I was researching the impact of landscape photography on the environment and a google search result was a blog post from a workshop/tuition provider and also the founder of the Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year competition, Stuart Low. It certainly didn't read like one of those sanctimonious marketing fluff articles written for the landscape photography media. It made for dispiriting viewing of the videos documenting the poached ground and vandalism to trees, that can only be due to photographers. What made for uncomfortable reading was the candid report on the dysfunctional behaviour and culpability of some famous, brand name and copycat landscape photographers. An extract from the blog post :
'We witnessed one tour leader who arrived late at the location and bullied his way to the front where he ordered his group to set up in front of everyone else. Others threw stones in the still water and others simply stuck their cameras in front of someone’s lens to take hand-held shots.
Matters aren’t helped by “brand name” photographers taking large groups to the area either. They typically pack in 12-15 photographers per workshop, charge ridiculously high fees and go to the same tourist locations as everyone else. And to put things in to perspective, one famous landscape photographer presented to 50 photographers in the Ballachuillish hotel only last week. This greed fuels copycat tours.
The brand photographers obviously can’t be blamed for copycat workshops, but they can be blamed for what they teach – because it fuels the behaviour of others. For example, the same famous photographer above held a lecture in Edinburgh last week where he gave some appalling advice to his audience. He told them it was bad form to rearrange pebbles on a beach yet he described at length how he cut through a canopy of trees to capture a shot. Is it any wonder other photographers copy this type of vandalism?
Indeed, some “famous” landscape photographers believe they are above everyone else and hold rank in the landscape. For example, one particular hypocrite individual claims there are too many photographers in the landscape yet he runs workshops with 15 students. This same individual wrote that the blowing down of the dead tree on Rannoch Moor was “fortunate for landscape photography” – yet the same tree adorns the front cover of his book! It’s egotistical attitudes like this that feed into the psyche of others.'
A new google search to see how widespread this dysfunctional behaviour is amongst supposed professionals, resulted in a blog from a female landscape photography workshop/tuition provider, that charts some allegedly reprehensible professional behaviour. It is only one side of the story, even so it really doesn't reflect well on the Yorkshire professional landscape photographers implicated. An extract from her post on Professional behaviour in landscape photography :
'I’ve noticed for some time now that the landscape photography workshop arena is getting quite vicious. The landscape photography workshop business is in the leisure industry, a supposedly happy industry not one that harasses and tries to shut down competitors to such an extent that here I am standing on a cliff, on my birthday after hearing my websites could be shut down ie all my online presence gone if it wasn’t for my 4 legged friend I wouldn’t be writing this. I am still feeling pretty shitty, still don’t know what to do, this was the proverbial last straw.'
It would be bad enough if the above referenced were the only posts online from landscape photography workshop/tuition providers highlighting their concerns of dysfunctional behaviour from their supposed peers, sadly there are more.
The word professional for some landscape photographers apparently applies only to the capacity to make money, the responsibilities of professional behaviour and standards, appear alien concepts.
I haven't succumbed to the delights of facebook, twitter or any other social media circus, long since unsubscribed from any photography magazine and only pick up on the more visible news, so I'd rather lost touch with what is happening in the landscape photography world. I was aware of the 2015 French government report into the state of its professional photography industry* which made for grim reading and I recalled a candid article by Ming Thein, titled The future of photography lies in education which wasn't very positive either. My blog posts on originality in landscape photography required some research to get an overview for who is photographing what and where, which necessitated a trawl through magazine articles, photo sharing community galleries and individual portfolios. The activity also provided an insight into the respective health of the amateur and professional photography markets.
The good news is that the amatuer landscape community appears in rude health, with large and active communities posting images and compared to 2005 there are now relatively affordable mature digital camera systems capable of delivering professional image quality. Many amateurs are monetising their images by selling prints, merchandise and submitting images to photo stock agencies. In 2008 the stock photo agency Getty formed a partnership with Flickr for access to the sites global photography community and their video/stills images. Amateurs don't have to incorporate the costs associated with running a profitable business in their selling price and there are a large number of amateurs across the globe now supplying the global demand for stock photography to global photo stock agencies.
The not so good news is with the professional photography community. It appears that stock photography once underpinned a large majority of professional photographers careers and in the golden age of professional photography the time and effort invested in compiling a large stock image library would pay off in later years with a steady income stream and the photographer was then at leisure to pick and choose commercial work, concentrate on personal photography projects, publish a book etc. The figures banded about for stock image sales range from 60% to 80% of business income for an average sized stock image library, those figures were before the digital revolution disrupted the market. A google archive search will reveal that back in the early noughties as digital photography and the internet started to gain momentum there were predictions made for the demise of the stock photography industry. Those pundits blessed with foresight and common sense, observed that analogue capture didn't quite fit in with the new digital world and scanned film was no substitute for pure digital capture. Predictably their sage advice was flamed in online photography forums and the online forums did what they do best with innumerable posts, long threads, heated discussions and ad hominem attacks on why film was better than digital and vice versa. The astute commercially minded photographers took the opportunity to invest in digital, create a new all digital stock library and reap the rewards until the herd changed direction.
