Wonderful reporting, David! It's easy to imagine a reporter joining the critics and condemning the photographer.
If I can guess about his continued existence in business while so many others failed, I think the reporter missed a point. The photographer is still in business because he hasn't dropped his rates. We've watched a succession of photographers go out of business in our town because they set their rates too low, while we've held the line and even increased rates. And we're still in business.
Posted by Jim Bullard on December 20, 2010 at 10:23 AM
This hit my in-box on a morning when I was scanning a batch of old family photos that were made in the 1800s. The line "Having a portrait taken, professionally, was an event, a milestone in a career or in the life of a family" echoed the thoughts that had run through my mind as I was doing the scans. One of the unfortunate bi-products of mass consumer photography is the loss of appreciation for quality work.
Posted by David Bostedo on December 20, 2010 at 12:24 PM
The photographer is still in business because he hasn't dropped his rates.
Hank - This is purely speculation, but is it possible that those photographers that dropped their rates had to in order to get business and would have gone under either way? In other words, the cause and effect you're implying is backwards - they didn't go out of business because they dropped their rates. They dropped their rates because they were going out of business?
One of the unfortunate bi-products of mass consumer photography is the loss of appreciation for quality work.
We're forming the opinion that's a cyclic phenomenon, complicated certainly by the slow economy of the last couple of years. People were pitched by ad men that with the ease of taking and sharing (via the web and cheap printers) photos, they could do as well as the pros. You still see the same ads today. The slow economy meant that folks in fact had to "make do" with their own equipment rather than hire out the work, even after they realized that their work didn't measure up to that of a good pro.
We've seen an interesting trend over the last couple of years. Last year our client numbers dropped, but our income stayed much the same, even increasing. We lost a lot of "small" clients, even as the average size of sales went up considerably.
This year client numbers are back up, while size of sales and overall income have soared. The "big" clients who really appreciate pro work and can afford it are buying larger individual shots and spending lots more overall. Meanwhile the "small" clients are stretching their orders. They pay the sitting fees and order a few small prints, but keep coming back to order more, and especially to order larger as they can save the money to do so.
We're seeing a re-emergence of the recognition of the worth of pro work, even from consumers that once thought digital was going to let them do it all themselves. Overall the size of our average sale increased by over 40% this year over last, which was 34% larger than the year before that.
Yeah, it's been a VERY good year!
Posted by John W. Wall on December 20, 2010 at 6:09 PM
Good stuff. I'm glad someone in the media stuck up for the guy. If you read the original article, though, the main beef seems to be that the city already pays a staff photographer, and the mayor didn't like spending about one-quarter of the staff photographer's annual salary for the "extra" of a portrait photographer. Frankly, it seems like they have an underqualified staff photographer at City Hall if he/she is incapable of doing portraits.
Hank - This is purely speculation, but is it possible that those photographers that dropped their rates had to in order to get business and would have gone under either way? In other words, the cause and effect you're implying is backwards - they didn't go out of business because they dropped their rates. They dropped their rates because they were going out of business?
It's speculation based on 20+ years of watching it happen in our own and other markets.
No, I don't know the Ottowa market. But if that's not the case, it's unique. People start selling their work cheaper and cheaper to "compete" and draw business, and pretty quick they're working their fingers to the bone and not covering expenses. Does that sound like a fair description of stock photography today, as well?
Posted by Ross Warner on December 20, 2010 at 9:48 PM
I don't think this had anything to do with price or quality. I will bet it had to do with politics and scoring political points.
Where are we in the Canadian election cycle, anyway?
Posted by David Prichard on December 21, 2010 at 1:27 PM
Hank,
In Ontario the civic elections have just past. This must have been the new council. Ottawa, on the civic political scene, has had some interesting times over the past few years.
I agree with the photographer. My eldest niece just got married. I volunteered to do the photography but the husband to be had already hired some semi-pros that had retired from other fields. Putting the couple in front of a dead tree for their wedding photos; interesting concept.
In the end her wedding photos didn't come close to either her parents of grand-parents and I doubt they saved that much money.
I'm sorry about the results from your niece's wedding. But sad to say, not really surprised.
As a part of the "business cycle" every few years we get new photographers in town who plan to get rich shooting weddings cheaply. Yeah, it cuts us out of some weddings, but we come out ahead in the end. Results are mediocre to poor, and all the B&G have to show for their outlay is disc of poorly shot photos. I can't tell you how many times we've gone through a 3-Meeting Cycle with prospective B&G's. Yeah, it's so predictable we've named it.
