Photography Isn’t Dying
Have you been wondering what’s happened to the photo business? Good news. I figured it out.
Photography isn’t dying. As a commercial endeavor, I mean. The shifts have been seismic, but not deadly.
That’s not to say the outlook is rosy. Particularly if you have, say, 20 years worth of context. For those with experience, it sure seems like commercial photography might be in its death throes.
I’m here to say: fear not.
Over the last several years I have personally experienced downward pressure, if not outright decline, in fees. My colleagues report the same. It’s not a consequence of AI (though that’s sure to have an impact soon enough). It’s the fault of social media, a result of enshittification. Toys became tools that became the central hub of advertising and killed print — the engine that powered the commercial photography industry. Social media is now the core of all marketing, and social media has little need for high cost, high value imagery.
Commercial and editorial photographers are dealing with a perfect storm — social media, a skittish economy and AI — making many of us wonder if our beloved industry is circling the drain. An optimist might say it’s evolving, but I’m not that generous. It’s a real problem, and I’m worried. But not so worried that I think our business will evaporate. Professional photography is becoming something new. Not better. Likely worse. Definitely new.
First, a quick recap of ways to make money with a camera.
Wedding photographers aren’t going away. Social media has actually been a boon to their business. And nobody’s going to choose an AI illustration to commemorate their big day. Same goes for family portraits and event photographers. They all trade in authenticity. They’re paid to capture actual moments of real things. They’ll face increased competition and downward pressure on rates (supply and demand) but will not disappear.
Photojournalists have smooth sailing, as well. (Because nine out of 10 entities that used to hire photojournalists went belly up, “smooth sailing” is relative.) Their options may be limited, but neither journalism nor the role photographers play in it will disappear. I’d argue in a world of fake photorealism, photojournalism will become more valuable than ever.
It’s the commercial photographers, at both the high and low ends of the market, who will suffer most.
At the top end of the range, where assignments run into six figures and involve scores of people to plan, execute and implement campaigns, the cost-savings of AI are going to prove irresistible — unless, for some reason, the advertiser requires actual authenticity or possesses an excess of both money and taste. If the masses decide they won’t accept AI imagery, that’s good news for advertising photographers. But the meaningful cost savings, in an uneasy business environment dealing with economic uncertainty and spiraling costs, will eliminate a lot of work at the higher end of the market.
This is a consequence for which photographers are partially to blame, for a surprising reason: aesthetics. When we wielded Photoshop to make pictures increasingly perfect — unrealistically so — photo-based advertising drifted farther from the authenticity from which photographs derive their power. If the “reality” of an image doesn’t matter to an advertiser — demonstrably true for quite some time now — said advertiser is perfectly positioned to allow generative AI to take over.
But if, as is the case with photojournalism, photographic authenticity matters to that advertiser, they are less likely to rely on the shortcut machine. Recent examples of this include campaigns like “Actually, it’s Ikea,” Polaroid’s “Sand Between Your Toes,” or The New York Times’ “It’s Your World to Understand.” They’re trading on a visual essence only reality can provide.
At the other end of the spectrum, the low end of the market, clients use photography because it efficiently fills a need. Unconcerned with high-minded considerations of authenticity and subtext, they simply require readable images of their widget. If the AI can generate them, inexpensively and immediately… Problem solved.
In the middle of the market, however, there will continue to exist a sweet spot for which authentic photography will remain necessary. Demand is even increasing. It will be made by smaller crews with leaner budgets, but it’s real. Photographers will serve a growing variety of needs in the content marketing industry that prioritizes volume over production value. In other words, quality is giving way to quantity.
As big a threat as generative AI may be, it’s 15 years of social media domination that’s really done us in. Corey Doctorow’s “Enshittification” is a great place to learn how we got here. Suffice it to say, publishers were wooed by digital connectivity and gave over their audiences to the platforms, which then hijacked those audiences and rug-pulled the publishers right out of business.1
When I say “publishers” what I really mean is “any entity which previously paid photographers.” Magazines and books, of course, but also industry newsletters, educators, video makers, websites, brochures, direct mailers… And most of all, advertisers. All of it, print and digital alike, took a backseat to the number one connector of any entity with its customers: social media. The tech companies have captured a meaningful percentage of eyeballs and the ad dollars they garner. Social media accounts for a whopping 80% of all ad spending worldwide. Any customer you want to reach, whatever you might be selling, is accessed via a handful of Silicon Valley servers.2
When print all but died, the need for high production value photographs dropped precipitously. We benefit from an increased need for photographs and videos for social media, but it’s not nearly enough — because so many of those social images are user generated. High production value photographs had long, high-profile lifespans. Social media photographs have a short shelf life, living for a day before disappearing. What’s the value of an image with a lifespan of hours? And what’s the value of a still photograph on a tiny device that’s better suited to displaying video?
The industry has been turned on its head. But I see a path forward. It’s not the one I would have chosen in an ideal world, but there is light at the end of this tunnel and it’s not an oncoming train.
For those curious about how I am changing my approach to the business of photography — something I think my colleagues will find themselves doing eventually — Part 2 reveals my plan. This will be a post for paid subscribers.
Facebook tells publishers “Hey, why not interact with your audience here?” Publishers realize audiences love that. Soon they’re used to interacting primarily via the platform, so when Facebook says “We aren’t gonna let our algorithm promote links that take viewers off the platform any more,” publishers say okay, we’ll publish the content directly on Facebook. Consequence one of this is the fans and subscribers no longer need to visit the publisher’s website, so the ad revenue stays with Facebook rather than the publisher. Then Facebook says “Publishers, if you want to keep interacting with your audience we’re gonna need you to pay us.” So the publisher does, because at this point what other option do they have? Now they have no advertising revenue coming in, so they can’t continue to pay for the privilege of interacting with their audience on social media, and they have less content to share with them, too. Soon enough the publishing company folds and Facebook shrugs it off because content is content, so a trusted publication with a decades-long track record is replaced by, say, a link aggregator from the other side of the world. Makes no difference to Facebook; an eyeball is an eyeball as far as the ad dollars are concerned.
Side note: this is the number one reason I am an AI skeptic. I don’t want everything I do, from my work to my hobbies, to be filtered through these servers. I’m overly cautious because it seems like a bell that might be difficult to unring.