The changing market place.

Last week I was going through some old job files to make room for 2015’s records.

It gave me a moment to pause and observe how the state of the advertising and photography industries has changed.

Before you make any assumptions that this is a rant about the good old days, its not.  It’s only to make some observations and let you draw your own conclusions.

One of the consistent observations I made was that there are significantly fewer photography projects, photographers are being asked to shoot.  Here is one example of a simple shot of a newspaper clipping on white with a drop shadow.  About a third of what I shot in years past were C.O.B.’s of simple things on white.  Now these shots rarely exist.   These are now mostly computer generated or shot in house by an art director.

I’ve included the invoice for this shot and blacked out any names of people or agencies.  Observe the limited usage licensing and the price we were regularly getting for a shot like this.

COB of a newspaper clipping with a drop shadow.

Invoice and licensing for the Newspaper clipping photo

I found another classic invoice for a few food shots we did in one day for a national client.

Invoice for a couple simple food shots that took a day to shoot.

My observation is that in today’s marketplace photographers are getting around the same price, as we did 20 years ago, but in order to get the project you will need to do twice as many shots in the same amount of time.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow for much creativity when you’re pushing every second of the day to rush threw the shot list.

So what’s changed?  Well for starters here are some observations:

When these projects were shot, photographers would buy one pro camera ($650.00) and some lenses every 10 or so years and just kept loading film in it.  If you shot with 4x5 or 8x10 then you would have to spend ($3000.00 to $5000.00) once in your career.  Today, one needs to purchase a new pro DSLR camera ($3000.00), if you shoot with a large megapixel back you’ll be spending ( $10,000.00 to $25,000.00), plus a good computer ($2000.00 to $4000.00), plus software ($1200.00), plus, plus, plus.  All of these will need to be up graded or purchased new every 3 years to keep up with the technology changes.

Today, gas, utilities, insurance, cost of rent, food, cars, housing, crew, models, stylist, etc have all doubled or tripled in cost yet photographers, in general, still charge about the same or less than they did 15 to 20 years ago.

Ten years ago P.O.’s were simple, non-confrontational, and easily negotiated. Our terms and conditions were 5 to 6 items (less than a page).  Now, terms and conditions are 15 to18 items and 2 to 3 pages long.  This is to counter act current P.O.’s that attempt to take away creative’s ability to make a living. 

One observation that seems to have stayed the same over the years is what I call, “The grass is always greener over there” syndrome.   It’s when a local client has a good budget and a cool project they tend to go out of town to shoot.  I know, this is painting with a broad brush and not every client does this, but many times it’s true.

My observation is that this is short sighted.  It takes tax dollars out of the local community that provide better schools, roads, and infrastructure.  I’ve seen this happen in years past and the result is a reduced high quality talent pool in the local market.

My final observation is this:  In general, photographer’s costs have increased, and our client base has decrease. Corporate consolidation and changes in the market place has led to (few if any catalog, annual reports, print campaigns, etc.) more video and still shoots are being done in house, and budgets have been cut.  Along with this, photographers have started to take a piece of the video pie, which dilutes the viability of talented video and production companies.  Agency’s art directors and designers are swamped, portfolios are mostly viewed on line.  This rarely allows for the personal interaction that builds beneficial relationships.  This historically leads to a vendor – product relationship instead of a mutually beneficial creative partnership.

I wonder how long our current commercial photography business model will support a creative and high quality photo industry in the mid-west.  This isn’t good for either the advertising industry or the photography industries futures.

On the positive side, digital has opened up a whole new realm of creativity, the internet has made the world our market place, and for some clients your IPhone and a GoPro is all you need to shoot a project.   Wait, is that positive?

The market place is what it is.  It always changes.  I thought it would be interesting to reflect on a few of the market place changes in the past 20 years from someone that has lived it.

Do you have a different point of view?

A New Year, A New Look!

