Mastering the Business of Photography: What the Pros Do When They're Not Taking Incredible Pictures

Introduction

Even Ansel Adams has to earn a living.

When I first saw the Orland’s Penultimate Compendium of Photographic Truths poster it knocked me off my feet. There, crowning the classically philosophical and humorous poster was a photo of the iconic photographer, Ansel Adams, standing next to his well-traveled 4 x 5 camera, apparently taking a photo of school children, with the caption, EVEN ANSEL ADAMS HAS TO EARN A LIVING. To me that inscription and image said it all.

Here apparently was arguably one of the most famous, influential, and revered photographers of all time humbly peeking out from underneath the dark cloth while composing a group photo of school children, one of the many ways a photographer is able to pay the bills. This was not a triumphant image of a heroic artist making an epic photograph of a grand natural monument, but instead it was a visual statement of the reality of making a living the old fashioned way: by earning it. I had to find out the real story behind the image so I went right to the source and contacted the man who took the photo and composed the poster, Ansel Adams’ longtime assistant, photographer, artist, and author, Ted Orland. Here are excerpts from that interview.

TL: . . . the first question I wanted to pose to you is, what’s the real story behind the Ansel Adams photo on the poster?

TO: Well it actually does have a funny little story that went with it, but I should give you a paragraph or something of background. Basically I worked as Ansel’s assistant for a while back in the 1970s and occasionally we’d go out and make little forays to take photographs. It wasn’t so much to go out and make art. In this particular instance Ansel was actually instrumental in getting Edmund Land [of the Polaroid Corporation] under way, not in a technical sense but just in getting support and feedback. And at some point Edmund Land awarded Ansel sort of a lifetime honorarium, some amount of money each month without asking him, or even needing him, or wanting him to do anything more for the company. But Ansel had this old fashioned Protestant work ethic so periodically he would take out his cameras and put the Polaroid backs on them and go out and shoot pictures and then send them off to Polaroid’s research division giving his views on how the films were working and so on and so forth.

So this particular day we were out for no other reason than to take some pictures that would be testing out the Polaroid film and we were at Mission San Juan Bautista, you know the territory around the (Monterey) peninsula, one of the California missions, and Ansel was actually photographing the bells that are at the top of the photograph. And in sort of typical view camera tradition, he had the camera pointed straight ahead but he was just looking at the bells through the ground glass. Well he’s there under the dark cloth and these kids who are on a school field trip came out of a side door (stage left as it were) and they see the photographer, they see the camera, they knew exactly what they must be supposed to do—no one said a thing—they all just went over and stood there. At which point I had my camera and I said, Ansel? and he lifted up the dark cloth and, believe it or not, it is actually a grab shot. And that is indeed the whole story; there was no commercial aspect to it at all. Ansel loved the picture.

TL: But that picture with the caption has affected uncounted numbers of people because it says so eloquently what a lot of us believe, but don’t really want to admit.

TO: Well, yes, there is that side to it. In fact, if people really knew, or took the time to read, it’s hardly a secret, Ansel’s actual biography or history, they’d see that most all of his entire lifetime up to retirement, Ansel, basically, was a commercial photographer, that he did lots of things for IBM and other companies. He basically did commercial work for years and years, and the art photography was a passion, but before photography was discovered by the New York City art galleries in the mid-seventies, basically photographs were priced like pottery. There was a direct relationship between the amount of energy you put into making the photograph and the print and the price you got back on it. And it was only at the very end that he was, in a sense, able to cash in on what had been his avocation for decades.

TL: Because he is primarily known for his beautiful, artistic interpretations . . . ?

TO: Oh I think almost entirely to this point. No one pays attention to the fact that famous pictures like Moonrise Hernandez were shot on assignment for the Department of the Interior. Anyway there’s lots of background like that in there, and I think that that is actually pretty much the case with any number of what we laughingly call fine artists, that they had a lot of underpinnings from other directions whether it was an inheritance, or a spouse who was working, or sheer good fortune of being at the right place at the right time; or simply the fact they had a job out there in the real world and the other stuff was cream on top.

