Do You Care If It's Bad for the Profession? Quite Possibly - No.

In an excellent post about the state of the business, John Harrington tackles the challenge of telling someone who is not in the business that sound business rules and a business heritage is important. Some listen, many don't. And the ones who don't are changing the business. Change is not necessarily bad or good, it is simply change. Some will be hurt by the change and some will be lifted by it. There will be a sizeable group that wont be affected at all.

John makes some points and assumptions that are right on, but I think there are a few more things going on here as well. I will discuss after the jump here. Read the whole post at John's site.

Photo Business News & Forum: Do You Care If It's Bad for the Profession? Quite Possibly - No.: "Photographers are not day laborers, nor call girls. Yet, when a photographer accepts a WMFH job, they become, in effect, a day-laborer. They're paid for that work, and will never generate a dime from it again. When a photographer accepts an assignment that they're paid $150 for, that should be an assignment for $1,000, they are selling themselves short, and not recognizing the true cost of that assignment, and how they have given away their creative talents for a fraction of it's value.

When we say 'it's bad for the profession', what we're saying is a shortcut to how it's really bad for you, and that it'll hurt your friends as well. It's not a holier-than-thou attitude, it's sound counsel. You may know, deep down, that WMFH is bad for you, but you feel you have no other choice. You do. You can say no to the deal, or, better yet, negotiate the deal to a yes/win-win for both parties. Sure, some clients have such a long line of people saying yes to WMFH, that you have no bargaining power. Don't work for them. Don't work for people who don't value you beyond your eyeball and trigger-finger."

1. Lowering the business bar. It is being lowered you know. All around you. In lots of industries.

• Drummers are being replaced by drum machines.
  One of the more popular styles of music (rap) doesn't even use a 'drummer' - just a beat.
  
• I know a film composer who does amazing work on her electronic keyboard and Protools... cranking out some wonderful music that sounds like an orchestra, or flamenco band... no musicians needed
• There is a place (probably a dozen or so) where you can get a logo designed for $50 - and no, I am not linking to those types of sites.
• Need a brochure? No problem, dozens and dozens of free to nearly free sites exist where you can download a template for free to a couple of hundred bucks. Web sites too.
  
• Web 2.0 has delivered to us literally thousands of tools, widgets, apps, templates and technology that is absolutely free.

And that causes a cultural shift to get a toe-hold. Why pay for something when you can get it free? In a recent forum post on creating a portfolio to show your work, I witnessed dozens of people saying they use Flickr, it's free and who cares anyway. Uh... ok....

In my own world, Daniel and I have the PHOTOtool... and it isn't free. We have people tell us that it is under-priced and we have people who tell us they just use Shutterfly or Photoshelter cause they are free. Free. Does that make any sense to you? I cannot maintain servers, code, updates, marketing and customer service with "Free". If others can, great, but I fear there will come a time when the investor cash runs out and profit has to be shown. They will have to monetize anyway. (I am sure the two mentioned have ways of monetization, but that is their model, not ours. We focus on helping photographers maintain their business with online sales.) We still have 'professional' photographers who tell us they cannot afford $50 a month... Yeah, well your professional opinion of yourself may be a bit overblown. Or maybe you are shooting at such a moderate profit that you are right.

2. Lowering the art bar. Reality check. Have you really perused the online photo sharing sites? And click on some of the links to 'professional' photographers. You have? Then 'nuff said.

• Flickr has some wonderful images, the vast majority are simply snaps. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not start believing that it is a professional portfolio place.
• If your attitude about what makes a great shot is being made from visiting Flickr, you may have lowered your own expectations of excellence
• Self importance as a psychosis (yeah, this'll get me hate mail). Look - just cause you have a camera and a flash and a tripod and a Flickr site and 10 comments on a shot you did, doesn't mean you are ready. But in forums all over the net we see it all the time..."I've been asked to do 50 shots for my companies Annual Report... any suggestions on lighting, equipment, angles and composition? Please hurry.... shooting commences at noon."
• A general 'who cares' attitude about actually learning the craft. Just get a camera, stick a flash on a stand and 'chimp' it till it looks OK. There are those who even eschew the need for a meter, or tripod or... sheesh. It is amazing.

Look, I have kind of a unique view of what is going on. I own a company that hosts hundreds of photographers portfolios, I am a photographer and I am a designer that hires photographers. I see what is going on from a lot of points in the business sphere.

Recently I was asked to create a website for a company and they didn't need any photography as they had just had a professional do a lot of images. The pro charged them $2K, for a days worth of location shooting. Not bad. The images, however, were... uh, well.... they were shit. I spent hours in Photoshop trying to fix the crap that this 'professional' had foisted on this unsuspecting client.

3. Lowering the expectations overall.
Here's the quandry with a little back up. When I was starting out, decades ago, I spent probably 100K in the first two years for equipment and I wasn't the most well equipped commercial studio in town. Today, you can equip a good location shooter for under 20-25K... maybe way less.

So here is the real challenge. Try telling a kid who went to some lame ass photography school (and that includes universities) and now has a job working at Starbucks (while looking for a "photo job" that probably doesn't exist) that shooting a portrait for his buddies company for $400 is bad. That's more than he makes in a week... for an hour.

We can plead the case, as John has beautifully laid out, but it is within the parameter of "if I don't do this, I wont get $400... and I want a new lens." How would it sound? "If you do this job for only $400 then I wont get to do it for a grand or more." How does that play?

Cultural and socio-economic forces, backed by a dismal public education system that fosters a me-first, I want it now, if I want it it's OK - mentality makes the overall challenge more difficult. But I agree with John that we have to try.. for our industry and for the people who are affected by the professionalism that we espouse.

BTW... the image on this post was obtained free at Stock Exchange... just a bit of whimsical irony to think about, ya know.