The new year holds promises of a clean slate, revitalization, a new outlook. In line with that, we decided to do a little renovation at the studio to freshen it up. Our space lends itself to an urban-industrial feel, so we said, "Hey, why fight it?"

As you enter the studio, you are welcomed by our new chalkboard wall and collection of nicknacks. The chalk art here, and throughout the studio, was commissioned by the talented Lauren Hunt. You could stand here for an hour taking in all of the pieces David has collected over the years. There are antique cameras, eye glasses he made out of camera lenses and family heirlooms, like the bench under the chalkboard. It was built in 1905 and was an original fixture in his grandfather's barber shop.

We did a little redecorating in the kitchen, too. Some new wallpaper and decor give it a fresh look and feel. All of the light fixtures received a facelift as well with new Edison bulbs.

We're really happy with how things turned out. So, stop by and take a peek! We'd love to give you the tour in person and celebrate the year ahead.

Cheers to a great start to 2015!

Our new chalkboard welcomes clients and gives Art Directors here for photo shoots a place to doodle.

We finally found a place to highlight the bench that was in David's grandfather's barber shop. The bench was built in 1905.

Sandblasted and casters added, these flat file cabinets are a great place for our photo collection!

A few more pieces from our collection.

Edison bulbs brighten the new light fixtures above the chalkboard.

Come on by! The chalk and eraser await your next visit.

The coffee table is an old train luggage cart accented with an antique book press.

Client area reading material.

Hand-painted antique safe.

Do you have the time?

Edison bulbs and a coat of paint revitalized the existing light fixtures over the bar.

More chalkboard art commissioned by Lauren Hunt.

The new look in action!

The rhubarb lady that lives in a rhubarb colored house who's never tried rhubarb pie

Recently our friend, food stylist, Sarah Hunt invited me up to her home to shoot some editorial shots. She lives in a marvelous old fire station in Omaha Nebraska.  We had no preconceived plan, just knew it was going to feature rhubarb.  I left KC around 5:00am so I could get to Omaha and shoot in some morning light.

Being primarily a studio photographer I work in very controlled environments with all kinds of lighting and equipment at arms length. The fun thing about editorial food photography is you never know what your environment will be and most of the time you travel light.  This time I traveled with my camera bag, my location computer, a light stand, and a fill card .  The other fun part about editorial food photography is, if something cool catches your eye you shoot it.  You are not trying to shoot images to fit within a packaging window or a specific layout, you are visually telling a story about someone or something.    

So where do you begin?  Well the obvious place to start was picking some fresh rhubarb out in the rhubarb patch.  Beautiful morning light allowed me to get some great shots under the rhubarb leaves and some nice shots of Sarah holding the picked rhubarb.  Neither of us were in any hurry so Sarah suggested she could make some fresh homemade biscuits for breakfast and shoot some shots of them with rhubarb preserves.  Who am I to argue!  After eating and shooting some biscuits it was time for lunch.  Sarah, Mark and I went to a great little burger place called Drinkers.  If you're in Omaha, check them out.

After lunch, Sarah made a rhubarb and strawberry pie.  While it was in the oven baking she decided to make a hipster drink called the "The Cracker Queen".  The ingredients included moonshine, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, rhubarb juice, and who know what else.  Not my cup of tea but visually fun to shoot.  As the title of the post indicates, Sarah had never had rhubarb pie before.  Hot out of the oven I shot some of it's precious juices spilling out of the pan.  After shooting some fun shots of the pie we couldn't wait to cut a slice, put some vanilla ice cream on it and head to the back porch for a little slice of heaven.

Sarah, thanks for the invite, great food styling, fun hospitality, and awesome shoot.     

Grandpa's Tool Shed

We were asked by our friends at Woodruff Sweitzer if we could find an old tool shed ( you know, like the one on your grandpa's farm ).  Of course we said YES.  With the weather forecast calling for snow and 10 degrees I suggested we just build one in the studio.  I called on my friends at Egg Props and Models for some help.   I knew Dale could easily pull this off.

