THE WAY I SEE IT… THE ROARING TWENTIES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
As a consultant and educator for commercial photographers, I constantly have my fingers on the pulse of what is going on in the world of professional photography.
I should point out that I am not interested nor do I have much information to share about consumer photography; weddings, portraits, families and such. That is a different world of challenges and it is not my specialty. If you are a consumer photographer, this will not be of much interest to you. Just sayin’.
Commercial and Editorial photography is where I spend most of my time. Photographers who work for magazines, ad agencies, designers and corporate marketing and communications departments are the focus of my mentoring and teaching activity.
A quick bio: I have been a photographer for over 50 years, and for nearly ten years was the Creative Director for the third-largest ad agency in Phoenix. I started it in my home office and it grew rather quickly into a major force in Pre-IPO advertising. Our main clients were medical devices and services.
Because of that, I am keep a close watch on the advertising and marketing part of the industry. Always looking for ways photographers can stay up with the changes – and ahead of them if possible. I also stay abreast of the latest trends and directions that advertising clients are moving in.
This helps me keep my photographers focused on what works, and the trends that affect them – and will affect them – as they grow their businesses.
Welcome to 2020…
A whole decade of perfect vision.
I have decided to call it the ‘roaring twenties’ but no worries, I am not trying to make that trend. It’s just my little thing to keep me focused.
Just like the last ‘roaring twenties’ a hundred years ago, this decade will be both challenging and chaotic. There is a no longer a longing for what was (nostalgia), and a bit of a trepidation of what is to come.
The first decade of the century found us in a digital revolution, and the first big downturn for the ‘new economy’. We were feeling our way into a new century but bringing so much of the former forward that it was very difficult to see where one ended and the other began.
The second decade was a settling in of the new paradigms, new ways of working, and a full embrace of the technical and digital world we had entered. However, we still hadn’t come to terms with what we should do with all of it.
Now the roaring twenties… the third decade of the 21st Century.
Comfortable with digital, no longer seeking the comfort of the past, and forward-facing, we begin to sort out what was simply interesting, and a distraction, from what will endure.
I have put together a few of the things I see trending out there and how they may affect your business as a professional photographer.
1. A return to Natural.
Everywhere I look I am seeing more and more natural light or lit shots that LOOK natural being used in editorial and advertising.
Gone is the three-point lighting, the over-saturated (or desaturated) strobe look that was so prevalent in the first part of this decade.
In the mid 00’s we found the technology and new ways to use strobes outside, and we overused them. We found ways to make photographs not even look like photographs and we overused them.
Photoshop is both a godsend and a curse… it can be so captivating in the ability to manipulate images that it can lead us down a path of non-reality and fantastic effects. These ‘shopped’ images were a staple of advertising in the teens.
They will be a novelty in the ’20s… the decade of natural and authentic. And even if the techniques are used, we will not be able to spot them since the image will fairly drip with ‘authenticity.’
Peter Lindbergh led the way with his ‘no-photoshop’ approach to fashion. Soon other photographers began following. The goal was to make the portrait or fashion shot look ‘real’ and – well – authentic. No more plastic skin, fake waistlines, and ‘shopped out’ laugh lines.
Photographer Dave Hill – who was one of the biggest inspirations of the multi-strobed outdoor shoot – with a heavy layering of composited Photoshop – is now shooting mostly natural light.
One of the hottest photographers in the ad world, Finn Beales, is almost entirely natural light, and he has some amazing and powerful images – as well as a formidable client list.
In fact, if you follow ‘A Photo Editor’s’ list of photographer’s promo materials you will see the preponderance of natural light in the work of hundreds of working photographers.
To be sure, strobes and artificial lights are still working hard in the studios across the world, but for portraiture, lifestyle, fashion, and general people photography it is fairly lopsided toward natural light.
Or lit scenes that look natural.
(Instagram just announced they would filter out “Photoshopped” images, and the infamous Unsplash will not even take highly edited images even for free to give away. I mean, that’s gotta tell you something.)
2. A wider diversity of subjects
Not just races and ethnicities, we will now see more and more middle-aged and older people in the ads. We are already seeing it.
No longer will every subject in the ad or brochure be skinny and ‘perfect’. We are seeing plus-sized models in fashion magazines, and even the retail stores are creating plus-size mannequins for their shoppers.
Yeah, young people are so pretty and hip and all that… but they are not the majority of people who have the money.
And noting the fascination and focus of real, natural, and authentic, we may not be able to capture a fifty-year-old’s interest with a photograph of a nineteen year old worried about her smile lines.
Not anymore.
