Years ago, I had a conversation with a wealthy elderly woman in New Orleans who was drinking me under the table. She imparted to me a wise phrase in an attempt to put my weak financial status as a photographer into perspective: “Only God is multitalented enough to not have to delegate.” Being the humble young man that I was, I dismissed her comment and thought about seeking other drinking partners who would be a little less honest about the reality of my career status.
Somewhere in the annals of history, photographers became associated with coffeehouses, martinis, glamorous lives, and insufficient funds. We have our brethren in other creative genres to blame for that. No one ever talks about the well-to-do writer or artist making an impact; they talk about the insane, impoverished, absinthe-drinking genius drawing upon his or her destitution for the inspiration of great works. Even though photography is a creative genre of the same ilk as painting or writing, shooting pictures for a living is different.
Photography has more commercial viability than any other art form. We can pursue any of the various subgenres within the photography world and make a buck while also producing wonderfully obscure art-istic works to feed our tortured genius and to have a reason to talk beautiful men and women out of their clothes. So, given that I work in a profession with so much profit potential, I have always wondered why I spent my twenties excusing myself to restaurant bathrooms in order to secretly call my credit card issuers to see if I had enough on the card to pay for the pending bill.
We are blinded by our own ego. Photography is a profession of many hats. We must be, among other things, great visual storytellers, technology experts, travel mavens, and politicians—all this in an industry that requires us to manifest these skills on the fly. So why wouldn’t we assume that we’re also brilliant marketers and businesspeople? The problem is that we do assume we’re brilliant marketers and businesspeople. Consequently, we blame the fact that we’re not reaching our fiscal potential on horoscopes, global warming, and alien visitations.
The Photographer‘s Survival Guide is a lot like a sober version of my conversation with the elderly woman from New Orleans—really smart advice that we don’t want to hear because we think we already know it all. What we know is photography. The authors of The Photographer’s Survival Guide, Suzanne Sease and Amanda Sosa Stone, know the business of photography. Ms. Sease and Ms. Sosa Stone have taken decades of experience, most of which is from the other side of the ad agency door, and put it into a language that we photographers can understand and easily implement into our careers.
If you are a photographer who has made superabundant amounts of money in your profession, then put this book down and buy me a Ferrari. But if you are looking to realize more profits from your passion and inherent talent as photographer, then The Photographer’s Survival Guide will inspire you to think differently about the way you approach the business side of your career.