Why should photography be any different than any other business offering a product or service? The price structure of the past—before cataclysmic technological change overwhelmed the industry—should be sustained just because, well, that’s the way we always did it? Nonsense.

As someone else here said, the basic problem is supply. Supply has exploded due to the digital tsunami; truly, “good enough” has been more than enough for a long time, but even GE was in scarce supply when it was much tougher to attain with older technology.

Now, “good enough” is just about brainless, and there are orders of magnitude more GE shooters (or shots) than before. Presto, explosively increased supply with demand that, if it’s increased, hasn’t come close to overwhelming supply. The result is inevitable.

Carrying on ad nauseam about how things “used” to be, or “should” be, is a waste of time. Mariano is to be congratulated on figuring out how to meeet a market demand and make a profit, or at least break even, while offering a higher-end product for those who want it.

We offer BOTH wedding and photobooth services as a part of market differentiation. Weddings are hectic, chaotic, and high stress. The booth mostly runs itself and requires less than one hour of post-processing for a four-hour event.. each serves a completely different purpose as can be seen at one of our recent weddings:
http://shesaidhesaidphoto.com/dixon.html scroll to the bottom for the booth slide show.

I see Pastor’s site as something similar – market segmentation like any other major brand. there’s something to be said for ‘passive’ automated income streams…

I get the feeling the price would be even better if he paid the client for the opportunity, then came over took out your trash, did the windows, and mowed the lawn ‘;P

Just think with HiSpeed internet (and culture) we will soon be able to hire ADs in Bangalore for $14./day…. on spec!

The real thing here is quantity, or volume. Emerging photographers will rarely have that volume. So if they try to match the prices at the top, without his volume, then they will never truly emerge and move on. I suppose it could be argued there are simply too many photographers, but much like belching in a nice restaurant, this is an F’d up way to clear the room.

I don’t rely upon volume, and I put quite a bit of time into each production before and after a shoot. The organization and production aspects of what I do means I might be able to do 20 shoots a year. I don’t treat photography like a commodity, and I don’t think anyone else should either.

Great for him if he can make a living from this, but understand that he is pushing a business model that will not generate new talent and new emerging photographers. If the ADs and CDs of the world just want low prices from high volume shooters, then they should accept a conformity in the results, because that is what happens when competition is quashed. Those who want photographers to remain a viable and sustainable creative profession, who want talented individuals with fresh ideas, will find a way to be fair to creative professionals while allowing plenty of room for profits.

having worked directly with him for years as an art director representing high end clients with very particular upmarket needs i can tell you he is a triple threat. not only is he the consummate professional he consistently produces an amazing “product” and with this very user friendly and smashingly designed site does it for the right price!

what isn’t to love?

Compared to full blown adland this is very very cheap. Compared do DIY its still pretty expensive.

Mind you, the smart ones know that on the web, it’s the pictures that sell the product. The better the shots the better the sales, assuming they can find your site; but that’s another thing again.

nope, he sends back the stuff for FREE ::loco::

An analogous comment now because while the complaints are legitimate at the same time this is possibly the worst case of the kettle calling the pot black. Let me explain.

I was working as php , html programmer back in the day,I was a skilled action script ( flash ) programmer also. By 2005 there was tons of ready-made web sites ( some of you photographers downloaded those for free ).A few small tweaks and Ta- Daaaa !!!!!.

If you click through some of the links on here.You will notice that a lot of photographer use ready-made web sites or wordpress as a backend .Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free .

The Japanese will invent electric robots photographer assistants . I’m just saying.

Everything is being automated. Not just photography, everything. The consumer gets to choose: mass produced, good enough, and dirt cheap. Or custom made, of sublime quality, and extremely expensive. There is no middle ground left.

I think the only types of photography that won’t be killed by microstock, cgi and your uncle Lenny are the genres that require people as subjects. Celebrity photography, editorial, portrait and weddings, that sort of thing. People are unique, and if you need a photo of that particular person, stock or cgi won’t do.

Product photography, landscape photography, wildlife photography, architectural…the machines will take all this over.

Thank god I shoot people! :)

P.S. The fact that a bride can hire a portable photo booth for her wedding reception means that even people shooters have to watch their margins and marketing.

I sure hope my contribution to this web page doesn’t create more business for Via U; however it just might. Had to vent, though.

That’s a keeper!

It does not matter whether you call your work “art” or “craft”. It is the sum of your time, talent, and resources. Learn to “perceive” the value your work provides to both yourself and your client. When I first went ‘professional’ I had a hard time looking at some basic documentary images as something to retain artist rights too as well. That changed.

Here’s an example of how and why creative licensing works well for all parties.

I shot a piece for a trade magazine earlier in the decade. It was a small medical lab/institute. For a day of shooting (film) & lighting on location my creative fee was under $2K. When the piece was published, I was contacted by both the primary doctors of the facility, a third doctor teaching there, the architect of the lab, and three equipment suppliers.

They all wanted to use images for their various needs (web, marketing, other trade editorial). I also used the images (which I retained the rights) to market to other people in these industries. $2k wasn’t much for the work we put in. But the residual sales equaled another $10K+. Had I just given the publisher the rights and walked off with my *day of pay*, they would have distributed the images (possibly licensing the images themselves), and I would have left a lot of money on the table.

These images represented value to each of these clients. Why should (or would) they not pay for that value. Of course it was not a one size fits all licensing scheme. Each license was tailored to each clients media needs. That way a small doctor did not pay the same as a big equipment manufacturer. I have also had four clients all participate in a shoot, sharing my production costs and creative fee. Then each client licensed the resulting images at different rates based on their own needs. This is a win for all.
None of these images would be mistaken for art. They are commercial communication. A valued craft.

“was working” there?
Is the publication still doing well?

Have you ever wondered why a corporate board of directors will hire a CEO (paying a fortune), who does not make any money for the corp, and in fact may put the corp in the red? In fact they may continue to keep the CEO, with losses to the corporation. The reason is fear and risk. While the CEO may (or may not) be making poor management decisions, it could be a lot worse.

If an editorial publication has to spend 6 figures a year on content, that is not necessarily a losing proposition. It could be far worse if they cut costs -hire a cheap solution- and then lose readers and advertisers. The publication could have gone even cheaper with text instead of images if lowest cost was the primary focus. When editorial publications cut out creative content, they may no longer have a product people wish to consume.

Same with Loreal. The price paid for first rate images is nothing compared the the media space budgets and the risk to the brand of not going with the best available.

Two points.

Medical malpractice liability prevents this to some degree and the enormous popularity of health-oriented websites demonstrates that this has already happened.

The largest barrier to sensible ‘automatic’ medical diagnosis is that the symptoms might be similar in many diseases but the ability to distinguish all the signs and their importance is lacking in most people. Diagnosis is a combination of sign and symptom detection, access to a database of facts and the ability to interpolate the signs and symptoms.

(Most EKG reading is done automatically by computer these days- a good example of a relatively closed diagnostic system.)

EVERYONE IS ON THE TIGHTEST OF BUDGETS THESE DAYS -wake up people and smell the Folgers because most can’t afford the Starbucks!

Mariano is just giving people the 90% they can afford!

I may copy his effort!