NSURIT wrote:
> Bob, several years ago while attending a 2-day workshop with John Shaw, he
> stated that he only knew of one nature and wildlife photographer who was
> earning a living only from selling his images. Writing, workshops, etc.
> seems to be the other source of income.
As I seem to recall, you also attended another one up on Isle Royale
with some even bigger-name guy than John Show.
I'm pretty well convinced that there is only one profitable type of
photography today and that's wedding photography. Everything else is
pretty much a wipe out or your fortunes are tied to just one or two
major clients. In otherwords, no diversity of income that takes you
beyond the point where you can support a household without having your
spouse work.
I've been looking very closely at my photography income over the past
five years and see a very disturbing trend. Basically, what has
happened is that the income has shrunk dramatically because either the
market for my services has shrunk or the average revenue per job has
stagnated or declined. Five years ago, my stock income was quite good
and so was my wedding income. The wedding jobs dried up when my
pricing fell into the no-man's-land. The event photography, while
steady, is pretty low income stuff. Five years ago I was also doing
pretty well in art-print sales.
There is an old principle when a former boss taught me. This guy was
part of the upper-crust of society--his family having made fortunes
many times over. He used the example of his father. The city of
Houston was growing. He went down there to buy land as an investment.
The problem was that the prices of land had already gone up and there
was some uncertainty as to which direction the city was going to grow.
The only thing not in doubt was that the city was going to grow. So,
instead of buying land, he bought a large portion of the power
company.
So, Harvey expounded on this and taught me about the gold rush in
California. The guys who struck it rich weren't the miners. The guys
who struck it rich were the ones who sold supplies to the miners. My
doing so, they took on absolutely no risk and it didn't matter who
struck gold because the store will get their cut no matter what.
I realize that I'm only going to make so much money from my
photography. There are several reasons why: I'm not that great of a
photographer; I'm in a bad location; I haven't much time or energy to
devote to it.
So, after a bit of soul searching I ask myself: Do I want to make
money from my photography? Do I NEED to make money from my
photography. The answer to the second question is yes. The answer to
the first question is only for pride and purpose. The artist in me is
going to create regardless of the money. But the money demands require
that I focus energies on activities that produce money.
So, we have this revival in B&W film photography going on. If my
market research is correct, there is going to be quite a bit of growth
to this before it levels off and goes back into decline. I'm seeing a
five year bubble which I can ride. The nice thing is that I only need
five years. Past that point, I will be in a different phase of my
life. So, what I'm doing is redirecting my efforts into a custom
processing/printing world. My primary purpose is to justify
construction of my darkroom AND to give my daughters employment
opportunities.
So, for me, it really is all about the money. I'll free myself from
the burden of having to earn money from my own photography. I'm hoping
that this liberation frees me up to be able to focus on art
photography again.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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