What is Photography, Really?

OK, Stop!

Take Mr. EGO off of your shoulder, and set him aside for a few minutes and let's look at the world of Photography, as it exists, today.

The Professional Photographer

I know, You call your self a Photographer, and you have a wide and varied set of Camera bodies, specialty lenses, light sources, light diffusers, backdrops, ganged Flash units, and a myriad of other specialty equipment.

You have a storefront, and you call it "Your Studio". When your customers walk in they see you displays of your best and most popular shots in large formats in the front windows and the waiting area of your "Studio".

Your walls hang with the documentation of your many Photo contests won, as well as accolades on your Photographic prowess. You even have a special area reserved for the many magazines and other publications that have printed your work.

Man, You are an ARTIST!

The Photography Revolution

Well, Dude, behind your back, there is a revolution going on in the world of Photography..

A Revolution for the Common Man!

Once if you were serious about your Craft, you used very expensive and complicated equipment to take your shots.

And once you took your shots, on special Film, you then took them into your Studio, and on to the Darkroom in the back. There you performed that special form of Alchemy that allowed you to generate a finished product for your customer.

Your customer, the common man, just could not do this. He did not have the equipment, nor did he have the training to perform the same magic on Film that you could.

Then the Revolution!

Cheap Photography Equipment

Slowly, manufacturers began selling cheap Digital Cameras. All you had to do was carry the Camera itself, or it's removable memory stick, to a Digital Development Center.

These Development centers began to spring up in Department stores, then Drug stores, almost, it seemed, on every street corner.

With the cheap printing, came a demand for better picture development, which in turn drove the Development centers to drive for the manufacture of even f\aster and better resolution cameras.

The market was a self-feeding machine, and now, not only can the Common Man get Digital cameras that have extremely high resolutions, he can even have one of these Cameras built into his Cell Phone.

You, the Professional, looked one day, and so many people had tried to dump their old Film cameras, that what was once a high-end SLR, with several high-end Lenses, that cost several thousands of dollars, was suddenly being dumped on the market for as little as $100. Or less!

You, through fear more than anything else, jumped on the Digital wagon, and invested quite a considerable amount of money into maintaining your competitive edge.

You purchased Tens of Thousands of dollars in the latest High-end Digital Cameras, Lenses, Flash Systems, Lighting Systems, Digital Editing Software, and Computers with much larger and much higher resolution displays.

Now here you are, ensconced in your Studio, with all of your gear, waiting for the customers to start rolling in again. Then you find that the Customers are there, there are just not as many.

So you sit and watch, as every month or so, you see yet another camera manufacturer releasing an even better camera, with sensors that capture more and more Pixels. And with better lens systems.

Even the Photographic Editing Software companies are releasing more and more simplistic Tools. They realized that there is a larger population of Common Men using cameras now than there are Professional Photographers.

You start to feel like the guy walking down the dark alley in the old Movies. You hear a noise behind you, and you quickly turn around to look.

What do you see? Those, unwashed, untrained, Common People, are creeping closer to you, and they are holding their new, compact, Automatic Cameras up for you to see!

And they are smiling.

Well, the fact that this new technology, is becoming cheap enough that, it is within the reach of pretty much everyone is not going to change.

You still have the edge on them in several areas. You have a Studio, expensive specialized equipment and most important, a customer base that prefers to have their photographic work done for them.

But, go to your Public Library, look up an old phone book from 10 years ago. Then count the number of Photographers listed.

Go home and look into your new digital Phone Book that you loaded from the CD the Phone Company mailed to you. Scan through this Phone Book and count the number of Photographers listed.

Shrinkage, my friend, Shrinkage!

This is the world you have to operate in, if you want to stay in business. 

A world of changing equipment, lower and lower prices, and more and more people that are comfortable withtaking their own pictures.

What is your edge?

The Professional Photographers Edge

Well, if you really are a good, or even great Photographer, you do have an edge over 95% of those other people out there that are just snapping away at their family, friends, pets, and vacations, etc.

You have an EYE for the Shot!

This is probably what made you a good Photographer in the first place.

While others took a picture of the same thing that you did, you had this natural sense of what was needed to make it a great shot.

• You saw the angle of the light and moved to the appropriate position, naturally.

• You saw the person's face going through changes of expression, and you knew to wait for the one you wanted, naturally.
• You saw the shadows, the bright colors, and the subdued colors, and knew the limits of your camera and lens system.
• You saw the speed of all of the moving objects and people in the shot, and knew exactly which camera and lens settings to switch to, naturally.
• And, most of all, you knew the limits of your Digital editing software and just how far you could push your equipment and still get that perfect shot.

All of these things, in combination, are what allows you to take the great shots as opposed to the mundane shots that most people take.

In other words you have that rare thing called the "Eye for the Right Shot!"

So,what are you going to do?

Well, with your special edge, you just need to watch the equipment keep evolving, make the right decisions on what equipment you need to have, and rely on that inherent talent of yours.

You are special! You have a skill, and others will want to take advantage of it.

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