Losing business to amateurs

[imagemaker46]

I had to throw this out there. I was talking to a friend of mine the other night, he's been working as full time photographer for 6-7 years. As a photojournalist he shadowed a Reuters photographer for seven months and does a good job. He told me the other day that he lost a client recently, one he has had for a few years, it made him around 15k a year, shooting sports for one of the local universities. He had no idea what happened, so he went to them and asked, another photographer, and to be honest she does a pretty good job, went to them and said she would do it for free, she retired from a six figure job last year and just wants to shoot things.

So he gets screwed out of trying to make a living by someone that has decided to poach clients at a price photographers can't compete with, free, and she doesn't see anything wrong with it. This is what pisses me and so many other photographers off.

If anyone thinks that amateurs with full time jobs, that can afford to buy the best gear and then shoot for free because they can afford to, doesn't affect other people that are just trying to stay in the business. They have no idea what they are talking about. This is just one example.

 

[The_Traveler]

If the client can see no difference in the work, that is unfortunate for your friend but understandable from the part of the client.
Why pay a lot of money when you can get the same thing for free?
No business is a social welfare organization.

 

[snerd]

Gotta go with Lew here. If they're happy with the quality of FREE work, how can you not switch?!

 

[Derrel]

Scribes complained about the same thing back when the masses learned to write a little bit.

My now ex-wife and I used to have a wonderful, $4,000 per-month gig writing and publish a monthly newsletter for a large trade union, way back in the early 1990's, in the days when knowing how to do "desktop publishing" with photos, using "a computer!!!" was a rare skill set. Four grand a MONTH to do a small newsletter! Back in the days of $500 a month house payments! Of course, the small Macintosh computer we had cost around $5k, and we have a VERY rare and expensive thing, a Texas Instruments laser printer to do our layouts on, then we took the flats to be shot and web-press printed.

Times have changed-a LOT. What were once precious and rare skills are now...not. There are plenty of amateurs who can shoot as well, or better than, professionals in many genres. it used to be that it was easy to make money with a camera, back in the film-and-print days, but those days are fifteen years behind us now.

 

[MSnowy]

I know how your friend feels. Amateurs working for free has cost me at least $20,000 a year for the past 8 years. Since the internet has really taken off where people can get gear, info and learn skills up to that of the professionals my business has been greatly affected. Many of my former clients have six figure incomes and now they can do their own projects for free. Oh by the way I'm in the home improvement business.

 

[480sparky]

Are people who shop for price alone for so-so imagery really your target market?

 

[Braineack]

I lost free logo/design work to a paid service because I took too long to provide returns.

 

[Gary A.]

This is a two edged sword. I do not blame the client at all. I'm a former pro, a photojournalist back in the film-only days. I got out in the '80's. The dSLR re-ignited my passion, but now I'm just a hobbyist. I've been so tempted to hit the theaters around here and volunteer just for the fun of it and to get some exceptional images. (Theatre is like shooting fish in a bucket. You have the lighting, the actors, the staging all there in front of you.) But, I've held back because I wonder who I might be taking paid work from ... for me it just isn't right.

Gary

 

[hamlet]

Losing your business is never easy. You've got to evolve with the times and technology to stay relevant. Plus with the global economy the way it is right now, everybody is hurting and cost cuts have to be made to survive. The reality is that thousands of businesses in the American economy are going belly up every week. It is time for a reality check and put ego aside.

 

[KmH]

That's just one more story about how doing photography as a career is becoming less and less viable.

Everyday I see low quality photos and videos being used for commercial purposes. 10 years ago those photos and videos would not have been used.
The bar has never been lower and I fully expect the bar to be lowered much further than it is today.

 

[imagemaker46]

This is a two edged sword. I do not blame the client at all. I'm a former pro, a photojournalist back in the film-only days. I got out in the '80's. The dSLR re-ignited my passion, but now I'm just a hobbyist. I've been so tempted to hit the theaters around here and volunteer just for the fun of it and to get some exceptional images. (Theatre is like shooting fish in a bucket. You have the lighting, the actors, the staging all there in front of you.) But, I've held back because I wonder who I might be taking paid work from ... for me it just isn't right.

Gary

Thanks for this. It's appreciated.

 

[imagemaker46]

I'm not going back into the acceptance of crap over quality. I was just passing along another example of how things have changed. I've heard it all before, change or quit, modify how to work. I feel for my friend, it's hard to recover from a 15k hit to the pocket book at the expense of someone that doesn't need it, and doesn't care. It goes beyond just a work thing.

 

[limr]

I don't know - I didn't see this as a gripe about the business wanting to save money, but rather about the douche nozzles - who aren't feeling squeezed by economic circumstances - who are taking away the livelihood of working professionals just because they feel like taking some pictures. It's not even about fair competition between established professionals and up-and-coming professionals at that point. It's a bored hobbyist undercutting the professional for no good reason. Just to practice. Can't they practice without screwing someone else over? No, you can't really blame the businesses for trying to maintain their own livelihood, but it's not right for people to make it even harder than it already is for professionals who are trying to make a living.

 

[shefjr]

I'm so thankful that no one wants to do masonry for free... It really sucks that a person's means of providing for their family can be taken away by a well intentioned and yet uniformed dolt.

 

[cgw]

Despite widespread fondness for the old "you get what you pay for" mantra, its corrolary "pay less, get less" doesn't seem to have the same currency. It should. A client more mindful of cost over quality never "got" it and never will see how their image can be impacted by sub-standard photography.