Why the photography industry is broken
So many aspiring photographers pick up a camera and struggle to get good results so they reach for their phones instead. And now we’ve got an industry where camera sales fall year after year. This is why I believe the photography industry is broken. Stick around and I’ll tell you why this is and how I think it can be fixed.
The key in successful product design is to give the user of a new product a quick win so they don’t experience buyer’s remorse and actually want to keep picking up and using the product. This is why your camera comes out of the box fully functional with auto settings so you can take reasonably good photos right away. But when you’re stuck on auto settings you’re using so little of your camera’s functionality. You may be able to take good photos, but it’s pretty unlikely you’ll take exceptional photos unless you just happen to luck out with an exceptional scene. Leaving any creative decision in the hands of an automatic machine is rarely a good idea. And you’re the artist right? Not the camera.
So as you use your camera out of the box on its auto settings, you will naturally start to take better and better photos. Your framing improves, your timing improves and you become more and more comfortable with the art of seeing. BUT when you load your photos onto a decent sized screen disappointment sets in. They’re not in focus. The subject is blurry. The photos too dark. Your ‘quick win’ automatic machine is beginning to let you down.
And this, in my opinion, is where the photography industry fails.
You start to dabble in semi-automatic and manual modes and it’s even HARDER to get a good result. Now you’ve got missed focus all the time. Now your exposures are always too bright or too dark. So you turn to the Internet for help. That overwhelming ocean of limitless information and endless opinion and you just get completely lost. Where does a person even start?
And so you throw your up hands in defeat. It’s too hard. I’m not good enough. I don’t have time. Why do I need a camera anyway when I’ve got a perfectly fine camera in my pocket.
The camera gathers dust. The guilt compounds. The world has one less creative. Camera sales plummet.
That’s one path. But there’s also a second one.
This is the person who reaches the point of frustration with auto and says ‘maybe the problem’s my camera. It’s too cheap, I need a better one’. And maybe this lens and this filter and this weird pointless gadget (cos let’s face it, we’ve all got some) will solve all my problems. And in some cases this tactic works. It certainly makes the camera brands happy. And if you’ve got a more expensive camera then you’re probably going to work harder to tame it. It’s given you the kick up the pants you needed to get past the frustrating stage of failure. And not only that, these days more expensive cameras ARE better. For 3 or 4 grand you can get a camera with AI intelligent enough to focus for you and suddenly all those people who struggled before have had all their prayers answered. Until, again, the camera chooses the wrong subject to focus on. But still, that photographer has managed to skip a lot of frustration so they’re more inclined to stay invested.
Do you recognise yourself in any of that?
So let’s rewind to that point where you’ve reached the point of frustration with your camera on auto. What if someone stepped forward and said, take my hand and I’ll guide you through learning manual. Forget all the frustration of trying to learn alone and I’ll show you exactly what you need to know.
So you take a class or two to learn how to use your camera on manual and STILL decide it’s all too hard.
And this is the second place the photography industry fails. No one really acknowledges how hard learning your camera can be. Now the great thing is, the period of hardness isn’t especially long, and with a little practice and commitment you’ll get past that stage in no time. But the hard part is really hard. Many people come to photography because they’re creative. They love the artistry, and find difficult technology too challenging for their creative brain to grasp. And when your brain is made to feel really uncomfortable we have a tendency to shut down.
But not only that, humans hate to fail. When we were young we were continually told no as we discovered our boundaries. We were scolded for doing the wrong thing. Laughed at when we didn’t do things the accepted way. And so we come to resent failure. Then, of course, we go through school and if we do well we get praised, if we do badly we get punished. And you know what, even the smart, clever kids will eventually find something they can’t succeed at and then, they too, start to feel like failures. And because failure makes us feel wrong or unworthy we spend our lives avoiding things where there’s a risk of failing.
So when you pick up a camera and discover it’s hard to learn there’s absolutely no joy in that.
But failure is the only way to succeed in photography. Every time you fail you learn. Every time you learn you improve. Every successful photographer failed over and over and over again until they learned how to win. If you can redefine your relationship with doing hard things and feeling like a failure, then you will always win. It is hard, but it’s short. And with practice and a few average results you’ll get there in no time. I know photography is about the pursuit of the perfect frame so it feels unnatural to purposely choose to fail at that. There’s no fulfilment in taking unusable photos. But it’s not for long, it’s not forever and the rewards are on the other side of that discomfort.
But you know what’s great. Getting past that stage. Knowing that you’ve conquered a difficult machine and can now make it do whatever you want. And it’s wonderfully validating being a person who made it through something tough. Because now you’re a winner. And are free to explore your creativity and take the kinds of shots that are impossible in auto. Failure is merely a stepping stone in a journey to success.
So if we first acknowledge that photography is difficult and failure is an important part of the journey and second, provide a guide that steps in before things get too hard, then the industry would be far healthier and phones would never steal the market share from cameras.
And it’s because I believe the photography industry is broken that I felt compelled to start an online photography membership, Creative Photo Folk.
When you’ve reached the point of frustration we take you by the hand, give you the pep talk about failure, guide you through manual mode with projects to practice. But we don’t stop there. Then we help you with creativity and composition. Give you tonnes of really fun projects to practice with and help you build a stand out portfolio. Then when you meet your next point of frustration, studio lighting, we help you with that too. Plus we show you how to make your photos shine with editing and teach you compositing techniques to make the impossible real. And finally, when you’re ready, we teach you how to sell your photography.
We give you absolutely everything you need to transform from a frustrated photographer to an inspired and successful one.
But you don’t have to choose us. There’s hundreds, maybe thousands of photographers ready to help you learn. But to succeed, you do have to learn. And by learn, I mean fail for a while. But trust me, the pure joy of being able to confidently take the photos you dream about is absolutely worth it.
