits.

 

[BradS]

Thank You.
I had kind of forgotten about a person in your situation.
Some of those "Blanket" laws really bother me.
If you are trying to make a better door knob, and you design one with existing material and tech.....i suppose i support that the company would own that design.
However ....... during that door knob scenario, if you Design/Discover a new alloy, and THAT gets built into everything from Submarines to Hang Gliders.... i fell you should share in a "Meaningful" percentage of those future profits.

Stuff like that used to bother me when I was young and idealistic but it no longer does now that I am older, practical and, some say, cynical.
Life is short. At some point, I decided to stop the relentless pursuit of wealth, and more importantly, stop drinking the poison of my own anger and frustration.
As long as I have enough to do what I want to do, not do the crap that I don't want to do, to eat, and travel and have coffee in the morning, and share a bottle of good wine with a friend now and then, I'm good.
As king David (or is it Solomon?) recommends in Ecclesiastes, the best that we can do is to eat and drink and be happy for all of our days.
Live a full life and enjoy it while you can....nothing good comes from being upset about shit that you have no control over and that, ultimately does not matter.

 

[CMoore]

Stuff like that used to bother me when I was young and idealistic but it no longer does now that I am older, practical and, some say, cynical.
Life is short. At some point, I decided to stop the relentless pursuit of wealth, and more importantly, stop drinking the poison of my own anger and frustration.
As long as I have enough to do what I want to do, not do the crap that I don't want to do, to eat, and travel and have coffee in the morning, and share a bottle of good wine with a friend now and then, I'm good.
As king David (or is it Solomon?) recommends in Ecclesiastes, the best that we can do is to eat and drink and be happy for all of our days.
Live and life enjoy life....nothing good comes from being upset about shit that you have no control over and that, ultimately does not matter.

You should patent that wonderful philosophy..... you could make a Million.

 

[eddie]

Freelancing, as a photographer, sounds romantic, but it has never been so (or easy). The idea of making a living doing what you love will quickly change, if your goal is to be successful. When I did it (pre-internet days), the actual time spent on using the camera was a somewhat small percentage of your working day. Portfolio reviews, meetings, bookkeeping took up more time. Additionally, the associated costs of being self-employed don't seem to be things the young photographers I meet give much thought. Health insurance, equipment insurance, studio space (if you have one) all add up.

About a month ago I was contacted by a realtor looking for a photographer to do advertising/brochure photos for an extremely expensive listing. When I mentioned what I would charge, he was shocked. He thought it would be about $100-250 for everything. When I asked where he got his numbers, he said that's what photographers are asking on Craigslist... I assume he chose one of them.

 

[removed account4]

... and i would have done it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids !

 

[Ai Print]

It's not all doom and gloom folks...

For me, I think the first ten years were the hardest and that was in the late 80's on through the late 90's. After that things really started cooking right up until the economic crash of 2008.
So the broad effects of the crash really had me soul search and figure out what was important to me. One thing I did because of the *very* lucrative market and especially the area I am in is to take down all public websites and just reduce it to a splash page and have the rest be password protected. This "submarine" approach was initially to keep current clients and other work out of the prying eyes of those trying to break in. But what I did not expect is how well that would end up being appreciated by clients who wanted actual exclusivity in the content I create.

So it has stayed that way and the in person marketing I do coupled with exponential word of mouth growth has paid off immensely and will remain my marketing for commercial work. 2019 was my best year ever for fun, rewarding and highly creative work and is no lower than 2nd best in terms of gross revenue.

Like JBrunner has said above several who were once banking major coin have gone bust, but some are at the top of their game and are reaping the rewards. I am very, very thankful to be in the latter category, it's a life I would not trade for anyone else's.

 

[mgb74]

We have been house hunting (N. California, but this probably has a fairly universal application these days, based on what my sister was seeing in the UK in the last year). So we have been looking at lots of pictures of staged houses, drone overheads, dusk shots with the lights on, interior/exterior light balance, wide angle views that make a closet look like it can seat six... And some incredibly low-resolution cell phone shots that were not braced or aligned with the walls (shudder).

Guess which ones make you feel like viewing the place more? Some of the work is done by realtors, some by staging companies, and some by people specializing in this market. It is all digital, naturally - it will be going on the web, and to short run printed flyers. And this does not include the true video or panned stills that are used. It was not so many years ago that the best one could get was a frontage view and a description.

Interestingly, we have been in the real estate market in both Minneapolis and Boston. The "norm" for quality of photographs in each is very different (at a given price point), with Minneapolis having better photography. In Minneapolis, photos are generally taken by a professional. Maybe not "art", but well composed and well lit. In Boston (again at the same price point) the photos appear to be taken by real estate agents. Poorly lit and with lenses that don't provide the necessary angle of view. I'm sure at some price point professionally done photos are the norm in Boston too.

