What now?
Written on February 3, 2009
So as my 4 or 5 regular readers may have noticed there’s been a lack of posting of late. Between post-holiday syndrome and whatever else (laziness, 24 and LOST) I’ve been delinquent and I apologise.
There’s been so much doom and gloom every day and obviously our industry has been directly affected. Domino Magazine closed last week, only the latest of many prominent shutterings, and I feel like every day I get an email from an out of work job seeker.
Obviously everyone is adapting to lower budgets - for production, for fees, for marketing (PDN did a great piece on how photographers can stretch their personal promotion budgets) and whatever else they have to do to survive. As someone who works on the representation side of the business I wanted to write my first substantial post of the year with a less than Harvard Business School approved survey of our business.
Below are my (completely unscientific, and probably not particularly profound) observations of what rep agencies are doing to survive beyond simply trying to adapt to lower budgets.
1) A lot of photography agencies will re-organise their rosters.
By this I mean that a lot of agencies will take a long hard look at the talent they represent and end their relationships with the artists who aren’t doing as well financially, or are frankly of questionable temperament and are no longer worth dealing with. The smaller boutique agencies who represent fewer artists may be more averse to doing this. Representing talent involves many costs (there’s more to just putting a name on a website) and many agents will be making business decisions to part ways with talent.
2) Conversely, a lot of agencies will take increase the size of their rosters.
See who works and who sticks. A lot of photographers will use these uncertain times to look at their situation and perhaps look to make a move. And some agencies will gladly take on a number of new photographers to see who can make money. I follow PDN’s People On The Move and their latest update had what seemed like 20 photographers who had recently found new representation. And agencies may be slightly less selective with who they take on…they may care less about, say, taking a photographer on whose aesthetic and work may already match one of their own. And taking on new talent can mean hiring more people as well.
3) They will not survive.
A lot of agencies have been around a long time and perhaps their founders are ready to close up shop and pursue something else. Other agencies simply do not have the ability to persevere in such an economic environment. I do not know who it will happen to, but the sad reality is that the odds are likely. However this means that a great deal of fantastic talent will be seeking new representation, contributing to number 2) above and number 4) below…
4) The rich will get richer.
Similar to how the Bush years effectively crushed the middle class (one last dig, come on) the more established agencies will grab only the best names that approach them…and they will be the first ones to be approached. There is security in going to a well-known agency (and for many of the talents out there who are rumoured to be on the move only certain agencies will make sense for them). If any of you have heard any of the same things that have come my way the last few weeks then you’ll understand what I am talking about.
Unfortunately this means that less risks will be taken in looking for new talent to develop. Photographers who have not had an agent before may find it hard to get an agency to take them on.
However those talented and younger photographers who are already ensconced at such agencies will likely benefit…clients will want to work with fresher (and technically cheaper…) names in these times.
So that’s it…the four main things I see happening as photography agencies adapt to survive and even prosper. What are people’s thoughts on this?
Filed in: Talent, Photo Agency, Word on the Street, Advice.
You are absolutely right, but i think there will be new opportunities, we just have to weather the storm.
Nice words. You now officially have 6 regular readers
Excellent post…!.
The proverbial third rail here, is that this (surprise!) is a free-market economy…. Whether there is an economic downturn or not, our industry is flooded with people who are, for all intents and purposes—interchangeable. So it would seem, that those who will survive, in my opinion, will:
a. take creative risks. make original work. defy categorizations like art vs. commerce. and try to resist pandering to the marketplace, you will look more like everyone else.
b. have amazing personal equity with your continuing clients so as to garner repeat business
c. promote like crazy. in addition to the usual eblasts, sourcebooks, etc. this includes face to face meetings, press releases and yes, facebook and linkedin.
The object for both photographers and agents is to reduce the numbers of people you compete with. how many other people you look more or less exactly like. this is not romantic, this is about numbers. your chances of getting a job are much greater if you have something about you that is not like everyone else.
