Recently a friend of mine wanted a set of images of birds for making a calendar for his organization. I went with a collection of about hundred odd images of birds. My friend showed those images to another person in their organization (looked like a person in their marketing department) and asked his views on what images to select. This person browsed through my collection spending a second or less on a few of my images and gave a quick judgment on what is a “beautiful image” and what is not ! In his scale the above image does not look good and the below one is a good image because he felt two birds is frame is better than one. While I don’t have a preference or great liking for both of these images (now), my first reaction was this person needs a course on “appreciation of images”. My second reaction was – who am I to dictate right taste for him ? He is right based on his scale of reference, more so being a potential customer. While I don’t make my living from nature photography today I immediately realized the challenge of professional nature photographers who live on nature photography alone.
Several of us do nature photography since it is a passion for us. My belief is one produces quality work if her mind and soul is in that work. Can it happen if I have to make images to suit others taste ? I think this can become an interesting challenge in making nature photography as a profession. To pay school fee of his daughter I would not be surprised if a professional nature photographer resort to extensive digital editing to suit needs of his clients. I am not at all saying every professional nature photographer will do this but I won’t be surprised if some of them do especially when there are floods of “low” cost images of nature available for potential buyers !
Yes, especially the last point about “low” cost images.
Its hard enough to convince people that one’s images are good, but when they have more alternatives to look at (and lesser price ones), it gets all the more harder.
Comment by Sharath — October 9, 2009 @ 2:02 am
Brilliantly written article Ganesh. I agree with you, people may end up dancing to the customer\’s tune though their heart may not agree to it.
Comment by Arjun Narayan — October 9, 2009 @ 2:50 am
My thoughts are inline with yours Ganesh! Also, one has to decide, as a photographer do you what to shoot for others or for your own satisfcation. It’s easier said than done for a professional photographer as their photography is the question of their bread and butter! I feel we are at an inflection point!
Comment by Pramod Viswanath — October 9, 2009 @ 3:06 am
I am not sure i follow the argument….
A ‘professional nature photographer’ will have several 100K of equipment. School fees cost few K.
Are we talking of an individual who deems it fit to spend several hundred times his daughter’s school fees on equipment and then ponders how to pay fees?
Comment by adnan — October 9, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
Adnan, I think we don’t realize it when our day job finances our passion (nature photograhy). A professional nature photographer will think twice before buying a quality filter which we may not. I know this from a few friends who live on nature photography and a very few of them have several 100K investments.
As far as school fee is concernd it depends on where the nature photographer lives in this world ! Darwin Wiggett in one of his blog mentioned average income of a US professional photographer being $34,000 (in 2007, accoring US department of labor). I have several of my friends living in Bay Area in US earning tripple of that amount atleast and complaining about school fees. Even in Bangalore, India I can’t think of paying my son’s school fee from nature photography alone (if I take that up as a profession) and he goes to a decent old school (offering CBSC) and not to a hi-fi modern international school. Professional nature photography does not necessarily mean lots of money !!
I suggest you read Darwin’s Blog “The Starving Artist – Painful Reality ?” here – http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/category/marketing/
I’m sure school fee is a component which a professional nature photographer can’t afford to ignore !!
Comment by Ganesh H. Shankar — October 10, 2009 @ 1:31 am
Dear Ganesh, yes, on average photography is certainly not a great paymaster.
I have a deep respect for Pro photographers. Not just the Nature and the Glamour kind. Take even the humble event photographers to be found scurrying around halls and patios, crouching, leaning, their faces stoic, their eyes darting… eternally clicking away. Ironically, they try their best to stay out of the \’picture\’ even as they attempt to immortalize the event for everyone else. I think it takes a mighty character to pursue such endeavors.
No, my point is not that these folks are uncaring about their daughters school fees.
I was just thinking that a Pro birding lens costs a few years worth of school fees
atleast here in Pune. that\’s all.
have a great week ahead,
adnan
Comment by adnan — October 11, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
Oh, yes Adnan, if your are talking about 600/500mm f4s. Not all professional nature photographers afford them unfortunately..Thanks for your views. Have a nice next week end
Comment by ganesh — October 11, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
Dear Ganesh,
A nice article indeed. I remember reading your thoughts on a forum/your blog that the winning images in prestigious awards like BBC etc look for either – rare natural history moment OR usual events but clicked differently (or creatively). AND I totally agree with that view of yours. We photographers browse through tons of photography-forums and articles everyday.
Not all people do that !
For us, BOS is too common; a sea-scape with rich coloured sky and water crashing on rocks is common; BUT for a non-photographer, getting/seeing (in a photograph) a well-lit bird filling up the frame is ‘wow’. And, getting two birds is ‘rare’. He would think that ‘How much the photographer would have had to patiently wait to get the rare moment of two birds on a branch’. If they too browse photography forums regularly, they would understand our perspective (as to why we call such images too common & ‘nothing different’).
A non-photographer is usually used to seeing images of family&friends on picnic/party etc. The birds, dreamy ocean-scapes are something ‘different’ !
From where I stand, I can totally understand (& appreciate) a person preferring the 2-bee-eater image above.
Reading this article, I am also reminded of my professor in IISc whom I respect a lot. He always used to say that hobbies have a special place in one’s life because you do what you ‘like’ to do; what gives you joy. When u turn the same thing into profession, u r forced to do what others ‘like’. He used to sight the example of a pro musician against a hobby musician. Pro musician has to sing what the audience wish to hear (or say the popular numbers).
Finally, as u rightly said, it is a definite challenge to make images which you as a photographer like to make + make it likable by customers.
Regards,
Kaushik
Comment by Kaushik Balakumar — November 19, 2009 @ 7:53 am