23
Jul
2016
Why are you selling a commodity?

Are you selling a commodity?

I get similar messages or emails several times a month:

I can’t afford the gear I want, because in my market, people only pay xyz for a photoshoot, and that is barely enough for me to get by

or

if I only had your gear, I would be able to charge so much more and take better pictures, but I don’t have the money

Sounds familiar?

This is the chicken and egg problem, but frankly, not really. I have taken images with a $400 camera and sold one of them for several thousand. I have taken images with five thousand or more in gear, and only sold it for five hundred. The key is not the gear (although gear enables you to do cool things that make you stand out, but more on that later), the deciding factor is whether you are selling a commodity, or a unique product.

With decent DSLR’s today costing about 600-700 dollars (incl. kit lens) and many free photography classes online, everyone can take well-exposed and halfway decent pictures. If you fall into that category, you are competing with all other weekend warriors, hobbyists, enthusiasts, moms, dads, students, and pretty much everyone else who owns a decent camera for the same piece of the pie; as more and more people want to have a piece, the pieces get smaller. At some point several years ago, this market collapsed and is now where people charge $50 or $100 for a natural light portrait session; this type of photography has become a commodity. Not only is this a disastrous market to be in from a business point perspective, but furthermore, it will never allow you to spend enough time with your clients and be creative, or afford interesting gear that enables you to do more things.

I often hear others say that you should know your gear first before you move on, and that holds true. You don’t put someone with a learners permit into a racecar, but you can’t go 0-60 in a stock Honda civic in less than 2.5 seconds either. So gear or no gear, and if gear, which gear?

Gear is important, and I hope these following steps will help you to make a more educated decision on where to spend your money, and how to advance your career (and charge properly for your work). Here are my simple rules in the order of importance:

  1. Get a good entry-mid level DSLR and learn photography. Understand shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, learn how to meter, and learn about composition and composition rules. Don’t skip on this!
  2. Get one or more 5-in1 reflectors (you’ll always need those, safe investment)
  3. Play with the reflectors and apply what you have learned. Find the focal length you like most (and sell/use most). Get used to shoot raw. If the bigger file sizes are an issue on your computer, get a new computer! This is important! Unless you shoot for instant delivery without edit (news/documentary), you need to learn how to work with raw files.
  4. Understand that most, if not all of those amazing images you probably admire, are NOT shot like that! If you are selling a commodity, your images are likely shot the way they are delivered. Is that what you want? The most amazing pictures are skilled composites or refined edits – done so well that you may think it was shot like this, but it never is these days. The raw file gives you the latitude to make extensive changes to your files without much loss of quality. Again, UNDERSTAND that what you admire is a combination of what you have learned in 1+3, and a skill you develop for post processing your images to the level of refinement you desire. Many of my images often take minutes to shoot, but days or weeks to plan, and days to edit. It’s part of the process.
  5. Get better lenses! Believe it or not, lenses make a huge difference, in particular in terms of resolution. Cheaper lenses usually can’t resolve as much detail, or are optically inferior (less pleasing bokeh, color rendition, contrast etc.). Once your skills have evolved to where you understand what you are doing and do so on purpose to produce a particular creative result, lenses should be next on your list.
  6. Learn flash photography. It’s easier than you may think. If you rely on natural light, you rely on whatever you have available at your location. If clouds move in and you promised a sunny day at the beach shooting, then you’re done! With strobes, you can create light that will look as if it was sunny, for example, or move into areas where no sunlight can reach, and still create visually pleasing and balanced images. Strobe lighting is also superior when it comes to creating more dramatic scenes, and images that are more unique and more difficult to reproduce without the right gear at hand. See, this and maybe the point before is the only time when gear really starts to make a difference, and you are still using that “cheap” camera you bought at step 1!
  7. Learn about modifiers: not all modifiers are the same and they can produce interesting results when used effectively. So interesting, that your competitors may wonder how you get that glow, or pop, or 3d look, or whatever it is you create. Now that is the point where you start to charge “real” money for your images. Nobody with just a camera and a lens is able to beat you on quality, consistency, and uniqueness of the images you create, once you reach level 7. Well, nobody is a bit optimistic, but suddenly you narrowed down your competition from several thousand to less than a hundred (in some markets you’ll find yourself competing with only two or three photographers), and you are no longer selling a commodity. These are much better odds, if you ask me.
  8. Never forget to shoot what you like. The more you like it, the better you’ll be at it. I was always drawn to dramatic composites and this is still what attracts me the most (from a skill and style perspective).
  9. Don’t expect miracles. I have been taking pictures for more than 20 years now, and while my skills and taste has changed, I am still learning. The more unique your work is, the more likely are you to find a well-paying market for it. Find your niche, excel in it, and milk it!
    Don’t buy cheap shit! You’ll pay the price. Do you know how many cheap strobes, cheap lightstands, cheap reflectors, cheap modifiers, and cheap tripods I have left in my collection that I still (could) use today? ZERO, ZILCH, NONE! That’s not just because I upgraded, but because cheap gear won’t last. I have either outgrown it, or realized that it was doing more harm to my images than good (inconsistent cheap lighting is a great example for this), or it simply fell apart. By no means am I saying that all expensive stuff is good, but more often than not, this professional gear is built to last. Just do the math: buy one tripod you use for 20 years and spend $500 on it, or buy 10 tripods you use 6-9 months, each at around $100. If there is just one advice you want to take to heart, then please, don’t spend your money on cheap shit! Get the good stuff. Save up for it, and enjoy it for many years to come. If my budget doesn’t allow me to buy a lens I really want, then I’ll wait and don’t go out and buy two cheaper lenses instead. It’s not the same thing!
  10. Each time strive to create images better than before. Learn from your challenges, learn from your mistakes, and fix those things on your next shoot. If you attitude is to better yourself each and every time, your skills will evolve!

I hope this helps you a bit with deciding what to do next, but doing the exact same as the guy or girl next to you won’t allow you to charge any more than they do. Gear can help with this, but without you understanding how to use that gear it’s just another expense that won’t do much for you. Add gear as you add skills, and keep in mind that the benefits coming from better gear are incremental at best. It’s not the gear that sells, it’s how you use it!

PRIOLITE has agreed to host several workshops over the next months, so if you want to learn how I approach my images and create my composites, pick my brain and have a great time doing so, make sure to subscribe to their newsletter (click here) and get notified when these limited events take place.



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