Where to go, with photography profession

[jeremy_dennis]

<p>Hi,<br>

I am wondering what it possible for me as a photographer at the moment.<br>

I would like to, most of all, be an art photographer - doing series of photos and having them sell. Though, I still have graduate school that I am thinking about and having to work until then. Just to support myself.<br>

So far I have skills in composed (art) photo shoots, retouching in photoshop and limited experience in documentation photography (such as events, wedding, photo journalism)<br>

I have a website showing my art photos <a href="http://jeremynative.com/">http://jeremynative.com/</a><br>

On my site, I have a recently launched photo editing/retouching page 'service' that hasn't gotten any takers.<br>

Any suggestions would be great! I just want to be productive and have something to show for it =)<br>

Jeremy</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>The number of people who make money doing just "art photography" as you have described it is minuscule to nil. Even famous "art photographers" do commercial work, or workshops, or college teaching. If you want to be a full-time photographer, it will work if you focus on some commercial specialties. For some reason, I am now making more money shooting for real estate firms than I have made doing anything else recently. It's mundane, it does take some technical skill and some thought about composition, but it's not art photography. It does pay about 10,000x what I have received from selling prints.</p>

<p>Your retouching services are a) too cheap and b) undemonstrated. Double your prices (at least) and show the retouching with before/after using mouse hover. Or at least some work with other people's photos and before/after.</p>

[scottelly]

<p>Jeff wasn't telling lies about how much money is in art photography. There are a few who make a good living. Peter Lik, for example. With 13 galleries of his own in very expensive locations, such as Lincoln Road in South Beach and in the Venetian Mall in Las Vegas, I can't imagine he is losing money. There are others too, of course.<br>

I would say your retouching services are WAY too expensive. I have found retouchers in other countries, who charge only $3 per image to retouch. I could do the same job in about 15 minutes, which would make it $12 per hour if you could do the same and sold basic retouching for that price, which is better than working at McDonald's, right? You could offer more expensive options too, where you might make more money ($15 per hour or more). I suggest starting a site dedicated to retouching, making you a dedicated retoucher. As it is now, it looks like your site is incomplete, and you don't know what you are. (Is this guy a retoucher or a photographer? Where are your photography service prices? I would think a photographer would offer services as a photographer and maybe a second page of retouching and other services. If you're going to have pricing, and you need to do this to get clients, you should probably specialize.<br>

From what I can tell, it looks like most people wanting retouching services from free-lancers are amateur photographers, models, and people who buy through the photographer who shot their photos. Models normally work with photographers who do a good job retouching the photos for them, so you MIGHT get work retouching photos for amateur models, but they are often really cheap. You COULD offer services to photographers, so you would be more likely to get work with less marketing, or you could offer your services to both models AND photographers. I suggest you start a retoucher profile on ModelMayhem and other popular sites.<br>

Just in case you didn't know this, Jeff is absolutely correct. You are not showing any "proof" that you can do a good job as a retoucher. People need to see before and after. You can do them side-by-side, but using a script to change the photo to the "before version" of the photo, when someone rolls over the photo with their mouse would be a good way to show before-and-after. The problem with this is that it may not work right with a touch screen (iPad, iPhone, etc.), so you might need to put a button below each image that says, "Click Here To See Before" which changes to "Click Here To See After" once they click it and are viewing the before image. Maybe you could include the button in the image and make the script work on clicking. It could actually load a different page, which would make it a very simple thing to do (no scripts necessary).<br>

You will find there is a lot of competition at Model Mayhem. You will NOT get $30 per retouch there. There are WAY too many people who are decent that are willing to retouch and image for $20 or less. I guess it all depends on your audience. Jeff says raise your prices. That would indeed give perceived quality of work. I don't think a professional photographer would hire you anyway though, because your work does not seem "accomplished" yet. (Just look at some ports on MM to see why I say that - some are just spectacular.) Here is one example:<br>

http://www.modelmayhem.com/862883<br>

<br />It appears to me that there is probably more money in compositing. Can you do that?<br>

<br />Here is a port of a retoucher who seems to be concentrating on that:<br>

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1378822</p>

<p>Then again, if you were good at compositing you would have to compete against the likes of Colin Foss:<br>

http://www.modelmayhem.com/853725</p>

<p>In the end, it all comes down to sales. Whether you decide to go up-market and increase your prices or go bargain basement and reduce your prices, you will not sell your work without a better sales presentation. Can you sell your services? There are people who suck at stuff, but they are out there making money doing whatever it is they suck at . . . and some amazing people who are way better just can't seem to make any money . . . not even enough to feed themselves . . . because they can't sell themselves or their services. If you SELL your services, you will do fine, whether that be your photography or your retouching.<br>

What Jeff mentioned about showing before/after is all about selling (proving that you are worth the money the client is willing to pay). There is more to it than that though. You need a professional image AND you need selling skills. You also need to get out there and do the WORK of selling/marketing yourself. People will not come to you. You have to go to them. Visit people in the virtual world and visit people in the real world. Don't depend on one stream of income. You are right to expand your offerings, but be careful. Don't let people think you're not focusing enough. If you are a retouching specialist, a photographer is more likely to hire you for your retouching services. If he is helping another photographer to survive, by hiring you for your retouching services, he may not feel comfortable. Some people are very competitive and would prefer not to help their competition. This is one reason I suggest you have a site dedicated to retouching. You could offer retouching, compositing, and graphic arts on one site, and you could offer photography on the other, with retouching and compositing as an accessory service. Either way, you will need to build a spectacular portfolio to compete well enough to sell your services regularly and enough to make a living.<br>