The stock photography industry had already witnessed the impact of digital on the analogue systems of filing, searching, indexing etc and a brief history of the stock image industry is outlined in this 2015 article from Alamy. To illustrate the effect of stock photography incomes and market pressure, it is worth reading this article published in 2006 by www.luminous-landscape.com titled Micro Payment Agencies at the end of the article was a short bio of the author 'George Munday graduated from the Birmingham (England) School of Photography in 1975. After leaving college he became a photo – journalist for four years, before moving to Ireland to become a business partner in an advertising and commercial studio, later becoming a stock photography agency. Last year he set up Copper Coast Workshops which offers residential, weekend workshops for digital photograpers. Apart from the workshops, he supplies stock photography to various stock agencies, writes and photographs features about Ireland and Irish Gardens, and will soon be teaching photography in the local college. He’s always happy to talk endlessly about photography and give participants at the workshops advice about shooting stock, shooting commercially and any other aspects of photography that he has garnered during his 30 years as a photographer.'
As an aside, no-one in the early noughties predicted that mobile phones would one day have cameras and stills/video capabilities, with Apps and internet connectivity to upload online within seconds of the image/recording being made.
The Financial crisis of 2007-2008 according to the International Monetary Fund initiated the worst global recession since World War II an event that even disturbed the rarefied high end photography market which was evidenced by the sudden appearance in the photography media of photographers whose commercial work activities in London had concluded (cough) and announced they were now focusing again on their true passion of landscape/travel photography. I'm sure a lot of people reading the articles said 'Who?' The global recession combined with falling stock image incomes forced professional landscape photographers to further diversify and/or concentrate their endeavours on profitable income streams. The problem was that not just professional landscape photographers have been affected by recent events, it is market wide and that means professional photographers of all 'genres' are looking to diversify their revenue streams. Where professionals websites were once 'genre specific photographer' they now encompass several genres of photography, I guess to cover all the bases. The achilles heel for professional landscape photographers is that - as was stated in a South Korean court - 'anyone can take a photograph of a landscape' and indeed they do.
The above video was uploaded to youtube in 2009 and has received over 2,000,000 views and over 250.000 subscribers to date. If only 0.5% of those viewers bought DVD's, signed up for workshops or purchased other merchandise that is over 10,000 customers. The photographer is clearly not a 'landscape' photographer, but kudos to him, as he effectively demonstrated and communicated some salient principles of landscape photography. There are professional landscape photographers who have failed miserably to effectively convey those same salient points across a variety of media.
The one area where professional landscape photographers can capitalise on their awards,media presence,celebrity experience is tuition aka training workshop/ adventure/ expedition/ social piss up tour or education merchandise DVD's, books etc. I have yet to find a professional landscape photographer not invested in the phenomenon of the photography workshop or tuition. The A list names command premium prices and group sizes, then lower down the food chain, are workshops where prices reflect group sizes, destination, duration, luxuriousness or not of accommodation and competition. As a barometer of the health of the landscape photography market; workshops and tuition are currently taking up a high proportion of many photographers calendars. What has happened and is happening in the UK is mirrored across the globe and almost every article in the popular media not associated with gear reviews, seems to be masquerading as PR and marketing for the authors media presence and running workshops, educational material or photography services and desperate drivel stuff it is too.
The conventional wisdom expressed at the time of the financial crisis was to ride out the storm and reap the rewards when the storm blew over. Disruptive events have a nasty habit of obsoleting products, markets and careers, I suspect no one at the time took into account the combination of
Disruptive technology of digital capture
The popularity of digital photography across the globe
Amateurs able to compete on a professional level and facilitated by the stock photography agencies
The price of stock images could fall to such low levels
Smartphones, display sizes and social media
The extent and duration of the global financial crisis
I have my doubts on whether conventional landscape photography workshops are a sustainable business model, but at the moment it seems to be one of the few profitable areas and is underpinning the global landscape photography industry. I should mention that even amateurs are now offering workshops and 1-2-1 tuition too.
* The French Government report into the professional photography industry can be downloaded after some rigmarole in English. However there is a link at the bottom of the Petapixel article to the Hyperallergic website where an article highlights some trends and numbers. I thought these statements from the article of interest : Some 6,000 of France’s roughly 25,000 professional photographers — working in every field, from fashion and photojournalism to fine art and corporate photography — were surveyed for the study, which was conducted between December 2013 and December 2014 by the Ministry of Culture and Communication and its Department of Studies, Probability, and Statistics.
Between 1995 and 2010 the number of French people identifying as professional artists of any kind increased by 16%, but the number of photographers increased by 37% over the same period
Between 1995 and 2010 the number of men photographers increased by 25% while the number of women photographers increased by 85%.
58% of respondents had other jobs before becoming professional photographers, 40% of them in a related field (graphic or web design, public relations, animation, etc.).
40% of respondents said portraits are the most important type of image they produce; 17% said landscapes; 13% said photojournalism.
Eight out of ten respondents make money from multiple sectors of the photography market; the most popular revenue stream is corporate photography (executive portraits, event photography, conference materials, annual reports, etc.).
