The death of full time professional photography

nmh wrote in post #5011336
I think it is really because the OP thinks that only the new competition is comprised of those "working out of their homes with someone else to cover all the bills". That may be correct, but I think there are many who have a working spouse (or equivalent) or simple get by without a huge studio.

Not having to cover various costs (medical, rent, bills, equipment, insurance, marketing, and so on) makes it easier to lower prices and not pay for the privilege - so maybe eliminating as many of those as possible would be a good business practice.

Or have something only you can offer ? Your vision, if your not shooting like everyone else, is one way to separate yourself and keep those photographers from becoming your competition.

What about my horse and buggy business? The iron horse is killing me!

Having to adapt to new market conditions is what business is all about. Perhaps photography was stagnant for a long time, but now we're fluid. So cheap moms would rather take their own crappy kid portraits, big deal: go after moms that aren't cheap.

I live in a samll rural area that has around 10,941 as of 2007. Now in this samll town we have roughly ten "photographers". Two of which are PPA affilated and one that has an actual studio the other one had a studio and lost it due to the economy. And most of the other photographers here in town are mommies with cameras...most of them have point and shoots and doing studio like work with canon s3is(great camera but not greared for the studio). I used to work in a local lab and would see their work and I knew that they were just charging outrageously sheap prices to get the work they were getting. Unfortunately, where I live price is king and not quality.

I know you are going to say..well you have a good quality product and people will come for that, but not really. Around her people could care less about quality, it is what they can afford. I am just saying that around where I live it is very chanlenging to find even part time work.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #4995937
I somewhat disagree. In todays market I think you need to become more specialized. Separate yourself from the crowd. Define what you are and what you do. All the photographers I know now that are doing very well are all very specialized.

As the well-known (original author unknown) quote stated:

"To be successful in business, do one thing, do it well, do it better than anyone else,..."

Unfortunately, the original quote continued and ended with: "...and do it for less."

But the pricing is a personal decision.

/Dan

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Francis Farmer wrote in post #4992964
I would like to ONLY hear from full time professionals that have a brick and morder building. Their experiences etc.

You've got this all wrong, one simply cannot walk into Mordor.

Francis Farmer wrote in post #4992964
I am beginning on writing an article on what I see is the death of full time photography business.

I would like to ONLY hear from full time professionals that have a brick and morder building. Their experiences etc.

No Part timers, People working out of their homes, or people that have spouses that bring home a great portion of the money.

Thanks Francis

When people can't even use a spell check, that would lead to the death of their business most often...

I think the full-time photography profession is changing, not ending, as everyone here has stated. To just come out and say it's dying and base everything around that is FUD.

okay, i can't spell. lol That is what I have my wife for..

In my area it is all about the money. Why use me, when I charge 2K for a basic wedding packages, when the girl down the street working out of her home charges 400, and does a good job.

Maybe I am just too tired to reinvent myself. I sold my studio building last week. I am making a really good profit, more if I didn't have to pay capital gains taxes. What am I going to do? Do a little traveling. In the past 31 years I have never taken a longer vacation than 4 days.

As I don't know about "mzorn26", but Fenster you state that you are a part time photographer. I guess if I was early in my career and was part time with a good day job, then working on the side without the expense of a studio, would be exciting.

I guess it boils down that I am close to the end of this ride and you are at the beginning.

now let me go find spell checker. lol

As others have said/implied... adapt or die. And the speed at which change takes place keeps accelerating and change happens much faster now than it used to. This isn't just photography, but pretty much any business.

I'm not quite sure why photographers that work out of their homes are somehow considered less legitimate. The quality of their work, and their business sense, should define their legitimacy, and reducing unnecessary and/or outdated overhead is just plain good business sense.

Slightly OT, and correct me if I'm wrong, but "back in the day", weren't home studios the norm? Or, at least common? Before city ordinances started outlawing home businesses, I mean.

Well I believe that I am adapting. I have sold the studio. I am not saying that home based photographers are less legit. They are not pressured with the same amount of overhead as a store front photographer.

Now I won't have to pay $ 1000 a month utility bills in the summer.

I will ask everyone a question. " How do you adapt to the flood of part timer photographers?"

If you have $3000/mo less in expenses (to make up a number for example purposes) then you could lower your prices accordingly and make the same profit (theoretically, at least). Then complete on price, reputation, and quality.

I don't believe that "nobody cares" about quality. There are some who care only about price, sure, but by no means everybody. I believe that if you have the rep then you can be competitive and still do well. "Competitive" doesn't necessarily mean price-matching or price-beating everybody in town, but it also doesn't mean being 100% above your competition, either.

Francis Farmer wrote in post #5040567
okay, i can't spell. lol That is what I have my wife for..

In my area it is all about the money. Why use me, when I charge 2K for a basic wedding packages, when the girl down the street working out of her home charges 400, and does a good job.

With your current client base, it is all about money. The solution is simple, target a new client base.

Make sure your work is outstanding, not just good, and target a different, more upscale, market. There will ALWAYS be high end clients, you just have to make sure you work is at the level that they expect (it may be now), and then make sure you market towards them.

I gave up dealing with customers who were happy with "ok" ages ago. It isn't worth my time to nickel and dime myself to death. Now I can do half the work, and reap 3x the reward.

Francis Farmer wrote in post #5040567
Maybe I am just too tired to reinvent myself.

Time to retire.

photoguy6405 wrote in post #5040754
As others have said/implied... adapt or die. And the speed at which change takes place keeps accelerating and change happens much faster now than it used to.

True, and most of the newer "rockstar" photographer have adapted - they are now offering workshops, DVDs and other "happy smoke" products to the wide-eyed newcomers who think in a few years they too can become the next rockstar wedding photographer.

Virtually every "name" photographer that I can think of in the last few years started to offer educational products to the newcomers. They are traveling extensively now presenting seminars. They feed off of the energy of the wanna-bes and some make a VERY good living from their workshops and other products.

On the surface there is nothing wrong with that and there have been seminars in professional photography for as far back as I can remember but never to the extent that I see now. But I have never seen the kind of self-promoting "buzz marketing" being done today to build a name recognition among new photographers as I am seeing now.
In the past if you wanted to present seminars you had to earn that right and you earned it from years of running a successful studio. Now, you enter the profession, buzz like hell and in 2-3 years start marketing expensive workshops and DVDs.

This is, IMO, no longer a profession where passionate photographers enter to make their passion into their career, many of these new marketers are more interested in, IMO, generating sales to the hordes of newcomers than in actually shooting for a living.

I teach as well (so I am not just pointing fingers) but I prefer to preach the message that wedding/portrait/comme​rcial photography is a challenging business now, partly due to the over-saturation of service provides for the demand, and any one entering the profession needs to get a handle on the realities of the profession so that they can try and build their business with a realistic base of actual statistical data and realistic expectations. I leave the "happy smoke" to some of the other guys.

Rick

I have been told that a very successful photographer closed his business and now he and his wife travel all over the country. Spreading the knowledge on how to make a living in photography. Even tho they shut their studios down.