 

[Arklatexian]

No Doubt.
"Technology" has crippled or eliminated most jobs that it did not create.

Wait until "Self Driving Trucks" are perfected. Can you imagine how many peopl will lose a job from that.?

I was in the painters union. Even in my day, technology eliminated A LOT of jobs.
It used to be you could not paint a wall or ceiling with just one guy. It was all oil based products, EVERYTHING lapped if you did not keep it wet, and if you DID make a mistake, you had to wait SEVERAL Hours to fix anything.
With the advent of water borne products, you could teach a monkey to do basic paint jobs, like spraying an acoustic ceiling or a big wall someplace....the outside of a building for example.
Also, the ROLLER put WAY More guys out of work than the sprayer ever did.
That one, simple, invention decimated the ranks of painters.

Quite a bit of photography is just, simply, not that too hard to do.
I just took a beginner class (film) at my local college.
They have a big hallway that they use to showcase the pictures of the students, especially the digital people.
It is nothing short of AMAZING what a 20 year old student can produce after just 3 months of school ...and in Color.!

Anyone can shoot good color or colour with digital. They come in color. However it takes an "expert" to make B&W with one. I would think that after three months of training (depending on the student) and number of classes, an "interested" person could make a "usable" B&W darkroom print, maybe even AMAZING, from camera exposure to print. What has helped put many professional photographers out of business is the ability of people with virtually no training to make a color image using, in the past, a digital camera, today their cell-phone......Regards!

 

[Arklatexian]

One thing I remember doing when the business started to change because of the technology was sitting around waiting for things to get back to normal. It wasn't until I abandoned that idea and embraced the fact of a new normal that I was able to move forward again. People talk of folks they "can't compete against" and the answer to that is, don't. Do you really want those low paying un-discerning clients? I know I certainly didn't. Photography now is stratified more than ever. Which strata you inhabit is up to you, and your savvy, and your ambition, and your skills, and your talent. But I'll tell ya, it doesn't just fall out of the sky, you gotta work at it like a job for it to be a job.

And what you have said has always been true. In the past some professionals blamed the influx of new amateurs for their competition, forgetting that all/allmost all, of them started out as amateurs. Or maybe they did remember and were frightened..............Regards!

 

[Arklatexian]

Stuff like that used to bother me when I was young and idealistic but it no longer does now that I am older, practical and, some say, cynical.
Life is short. At some point, I decided to stop the relentless pursuit of wealth, and more importantly, stop drinking the poison of my own anger and frustration.
As long as I have enough to do what I want to do, not do the crap that I don't want to do, to eat, and travel and have coffee in the morning, and share a bottle of good wine with a friend now and then, I'm good.
As king David (or is it Solomon?) recommends in Ecclesiastes, the best that we can do is to eat and drink and be happy for all of our days.
Live a full life and enjoy it while you can....nothing good comes from being upset about shit that you have no control over and that, ultimately does not matter.

Ahhhhh! Another advocate for "old age" with all of its advantages as opposed to its disadvantages. Did "eat, drink, and be happy" come from the Bible? I thought it was a Cajun saying from South Louisiana (bless them)!.........Regards!

 

[jtk]

Food photography, the film kind that paid half of my bills for a decade, is nearly dead.

Today, published food photography is done by people who know how food should look, even know how to make it...and they obviously know how to light it (which isn't as challenging with a phone as with a view camera and chrome).

My few rivals were hacks (very few photographers were competent enough to be called hacks)...

I look back at my work from that era and kick myself for lacking an iPhone...but of course, we barely had electricity back then.

 

[Ai Print]

So I am just curious, does anyone ever want to talk about who is doing well in photography these days?
Or is it destined to just always be focused on days gone by and the self indulgent notion that no one at all makes a rewarding and admirable living doing what they love?

When ever the topic arises on this site, I find it mostly to be the latter and I find it truly bizarre if not a bit sad...

 

[AndyH]

Interestingly, we have been in the real estate market in both Minneapolis and Boston. The "norm" for quality of photographs in each is very different (at a given price point), with Minneapolis having better photography. In Minneapolis, photos are generally taken by a professional. Maybe not "art", but well composed and well lit. In Boston (again at the same price point) the photos appear to be taken by real estate agents. Poorly lit and with lenses that don't provide the necessary angle of view. I'm sure at some price point professionally done photos are the norm in Boston too.