What I found equally interesting from my conversation with Ted was his deep insight into the intricacies of the creative spirit (read the classic book he coauthored with David Bayles, Art and Fear, as well as his book, The View from the Studio Door) and how an artist, specifically a photographer, goes about making a living.

Interesting phrase: making a living. I don’t think I am going out too far on a limb to say that earning enough money to support yourself, a family, your interests, your aspirations, and your passion is a lifelong enterprise for most of us. In Ansel Adams’ case, his work photographing natural wonders and landscapes for the Department of the Interior became the stuff of legend, fetching large sums of money beyond their initial assignment. The fact of the matter is that he was doing what he loved to do and the fame came along with his desire to create the most memorable images he could envision. Careers are built in pursuit of an admixture of following your dreams and the realities of making your payments on time.

It is this delicate balance between the commitment to an idea and the demands of commerce that intrigues me. What makes some people successful in their quest, while others get discouraged? What fuels the fire in the belly for some, and makes others succumb to a routine existence with its illusion of security and promises of rewards in the distant future? Why do some relish risk, while others avoid it at all costs? Everyone has to find their own way and we may forge it on our own, or do it with the help of family, friends, teachers, mentors, anyone who can influence us, but ultimately we have to accept responsibility for our decisions.

When I look back at the decisions I have made, I see a lot of missteps that took time to correct, and I also acknowledge I have experienced some fortunate circumstances that seemed to come out of the blue but were actually the result of years of hard work, sweat equity that laid a foundation on which to build. Speaking for myself, the lesson here was that the best type of risk for me was calculated risk, the kind that evolved when I had the humility to learn from setbacks as well as successes, and laid out a plan of action to focus on my next goals with confidence and conviction.

The Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment

For example, when I was asked to teach a class on the business of photography at the Art Center College of Design in 1984, I searched for a way to explain to a class of emerging photographers how a photographic assignment starts out and the various stages it progresses through until completion. Realizing that the students were in a design school, it became apparent that the best way to describe this journey was to create a graphic they could follow and build my syllabus around that graphic. In order to develop that graphic I envisioned what my responsibilities, and the responsibilities of the others, were at the studio where I worked—to lay out what the process was like from start to finish. From that investigation initially was born the Life Cycle of a Freelance Photography Job, which I have retitled, the Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment, for this book because the scope of this work not only includes information for freelance photographers but also for photographers who are employed by a company as well.

The Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment started out as a simple representation of a walk-through of a typical photography job, but the implications are that it is actually a way of keeping track of each step, so a photographer or photo producer can make sure all of the elements are being taken care of and they can also anticipate and prepare for the next elements they will encounter. In other words, it is a way to ensure that things don’t fall through the cracks, or get overlooked, thereby creating chaos on the job and distracting the photographer from his or her creative goals. When viewed objectively each assignment has the following nine basic elements, each of which are treated as a chapter in this book.

1. Presentation

Before a professional photographer can entertain the idea of working for a client, the photographer must have a body of work that explains an artistic point of view. The chapter on presentation considers what makes one portfolio stand out from the rest, how to approach the interview with a prospective client confidently, and how to make the most out of the showing of your work.

2. Client Contact

Once the theme of the portfolio is defined, and the brand of the artist is identified, then the photographer must seek out the type of clients he wants to work with. This requires a depth of research and self-knowledge to make the right kind of connections.

3. Self-Promotion and Marketing

There are so many ways to promote oneself these days the choices can be overwhelming. Still, there are a few time-tested methods and innovative approaches for getting and nurturing the attention of prospective clients.

4. Estimating Fees and Expenses

Once a potential client has selected you as one of several individuals to execute the job, you will be expected to sharpen your pencil and submit an estimate for your fees and expenses on a potential assignment. This is a particularly challenging task because you have to envision the entire process and assign a cost to each individual element, while staying within a budget and giving yourself room to negotiate if necessary.