Selling is important for when you get out there to sell your art prints too. You may want to get a set of prints into a gallery. You need to sell yourself and your work to the gallery (meaning that you need to convince them to show it). It's not easy to get work into galleries that actually sell art. Most do a miserable job of that, and you can make lots of prints and spend lots of time spinning your wheels, seemingly getting nowhere, because you are showing your work in galleries that don't sell much. The quality galleries are very difficult to get into though. If you find this to be wrong, then you will be one of the lucky few.<br>

I suggest you get a part-time side job, doing something unrelated to your creative work, so you can work on your portfolios for a while (a year or two), and schedule photography and retouching jobs into the 3 or 4 days per week that you have off work . . . for now. In a year or two you may be getting enough work to make the leap to full-time, exclusive retouching, photography, or both, without needing the side job. If you are that busy you will be doing well.<br>

Good luck!</p>

[rick_m.]

<p>Rewrite your artists statement (about page). It makes no sense. Your portfolio does not support the obtuse language in it anyway. Try talking to people. Drop the third person stuff. People want to know you. What may sound good (though oh-so pretentious) in a gallery show just sounds silly to a customer. Remember who it is you are talking to. Really Jeremy. Read your about page. It is just ridiculous. Sorry.</p>

<p>Ditto what Jeff said.</p>

<p>Your contact page collects information from the potential customer and offers nothing. I will, under no circumstances send my contact information to someone who I can't call on the phone. If you want to sell stuff be accessible. That is on you. </p>

<p>Over and over again we see a website that is a collection of the best of what someone already has done. When are we going to see one that is purpose built? By this I mean one that a photographer story-boards, designs, and creates. If you want to find yourself Jeremy, get out there and actually do the work. Create the photos you want to show to a customer. Purpose made work aimed at specific customers. You will learn a lot doing it. </p>

<p>As Jeff said. If you want photography to be your job then there is the job part and the indulge my dream part. Instead of asking how to do art photography and make it sell, ask yourself what you can sell to fund your art photography dream. </p>

 

[robert_k1]

<blockquote>

<p>I would like to, most of all, be an art photographer - doing series of photos and having them sell.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don't we all.</p>

<p>Sooner or later, most sensible photographers would come to the realization that they have to make a tough choice between doing what they love vs making a living doing what their clients love.</p>

<p>Some of my pro friends live a double life. They do weddings, commercial work, etc. to pay the rent. In their spare time, they pursuit personal projections to quench their "artistic" thirst.</p>

<p>Then there are amateurs like me. I shoot what I like, and make minimal effort marketing my work. The sales don't pay for my mortgage, but do pay for my material cost, some lunches, and even a good lens once awhile.</p>

<p>"Trying to make a career out of photography is a sure way to ruin a perfectly lovely hobby."</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Becoming a professional photographer-artist and really making a living at it is parallel in a lot of ways of wanting to be a professional baseball player. It takes not only talent but luck.</p>

<p>Another common "day job" that allows you to keep your hand in is teaching photography, for example at a university or college. There is even a lot of competition for those jobs as you can imagine.</p>

<p> </p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>I think as as with any profession in the arts, the first course of action is to be the best at it as one can be in order to compete.</p>

<p>Most professionals in the arts practice for years before earning a single dime. Photography might be the exception because it's so ubiquitous and anyone can claim to be a professional, but in reality it's likely only the damn good ones that are making any money to speak of. </p>

 

[jeremy_dennis]

<p>Hi guys,</p>

<p>Thank you for the advice. I will most likely have to get a job I don't want at first, and work on my art on the side. I am currently learning more photo techniques, creating ideas for future photo series, organizing my portfolio for show, thinking of creating a blog with my ideas (And purpose as Rick M. suggested!) and learning illustrator/web design so I have a stay at home/location non-dependent job.</p>

<p>I suppose the first thing I will do is rewrite my about page. I guess it isn't perfect (or close to it, so thanks for point that out.)</p>

<p>By the way, I am usually more active on the computer, for some reason I didn't get email notifications when you guys replied. I will fix that</p>

<p>Jeremy</p>

[rod_melotte]

<p>I learned late that there is less in photography in Fine art Photography and more salesmanship. Getting your name out there and having something besides pretty pictures.<br>

My advice is to get a real job and work at selling yourself. I was a IT guy and ended up quitting a profession because I was using up all my vacation hours doing Fine Art Photography. <br>

Start out by doing Art Fairs, keep working at your craft and seeing what people REALLY buy, you will be surprised. Target business and corporations who have big purses and big walls to fill. <br>

I started by taking images of businesses and giving them 8x10s. Just last weekend I was in Indianapolis and in a matter of 3 hours had 3 places ask for photos. It seems MANY new places need photos to fill walls.<br>

As I said - it's all about selling yourself. Art fairs lead to galleries and odd assignments on the side. Who knew you could sell $300 canvas images of disc golfers! Don't get hooked into the BS about you need to focus on on theme - shoot what you like. <br>

There is a ton of money out there - seriously. DO the Art stuff and pay the bills with (dare I say) Senior photos (yuck). </p>

<p> </p>