We are seeing more people in advertising and editorial of varying weights and heights. Yeah, high-fashion has always been skinny and tall – until it isn’t anymore. We may actually see short, heavy, skinny, tall… every kind of person there is on the runways – and in the magazines.
That may be the case by the end of this decade.
Or sooner.
There are too many forces pushing back against the ‘body perfection’ and obsession with youth. Eventually even Vogue will have to step up… and practice what they preach.
If you are shooting for your portfolio, consider adding some very real people to the mix. Real and authentic people should be a part of your presentation.
Keep your eye out for trends in body types and age lines that will be crashing around us.
Photographer David Harry Stewart has built a new business helping ad agencies and brands understand the demographics of people over 50. His site, Ageist, is a very popular and important source of information.
3. Product and Still Life are separated.
What was once the dominion of web designers – the flat look – is now the hip and new way to shoot product.
Less brick, old wood, and textured backgrounds, more colored flats and pure white/black.
For product.
Once product and still-life were pretty interchangeable as a genre.
Now product is its own unique genre, and it is dominated by ultra-clean, sparse sets, and flat backgrounds or surfaces so as to present the item in its own total glory without extraneous additions.
Focusing on the item and creating a powerful shot of it as if it were a piece of art is now the way forward.
Think super clean, super sparse, delicate and powerful… and few if any props. White, black, or colored backgrounds and surfaces.
Still life, on the other hand, will become more luxurious with props, heavy styling, and super attention to storytelling with the image.
Still life ‘narratives’ will be a big part of your portfolio. It may be still life, but it will be telling a story.
Take a storytelling class and create mini tapestries with your still life work.
4. Fashion on the ropes?
With more and more people looking at the planetary distress, it is hard to overlook the incredible waste generated by the fashion industry.
Burberry burned $40M worth of good, new stock it couldn’t sell. (No word on why it couldn’t have been donated to places where good clothing is a rare luxury. I guess there were ‘reasons’ – there always are.)
Landfills are full of discarded wardrobe that didn’t sell. Do you wonder where all those “small” shirts go after they are replaced?
Right to the dump.
In fact, the fashion industry is one of the largest polluters in the world. 4% of the world’s waste, and 92 million tons of garbage to the landfills.
Everything about it is antithetical to the preachiness of its practitioners and soon there will be a reality check.
“The problem is bigger than just finished articles being burned or torn up and tossed. A recent Pulse Of The Fashion Industry report stated that fashion generates 4% of the world’s waste each year, 92 million tons, which is more than toxic e-waste. A lot of that comes from off-cuts from the production process.
Enough is enough. Driven by a younger generation of environmentally and socially conscious consumers, there is strong pressure on brands and retailers to responsibly reduce fashion waste—not just by recycling and reusing, but also by producing less (and smarter) in the first place.” – Forbes
From Peter Lindbergh’s non-glitz approach to the new interest in smaller and smaller runs of clothes, there is something in the air.
Recently, Italian Vogue ran an entire issue with no photographs. Instead they used illustrators. This was a publicity stunt to show how photographers were a ‘green’ problem.
“Italian Vogue‘s first issue of 2020 will feature zero photography in order to “send a message” about sustainability. Instead of photos, the issue is illustrated by artists, avoiding the “travelling, shipping entire wardrobes of clothes or polluting in any way” involved in a typical Vogue photo shoot.”
— Petapixel
Of course they went back to photographers immediately following the stunt, so while nothing was saved, you may consider it a shot over the bow.
They don’t mention the massive amounts of dumped clothes in the issue at all. Strange that, don’t you think?
BTW, young people seem to be far less interested in ‘fashion’ than their parents or grandparents were. This will be a problem for growth, for sure.
4. A return to big and luxurious portfolios
Yep, you got a website and an Instagram and a Behance page… awesome.
But you are going to want a big, heavy, old-fashioned portfolio for those times when nothing else will do.
More and more reps are demanding big books, and not just one, you will need a backup. And consider a few smaller copies for local and immediate showings.
More and more photographers are realizing it is a relatively inexpensive way to impress clients whether they are agency art directors or brand managers.
The keyword is ‘relatively’.
While you may be able to do something local or a DIY project, you will most likely be spending between $1K and $3K for a custom, bound and printed book.
Interchangeable pages are a must. Thick, luxurious paper is a must. Back-up copies are a must.
One new and very popular rep agency actually uses the books as their main marketing tool. Bringing a stash of books, gathering a large number of AD’s, CD’s, and Art Buyers into a space and spreading out the books is a new and inventive way for their photographers to get the work seen.
Portfolio reviews as networking events. Watch for this approach to catch on locally in your town.