5. Preproduction and Coordination

If you are fortunate enough to be selected for the job, then you must take certain things into consideration to prepare for the assignment. Good anticipation of the optimal progress of your assignment will enhance positive results. And selecting the right professional support personnel will make your job more rewarding.

6. Execution

Instead of focusing on technical photographic issues, this chapter considers the things that go on behind the scenes of a photo shoot and involve how to interpret the client’s wishes while maintaining your own creative integrity.

7. Expense Accountability and Postproduction

After the shoot, there is still plenty of work to be done in accounting for the expenses and time expended during the job, completing any postproduction compositing, editing, and delivery.

8. Billing

Probably one of the most underrated aspects of the job is how to bill for a project in such a way that you help your client’s accounting staff to get the check out to you in a timely fashion.

9. Payment

And then there’s that glorious moment when you finally get paid. But where does all the money go? In this chapter, the topics considered include: how photographers reinvest in their businesses, whom to pay first, and what your remedies are if you do not get paid.

You can see that, when looked at in its totality, the Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment could be considered a photography assignment work breakdown structure (WBS), or workflow-based structure, designed to aid photographers in keeping track of where they stand with multiple projects so they can organize their time better and be more efficient in running their businesses. When I produce photography and film projects, I find it extremely useful to take a few moments in the beginning of each day to plot out how much time I am going to spend on, for example, self-promotion, or estimating, or preproduction, or following up on a billing issue. The Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment is a very useful tool in knowing how to prioritize the importance of each phase during a job, and which topics could be delegated to various members of our team (or even outsourced), especially when juggling several jobs simultaneously.

Another aspect of the usefulness of the Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment is that, when looking at its component parts from a business standpoint, it conforms to the standard dictum that all businesses (yes, even creative ones) are built on the three pillars of enterprise, (namely sales, including presentation, client contact, and self-promotion); production (made up of estimating, preproduction and coordination, and execution); and administration (expense accountability, and billing and payment). Professional photographers must not only be artists, but they must also be astute businesspeople in order to create a sustainable and fulfilling career. In addition I have found that this simple template can be reapplied to jobs created by graphic artists, illustrators, designers of all types, and anyone who is engaged in juggling a number of concurrent creative jobs.

And one of the most surprising revelations of the worthiness of this paradigm is that, when I have asked individual practicing photographers how much time they devote to actually taking pictures, I have gotten anecdotal responses stating that they dedicate an average of around 15 percent of their time during any job to actually practicing the craft and art of photography, while the remaining time is devoted to other necessary, but time-consuming tasks. So the reality is that if approximately 15 percent of a photographer’s time is dedicated to taking a picture, then around 85 percent of his time is utilized to complete a typical job and has little to do with the technical skills a photographer learned in school or on the job on how to take a picture! This book is about what successful photographers do the other 85 percent of the time when they are not taking pretty pictures.

While it is true that as a photographer attains more notice and builds her business, she can hire more people to take on the responsibilities necessary to run her enterprise, thereby giving her more time to work on her images. But even then she will need to have a working knowledge of those responsibilities, a knowledge that presumably will come as a result of her having done those jobs herself at one time, and she will know how well (or how poorly) her business is being handled by those she hires.

Make no mistake about it, I have no illusions that the Life Cycle of a Photography Assignment is going to cure all the hassles that come with running a business, but I encourage anyone interested to revise it according to his or her needs in pursuit of efficiency. Some may prefer to make it up as they go along and that is perfectly valid because we all create our own paths. Still, why challenge the outcome when you have an inside track on the way that most jobs develop and when you can be better prepared?

The Education of a Photographer

Another aspect of this book is that it is written as a guidebook, or handbook, for students of photography and emerging professionals so they may have a realistic view of some of the business issues they are going to encounter as they start their business. It could also be used as an outline or syllabus for a class on the business side of photography.