Meeting One- The B&G love our work but turn us down because someone will do it cheaper.
Meeting Two- After the wedding the B&G bring their discs to us in tears of disappointment, asking if we can "rescue" some of their images. Maybe we can, maybe we can't, depending on how bad the mess is.
Meeting Three- In the cases where we take on the cleanup and printing, they pay our fees and shed tears of joy at finally getting decent photos.
No net savings to them, because in fact the fees they paid the other photographer aren't that much lower than our own basic shooting fees. For the extra money they buy experience, extensive equipment and helping hands in getting top rate finished products from the basic disc.
Our reputation goes back up and the business picks up, while the most recent photo phenom tanks and takes up online gambling as the next get-rich-quick scheme. True story.
Discussion
11 replieshttp://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/Portrait+artist/3990976/story.html#ixzz18aV8HsOS
If I can guess about his continued existence in business while so many others failed, I think the reporter missed a point. The photographer is still in business because he hasn't dropped his rates. We've watched a succession of photographers go out of business in our town because they set their rates too low, while we've held the line and even increased rates. And we're still in business.
Hank - This is purely speculation, but is it possible that those photographers that dropped their rates had to in order to get business and would have gone under either way? In other words, the cause and effect you're implying is backwards - they didn't go out of business because they dropped their rates. They dropped their rates because they were going out of business?
We're forming the opinion that's a cyclic phenomenon, complicated certainly by the slow economy of the last couple of years. People were pitched by ad men that with the ease of taking and sharing (via the web and cheap printers) photos, they could do as well as the pros. You still see the same ads today. The slow economy meant that folks in fact had to "make do" with their own equipment rather than hire out the work, even after they realized that their work didn't measure up to that of a good pro.
We've seen an interesting trend over the last couple of years. Last year our client numbers dropped, but our income stayed much the same, even increasing. We lost a lot of "small" clients, even as the average size of sales went up considerably.
This year client numbers are back up, while size of sales and overall income have soared. The "big" clients who really appreciate pro work and can afford it are buying larger individual shots and spending lots more overall. Meanwhile the "small" clients are stretching their orders. They pay the sitting fees and order a few small prints, but keep coming back to order more, and especially to order larger as they can save the money to do so.
We're seeing a re-emergence of the recognition of the worth of pro work, even from consumers that once thought digital was going to let them do it all themselves. Overall the size of our average sale increased by over 40% this year over last, which was 34% larger than the year before that.
Yeah, it's been a VERY good year!
It's speculation based on 20+ years of watching it happen in our own and other markets.
No, I don't know the Ottowa market. But if that's not the case, it's unique. People start selling their work cheaper and cheaper to "compete" and draw business, and pretty quick they're working their fingers to the bone and not covering expenses. Does that sound like a fair description of stock photography today, as well?
Where are we in the Canadian election cycle, anyway?
In Ontario the civic elections have just past. This must have been the new council. Ottawa, on the civic political scene, has had some interesting times over the past few years.
I agree with the photographer. My eldest niece just got married. I volunteered to do the photography but the husband to be had already hired some semi-pros that had retired from other fields. Putting the couple in front of a dead tree for their wedding photos; interesting concept.
In the end her wedding photos didn't come close to either her parents of grand-parents and I doubt they saved that much money.
As a part of the "business cycle" every few years we get new photographers in town who plan to get rich shooting weddings cheaply. Yeah, it cuts us out of some weddings, but we come out ahead in the end. Results are mediocre to poor, and all the B&G have to show for their outlay is disc of poorly shot photos. I can't tell you how many times we've gone through a 3-Meeting Cycle with prospective B&G's. Yeah, it's so predictable we've named it.
Meeting One- The B&G love our work but turn us down because someone will do it cheaper.
Meeting Two- After the wedding the B&G bring their discs to us in tears of disappointment, asking if we can "rescue" some of their images. Maybe we can, maybe we can't, depending on how bad the mess is.
Meeting Three- In the cases where we take on the cleanup and printing, they pay our fees and shed tears of joy at finally getting decent photos.
No net savings to them, because in fact the fees they paid the other photographer aren't that much lower than our own basic shooting fees. For the extra money they buy experience, extensive equipment and helping hands in getting top rate finished products from the basic disc.
Our reputation goes back up and the business picks up, while the most recent photo phenom tanks and takes up online gambling as the next get-rich-quick scheme. True story.