I highly recommend reading this : http://www.zagbook.com/
@3 i agree and it makes sense but point c about promoting like crazy is not an easy one, it’s expensive and time consuming.
Would you say (with a very poor budget)it’s more important keeping your book fresh with new personal project or marketing what you have in your portfolio already?Or both?
As far as marketing your product would you go the conventional way(email, promo card, lebook etc.) or would you try to do something more intimate,like a custom made promo piece just to selected buyers?
how to get a face meetings in NYC? I hate cold calling and i will never do it, most of buyers don’t open emails so…promo pieces, contests ?
Max… It has never been more cost-effective to promote yourself. In addition to the social/business marketing sites, there are email blasts, sending your work to various emergent online tastemakers for review, and in addition there are plenty other sites that take submissions, like QBN, NOTCOT, etc.
The email blast in my view should be very very broad (i dont believe in targeting particularly anyway when selling something subjective like art and imagery, except to people that you’ve worked with before) and should be sent to lots of people. If you do this with one of the list fulfillment companies like wise elephant (connected to workbook) or my emma (connected to adbase), they are able to track the people who want you to take them off your list, or opened your email, or opened your email and went to your site to see the rest of your work. It is this last group that should form the basis of who you mail something printed and expensive to. They have already shown interest, and together with your past clients, and others you really want to work with… they are worth spending real money on design and printing and postage. Essentially, the email blast helps qualify the printed mailing list.
But in the end it is the work. It is either going to be in a big pile with other work with similar competitors and you will have your “turn” once in a while. Or, it will be seen as separate, different, and original which in the long run (and the short run too) be critical in positioning your career.
Great, thank you,i’ve learned something from this post.
I hadn’t thought of the effects on the agencies. Thanks for the insight the more information we have the better decisions we can make right now to avoid closing up shop.
Although I love the dig against Bush, I think it may be a bit more like the dot-com bubble of 2000.
There are a lot of companies and photographers out there who offer very little value or have flawed business approaches - kind of like how boo.com burned through $135M in 18 months, or how pets.com didn’t realize it’s actually extremely expensive to offer free shipping on 40 pound bags of dog food - there are a lot of players out there who are going to go down in flames.
Those who are agile in their approach to business and their adaptation to the market will do fine and will probably even prosper. Those who aren’t, well…
…sink or swim.
Although I am repped in Europe and the U.S. I have become increasingly sceptical about the ability of agents to bring in work…I wonder if the day of the photo rep agency is in fact over. Although my agents have contacts and get me jobs, I have actually received more work from my own promotional initiatives. Two years ago I took a gamble in employing a full time assistant, not to carry my bags and hold my lights but to work daily on promoting my personal projects…inside six months she got me on the front page of google for a search for my kind of photographic practice. She has worked on a series of offline and online projects for me that an agent simply doesn’t have the time to devote to a single member of his roster. There are very few agencies out there who are seriously ‘thinking outside of the box’ when it comes to promoting their roster….most of them, to start with, are promoting their agency brand rather than their photographers unique photographic ability. Increasingly 25-30% is becoming too much to hand over to an agent in austere times unless the agent is at the top of his game and really working for you individually. Agencies have got to adapt and evolve to the new economic environment and ‘google world’ we now inhabit or they will just slowly become irrelevant.
I’m not sure I’d call the era of the agency over…
Agencies are typically low-overhead, high yield businesses. Any agency with more than 3 photographers is making more than the artists are individually. It’s in the math. Add to this that the agents usually control the cash flow (the billings go through them) and they aren’t terribly accountable to the artist for, well, anything.
So, this probably means they will be around for a while.
I’ve worked at agencies before where the employees were explicitly told to leave certain photographers out of promotions and where, in selling a client on a different photographer from the roster, the requested photographer was described to a client as not being a high enough “caliber”. So, there are some shady people out there and a few of them are agents.
