Los Angeles Photographer and Orange County Photographer Mark Robert Halper » Advertising Photographers

Tessa’s daughter wants to be an Orange County Photographer

Mark Robert Halper — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:05:43 +0000

I recently received this email:

Dear Mark,

My daughter and I live in Orange County, and she wants to go to a photography school when she graduates high school next year. She has been taking pictures ever since she was eight years old, and wants more than anything to become a professional photographer. I’ve been told that professional photography is a very tough business, and would like to know what she may be getting herself into. I’d love for her to stay and work in Orange County where we all live, but don’t know if that is possible or advisable.

I’m sure you’re very busy, and I’ll completely understand if you don’t have time to write back, but any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

Tessa Saunderson

Like in most other areas, there are shortage of people who want to become professional photographers. The Orange County market is at least relatively healthy (compared to other parts of the country), and there are a number of opportunities for Orange County Photographers to find work.

That said, becoming a successful photographers is not unlike becoming a successful actor; there are quite simply too few jobs for the many people who are interested in becoming professional photographers. Under the best circumstances, only perhaps the best 5-10% will be able to make a sustainable living in the field, and only a few of those will reach the levels that we define as highly successful. To be successful as a professional photographer in Orange County (or anywhere else), she has to have a combination of strong technical skills, great artistic vision, a savvy sense of business, and a huge amount of drive.

If she doesn’t want to be a photographer more than anything else in the world, then chances are she will be happier in another profession.

The wedding and portrait market (especially for Orange County Photographers) generally has more opportunity than the commercial market (magazines, ads, and other forms of photography that promote products and services). There is simply more work.

I’d encourage your daughter to take some extension classes or workshops before she graduates to really get a feel for what professional photography is like. I don’t know if there are any options in Orange County, but in Los Angeles you can look at the Julia Dean Workshops, UCLA Extension, Art Center at Night, Santa Monica City College, and you can always consider sending her away for a week at the Santa Fe Workshops.

I hope that I’ve been of some help, and wish your daughter the best of luck at whatever she may decide to pursue.

Mark Robert Halper

Technorati Tags: Advertising Photographers, Los Angeles Photographers, Orange County Photographers, photography schools, professional photographer

Thoughts on the Cost of Photography

Mark Robert Halper — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:27:26 +0000

What a good photographer does requires a great deal of talent and expertise. Over the past few years, with the advent of digital photography, our talents are being treated more and more like commodities, there is less recognition of the value of the services we provide, be we Orange County photographers, Los Angeles Photographers, California Photographers, or United States Photographers.

Photographers are not interchangeable, be they good or bad. The most subtle differences in something as simple as a corporate headshot can greatly affect how somebody is perceived by a potential client, and that can be the difference between having and not having the opportunity to win a client’s business. As the images become more about the company and the brand, and less about the individual, those differences are magnified. A 20%, or even a 50%, difference in the cost of photography becomes relatively insignificant in comparison to even a single project or client for many companies.

Ironically, as the potential client pool shrinks and customers become ever more discerning in more challenging economic times, even the small differences in how brands and companies are perceived becomes even more crucial. The cost of cheap photography, when considered in a broader sense, is almost always greater than even the most expensive photographer in any given market.

I firmly believe that we make most of our decisions emotionally, and then back them up with logic to justify what we want to do on an instinctive level. It is on that level that photographers communicate. Clients may not be able to articulate differences, but they can feel them. Put a typical local magazine next to a nation newsstand publication, cut out the photos, and nearly every viewer will know which is which, based on the quality of the photography, even they can’t vocalize a single reason why one photo is better than another.

Surprisingly, I’ve found that families making purchases for their own walls have a far better idea of the value of those images than people of similar background making decisions for their company. In the instance where the more expensive photography actually has the potential to do far more than pay for itself, corporate decision makers will make decisions over relatively small amounts of money, yet for their own purposes they are far more likely to look at the big picture even when there is no financial upside to the photography other than personal value.

I know that I can’t change the industry, and I think that the community of commercial photographers will be substantially diminished in the coming year. It is my hope that those who remain will work to help clients understand that hiring a good photographer is not an expense, but rather an investment with the potential to yield returns far greater than any initial cost.

Technorati Tags: California Photographers, Los Angeles Photographers, Orange County Photographers, United States Photographers, value of photography

My first blog…

Mark Robert Halper — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:27:34 +0000

Every six months or so I update my news page with some of my larger announcements, but I’ve yet to enter the world of blogging. I don’t know just what this will be, but no doubt it will include lots of information about my thoughts on photography.

If you haven’t yet started watching Mad Men, it’s a DVD purchase that I can promise you won’t regret. This scene, from the last episode of the first season, is about what I do as a photographer, and what photography is often about in a much larger sense:

When I was growing up, I think that the best things to watch came out in the theaters. Over the last decade or two, that’s changed. Two hours of Mad Men are better written than nearly anything playing in the cineplex (as were two hours of X-Files, The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Battlestar Galactica, and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Excellence isn’t about scale and budget – as photography will clearly attest to. Cable has changed television. At one time for a show to be made it had to be at the top of a three network pile. Now, with so many networks and cable stations fighting for an audience, the exceptional has a chance to creep in. Not all shows still need to cater to least common denominator, and traditional broadcast standards don’t apply to every station. There is good TV out there, and Mad Men is probably the best new show to come out of the pre-strike season.

I’m going to invite my team to post here as well, so I don’t really know what to expect from this new venture. We’ll see where it goes.

Technorati Tags: advertising, mad men, photography