Ok, this is not going to be a popular post. But, as a recently retired professional photographer from 1982 until September last year, it is my honest opinion that photography as a profession is now dead. The emergence of digital technology, combined with the instant and global publishing ability given by the internet, means that only a very few, extremely talented and extremely good sales/business people will truly be successful as pro photographers.

Of course, there is, and will increasingly be, a plethora of amateurs/semi-pros making a few quid out of photography. But the real fact is that commercial budgets have simply been reduced as the value of photography has declined. Today even experienced product and marketing managers often fail to see the value in professional images and as a result fail to assign sufficient budget to generate great images. Too often the attitdue is, "So-and-so in accounts is a keen photographer and has a good camera. We'll get her to do it," rather than, "If we commit a large budget to this product and get a really great photographer to shoot it then our brand image will be high with a resultant increase in sales over a period of time." Marketing professionals today simply fail to see the difference between good photography and not-so-good photography. Sad, but true. 20 years ago I was routinely getting shoot budgets of $15000 a shot. My day rate in 1988 was $1400 a day; when I retired it was $600.

Social photography has been impacted even more severly. As the vast majority of social photography - wedding and portrait - are today usually shot outside, the technical knowledge for this type of photography is low and therefore the entry level extremely broad. It is not for nothing that the vase majority of new photographers are therefore entering this field rather than advertising or industrial/commercial photography where a lot of equipment and knowledge of lighting, depth of field, depth of focus and such arcane laws as the Scheimpflug principle are required to be successful with the concommitant investment in both education and equipment is high.

Does this mean it's not wortlh pursuing a career in imaging? Definitely not. There are plenty of opportunities out there for exceptionally skilled and talented people. Here's what I think is necessary to be successful in the future:
1. Learn videography rather than just photography. Cameras such as the Red, not to mention the latest DSLRs are capable of creating theatre quality motion pictures as well as print quality still images.
2: It is becoming much more important for an imaging professional to be highly skilled in post-production technologies if they are to be able to deliver images and footage that is significantly different/better than anybody else. It means the ability, no, the necessity, of being able to pre-visualise an image/scene in its completed state and then to structure the various steps to achieve that final result from set to props to direction to capture to post-production manipulation to output.

If you truly want to be a professional, invest in education; live, sleep and breathe your craft (there won't be room in your life for anything else) and move to one of the major cities - Sydney, London, New York, LA, etc - where the vast majority or professional imaging takes place.