I'm a professional real estate developer, and spend a lot of time looking at listings, although mostly for fun when it comes to high end single family. The poor quality of real estate photography continually amazes me - even when there has obviously been some extensive (and often pricey) staging on the home. I recently saw a seven figure listing that featured items such as a plunger next to the toilet, and a view through a sliding glass door to the outside in which the yard was properly exposed but the master bedroom interior was so dark that you couldn't tell what color the walls were painted. There are many similar stories, a million of them in the Naked City, so to speak.

Andy

 

[jtk]

So I am just curious, does anyone ever want to talk about who is doing well in photography these days?
Or is it destined to just always be focused on days gone by and the self indulgent notion that no one at all makes a rewarding and admirable living doing what they love?

When ever the topic arises on this site, I find it mostly to be the latter and I find it truly bizarre if not a bit sad...

I agree with your "days gone by" and "self indulgent notion" comment. But I think that applies mostly to film photographers.

The beautiful catalogs that clutter my mailbox are mostly shot with modern (i.e. digital) equipment, and (probably) pay the photographers quite well. After all, they operate the latest Fuji and other digital cameras with the latest appropriate digital-friendly lighting.

The "films" you see on Netflix et al are almost entirely shot digitally (there usually are two or three being shot here)....those films are far too financially important to be relegated to people with antique cameras.

Locally (New Mexico) I regularly see weddings in our wonderful locations being shot by people with Canon (I think not Nikon) DSLRs...very expensive weddings. Many of those photographers are undoubtedly cut-rate (consequentially failing), but some earn significant incomes in high production, very expensive, EXCELLENT studio teams. And of course, today's brides want videos, therefore their weddings are shot with DSLRS that also shoot video.

 

[rorye]

So I am just curious, does anyone ever want to talk about who is doing well in photography these days?
Or is it destined to just always be focused on days gone by and the self indulgent notion that no one at all makes a rewarding and admirable living doing what they love?

When ever the topic arises on this site, I find it mostly to be the latter and I find it truly bizarre if not a bit sad...

I'm definitely ticking along. Yes it's harder, yes there's more competition, but I really believe the type of clients we want can tell the difference between really good, well crafted photography and average work.

 

[cmacd123]

The "films" you see on Netflix et al are almost entirely shot digitally (there usually are two or three being shot here)....those films are far too financially important to be relegated to people with antique cameras.
.

Actually Netflix is not a stranger to the "shot on film" lists that Eastman Kodak puts out:
https://reelfilm.kodak.com/shot_on_film

the list of movies shot on film in 2019 from IMDB is here, note that some of them are the ones the streaming services are pushing:

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls068881147/

 

[eddie]

So I am just curious, does anyone ever want to talk about who is doing well in photography these days?
Or is it destined to just always be focused on days gone by and the self indulgent notion that no one at all makes a rewarding and admirable living doing what they love?

I've actually been doing pretty well lately. Both my traditional hand-painted work, and the cliché verres have been selling. More amazing to me is the amount of requests I've been getting to do hand-colored children/family portraits. I thought interest in that had ended years ago. In talking to people purchasing my work, and inquiring about portrait work, I sense a degree of nostalgia in their interest. A few have mentioned family heirlooms done traditionally. Others talked about an appreciation for hand-crafted items. I think a comfortable (and lucrative) niche can be carved out for film users.

 

[jtk]

I've actually been doing pretty well lately. Both my traditional hand-painted work, and the cliché verres have been selling. More amazing to me is the amount of requests I've been getting to do hand-colored children/family portraits. I thought interest in that had ended years ago. In talking to people purchasing my work, and inquiring about portrait work, I sense a degree of nostalgia in their interest. A few have mentioned family heirlooms done traditionally. Others talked about an appreciation for hand-crafted items. I think a comfortable (and lucrative) niche can be carved out for film users.

I'm definitely ticking along. Yes it's harder, yes there's more competition, but I really believe the type of clients we want can tell the difference between really good, well crafted photography and average work.

Its sometimes fun to "believe" things about the "type of clients we want", but the work you're sharing on your website could readily, if not better, be done digitally.

Atmospherics do count with clients. Some darkroom portraitists wear antique costumes.

It's not surprising that your historic society portraits were shot on film.

Fine inkjet prints are just as "hand crafted" as fine darkroom prints.

As well, digital portraits, including B&W, are often printed on far better paper than can be found in anybody's darkroom.

I agree that "hand-colored children/family portraits" have the potential for a special charm. It would be helpful to see examples on your website. There are wonderful inkjet papers that are receptive to hand coloring.

 

[jtk]

Actually Netflix is not a stranger to the "shot on film" lists that Eastman Kodak puts out:
https://reelfilm.kodak.com/shot_on_film

the list of movies shot on film in 2019 from IMDB is here, note that some of them are the ones the streaming services are pushing:

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls068881147/

Here's Kodak's map of the very few movie theatres that retain film projectors in a huge and critical region. Evidently hardly any of them are currently showing film.
https://reelfilm.kodak.com/find_theatres#

It takes significant post-production artistry to make digital film look like film-film, when the director et al want that look. But it's done regularly..

