Catching up

It's almost Turkey Day, and no sooner will the post Thanksgiving meal football games have started when Black Friday will have begun. I have already begun to hear stories of retail stores being open on Thanksgiving Day so that they can get in on the on the hype and pressure, not to mention the pre-sales rush.

Lightroom has come out with a new version 3 public beta available from here from Adobe, and many photographers have thrown their weight behind the new "miracle maker" even though it is not the definitive version and many features still need to be unlocked. On One, another software manufacturer that specialises in plug-in software for Adobe Photoshop specifically designed for photographers sent me an email a couple of days ago offering to drop the price by no less than $200 if I bought the package usually worth over $500. I baulked even at the discounted price. The truth is, that everyone, photographers included (specifically photographers!) are hurting during this economy. Gourmet magazine shut its doors with the end of it's November publication, and Modern Bride is soon to cease publication. All in all, over 383 magazines were shuttered in the first three-quarters of 2009. Needless to say, these closures, together with cheap stock images from just about anyone who owns a DSL camera, means a reduced need for photographs and no work the men and women who stand behind the cameras and who pride themselves on producing high quality work and who call themselves pros. What's more, every Tom, Dick and Harry, not to mention Jane, Judy and Mary carries a cheap phone on them, some embedded in their cellphones. What is a photographer to do these days?

My hero Chase Jarvis, who owns an Iphone, didn't just sit back and complain. He created an "app" so that you could enhance the photographs that you took with your Iphone. What's more, he set up a website so that you could post your photographs to the website and share them with others and finally, he took a ton of photographs with his Iphone, distilled them down and then published the good ones and now people all over the world are buying them. There's mud in your eye!

Like all technology, from the invention of the Spinning Jennie in England to present day complex machines, there are people who will lose their jobs because they choose to stay in the same rut and refuse to learn new technologies and staunchly prohibit the adoption of new methods. Photographers will either have to specialize in ancient and dying techniques (only a few will be needed) or else they will need to excel not only in methods and styles and techniques, but service. They need something, (that elusive something) that will set them apart from Joe Photographer down the road who wants and needs your business and Samantha Wedding Photographer who is thinking about shooting product because she can't cut it shooting weddings. At the same time, the photographer needs to be fair in his/her pricing, honest in his/her dealings with companies/public and a man/woman of integrity keeping his/her word and if necessary walking away from work if it means that he/she has to be dishonest about anything. As my mother always said, "Beware, your sins shall find your out!" because find you out, they shall and you'll lose business because of that.

While things are bad, or slow, take time to rework your portfolio, shoot new photographs, develop a new business plan, approach new clients, but above all, develop a new-found can-do belief in your abilities, in your strength, in your determination to succeed, in your past success and in the love that others around you show day to day and finally, "Go get 'em tiger!"