Travel photography, stock photos, fine art prints, and travel blog by Manchester, UK photographer Darby Sawchuk.
Digital photography has done wonderful things for some photographers, however, this article by Tony Sleep discusses how it is doing a lot to drive a lot of photographer’s businesses into the ground.
I suspect this may be a trend that continues and that what may occur is a sort of widening rich-poor gap for quality photography. Larger publishers who value photography will continue to pay good money for quality photography while mid-range and smaller publishers will be ever more drawn to penny stock and free photography. That kind of environment will make it that much more difficult for photographers to run a viable business as the only way to be profitable is to be among the top shooters (a position that is already difficult enough to achieve).
Of course, all my conjectures are just that, conjectures. I confess to being relatively new to this industry and more years of experience may make my foresight that much clearer. In fact, on this issue, I would love to be proven wrong!
Darby Sawchuk is a Canadian-born photographer who currently resides in Manchester, England. He has travelled to over 40 countries and is always adding more to the list. He creates stock for multiple agencies and is available for assignments.
His work has appeared in such publications as: Men's Journal, New York Magazine, Globetrotters Guides, Footprint Guides, Western Living Magazine, The Telegraph, Forbes Traveler, Country Explorers and more. Read more.
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Though there is a truth to the statement, but in the end I regularly get clients that tried to do it with their D70 and totally failed. They don’t have the knowhow, for example, to take photos of a reflective object.
There will always be a place in the market for professional photographers in the corporate and commercial world. No amateurs can offer make-up artists, producers, art directors, transport, 20 lights and whatnot for big productions. I don’t fear for my job, quite the opposite things are picking up.
But street, travel and photojournalism photography are certainly under attack.
In “your” domain, travel photography, the market is totally over saturated. In that sector of the market, it is indeed anyone and everyone that has a digital camera on their trip to Paris, Shanghai and the Andives…
The same for photojournalism, my old niche, where everyone has a mobile phone camera and whatnot… fewer and fewer magazines, newspapers and news wires require and demand high standard quality photography.
quality photos are not just about resolution and the camera you choose..its also about composition and the person behind the camera. not to mention the post processing knowledge required. My fist DSLR was a Canon 20D, at the time it was all I could afford and though it would be ok for just half decent weddings etc… then upon searching the net, I found (a few) amazing photographs taken with the 20D.. ok, the quality wasn’t exactly that of a 1Ds Model, but nonetheless, the photocompositions and the post processing made the pictures amazing.