I’m not saying this to take a cheap shot at agents - I know one photographer whose billings quadrupled when he changed agencies. A good agent is worth their weight in gold.
I just mean that any waters with lots of smaller fish are going to also be inhabited by sharks, so I think it’s not realistic to say that agents are “irrelevant” - that’s a bit beside the point. Agencies will stay profitable for a long, long time to come.
Katy Barker is now gone…
Lots of scrambling talent.
That agency overbid themselves to death not because of a lack of good photographers…
Chiming in finally…thanks for all the comments.
@3 - great point on how photographers having great personal equity with clients…one can’t overestimate the importance of this.
@9 +10 - perhaps I am a bit biased here but I do not think the agencies are over. the good ones will learn to adapt with the times as needed. you can talk about the quality of one agency vs another (and yes, this is a very relevant discussion) but ultimately a lot of a photographer’s or agencies success boils down to the match between the talent and agent. and a good starting point is the level of trust you have in your agent.
I think one point is missing in the conversation so far. And that is how you run your business during the good times. I always run lean. I have no business debt. I have money set aside for the downturns that will happen. All this makes a downturn easier. It always me to focus on shooting a marketing not how to pay bills etc.
This being said I had the best year of my career last year and this Jan was the best I have ever had. I have a wonderful rep and plan to be ready to ride the wave back up the second it starts the upturn.
a few remarks. I seem to see things a bit differntly then other commentators.
-I dont think an agency is only there to bring you jobs It should also bring a certain infrastructure maybe even community. The result of that at the end should be jobs of course but the standard photographer thinking of the agent as the one ” who is responsible to bring me the cash and jobs” its a bit the egocentric photographer in us talking, no?
- that being said - a lot of agents are necessary evils and have the dollar sign tatooed on their forehead, eyeballs prob a lot of other places where I can’t see them as well. Of course they shoudl think about the money and be better in that then me but in a creative partnership the creativity and the interest for the work of the artist has to come first.
to allegra: I find promoting much more expensive then it used to be say 15 years ago. I The time it takes now to build a printed portfolio, plus build a webpage, keep your email and realmail adress list up to date, send out postcards, send out emails, maybe do a blog and all the research on the web. Its nearly impossible and some contacts are harder to reach then they used to be - theres people you just can’t reach any more , they only listen to recommendations of collegues. If you are starting out a 100 hours work week my feel great and exciting and that you are making things happen on your own etc but if you are talking about a business plan here you have to put a price tag on that and an hour of your time is a real valuable investion. Again: if you are starting out its fine but if you plan to be in this business for your life and keep doing what you describe: good luck!
(I gues you need also teh personality for it. Not every artist is an extroverted social animal quite the contrary in my experience)
to Jason: its great that you have no business debt but things dont work like that for most people and actually they a e not supposed to work like that. Its perfectly normal to lend money for production pay interest on that and earn money from the stuff you sell. Its called good old capitalism. Thats how ours society and system is wired and will continue to work in the future and theres nothing wrong with that. If you have money set aside: more power to you. But it’s your lucky situation , really not an advice anybody can follow heading or being in the business.
Comming back to the agent discussion: I think what will happen with agencies is what will happen with publishers, magazines and a lot of other enterprises: in the short term some businesses will have to close down. Everybody will have to reevaluate their situation and concepts. In the long term (10-20 years)- for the global playground we are heading to - bigger agencies will prob evolve and be needed - as well as bigger publishing houses etc Plus for good measure a few smaller boutique agencies, publishing houses etc.
Amen! more precise infos from your local astrologer.
changes at Bill Charles…..see the roster No Nadav Kander, Magnum gone apart from Peress and Parr, as well as a few others ……
yeah its a bit sad, and scary as a publisher. i heard nylon is going online only as well. but there will always be a place for great publications, people need to be inspired. And anyway more individual to individual communication between publications and photographers feels right to me.