https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a1CcwaDtmg
For those of you who don't know who Tony and Chelsea Northrup are, a brief tutorial:
Tony Northrup grew up in a suburb town outside of Austin. He made his reputation writing books about technical subjects like programming and quasi-engineering. Then he switched his focus to photography. His wife, Chelsea, is also a photographer. They put a channel together on YouTube over a decade ago which specialized in general camera and lens reviews with an occasional "how to" video tossed in.
They've been very successful with their channel and have well over a million and a half subscribers!
I find them to be extremely traditional photographers. They loved DSLRs. Tony loved preaching about "the death of the micro four thirds format." He also likes drones. When they actively practice photographing as a business they have a very different approach than the team at VSL.
Where we aim our business solely at commercial clients and large corporate clients most of their work seems to have been for brides, graduating seniors, families and retail portraiture in general. Their point of view about the cameras they review revolves around how well the cameras work in fulfilling those kinds of jobs. Will the camera focus quickly on a bride walking down the aisle? Will the fill flash work well for a beach location family photo? How much of the background can I drop out of focus with XXX lens?
Tony is opinionated but who am I to talk?
For the most part they do their YouTube channel very well and the appeal to people who are just finding their footing with digital photography are very well served by most of T&C's content.
I'm referencing this particular video because it speaks to an angst and a frustration that I hear from dozens and dozens of working or formerly working photographers. And the discontent amongst traditional photographers is accelerating month by month.
Watch the video and you'll understand that Tony is seeing camera sales drop (which directly impacts the profits of video content based on affiliate rewards), a general focus of potential clients moving away from high production value, a general shift from high quality skills to the style of "authenticity" in photos. Even a switch from horizontal to vertical video production. And, again, the competition from cellphone wielding former potential customers...
In short, the universe of photography is shifting right under his feet and he is depressed, anxious, frustrated and resigned to watching his technical skills and deep knowledge become irrelevant. In a nutshell he's voicing what every traditional photography who has worked in the retail photography (weddings, portraits, babies, seniors) sector feels right now. Almost a hopeless resignation that he must radically change, accept less, or be left behind.
Chelsea, in this video, plays up the optimistic counterpoint to Tony's angst. I found it worth watching for both the pessimism and the optimism. The bleak outlook and the silver lining.
The telling 15 seconds is when Tony complains about the rapid decline of income from actual photography jobs to which Chelsea reminds him that the revenue from their YouTube channel and their tutorials is higher than he was ever able to bill when he was just doing photography. An interesting bit of give and take. And some grudging acceptance.
Watch it if you want to know why so many older photographers are prickly and depressive.
I get exactly what he's saying. I count myself lucky to be able to keep working consistently for corporate clients but if I had been plying my trade as a wedding photographer I would be counting the days until retirement.
If you are a hobbyist this video may not interest you at all. But it seems forthright and honest.
I don't have anything negative to say about T&C. They are sensible, generous with their content and I never recall them getting nasty with disagreeable commenters or competitors. But they do represent a sector of the photography industry that is quite different from mine.
It's not critical viewing but I found it....poignant. Your thoughts?
From a different photographer thirteen years ago: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2009/12/good-riddance-to-2009-heres-to-fun.html
15 comments:
While watching the golf tournament on TV last weekend I was amazed to see hundreds of sports photographers lining the fairways. I can imagine the high number of wedding photographers lining the aisle at a wedding.
He reminded me of an old college friend who thought of himself as an intellectual even in high school, and learned all about the coolest kinds of jazz, and was really bummed when boomers started rocking out with Elvis and then the Beatles and even Zep, and all that hard-won long-play jazz knowledge was suddenly...old fashioned and out of step. Maybe it's just something that comes to all of us. I've increasingly felt that my kind of thriller writing is getting out of step. New hot thriller writers have a style that requires an action scene with unbelievable carnage in almost every chapter. There's no real story, it's just one shot of adrenaline after another, dozens and even hundred of deaths with a hero that's really a disguised version of Superman, working up to an ultra-bloody scene at the end. And that's fine. I read some of it, and enjoy some of it, but it's not what I do and I'm not longer sure how much what I do is valued by readers. Times change. As a wise man once said, Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
My area of the profession, news photography, has certainly changed from the time when the print newsmagazines had a core of photographers based at their headquarters that traveled to cover the news, be it a headshot or a war. For all of us it was an incredible education - maybe a little bit in photography, but a big bit in the world around us.
Today most news publications for the most part assign a photographer who lives near the story. It makes sense - no airfare, no hotel , no on-the-road expenses. But, sadly, quite often no knowledge of the photographer that comes from a long term working situation, nor the constant flow of assignments that make the photographer a better photographer.
That said, it's not totally down hill. While we in our mid eighties are not covering wars, Jim Nachtwey is in his seventies and is covering the war in Ukraine, albeit not for Time or Newsweek as in the past, but for the New Yorker. Having done two wars with Jim, I can only say those youngsters with cameras better look out.
I saw a "vertical video" being shot with a RED camera 5-10 years ago--nothing new here. Tony just needs to reinvent himself again. As Chelsea says not many people are looking for old-fashioned photography today
I rarely watch T&C because (1) much of their content is about cameras and lenses that I can never justify as an amateur (2) Tony is way too good-looking and makes me jealous (3) Chelsea reminds me of the 60's hippie chicks that never gave me the time of day. That said, I watched this one even before I saw your post. Actually, it reminded me in tone, if not content, of the VSL post on 4.03.2022. Today, anyone with a good cell phone can take pictures of superb technical quality. Tomorrow's professional will need a completely different expertise than in the past. It surely will center around video, but beyond that, I cannot guess....