(More on that later this spring…)
Two thousand dollars is not a small sum of money. You may want to go with something much less ambitious when you are starting out, but be sure to put those pennies away for when you want to increase your presence from local to regional – and definitely for national clients.
5. Long-form magazines and books
Photographers are already creating books that straddle the publication / fine art line very well.
Books whose print runs are in the hundreds, not thousands, are in demand.
The book is not something that is mass published, it is (most likely) self-published and offered as a limited edition. Like a piece of art.
I have seen forty-page books selling for $200, $300, and even $800, in editions of 100… and then be out of stock.
This unique and powerful new way for photographers to show their work accomplishes a couple of things at once.
The work gets shown as a single collection, the photographer elevates themselves with the publication, and the exclusivity of the item proves to be a real marketing tool.
A wonderful young photographer, Ben Horne, sells a portfolio of ten prints each year in a limited edition. He sells out every year.
Groups of photographers will be putting together their own magazines and sharing them online as well as in the print-on-demand sites that allow the customer to order a hard copy. While this has been happening in a few areas like beauty and fashion, look for it to explode into other genres as well.
Photographers will be able to publish their own work without gatekeepers and soon they will be able to own the process.
Even the editorial process… and we may see a return to photographer driven big photo magazines.
By the end of the decade, the long-form photography book, and editorial magazines of all kinds will be entirely in the hands of the photographers themselves. From photography to production and design, they will be the driving force in publications.
A few other things that should be considered as we move into the roaring twenties.
6. Using film to set your brand apart.
Kodak is selling more film now than at any time since the early 2010s. Film can help you be unique, and possibly bolster your brand, but only if it is used as a medium instead of a novelty.
Nobody cares about novelty anymore.
7. Photographers will take back their spaces online.
“Never build your castle on rented land”… or something like that.
We were sold a bunch of crap a couple of decades ago. The Facebooks and Instagrams and such were so attractive and available for free!
So we abandoned our blogs and our own castles and moved onto the rented plantation of the owners. And that may have been a huge mistake.
You do not own anything on Facebook. Or Instagram. Or LinkedIn.
You are given space to help them sell data and when they want to change the rules, they do – and what that does to your business is a nothing burger to them.
Walled gardens are no place to be caged when you desire freedom. While I think it is obviously fine to be involved in those social media sites, if you do it at the peril of your own, you may be playing catchup by mid-decade.
Photographers will realize that pouring hours per day into Instagram in a “mostly vain” attempt to gain followers is a massive waste of time.
Maybe it worked 8 years ago, but now it is so large that in order to move the needle on the algorithm, you will have to publish 6-10 images per day.
Back to blogs, journals, whatever we want to call them, but a more robust website presence where you OWN your work is going to rebound by mid-decade if not sooner.
A lot sooner.
8. Social media hype meets old fashioned work
One of the things I feel about social media is that it was promised almost as a panacea for what ails all marketers.
“Direct access to clients and customers.”
“Authentic and sharable experiences.”
“An unending cadre of possible customers.”
“A level playing field.”
Yeah, that sorta never happened after the first few years of the internet.
And it sure is not the way it is now.
Social media is more hollow than ever with ‘influencers’ and ‘celebrities’ who are really neither, but just a ‘now and gone’ phenomena.
Photographers have been promised that if they put cool stuff on Instagram, they will find great rewards.
How’s this. After talking to 10 art directors in my city, not one of them went to Instagram to find talent.
“How the hell would I find anyone there,” one exclaimed.
And while they were universal in their feelings about Instagram ( a place to play) they were equally universal in the places where they do look for talent.
“I love direct mail stuff,” one said, while another let her love for cool emails be known.
“I love it when I hear directly from the photographers.”
Oh, and the Workbook… they all loved the Workbook.
9. Photographers will be expanding their offerings beyond just making photos.
And videos.
They will need to be strong visual artists… in other ways than just photography.
Photographers will be called on to do:
Storyboards, and look-books.
Writing and interviews.
Design and production will become part of the skill set.
Visual design and concepting.
And probably a few things we are not even aware of at the moment.
10. Photographic education is changing drastically
This one comes from my friend Rick Gayle, a photographer and educator in Phoenix.
“In education, photography will move away from being a stand-alone major and become part of a larger major called Visual Communications. This will encompass graphic design and social media with photography and video.”
This tracks with what I see in nearly every sector of the photography industry.
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Photography is more important now than ever before, but the practitioners are going to be called on to do a lot more than click the shutter.
Ideas, visual ideas, will be the new currency.
Technical skills, while always important, will not trump the ability of the photographer to create and show something unique, fresh, and exciting.
And authentic… don’t forget that.
It will be the buzzword of the decade.
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Photo by salvatore ventura on Unsplash