Are Professional Photographers losing business?
The Amateur Photographer
All to often the new amateur photographer decides to become a professional photographer. They have some gear, get some business cards, and typically sell their photos for less than what could sustain them.
Combine the amateur photographer with people that do not really understand what a pro photographer does and what is required to produce excellent photos - and you have the perfect scenario for discounting the skills, abilities, and cost of pro photographers. And yes, it is perceived that the amateur photographer take business away from the pro. (although it is debatable)
A Possible Solution
Potential clients and amateur photographers would beneift by learning about what pro photgrpahers do and what is required to produce the level of quality work produced.
Behind the scenes looks
- could help to define the pro vs the amateur and educate both potential customer and amateur.
If all pros post on blogs and produce videos that demonstrated the behind the scenes of what pros do, it might go a long way to promoting the professional photographer and help people understand that inexpensive photographers are more than likely not going to produce the same quality of products.
Items to mention included the amount of gear, setting up the studio (on location or in a studio), setting up a shoot, the process involved during the shoot, post processing, stories of the learning curve it took to get to a successful professional pro status, the processes of working with the customers from beginning to end, and how they handle the unpredictable.
This kind of available wide spread education might just help! Side benefits include this information becoming part of your marketing strategies (why hire me) and educating the amateurs so they DO NOT just get some business cards and start up a business without planning or charging extremely low prices.
For some ideas check out Hong Kong photographer Kim Tamm's web site - and I also like his "Before we can provide and estimate for the services you require..." page.
BTW - I do no t know Ken Tamm, I just liked his concept and it is similar to something I had done in 2002 when I started a web design business. Educating my customers and turning down work when I could not meet the customer's expectations (time consuming, best of the best with little compensation) worked out in both my perspective customers and my best interest.
And More
And here are some other ideas to participate in, these ideas dovetail in with what I mentioned above.
A professional photographer on PhotoCamel (a photography forum) started a section titled "So You Want to Be a Pro".
And then are sites such as http://www.shakodo.com/ where one can ask about what to charge.
These strategies deal with the perception of the loss of business for professionals. The other issue deals with copyright issues, a whole new subject.