I own one full frame and one APS-C Sony and four mFT bodies and a host of lenses for all. But it’s the iPhone 12 that’s the most incredible camera of all. It’s better for viewing, better for editing, and better for sharing than are the “real cameras” I own or owned. Just sayin’ … FWIW, I’m 72 and remember the film days.
It may have been Seth Resnick who was being interviewed and he was asked why it seemed many professional photographers are depressed.
He answered that of the hundred's of thousands or perhaps millions (Art Wolfe) of images they each took maybe 10 stand out as their all time best.If each one was shot at an average of 100th of a second their total life's work (tongue-in-cheek) took place over a 1/10th of a second.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when someone says I must have a really good camera because I take good pictures. I ask them if they write well because they have a really good pen.
Ultimately it is all about your "vision", not only how you frame the scene but how you choose to render it for presentation. And I don't know if I can ever get used to vertical video, I just don't see moving things that way.
I don't know any older prickly photographers because my cohorts all switched to directing videos ten years ago. Stills are so last century ;-) It seems to me that video portraits could sell in this modern world.
c.d.embrey,
That's a good idea. Maybe I should learn how to make videos...
Everything changes, not just the photo biz. Technical skills that I had 10-15 years ago are basically worthless, let alone the skills I learned nearly 50 years ago.
I'm happy to see Bill Pierce checking in here. He was my photo guru when I was a kid in high school and college. I avidly read all of his columns. I confess that it has been many years since I've developed Tri-X shot at ISO200 in Rodinal diluted with a sodium sulfite solution. I loved his 8X10 view camera portraits of his young son, W. Eugene Pierce. Really glad Bill is still around.
As a kid in high school and college I worked for a portrait/wedding/commercial studio. The two brothers who owned it were the age that I am now. Every change in the business threw them for a loop. Senior portraits in studio was their big market. When tastes changed and kids started to want casual portraits shot outdoors, the brothers threw up their hands and didn't know how, or want to change. I was a high school senior so they had me shoot the outdoor sittings. I learned early that change in photography was constant.
I shot for newspapers for 40 years, starting in 1977. Even in the early 70s the business was contracting. Medium-size towns often had 2 newspapers, but then the papers started buying each other out. Thousands of editorial jobs disappeared in a few years, and it has only gotten worse. I'm not sure how I hung on until 2019, but I did. I weathered the changes, got used to the instant turnaround demands of online publication and shrinking photo staffs.
Video came to our newspaper website in 2013. I was in my late 50s and, at first, wanted no part of it. I came around the first time I shot video of a fire and posted it on the website while the fire was still burning. But I realize that my initial reaction to video was the same as my former bosses when senior portraits changed.
BTW-Kirk, your postings on video were invaluable to getting me over the video hump. I shoot video for a few of my clients, including one project that took nearly a year to document. Postings on your reaction to change helped, too. Thanks, man.
I may be a geezer, but I don't have to act like it.
Mr. Bill Bresler....
You said it all in your last sentence.
"I may be a geezer, but I don't have to act like it."
Fantastic. Hope I can learn something new today. Best wishes.
A comment on Bill Pierce's comment...I think Nachtwey is a genius and envy your experience with him. He's maybe the most important photographer of the last 50 years. I saw his new stuff in the New Yorker and was amazed that he was still at it.
A quote attributed to Picasso is: “When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.” What I'm hearing in this Youtube is like this. On one side is the dispair over the fading credibility of expertise and on the other side the joy that easy image-making is available to everyone regardless of skill. People are looking for experiences now, not "stuff" to hang on a wall or put in a photo album to gather dust on a shelf. I admire photographers who are helping people "see" what the person is experiencing and giving advice on how to translate that into an image they can share, regardless of the gear being used.
The Impressionists were ignored in their day because their work didn't conform to the detailed, intricate portrayals in vogue, images that were created by painters with years of experience drawing and shading to create perspective. The Impressionists said detail was overrated, that the colors should define the shapes and composition just like the light around them evoked the experience of being there. Who knows, perhaps in the near future cellphone images will sell like fine art!
Always good to know Bill Pierce is still around. Back in the day I followed his column the way I follow your blog now.
"I may be a geezer, but I don't have to act like it." That may be the quote of the year.
Photography and the business of photography has always been changing. I'm sure there were glass plate guys who ranted about Kodak and roll film the way some folks today rant about cell phones. I'm old enough to have worked with guys who thought real photography faded out with the Speed Graphic. I knew people who swore they would never own a camera with a meter in it, or a camera that needed a battery. I still know a few of those people -- they're all using cell phones today.
It must be damned hard to earn a living as a professional photographer these days, but almost impossible if you cling to the old ways. I've been retired for many years but still take a few jobs, as much for fun as for money. Even for a part-timer it's a challenge to keep up. Most recently I've been looking for ways to use the new Photoshop enhance and selection tools. I've done a couple of jobs that would have been near impossible without them, and several more that were made much quicker and easier. I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.
Once they disappear, like spirits and whimsy in old fairy tales, they disappear forever.
No, they keep coming back on eBay at higher prices.
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