Preface:[The following is just a collection of thoughts, based off experiences of course, of how much the action sport (ski, board, climb, skate, run etc) photography industry has evolved in the last 5-10 years. While this scope is narrow, I think its fair to assume that the same ideas apply elsewhere in the general photo AND video marketplace. This piece will probably get updated as I get comments, and it includes things that I myself am working on as a photographer. If you want to skim through, just FFWD to the bold print]

10 years ago it didn’t take much to be an action sport photographer (man if you saw the first shot I had published in 2000 ). The magazines were fat with ads, the biggest and baddest mountains were still yet to be climbed [or descended], Fuji was making a killing selling Velvia, and the images from years past were ancient the minute spandex and neon went out of fashion (and for you videos guys lets pour an ounce to the XL-1 and GL-1). Times were good, to be a ‘pro’ all you needed was a beautiful location and to expose your slide film properly and you were just about guaranteed a sale… after all competition was slim… the consumers that went to the same places were all shooting print film and paying several K for an F5 seemed insane to the Average Joe. 

[remember these days?]

I’m not saying there weren’t great photographers, but the competition was nil and if you could take a well exposed, in focus action shot (especially one of a well known athlete) you were in. Advertising shoots were much of the same… looking for that one great shot (not content for website, behind the scenes footage, and other campaigns too). Marketing yourself was an easy formula as well, maybe you emailed a bit, but the community was small so you almost certainly called PEs, ADs, and other creatives and your postcard mailers weren’t seen as a waste of fossil fuels and trees. In the end, being pro was about taking that dope image… and that’s how you got remembered. When I ran these ideas past the well known, and experienced, snowboard photog Dano Pendygrasse he echoed the same, “My first photos were so bad. I got lucky as often as got it right, but there were very few people doing what I was doing. Luckily I spent time learning from mistakes.”

 

Fast forward to 2008 — Last year Nikon and Canon combined sold 6 million SLRs, all capable of taking a publishable image; and getting those photos out to the public has become easy, no more slides, 4000 photos a minute are uploaded to Flickr. The competition is fierce too, everyday mom and pop shooters are selling photos on istock photo, and those magazines that people used to make a living off of are hurting. 200 page books have shrunk to 100 page pamphlets (seemingly printed on newspaper). 

But this isn’t a doom and gloom post at all. In fact there is no other time in history that I’d rather be a photographer… hell just this week the photo community announced some of the coolest cameras ever…. Its just what defined a pro photographer 10 years ago doesn’t necessarily define one today. Those photogs still living in years past need to get their heads out of the sand if they want to make it another year, the ones that just got published in a magazine need to think bigger if they want to pay the mortgage, and I just really need write some of this stuff down before my head explodes!

 

Here’s what I mean:

 

10 years ago pro photographers were defined by the images they took. From shooting first descents on Everest, the first X games on the west coast, to Tony Hawk’s 900, they became ingrained in the brain of art directors readers alike.

 

Today ANYONE CAN TAKE A GOOD PHOTOGRAPH, yes ANYONE. Everyday I see shots on Flickr that make me say ‘holy shit’ and I’m a tough critic. In fact media has become so saturated that most of us have become numb to it, especially the ones that are hyper aware…So what defines a pro photographer in 2008 and how do we get noticed? [Here comes the meat] I think I can sum in up with 2 points. A pro photographer today is defined their ability to:

 

1) Produce consistent results on demand, in any location at any time.

*That means having a style, not crossing your fingers and getting lucky. Says Dano, “The technology is jumping forward faster than ever before right now, it can be overwhelming and it can be liberating, it’s all up to the photographer. In an age where speedlights can compete with multi thousand dollar studio lighting systems, it is truly a level playing field, so everyone needs to be on their “A” game every job. Consistency is the best thing you can strive for, that and a voice.”

2) Understand the entire creative process from production to post.

*You think you do… but do you really? Casting, location scouting, working well with talent, being someone creative that the Art Director wants to be around, knowing when to say yes and when to say no, delivering a polished product… we could all probably work on some part of this.  

Take your favorite ‘pro’ photographer, the ones making serious money anyhow, and I bet they do the two things above well, very well. 

 

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO TO TAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE NEXT LEVEL..$$$? Here are ten things that all of your favorite pros also do…

 

1) Learn all you can about lighting… and I‘m not talking about full frontal lighting here. Learn to shape, modify, and incorporate the results into post.

2) Master Lightroom [Aperture] (all of it), Photoshop (most of it — layers and masks especially), and at least have some knowledge of Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and Shake. Your abilities in post are as important, if not more, than your abilities as a photographer.

3) Shoot Video, if for no other reason to give a client that little bit extra they never expected… remember under promise over produce.

4) Rent a studio, pro riders shred in the park so that they can stomp in the backcountry… you need to be doing the same.

5) Understand and Appreciate the web 2.0 way of marketing yourself, blogs, facebook, editorial, Flickr, etc all have value for different folks.

6) Pick up the phone or get on a plane and TALK to your dream clients – they get 100 promo emails a day, how may do you think they talk to? How many do you think they remember?

7) Collaborate – The market has become too saturated and specialized for you alone to be good at everything. Surround yourself with a staff or group of peers that are good at things you suck at.

8.)  Shoot today what you want to be hired to shoot tomorrow – On an assignment isn’t the best time to be experimenting with new ideas (see #4) 

9) Go the extra 10% — People say the last 10% is the hardest, but that extra ‘polish’ is what clients remember… do the things you know you ‘should’ do.

10) Embrace technology – Just this month new cameras and lighting equipment were released that let you do things that have never been possible before… why not be one of the ones to lead rather than follow.

Hopefully we can come back in five years and see how things have evolved yet again.

“The market doesn’t reward generalists in an environment like this, so people who specialize and have very specific looks tend to get noticed. Most of those people will become associated with a certain look or subject matter and will be stuck reproducing it ad infinitum. Careful where you make your bed I say, you WILL sleep in it. It takes a hundred times longer to change an impression than to make one, so be very sure of what you are doing.”

 

 Tk.

 

 

 

 

Tweet This Post