Money seems to be the most obvious objective for producing work for customers. The idea of making heaps of money is valid, I guess, but a career without satisfaction would be like a prison sentence for someone like me. I know that I benefit greatly from being presented with challenges and overcoming them, pushing my limits in my photography. I love getting paid, but I am sustained by the pride I can take from the photographs I make, and pride is baked into every job.
Over the years, I have talked candidly with several commercial photographers who have lost the joy of photography. The focus has been on years of chasing money. It’s become a job, and in many ways, being a photographer in this current business climate is not an easy job. There are great aspects to the work, but with AI-generated content undermining so many businesses and the financial pressures many businesses face, it’s not the buoyant industry I knew when I started out.
I’ve managed to stay engaged as a photographer while still balancing the monetary exchange required for my work and building satisfaction into the work that I am doing. I am the arbiter of the overall standard of what I produce, and I have very high expectations. It comes down to asking a fair price to account for the time it takes to make strong work. My work is finished when it is up to my standard. I get rewarded when I put in the effort and attention required to make consistently stronger work. I feel satisfied when I pull off a complex job without issues, and I get rewarded when my clients have had a good experience and are moved by the quality of my photography. Putting in a real effort and the problem-solving is what brings me meaning.
I need variety in my work so I am constantly having to resolve new problems and find new stories to tell through photography. It makes sense, then, that I am a generalist photographer. Personally, I have a broad general interest in the workings of things. Obviously, there are areas that are over my head, but nothing is boring if it’s being explained well by someone who cares about the subject. Coming into the thirtieth year of my career, I have accrued tens of thousands of hours deep-diving into many areas of interest I have in commercial and art photography. I love working with people of any age, and I love photographing objects. Whereas many photographers are in one of those camps, I have a foot squarely in both. I have a deep affinity with people, and I am fastidious with detail.
At this point in my career, I have a significant body of work that proves my capacity in a wide variety of photography and guarantees that I can pitch for a variety of work. I have a strong grounding in food & beverage, people, industrial, lifestyle location photography, studio product photography, automotive, botanical, and performance photography.
Having variety is one of the primary goals I had for my work right from the start of my commercial practice. I’m constantly cross-referencing and applying skills from one field of expertise to another. I’m constantly working towards making stronger work and refining the storytelling into an impactful visual framework. Importantly, I have developed skill sets in areas that interested me. Aside from the requirements of the actual work, I can draw great satisfaction from having progressed as a practitioner and being able to make photographs that I wasn’t capable of making ten years ago. I’m constantly trying new things in my personal life. Being totally crap at a task as an adult who is very competent in other areas is good for humility. I’m deeply committed to pushing my potential.
I don’t need to be familiar with products or practices to tell a good story about them in photographs. I research, and I ask the client to explain what the photographs need to say and who the target audience is, and then develop a strategy for how we can tell that story through photography. The main aim of any commercial photograph is to attract the attention of the target audience, hold their interest long enough for them to formulate an opinion or a feeling about the image, and the icing on the cake is if they form a lasting impression of the brand.
In my opinion, satisfaction is the main ingredient in maintaining any career in the long term. I’ve worked very hard to find people who value quality photography and understand that it takes time to make. The most important thing for me as a practitioner is not to be constantly compromised.
Relationships are everything in business. I’m lucky enough to still have working relationships that stretch back to the beginning of my career. My long-term clients want me specifically to do their photography work. They know that I’ll be working towards even better photography than we have done in the past, and they know that there will be no drama. It’s very unlikely that I’ll get a job where the client is purely focused on price.
Regardless of where I am and what I’m photographing, every time I take out my camera, I have an opportunity to make really exciting photographs. If I throw myself into the job and shoot way beyond the expectations of the client, they are likely to want to purchase more of the photographs from the edit. It’s a win-win. Having set my rate to be a fair price to make strong work, I’m aiming to do the best work I can within the parameters of the job. Post-production takes as long as it takes. Every shoot gets my full attention. I’m not fixated on the financial exchange; I’m focused on the opportunity. Every shoot is an opportunity to make photographs to add to my portfolios.
So, after thirty years, I’m still excited about making photographs. I think it’s because I’m still learning, and most importantly, I'm still satisfied. Money is great, but satisfaction is the difference between having a meaningful working life and having a job.