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"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat, "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" asked Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
Introduction
When I first thought of getting into the travel photography business,
just about everyone already in the business said the same thing:
you must be mad. "The field is saturated," "there's no money to be
made," "it's very competitive," and the obvious statement, "there's
a huge amount of really good material already out there." In short,
the advice was a resounding, "you don't have a chance." Not one bit of
encouragement from anyone. I soon discovered why. It has nothing to do
with photography. Success in this business depends on one and only one
thing: good business sense. If all people were equal, the advice I
got would have been right. It'd be just like a lottery, where your chances
of success are equal to everyone else's. In the photo business, there are
so many players—in fact, more people in the world take pictures than ever
play the lottery—your chances of success are worse.
Thing is, not all people are equal. What's more, there are huge
numbers of very skilled photographers who aren't successful. Is success
distributed only to those who are skilled? I probably don't need to
tell you the answer to that one—we have all seen pretty awful images
in everything from ads, to magazine stories about travel, to brochures.
The point of differentiation is not skill, nor how many people are
in it, or any of the typical explanations. The one factor to success
is how smart you are. Sure, you need to be "good enough" with your
photography for people to really take you seriously, but that standard
is sufficiently low that just about anyone serious about getting into
the business of photography, is probably a good enough photographer. (I
wish I had a quarter for how many times I get email from people asking
me to look at their photos to give them a sense of whether I think their
photos are good enough to get into the business. The answer is almost
always "yes, they're good enough, but that's not important right now.")
Thus, my favorite quote about the photo business is,
"If it were easy, everyone would do it."
"Photography" is easy, and everyone does do it. It's the business
of photography that isn't so easy, and not everyone can do that.
Another notion to dispel: "hard work" doesn't translate to success.
A quick, keen insight into business situations is what it's all about.
Someone who intuitively knows that it's a complete waste of time to
cold-call art directors and to send out unsolicited portfolios is
someone that understands this. The same goes for sending unsolicited
emails (aka. spam) in hopes of getting attention, let alone work:
this is someone that may work very hard, but will go nowhere almost
from the get-go. Whereas, someone that builds a large body of work,
engages in business segments that may use this kind of imagery, and
who establishes relationships with people who can usher him past the
others "knocking at the door", that's someone who is working smart.
What makes this "hard" isn't the number of hours, it's the intuitive
understanding of how people work in a business climate, and making
clear, concise decisions that are consistent with that understanding.
So in the end, it's not about how good you are as a photographer.
It's about how well you know the business of the topic you happen to be
selling those photos. And because of this fact, photography is like many
other professions: the smart ones are more successful than talented ones.
That's where this book comes in. It's primarily an analysis of the
photo industry as a whole, and a set of guidelines for how to work smartly
within it. It's not a how-to guide, outlining step-by-step instructions
for getting there. Despite what other books or photographers claim,
there is no secret to business, and there is no approach out there that
hasn't been tried. In fact, the same approach may work very well for
some, while being disastrous for others. This is why this book is more
analytical: it deconstructs many approaches and many perspectives on the
subject, and discusses when such approaches are applicable, and when they
are not.
With all that said, I should remind the reader: photography is not a
business you go into to make money. Photography is chosen because
of its lifestyle and creative outlet. Yes, you can make a good,
comfortable living at it, but you don't do because you can. You just
end up richer if you go about it smartly. Hence, this final word of
warning/advice before moving ahead:
"Trying to make a career out of photography is a sure way to ruin a
perfectly lovely hobby."
And this is precisely what happened to me. I started with photography
as a hobby. I traveled a lot; I enjoyed it; and I came home with
great photos I'd share with friends and family; and then I'd go back to
work. Then I thought it'd be a notch more fun if I made some money with my
hobby. Fast-forward ten years, and I find myself far more "successful" at
photography than I ever thought I would be. But this has come at a cost:
I spend 90% of my time not doing photography; I'm running a business
(the details of which are discussed in this book). I still love those
two and three week trips I do several times a year to exotic lands
around the world, taking pictures, and basking in what others thing is
the easiest job in the world. I adore the people I work with, and I relish
the creative thrill of taking pictures and seeing them in magazines or on
billboards. But, this is a tiny sliver of what comprises my days, weeks,
and months. Most of the time, I never get a chance to think about those
things. In fact, you could say my life is no different than any other
real job that's hard: I work, work, work, and then I get to take a few
weeks off and go somewhere on vacation. Only my vacations are work.
And yet, I would have none of those slices of heaven if I didn't do that
90% of everything else that isn't so wonderful.
Final closure: this is by no means an attempt to talk you out of the business
like everyone else tried to do to me. I would never do that. I'm just trying
to give you a realistic sense that photography is not an easy business to
be in, and you really have to set your expectations on what it'll to do to
your lifestyle. This is where Photo Careers picks up.
You'll notice that there are no chapters on photography techniques.
For that material, see Photography Techniques.
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