for future reference: on photography industry trends moving forwards
This might become a #showerthoughts blog for a while. I only think a handful of people see this so I don’t necessarily feel too bad about that.
I find writing things down really helpful, and I do that in journals a fair bit, particularly because it’s easy to draw out flowcharts and insert ideas in margins. This is moreso for future reference so I can look back on some of these ideas later on and see whether I was on the money or wildly off target.
I spend a lot of time listening to people about photography, business, design, marketing and where technology is heading. Lately, I’ve been taking a step back to assess career viability, tact, and where opportunities might and might not be. There are definitely technology consumption trends that are measurable that point to changing behaviour in the consumer level market, and in the professional level market.
Without number crunching it too much here, I think it’s observable that a) photography is within reach of every person with a smart phone and a desire to learn, b) that learning is within reach of every person with access to YouTube, c) technology is allowing easier access to things that were much more difficult to achieve previously, and d) the actual value (emotional/economic/etc) of a photograph has changed.
It’s hard to do a 1:1 comparison mentally or by description, but to me, I can’t reliably distinguish when a photo on social has been taken by a professional camera or a phone, from the point of view of someone who is actively thinking about these things and understands the technicalities. Bokeh and odd focal lengths are usually the only way to delineate. In the absence of those, much more difficult. But the point is that 98% (or more) of people not only wouldn’t know, but have absolutely no reason to care either way. It isn’t important. That’s the important part.
It really doesn’t matter anymore, I don’t think. Not at the consumer level. At agency and advertising and high end editorial and fashion levels, perhaps moreso. But even in those areas, I’m noticing the production level is coming down to what someone described to me as “non-confrontational” which means some of these big campaigns are starting to be shot to look like most of what you see online - they don’t feel like polished ad content, they feel ‘real’ and ‘relatable’ instead. This isn’t in any way a rule, but a trend I’ve been seeing over the last two years.
The average consumer can make very serviceable photographs themselves, which they relate to the quality of, and when they see that in advertising materials (which have moved away from physical and outdoor and print and subtly into feeds and stories) it feels more natural. That makes sense to me.
So I feel like we’re at this junction where the disdainful phrase from five to ten years ago of “everyone’s a photographer” is never said anymore because it’s a given reality. I can’t even remember the last time I heard someone say that. The medium has been firmly placed in everyone’s hands. It goes without saying: not everyone, but certainly a big enough chunk of the world to be weighing into the conversation.
What now, and what next? It’s difficult to know where things will go, but I think actual photographers are being forced to rise above whatever is happening at a consumer level in their work. But it’s a contradiction when consumers also don’t seem to really care a lot about that unachievable, high end look to things, demonstrated by advertising trends.
Maybe there’s a few blocs in play: a) high end services to high end brands like Mercedes, Prada, BMW, Rolex, etc. b) social media services that whirlpool in the consumer grade space to leverage influence to deliver exceptional content without worrying about photographic quality per se, to tell stories in relatable ways for brands, c) traditional services such as weddings and real estate that will change with technology, but more slowly, and d) art space practices, which covers pursuits into prints, galleries, niche markets with high but specific interests. There are few things in the middle that have been axed out by handing every consumer a camera, and some of these are losing value, but that’s the spread of services I see coming into 2018.
I don’t feel particularly positively or negatively about any of that, I’m just trying to work out what space to play in, what kind of longer term viability it might have, and so more broadly, where things will be in another five to ten years. If I have time to bet on where I think things might go, some of that looks promising but a lot of it doesn’t.
I think smart small businesses are going to learn how to navigate image spaces without the need for photographers. I think weddings will start to crowd-source more of their images from guests and require less hours on site from a photographer. This will probably happen similarly for events. I trust businesses to reduce their costs to increase their margins wherever they can. I think the extreme high end productions are going to wane a little in favour of “non-confrontational” imagery from social media producers and influencers in greater amounts as they realise that’s where the attention is and what the attention is more readily absorbing. I think still imagery is going to slowly be replaced by video more completely than it already is. I think the art spaces will remain largely unchanged for the next half decade but the niches will narrow depending on where people’s attention goes.
Where do I fit into that? Still working on it. But, working on it.