 

[btaylor]

They really don’t make projection prints anymore for distribution. The “shot on Kodak film” list means just that, the production used film as the image capture medium. Post production has been all digital for a long time. The camera original is scanned and everything after that is on computers. Post production “off the shelf” plug-in digital filters to emulate specific film stocks have also been around for a long time.

 

[jim10219]

The creative industry as whole is dying.

I work at a print shop. We have several big clients, some of whom you've probably heard of. I've been doing it for quite a while now, and I've noticed a shift in the corporate mindset in recent years. It started off with the small businesses, and is now working it's way up through the larger ones. What I'm talking about is companies are becoming far more willing to steal artwork from online sources, and use increasingly less skilled workers to do their design work. The value of both design and the designer is falling hard and fast.

Twenty years ago, it wasn't uncommon for a large company to have an entire design team in house. These days, many are not even outsourcing the work to design studios. More and more often, they're using internal employees hired for different departments to create content for the advertising and branding. I'm frequently getting work, from accountants and middle management in personnel departments, that were created in MS Word, from companies worth tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. They're ripe with errors and bad design. But the copy has been approved by whatever committee, and that's all they tend to focus on. As such, these stand-in designers don't know anything about copyright law, and many will steal photos they find online and use them in their ads. When confronted by us, the printer, about this (on the rare occasion we can actually catch it), the general attitude is either "it's online so it's free", "well what are the odds the copyright owner will find out", or "I bet they can't they afford to hire a good lawyer". Either they don't know it's wrong, they don't care it's wrong, or they calculate that it may be wrong, but it's cheaper than doing the right thing and the rewards outweigh the risks.

That being said, like every business out there, it's more who you know than what you know. Most of the successful freelance photographers and designers that we do business with are actually better business people than they are photographers or designers. Their networking skills are what really pay the bills. I'm not saying that they're bad photographers or designers. Most of them are pretty decent. I'm just saying that it's easy for creatives to forget that it's a business, first and foremost. And how well you do IN the business is mostly about how well you do the business end of it.

 

[Ai Print]

Its sometimes fun to "believe" things about the "type of clients we want", but the work you're sharing on your website could readily, if not better, be done digitally.

I would caution you a bit on that one, that assumes he would enjoy making the images as much in that manner and I think only he can answer to that.

Specifically is that at the end of the day, what makes an image or print better than another is the emotive output of it, the impact of the image it self. As a person who uses both the digital and analog medium to arrive at final images, I most often have a greater appreciation and an entirely different connection with the darkroom based print. And for many of us, photography is like life, the journey is the life and the life you lived are the images you have made are the record.

The journey one takes to arrive at the image can make a big difference in what is contained in the image when all is said and done. Futhermore, I find a lot of the high end interior designers I either sell silver gel prints to or are commissioned by to create bodies of works for multi-million dollar homes like the fact they can upsell the story of how the prints were made, in a darkroom vs a button push in Lightroom.

To some customers the aspect of digital vs hand made in a darkroom will matter and a good photographer who thrives in that vein will know how to find those customers and vice versa.

 

[jtk]

I would caution you a bit on that one, that assumes he would enjoy making the images as much in that manner and I think only he can answer to that.

Specifically is that at the end of the day, what makes an image or print better than another is the emotive output of it, the impact of the image it self. As a person who uses both the digital and analog medium to arrive at final images, I most often have a greater appreciation and an entirely different connection with the darkroom based print. And for many of us, photography is like life, the journey is the life and the life you lived are the images you have made are the record.

The journey one takes to arrive at the image can make a big difference in what is contained in the image when all is said and done. Futhermore, I find a lot of the high end interior designers I either sell silver gel prints to or are commissioned by to create bodies of works for multi-million dollar homes like the fact they can upsell the story of how the prints were made, in a darkroom vs a button push in Lightroom.

To some customers the aspect of digital vs hand made in a darkroom will matter and a good photographer who thrives in that vein will know how to find those customers and vice versa.

As you'll recall, the OT was "self employment."

Some folks will do whatever they want to do and hope that is the same as "employment." Others are salesmen (to galleries and "high end interior designers) more than they are photographers. I'm comfortable that fine salesmen are just as artistic as people who wear berets.

I'm not convinced that people who invent digital business models are less "artistic" than people who labor in darkrooms. As well, I'm not convinced that flaneurs like HCB, who didn't labor in a darkroom, are properly considered photographers more than they are flaneurs (love that word!).

 

[CMoore]

I do not think i have Ever Heard/Read that word before now.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaneur