Like many photographers, I enjoy looking around the web at other photographers’ work to take in all the different approaches, styles, web site designs etc.
Today I came across the web site of Angie Arthur, in Northeastern Ohio. The site has a lovely fresh look, and her work is wonderful.
You can check out the site here: Angie Arthur Photography
How many times over the last weeks and months have you heard the word “recession”? Even if we discount those references that might pertain to hair loss, we hear it a lot more than we’d like to. There does not appear to be an economic analogy for Rogaine though… Turn on the TV or the radio, open a current-affairs magazine or newspaper, and the word leaps into our consciousness and sticks there like a limpet.
I actually heard the phrase “we seem to coming out of the recession” recently – but only once. I strongly suspect that the person who said it was taken away somewhere and is spending their days counting salt grains in the depths of an anonymous mine.
How do we really know that we are in the middle of a recession? Apparently, it’s because “they” say we are. By “they” I mean whoever is responsible for reporting such things to the media. One can only assume that “they” must be eminent experts on such matters and actually know what they are talking about, since whom else would the media rely on for their material except those in the know?
For example, sometime over the course of the weekend I read a piece on the CNN web site claiming that the 2009 holiday shopping season is going to be a poor one for retailers. Therefore, they’re planning to cut back on hiring the usual seasonal help. I’m no economist, and I assume that the people who are use something more useful than a crystal ball in the course of their forecasting. Still, I have to ask, “How do these people really know?” It seems to me that someone somewhere simply decided that it’s going to be a bad season for retailers. The mere fact they told us means that it will probably come true. If people expect the worse, then it will probably happen.
This raises the interesting question of what might happen if some brave soul were to say the opposite instead? Other than be dragged off to the salt mines, of course. What if they predicted an upswing in the economy and an improved shopping season? Retailers might then hire more people, their stores might be busier, and more money could circulate around the economy, based solely on nothing more than a positive outlook. The economy might improve purely because people believe it will. A simplistic and probably naïve view, I know, but is it any more simplistic than the current situation, which happens to be driven by a negative outlook?
The world, it seems, thrives on the promise that “tomorrow may be even worse.”1
Okay, I can hear you asking, how does this actually relate to our photography business? I’m getting there…
Regardless of the state of the economy, there will always be photographers who succeed and others who do not. It’s simply easier, when the world is supposed to be in the grip of a recession, to blame the economy for our business woes. But, it’s a fact that, right now, there are many photographers out there who are running productive and successful studios despite the state of the economy.
Some photographers might say, “No one is investing in photographic services at the moment.” Whereas a more true statement might be, “some people are not investing photographic services at the moment.” We just need to work a little smarter and harder at attracting the appropriate types of client for our niche market, whether it be weddings, babies, children, seniors or families.
The secret to the success of many studios right now is that I honestly think the owners simply refuse to believe in recessions in quite the same way that many other people do. To them, a recession is about as real as a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, with the exception that they still get the pot of gold. Instead, they view the economy as something akin to the weather – as a dynamic system that changes for better or worse, but never actually stops altogether. Whereas the economists would have us panic and believe that the economy has really stopped, like a watch that needs rewinding.
While everyone else battens down the hatches against the end of the world, halting their marketing efforts, reducing advertising and “weathering out the storm”, the successful photographers are singing in the rain and looking forward to the next sunny day. They market more, advertise more and the bookings keep coming in – okay maybe not in the same numbers as when the economy is really sunny, but they are still doing better than many do when the economy is supposedly great.
So what should we be doing right now?
First and foremost, cast off the fear, doubt and confusion that come with being a victim of a poor economy. No one wants to hire a depressed and desperate photographer.
Make the best use of every marketing channel you can find – online and offline. Many of these channels are FREE and there are more marketing opportunities available to us now than at any other time in history. Be creative in this area and try something new.
Turn off the news. This one is HUGE. The great Earl Nightingale said that we become what we think about. Napoleon Hill and others have noted that we get more of what we focus on. It stands to reason that if we pour nothing but the negative poisons we see and hear on the news into our minds, that is all we will get back out. There’s more on this topic here: http://www.zenologue.com/blog/2009/04/keeping-a-positive-mind-in-a-negative-world/
Network. I know it’s scary and hard to do but get out from behind that computer screen and go outside into the real world. Network with other professionals, potential clients, charities, anyone… But remember the golden rule of networking – give first before thinking of getting anything back.
Manage your time effectively, and don’t confuse simple activity with achievement (see http://www.zenologue.com/blog/2009/01/activity-vs-achievement/).
Challenge yourself to grow and become better every day – learn new techniques, choose subjects outside your comfort zone, push yourself in unfamiliar directions. The best photographers in history have forced themselves to do these things.
Focus on the business of photography, especially on the core basics of marketing and sales. The best photographs in the world never sell themselves – someone has to know they exist first, and then someone has to sell them effectively.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve really had enough of listening to the gloom and doom of global recession, financial meltdowns and one crisis after another. I’m a photographer because I live to capture the meaningful moments in people’s lives – moments that have nothing whatsoever to do with the current state of the economy as determined by some faceless person in an ivory tower somewhere.
People who value photography, who treasure the emotional moments of their lives and want them preserved for the future, will always be inspired by and invest in what we do, because they know they are investing more than simple money.
The currency of our clients is not the dollar and cent – it is the heart and soul, which can never go into recession.
1 This was actually the title of a poem by the British sci-fi author John Brunner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brunner_(novelist)), whom I was fortunate enough to meet in 1994 at a writer’s conference in Southampton, England. He very graciously read some of his works and “Tomorrow may be even worse” stuck in my mind.
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