Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Steve, B.D., Mike, Paul, Wonderful comments. Tough road, writing and photography, at least the editorial side. And it does absolutely depend on who you are and what you love. I have an associate here in SD who makes probably $25,000 a month from stock photography. He works hard, takes pictures that he loves and is having a great life. He is very commercial in look, to me mostly boring, contrived, but "nice" and so on. The key is that he loves the kind of pictures he does and just happens to do pictures that commercial clients love to buy. And that combination is simply luck of the draw. On another list it was mentioned that the aerial photo book Earth from Above by Yann Arthus-Bertrand has recently sold one million copies in its first years of publication. Another friend of mine made, in 1998, $1.5 million on magazine photography only. He hit (not without intention) big stories and knew their value. An innate instinct coupled with a gift for negotiation. Few of us have such. But those that do... As a jump start though, I would recommend a recent book called Marketing Strategies for Writers by Michael Sedge. Guerrilla marketing at its best. And it is absolutely essential to survive. Most editorial shooters drift, out of necessity (when parents throw them out of house), into commericial work. Here the money can be good, both for writing and photography. But it is different. Very different. For me, at least, the satisfactions are only slightly deeper than the check is large. I find some satisfaction in meeting a challenge, but the deep, personal gratification is seldom there. Yet from the budget pruning in the magazine market, there is little room there anymore for gratification either, simply because no time/budget to do good work. So we are back to personal projects to meet any kind of artistic redemption. In some ways, it has always been that way. And while I moan and groan, it may be best to work free of business constraints for some projects. When you too closely link art and commerce you end up with something that looks like television programming. And not even a Leica lens will help that tragedy. - --donal __________ Donal Philby San Diego www.donalphilby.com