Dale came through, way above and beyond what we expected!

We used recycled shed wood and found an old divided storm window with the paint peeling off. All with the patina of age- just as we wanted.  Dale and I brought in a bunch of old and new tools to complete the look the client wanted.

Dale and I had so much fun hanging all the props.  Probably one of the funnest sets I've worked on in years.

Did I mention I got to take a hammer and beat on the bench and splatter paint all over the place?

It's the little things in life that can make it fun!      

Putting together the walls for the set.

Dale's putting the walls together.

The back side of the set was just a cool as the front.

Some of the tools we had on hand.

Hung a light from a light stand to give the set a little more environment.

It's hard to beat natural light to give you an authentic look.

Getting the product ready for it's close-up.

Stuffing the stand-in packaging.

Our clients checking out the set.

Tweaking the final image

Add some labels, put it in the layout and it's a wrap

How to make dog food look good?

At first glance you might think this bounty of food is for a healthy meal we were about to consume. You'd be mistaken. These foods are actually some of the ingredients used in our client's natural dog food. Steak, chicken, salmon, spinach, grains, fruits and veggies. Not bad if you're a human -- or a dog! We got to use our beautiful kitchen as our background and shot with an Instagram-filtered look. When the campaign releases I'll post the final images. 

Doing a little prop styling.

Beans, rice, barley, oats, flax.

Look'n good!

Adding a little more grain here and there for the final touch.

Thanks Ben, for shooting these behind the scenes shots!

Keeping Product Images Fresh and Clean

This year has continued to bring creative ideas and lots of product photography. 

This project involving both lifestyle and product images required a lot of production and organization. Thanks to our crew: Catherine, Dale, Paula, Tiffany, Molly, Ben! 

We used huge spreadsheets with product descriptions and file naming conventions along with check boxes to keep us on track with the shoot schedule, retouching, clipping paths, renaming files, and release of final files. Client and crew all knew where each image was in the system at any time. Our organizational boards also posted visual examples and verbal descriptions of all of the lifestyle and product shots needed. As a result, everyone got everything shot and retouched on time! 

Our set builder Dale Frommelt, as always, did an outstanding job building our lifestyle sets. While the sets weren't that big, everything was painstakingly
sourced and assembled. Both sets had to have working water faucets and a way to catch the water when flowing. Add a water hose and a bucket
and, voilà, you have functional, "running" water. 

Production boards kept everyone on track.

Dale is always ready for anything.

Beautiful light.

The hose-bucket drain system worked great.

You can do a lot on a small set.

Since this project had a number of lifestyle shots using a hand model, we did a final check of our hand model's hands. 

A few minor adjustments and everything looked good to go.

Model hand check.

Nothing like natural light!

Putting the perfect portion of toothpaste on your toothbrush is harder than you'd think.

Getting the shot framed just right.

How to wash your hands with style.

If it don't show -- don't blow money on it! 

Check out the chrome on this limited edition, handcrafted, David Morris towel rack. 

Here we were only going to see the bottom of the towels so taping them to the wall worked like a charm.

Limited edition towel rack, "David Style."

Not everything is what it seems when you look at the shot from a different direction.

Since this project had a lot of product to shoot in a short time period, we needed more than one set going at the same time. 

Consistency can be an issue if you're not careful. We shot using two sets exactly alike; same lights, soft boxes, cameras and lenses, backgrounds, etc. 

Every variable we could eliminate we did. We were very pleased with how close we were able to match each set.

Two matching product sets.

Sometimes you have to do crazy things to get packaging and contents to cooperate. 

In this case, we cut through the back of the box to properly position 

the product inside and get it to stay in place. 

A fun shoot and great client! 

At the end of the day when you hear the client say, "outstanding photos" and "better than we expected," we consider the project a success. 

Here are some of the final lifestyle photo from the shoot.