Discussion: Is Photography Dead?

What a title, right? Clearly photography is not dead because we see it everywhere. But I want to discuss how the way photography used to be seen has completely changed in the last few years especially.

The photography industry has changed completely, it has become extremely difficult to make a living, and often ridiculed as something your phone can do. If we compare the way the industry used to be and the way it is today, then professionally speaking the industry has narrowed but the possibilities of photography has grown.

Sometimes I think I have been born at the wrong time, but then again I wonder if I would have discovered photography then. Maybe the fact that photography is more available today than ever before was a contributing factor to help me discover my passion. 

If you disagree with my views please discuss by commenting below! I’m open to changing my mind, and I would love to be proven wrong. 

The Good Old Days

Years ago it was difficult to become a photographer. People didn’t carry cameras in their pockets and the actual kit was extortionately expensive. Families might have a simple camera, equivalent to the phone cameras of today, where you could simply point and shoot and the camera set all of the settings for you.

This meant that for professional applications, photography had to be done by professionals. Photographers were hired by magazines, newspapers, advertising agencies, or they could be freelance hired on a job to job basis and given a description of the shots the publication wanted.

Photographers might also go freelance, with their own studios for portraits and commercial photography, or commissions such as wedding and events. 

Landscape photographers and wildlife photographers would license their images to advertising companies or magazines for thousands of pounds. Or they could produce work to be exhibited in galleries and sold as prints.

Photography was coveted as an art. The effort taken to get the images was appreciated and the expense of the equipment was understood.

There was a respect for photographers, which in my opinion is lacking today. 

This may make it sound like the past was always better than it will be today but that’s the rose tinted glasses. In reality although photographs were worth more than today, it was an extremely competitive industry and not easily accessible to everyone.

The equipment you used would often not be yours, as it would be owned by the company that you worked for, that way the equipment would be available to whomever they hired. 

The Possibilities of Today

Today is a big contrast. The availability of equipment means that photography as a hobby has really grown since the invention of the digital SLR.

There are more and more people exploring and getting great images.

I don’t think that this is a bad thing. I mean I probably wouldn’t be in the position that I am in now without first having photography as a hobby and access to my own equipment.

But it has contributed to the decreasing value of photography. Now, when people see an image that they like, instead of buying it to appreciate it later, people will try to recreate it or copy it. 

The invention of micro-stock photography websites led to the death of the professional photographer. Before magazines would hire an individual, they would have a job at the magazine, and would be required to take any pictures that the magazine told them to take.

Nowadays, instead of hiring a professional photographer, a lot of magazines will search stock photography websites, find the one that suites their purposes and buy the rights to it for a fraction of the value of what they used to be worth.

This is why photography as an industry has died. 

The inventor of micro-stock websites, ended up shooting themselves in the foot, because it meant their work was worth a lot less and with the prevalence of digital cameras, competition grew massively, further lowering the worth of images.

Advertisers, magazines, newspapers, websites, books, and a million other industries that relied upon professional photographers given a brief by them to get their images, can now instead search a database for an image that could have been created by a random person with a camera, doing photography as a hobby.

Thus, the positions of staff photographer or freelance photographer receiving commissions has become a bit rarer in the modern world, although not completely extinct. 

So, if commission photography has become a difficult position to find, what are the other options? 

Luckily, the idea of an events photographer is still alive and well. Of course some brides will try and ask Uncle John, the hobby photographer, to take their wedding photos, and may even be happy with the result. But by and large, most brides will choose to hire a professional.

This is an avenue for a lot of professional photographers. You can create specialised packages that include services and prints, as well as the digital images. Lots of photographers find this a lucrative source of income. 

Although stock photography has taken over commercial photography and published photography, there is still the possibility to earn an income from commissioned work because not every image that publishers want is available on stock websites. You can also upload images to stock sites and try and cash in, after all every penny helps. 

Landscape and wildlife photographers can also make use of stock websites and hope they receive specific commissions from publishers.

Because stock photography has devalued the price of images, and because there are a lot of people taking images, buying prints of photos has declined recently.

This used to be a staple of landscape and wildlife photographer’s income, but now it has become a difficult market to crack.

Instead, today a lot of these photographer’s will earn an income from guiding the hobby photographers to get images in locations that the photographers regularly take images.

So, they are attempting to profit from the prevalence of cameras and increased interest in photography as a hobby, and as a consequence they are contributing to the demise of print sales and the devaluation of images, as people will prefer having their own images instead of a photographers.

You can’t blame them though, they need to earn a living and can charge a good amount for providing the service of guiding. 

With the advent of social media it has become increasingly easier to share your images with the world. Before images would only be seen in magazines, books, galleries, etc.

But with the rise of the internet, photographers were able to share the work with the world. And with the invention of Instagram, we have become vast consumers of visual media.

As a consequence, tastes surrounding photography has changed dramatically. Because there are so many great photographers out there, and their best work is shared and seen by thousands, unless an imaging is absolutely amazing, people don’t care about it.

When photography was less common, amazing pictures of that period would be considered average in the world with amazing images being shared in their thousands. This has made making a living as a photographer even more difficult, because you may think your images are great and you may like them a lot, but unless other people agree with you, you’re not going to be able to sell it.

And with the ability to share images comes the ability to share opinions, so the old saying “everyone’s a critic” definitely comes into play. Now you can share an image that you are really proud of and get criticised for every detail, or people will tell you that X photographer did it way better than you. This can make it hard for you to gain traction and start you career, but all you can is hold your head high and plow on!

Conclusion

Photography is not dead. It has evolved and with that evolution, it has depreciated in value. In the good old days, photography was a respected profession, reserved for the daring and intrepid.

Now it is something we do automatically. Non-stop production of images by everyone means that photography has lost some of its mystery and respect. Instead of viewing photography as art, we view it as a part of everyday life.

This has led to limited sales of prints, as people struggle to see the value in them or try to replicate the results. The availability of cheap photography on stock websites has made commissioned work a bit rarer but not dead, and you can still try to earn through stock yourself.

The most lucrative branch of photography available for professionals is probably events and portrait photography, compared to the others we have discussed there will always be a call for a professional to do weddings, concerts, and other events or to take portraits/family photos.

Landscape and wildlife photographers are trying to make a living from helping non-professional photographers get images that used to be the sole domain of professionals. 

Photography is not dead, and never will be. It will instead continue to evolve and develop. And with a smart idea and good marketing, there is the possibility to create a new avenue for photographers to make a living. 

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Written by Daniel Long

Daniel Long created DRL Photography as a place to showcase his work as a photographer. Daniel has learnt a lot about photography and wishes to impart this knowledge with you, although the world is an ever changing place and he always says “you can never learn everything.” So as he makes his way, he continues to learn knew techniques, skills and information about photography. He focuses on Landscape and Wildlife photography and Daniel has a special focus on Scotland, his home away from home. As well as writing about photography and taking pictures out in the field, Daniel offers guided photography days so he can share his knowledge and locations in an effort to give his clients the best opportunities possible. Have a browse around this website to see his images, guided experiences and articles about photography. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in contact.