Diversify Your Specialty

You are our “specialty,” and we have diversified our approach. We have developed multifaceted activities designed to serve our niche market, the independent publication photographer. As an individual photographer, you must do the same. Whether you are a digital guru, have a distinctive style or photograph a particular subject matter, you must create multiple income streams. Specialization is critical for defining who you are, but equally necessary is the need to diversify your thinking about how your niche can serve multiple markets.

Over the past three and a half years, my predecessor, Stan Rowin, and I have used this letter as a platform to candidly discuss the state of our industry. The news, sadly, has often been bleak. The role of the photographer in the food chain of publication work continues to evolve; photographers must actively pay attention, respond and reconstruct their business plans.

In our role as your advocate, we came to a few important conclusions.

• “Just say no”in the photography business does not work any more effectively than it did on the illegal drug market. Out of simple economic necessity, photographers will sign contracts and pursue business relationships that are ”bad“ for all of us in the long term.
• New technology has virtually eliminated the lower echelon of our industry. Company employees supplied with a decent digital camera can now satisfy a market that was formerly a specialty for many professionals.
• Demand for imagery has increased, but the consolidation of stock image content among a few large distributors has made it increasingly difficult for independent photographers to enter this market. Wholly owned content is the wave of the future for the stock industry. This pushes independent creators further away from realizing long-term profits from their images.
• Royalty free stock has completely solidified as a business model, primarily due to the ease and immediacy of licensing.

Armed with these realities, we now acknowledge that there is not one answer or direction that can pave the way for your success. Just as with our photographs, the true reflection of who we are as a trade association and as individuals often resides in shades of gray.

We backed this new mind-set up with a specific strategic plan designed to better equip you for today’s market. Members can view this plan in full at www.asmp.org/membersarea/strgpln05.php. Our primary goals are to inform and educate on relevant business issues, become a resource for connecting buyers with members and for the research and development of new business models.

We are working to keep you informed, through things like NewsWatch and our “It’s Your Business” seminars. And simultaneously, we are building concrete tools to aid in your success, the best examples being the enhancement of Find a Photographer and the implementation of the Find a Photograph portal.

In conjunction with these direct member benefits, we are reaching out to other constituencies and industry players. The ASMP Foundation is building a strong relationship with the Society for Photographic Education, putting us in front of more students than ever before. The ASMP is fast becoming an education resource for client-based associations, such as the American Institute of Architects and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. We are carefully building industry relationships, with the most recent noteworthy results being our participation in the development of the Adobe Photographer’s Directory and a new dialogue with Getty Images.

The combination of all of these deliberate steps makes the ASMP a stronger association able to proactively serve your needs. We believe our success lies in this variegated approach to fulfilling our overriding mission.

The two examples below illustrate choices your fellow
members have made to diversify their income streams.

• The editorial photographer who applies his or her intuitive, candid style to wedding photography, to garner much higher rates than the editorial jobs were paying.
• The advertising photographer who takes the time to become an expert in CMYK conversions, to become a trusted pre-press house for his or her clients and adds dollars to every invoice.

I encourage you to take our lead. Define your strengths and recognize your weaknesses both as a photographer and a businessperson. Turn those advantages into an articulated specialty and work to find new markets and distribution avenues for your talents.