What Will Become of Professional Photography, and Why Writers Should Care

Columbia Journalism Review has a good article on how photographers have felt enormous pressure from amateur sources of images, but have just been quieter about it than writers. I'd strongly suggest that it's worth reading and then considering how often we all complain about falling rates, and yet are willing to take advantage of the analogous forces in photography that depress rates there. Freelancers often scowl when "non-writers" have the temerity to provide an article, and yet many of us look for opportunities to sell our own photography and anything else that can boost the profit on an assignment.

I'm not suggesting that there is something inherently wrong in developing multiple skills and making use of them all. Far from it. However, it's easy to fall into the "I'll do it for next to nothing if necessary" mind frame in what one sees as a sideline endeavor. Each of us is gaining an advantage from becoming a single source of story-telling, and so is the buyer, because there is only one set of expenses. However, take a look at the bargain you're making and with whom, because, done wrong, it could come back to haunt.

When Do You Stop Being A Newbie?

There was a recent discussion on Freelance Success about when someone is no longer a "newbie" writer - that is to say, when he or she becomes officially-accepted. People had a variety of opinions, but I think the question is actually a distraction. A better one, I think, is whether you have the sense of being a working writer and needing to operate as such.

I remember feeling in the thick of things within a few months of full-time freelancing - because I was making my living this way and had to face the business, ethical, and craft issues that come up. It's when you no longer think about yourself as outside writing or find yourself taken with the image of being a writer. Instead, you just write.

What really makes me scratch my head is that there is a presumption that you've "graduated" and know what you need to. But I find that I always need to keep learning more about the business and writing ends - and, immodestly speaking, I know a fair amount about both.

But saying that you already know what you need to and that there's nothing more for you to get turns into a professional death sentence. In fact, as you learn more, you find that there are more areas to explore and more to improve. The experience is like a pair of glasses that really let you start to see where you are and where you could go - including improving the glasses so you could see farther.