Some thoughts on Branding
Branding has become our new religion. Too much? OK, agreed, but there are some similarities. We Identify ourselves through brands. We describe ourselves or who we think we are/would like to be by wearing, driving, drinking, eating and affiliating with brands that identify (or at least prescribe to) with our desired projection.
We appear to have become so comfortable with the idea of brand as identity that we have in many cases starting branding ourselves, mostly through online identities which seem to me to work on a business model of a projection or core values and objectives.
More so in the photography world in which much of my online presence resides. Constant updates of progress and success to keep hearts and minds certain not only of our existence, but our resounding success and popularity. To be quiet or struggling is the modern taboo.
As a photographer we are selling ourselves as well as our work. The constant self affirmations and political posting of otherwise insipid information is at fever pitch, twitter and Facebook are a battleground of self PR, an artillery of likes and favorites charged down by a brigade of re-tweets and re-posts.
I am there with a few tweet jabs (and blog post uppercuts) and can't complain much as my agent found me through twitter. In a marketing driven highly competitive industry such as ours anyone would be foolish to ignore the potential that the social media platforms offer, I just wonder if there is a flip side, a price to pay for allowing ourselves to become a product instead of a person. Do I have times when I lose sleep because I am struggling? Do I worry about what is around the corner? Of course, I don't believe anyone that works the way we do wouldn't. Would I ever voice it over social media? No way, what if a potential client thought that you were struggling? your stock would drop, shares in Liam Arthur would tumble and my brand would be hung drawn and quartered, spread to the far corners of the internet.
Anyway this is all conjecture as I am so busy turning down world-wide campaigns and polishing my awards that I barely have time to spare it much thought.
| LA |
Showing posts with label industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label industry. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Some thoughts on the current state of the photographic industry.
Being a photographer is a privilege. If you are genuinely creative it transcends a job and becomes a lifestyle for which you get paid, and despite what many photographers will have you believe, if you are working regularly you are paid well. However herein lies the sticking point, there are now so many photographers that the work is spread thinner than ever. Technology has made it physically easier to take a 'good' photograph, and this favors the businessman over the creative.
It is not enough now to just be a good photographer, there are loads (still very few great) you now need to be a good businessman also.
The lifestyle that I mentioned above becomes more about emails and phone calls, Facebook and twitter, more about networking and promotion and less about ideas, research and shoots.
To me it seems that 90% of the job is getting the work in, but then I am young unestablished and did my assisting time during the transition from analogue to digital (at the same time as procreating 2 lovely but life absorbing children) Have the old school kept their clients, do the new school go to enough of the right parties with the right people? What is a good marketing strategy when it costs £50 for a babysitter for the night? You can question how and why people get work when others don't, but in my experience after being involved in the industry in one way or another for 12 years, the old saying stands true that it is not what you know but who.
I saw a talk by a photographer on the theme of getting commissioned, he suggested that all you have to do is put good work out there and wait, if the work is good enough commissions will come in. I was interested to know what he meant by putting it out there, it seems to me that getting the right work in front of the right people is the battle in a bottle, after all you can only show the work you have, it is who you show it to that matters. Maybe that is easier when you have done the rounds already and have in's, but doing it blind is like trying to dig a hole through a brick wall with a spoon.
Buyers are not being rude, they are hounded every day by hopeful photographers, and need to filter through the rubbish to find the right match for their brief, it takes its toll on everyone involved, and we find ourselves in a sales market hawking our goods.
I am hoping that the industry is like the property ladder - once you are on you can keep building equity and increasing your value (and reduce that mortgage - the cost of projects and tests to put in front of creatives and refresh your book can become crippling when the commissions you are getting are below your output capability) However from the experience I had as an assistant it is clear that the best photographers are constantly re-inventing themselves as the trends and technology change, with hard work and dedication we will get there (and maybe a little Twitter too) Who knows we may even get to take some photographs along the way.
| LA |
Being a photographer is a privilege. If you are genuinely creative it transcends a job and becomes a lifestyle for which you get paid, and despite what many photographers will have you believe, if you are working regularly you are paid well. However herein lies the sticking point, there are now so many photographers that the work is spread thinner than ever. Technology has made it physically easier to take a 'good' photograph, and this favors the businessman over the creative.
It is not enough now to just be a good photographer, there are loads (still very few great) you now need to be a good businessman also.
The lifestyle that I mentioned above becomes more about emails and phone calls, Facebook and twitter, more about networking and promotion and less about ideas, research and shoots.
To me it seems that 90% of the job is getting the work in, but then I am young unestablished and did my assisting time during the transition from analogue to digital (at the same time as procreating 2 lovely but life absorbing children) Have the old school kept their clients, do the new school go to enough of the right parties with the right people? What is a good marketing strategy when it costs £50 for a babysitter for the night? You can question how and why people get work when others don't, but in my experience after being involved in the industry in one way or another for 12 years, the old saying stands true that it is not what you know but who.
I saw a talk by a photographer on the theme of getting commissioned, he suggested that all you have to do is put good work out there and wait, if the work is good enough commissions will come in. I was interested to know what he meant by putting it out there, it seems to me that getting the right work in front of the right people is the battle in a bottle, after all you can only show the work you have, it is who you show it to that matters. Maybe that is easier when you have done the rounds already and have in's, but doing it blind is like trying to dig a hole through a brick wall with a spoon.
Buyers are not being rude, they are hounded every day by hopeful photographers, and need to filter through the rubbish to find the right match for their brief, it takes its toll on everyone involved, and we find ourselves in a sales market hawking our goods.
I am hoping that the industry is like the property ladder - once you are on you can keep building equity and increasing your value (and reduce that mortgage - the cost of projects and tests to put in front of creatives and refresh your book can become crippling when the commissions you are getting are below your output capability) However from the experience I had as an assistant it is clear that the best photographers are constantly re-inventing themselves as the trends and technology change, with hard work and dedication we will get there (and maybe a little Twitter too) Who knows we may even get to take some photographs along the way.
| LA |
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