Oversupplied and Under Valued Photography in the 2012
The need for quality will return, but the market is tainted. There are too many people offering to provide photography at little or no charge. To survive we need to differentiate ourselves, services and our products. We can’t survive if we market an hourly charge and jpegs on disk. This promotes price only shopping. There will always be someone who will bid less. Look at these examples
1) A well meaning father of teenagers with thousands of dollars in the very best DSLR equipment offers free images to the school and students. After a conversation with a Pro shooting the same event he asked me if I thought he was competing with the pro even though his images weren’t on the same level. My answer was ” Yes” his free images impact the perceived value of the Pro’s images. Why buy when its free.
2) An event Photographer inquired after losing a bid and was told the winning bid was “Free” no charge. This same photographer in talking with a previous client who did not use him for a recent job was told that the photographer covered everything but the images were not good enough to do anything with. They were good snap shots not marketing images . They wanted to use him but at a reduced rate
3) A large Hotel at the end of major remodel called for a estimate and after recoiling at the price told me that they had hired a photographer that said he was a professional but the images couldn’t be used. They did not reflect the quality of the remodel. In further discussion we determined that the images had poor lighting, composition and were without impact.
On the plus side I am getting calls from people who hired on price or a friends recommendation and now understand that a good image has value. On the negative side they want a price commensurate with the Photographer that didn’t work.