This book is something of the proverbial thirty-five-thousand-foot view of the landscape of the business side of a career making images. It is not a book on composition, lighting, or the other necessary skill sets involved in calling oneself a photographer. I am not a photographer, but I have had the honor of working with a photographer who gave me the opportunity to learn the business from the ground up, starting in 1971. I have also had the opportunity to work with some of the most astute directors, producers, and cinematographers as a result of my association with Dan Wolfe. As a result, this is a book about communication, cooperation, and mutual respect as one develops his or her reputation in a competitive industry.

It is also about what it takes to build lasting relationships with clients, coworkers, suppliers, and a vast array of people across the world who share a passion for taking pictures. In a way, it can be a ready reference to pick up when things are going badly or even when they seem to be too good—a way to measure yourself and keep focused on what you deem important. It could even be a good book to read before you go to bed after a day of shooting pictures, or to read the night before a shooting assignment. Every occupation has its ups and downs and we all need a little help to make sure our compass is headed to true north. This book may help in that regard, so you won’t feel quite so alone when faced with a challenging assignment. We all need a little help from our friends from time to time.

I have noticed that the most reputable schools with photography departments have, over the years, provided more classes on business practices. That is a good thing because the competition is only going to become more fierce and any help you have to promote, execute, and administer your business will give you an advantage. At the school at which I have the honor of teaching, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, there is a long tradition of involvement in professional practices. The great advantage you will have in going to one of the premier schools of photography is access to working professionals who understand what it takes to develop a career, to whom you can communicate your concerns, even after graduation. Another advantage is that, beyond the requisite photographic skills you will be taught, you will have the opportunity to sharpen your work ethic, learn how to work to deadlines, and begin to take on individual and teamwork responsibilities. While you’re in school, seek out the instructors who are influential, ask them how they got started, and learn from their experiences. After awhile, you will see that everyone starts out at about the same place, but they grow as they ask questions and share insights. Take on internships when available and go to every lecture and in turn you will learn life skills, along with business and technical skills. And once you have some experience under your belt, make a list of the people you would like to assist and find out how to get in touch with them to show your portfolio and let them know of your eagerness to assist them. By observing them, you will find out what motivates them and what makes them successful. You will begin to shape your own lifestyle from your experiences. As I tell my students, Paying your tuition is not the same as paying your dues, and the foundations you build in school will provide a launching pad for your future. You don’t have to go to school to become a professional photographer; many of the greatest photographers never had a formal education. But an education accelerates the process and opens doors if you are willing to take advantage of the opportunities.

Ted Orland had the following assessment worth noting here, And one has to admit or state at the outset that school is a demonstrably artificial environment and this is not a bad thing. In fact it really helps to instill some discipline at that stage of the game. Once you’ve got the discipline, then you explore. It’s a matter of putting one foot in front of the other; sometimes you need to take a technical step to get on to express what you want to say.

The Digital Imperative

Another one of the reasons I chose to write this book was to consider the impact of digital technology on our profession. The development of highly sophisticated cameras where all one has to do is point the camera and click the shutter release, and it will take a decent—and sometimes spectacular—picture leading some to believe they should quit their jobs and become professional photographers. But as we have already addressed, making a career with a camera is about more than just the camera. I have seen people with the humblest of cameras take breathtaking images and people with the most technically advanced cameras take incredibly mediocre pictures. There’s something about the combination of education, life experience, and the right equipment that makes a stunning picture: one that brings about an emotion, one that calls you to action and stops you dead in your tracks.

I had the privilege of delivering lectures on the business issues photographers face at the Photo Plus Expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City for twelve straight years between 1997 and 2008. It occurred to me one day that I should have stood on the second floor balcony and taken a photo each year from the same vantage point so I could have recorded the direction in which the industry was headed. In the earlier days, the Kodak and Fuji booths were bustling, but over the years the size of their booths shrank, while the software booths for Adobe and other digital providers grew steadily larger. The technology is with us and we cannot put the genie back into the bottle so we must be conversant with all the bells and whistles that it has bestowed upon us. But we must never forget that while the tools give us more options, in and of themselves they are not the finished product.

A Word on Passion

One thing is for certain: you have to