While we all want to take our passion for photography to the next level, whether that's getting better at street photography, sports photography, or landscapes we all strive to think that maybe one day we can turn our passion into a business and photography becomes our job than our hobby.
But recently I saw an "In Conversation" YouTube video by Wex Photo Video with the legendary street photographer Bruce Gilden.
Love him or hate him, Gilden has been a star player within the Magnum Photos roster, and one would presume that him being a known name in the industry, with many accolades to his name, galleries, prints and photography books that Gilden might be rather rolling in his hard-earned cash.
But this quote from the video really hit home to me… Bruce talks about how in the last five years he has self-funded his projects and goes on to say:
"I have all these things I want to do, but not the funds to do it. I'll be broke in a year"
You can watch the whole 5-minute eye-opening video from Wex below:
This interview got me thinking is the era of the pro photographer over? I mentioned above that all of us want to take our hobby and make it our job, and I was incredibly lucky to have lived that journey and became a professional sports photographer by the time I was 16, at the age of 24 I was working for the actual governing body for all equestrian sport (the FEI) traveling all over the world - my passion became my job, I was living the dream!
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But, like Gilden, I had to fund my own travel and as the digital age evolved budgets got smaller and smaller until magazines and the governing body just didn't have any budget to pay photographers, or it was so little it didn't make it worth the trip!
I noticed these budgets depleting at the time and cunningly I moved into the advertising space and started selling my images to the brands themselves, soon I worked with 18 of the world's most-known brands within the equine industry. Images appeared in marketing material all over the world, in books, on feed bags, on the back of trucks and billboards, you name it I was so lucky to have it all, but I think you get a sense of where this is going...
Soon these budgets too dwindled and younger photographers with okay kit were selling images that were again, okay for under half the price, while brands can be loyal their budget is everything so if okay means it costs less and does nearly the same job, then it makes sense for them do go for the cheaper quote/cost.
It then became apparent that I needed a second job to continue my job as a pro sports photographer, and yes maybe I should have branched out into something else and I could have made a name for myself, but I was "known" in the horse world and it wasn't that the phone had stopped ringing or the emails just stopped requesting to cover events, it was the budgets that stopped me from saying yes.
It was simple logic, I just couldn't say yes to a job for $700 when two years before the same job was worth $2,000 - and that's where we are in many areas of the professional photography world, don't get me wrong people out there can still "make it" and make it big and become a name, but now that is only a limited few, and when we get to talking to them you would be surprised how much they spend of their own "budget" to keep them at the top getting bookings.
Professional photography is now a numbers game, does it make sense to do, how much will I get out of it, how many jobs will this lead to in the future, but the biggest headache of them all is: will the budget hold?
That's why after over 20 years as a pro photographer I've sold the camera gear and lenses I used for sports photography and became the Ecommerce Editor of Digital Camera World - I'm not bitter, it's just life!
