Using the appropriate equipment for the job??? (Advice from a long time studio shooter)

[epatsellis]

Zagg,
From my perspective, while the ability to get extremely high quality images with today's equipment is far easier than in the past, the general technical skill set, vis a vis lighting, exposure, compositional skills, etc, is severely lacking.

It's gotten bad enough that If a design client insists on using their own images, I get either raw files or very carefully generated tif files from the photographer to a very specific set of requirements, and verify licensing as well. All too often I've been handed jpg images that were severely clipped, or curved to the point of non-reproducibility. Never had that problem with 'chromes....lol

I've gotten to the point where I think some of there "photographers" need to spend a few weeks in prepress and actually working on a printing press, my experience with the few I've convinced to do that was an aha moment, where all those silly requirements I have listed all make sense. And, yes, the majority of my work still ends up as ink on paper.

 

[shmne]

I'm not sure how or why but wedding photographers get a much better pay rate from brides than commercial photographers do from businesses. Anyone know how this ended up this way?

I've always wanted to pursue being a commercial photographer by shooting advertisements and product photography because thats what I really love. It just seems that companies aren't seeing the ROI, even if they are getting it. I know there are still product photographers out there but it seems like a very small percentage anymore.

 

[cherylynne1]

I'm not sure how or why but wedding photographers get a much better pay rate from brides than commercial photographers do from businesses. Anyone know how this ended up this way?

I don't know about the world at large, but I know that when my friends are planning a wedding I always tell them not to skimp on the photographer, because the photos are the only part of the day that will last forever, and they'll probably be looking at the prints every single day. A great photographer will make you look better in a $500 dress than a bad photographer will make you look in a $5,000 dress. And of course, you can't put a price on the sentimentally that is associated with weddings.

Businesses, on the other hand, are by definition not sentimental. They want the cheapest product they can justify purchasing.

On the other hand, with business increasingly being done online, I think commercial photography will become much more important. Potential clients aren't meandering through stores anymore, and businesses have literally less than a second to get their attention with just a photo of the product.

 

[shmne]

...On the other hand...

I mentioned it briefly but I really believe most businesses just can't see the return on their photos. I also know some small businesses that honestly take outstanding photos of their own products with a pretty simple set up (especially since online photos are so small you miss many of the details) so that may also have to do with it. The "do it yourself" mentality may also be at work here. Brides simply can't do it themselves to ensure a quality product so they have to rely on whomever they hire, and since so much is already invest I guess it makes sense to protect that invest as much as possible.

Without the ability to monitor my photo's success in an online advertisement or sale it'd be very difficult to prove to any business really that it was a factor in a purchase. Now I'm going to have to create an A/B test with my photo and a client photo to test consumers on it >.> if only I had the proper php skills to set something like this up at a large enough company.

 

[Derrel]

I'm not sure how or why but wedding photographers get a much better pay rate from brides than commercial photographers do from businesses. Anyone know how this ended up this way?

I've always wanted to pursue being a commercial photographer by shooting advertisements and product photography because thats what I really love. It just seems that companies aren't seeing the ROI, even if they are getting it. I know there are still product photographers out there but it seems like a very small percentage anymore.

I'm pretty sure you are correct, and I think it is because of a change in the way marketing, and advertising, are being done; the new way for many companies seems to involve a stream of images, released very quickly, in fairly rapid succession, and with one image coming into the marketplace right after another; the old idea of ONE, single advertisement running for eight months or more in a major glossy magazine seems to have disappeared for many products. The old idea of media and still photo advertising was geared toward the major venue to advertise in: printed magazines and printed newspapers. Magazines and newspaper circulations have declined, precipitously.

Magazines offered the best reproduction quality, and big-budget campaigns still exist in them. But the idea of a highly-detailed, perfectly executed, studio-lighted, single-image campaign has morphed into the idea of spitting out new images, rapidly, and sending those to social media, where people can "share" the images on Facebook has led to a smaller-file look... The actual advertisements of many companies these days are being spread through social media, and through websites, where New! New! New! is the philosophy associated most highly with their content; gotta' keep that stream of images flowing. New images this week! New pics! New! New! New! Which means lower-budget stuff, stuff created quickly.

The switch from the big, high-budget, single-image advertising concept to a cheaper, more easily-created, less-studio-y type of representation of the company and its products has I think, led to lower-quality, and lower-priced images. The idea is no longer to shoot ONE actress, showing ONE item, and then to run that ad only in magazines, for a one-year campaign...now it's more like a constant stream of average-to-good photos that are launched on the web, and through social media...this favors smaller images, lower-resolutioin type shots, "mood" and "lifestyle" type appeals to consumers. The days of trying to "Wow!" consumers with one, single, or double-page photo spread in a glossy magazine has shifted to a wider net.

There are now a LOT of smaller companies who have "some guy on staff" who shoots crappy pics with his camera, and they use those (from awful to decent) images in their media campaigns. When the images are seen at the size of a FB post, it doesn't take much.

 

[beagle100]

I don't think there is a decline in skills, in fact I would say that, in general, the standard of photography is probably higher than ever before - due to affordability of high quality equipment, a general interest in photography as a hobby and easy access to information and education on the internet etc. However, with this comes a huge over saturation of 'decent' images. Combine this with the fact that people are willing to work for nothing, and everyone now owns a decent camera (and can do an ok job a lot of the time) I think that to try and make a good living as a commercial photographer, just taking good photos is becoming incredibly difficult (unless you have extraordinary market skills).

true, there are also 000's of unemployed (or underemployed) ex-newspaper photographers looking for commercial photography jobs

 

[epatsellis]

true, there are also 000's of unemployed (or underemployed) ex-newspaper photographers looking for commercial photography jobs

Yup, because you know, it's so cheap to outfit a complete working commercial studio...LOL

Even buying used, judiciously over a 4+ year period, and having a lot of the equipment already, I bet I've spent upwards of $75K NOT counting cameras and optics to outfit a small commercial studio.

I can tell you that in the mid 80's, to set up a working commercial studio with in house lab, multiple Sinar Cameras and Broncolor lighting would run you over $500K...way over.