Go get a coffee, this is a long one.

I don’t know if the economy is officially in recession yet or not, it seems to be teetering on the edge but that hasn’t stopped PDN from basically announcing the end of the world with a recent feature about how the recession will affect photographers! I think this was in the June issue but, frankly, I skimmed it and tossed it in the trash, knowing it was the usual topical filler that sounded good on the cover but, would end up being really short of any useful information.

Worse still, the amount of hysteria on forums like PDN’s and a few others I read is phenomenal. It starts with some bored jackass posting something along the lines of “HOW IS THE RECESSION AFFECTING YOUR BUSINESS” or “SHOULD I REVISE MY RATES NOW THAT WE’RE IN A RECESSION??” from there, things quickly take on a life of their own and people begin posting how they’re being undercut by “craiglisters” how $400,000 ad budgets were just cut to $350,000 and how General Motors layoffs will likely mean the end of all car photography. Basically, fire and brimstone, self loathing and suicide inducing second or third hand stories about pawning 1Ds MKIII’s for $500.

If you make your living from photography and you’re concerned about the economy (which you should be) the best three things you can do right now are; #1 stop reading forums online, #2 stop reading the newspaper (unless of course you’re a newspaper photographer) and #3 consider raising your rates.

Why? you might ask, am I giving nonsense advice in the face of a financial meltdown that will inevitably lead to every professional photographer’s financial ruin by the end of this week of early next at the latest? Well, let me tell you a story. The last time we had an official recession was about 1990. At that time, I was a newly minted college graduate and had my first real job selling radio advertising (a career choice I’m not particularly proud of but, in retrospect, probably the best business education I ever got). At the end of the 12 months around 1990 that I worked for this radio station, I quit to move to a bigger city on the east coast and left this radio station as the top grossing sales rep not just in my market but, in the whole company. And this was during a recession that had small business owners (my customers) in a complete lather.

So how could a smart ass, wet behind the ears, college graduate convince savvy small business owners to buy advertising airtime in a recession? Well, good old honest common sense. In simple terms, a recession is two consecutive financial quarters of negative GDP growth. This is a normal and natural part of the economic cycle but, each time one comes along, the media creates mass hysteria and a financial bunker mentality by trumpeting this news nonstop in order to sell more papers and generally gain credibility and traction with the public. So naturally, this becomes the common state and everyone assumes this means they have to save their money, seek out bargains and generally contract personal spending. It becomes a bit of a vicious circle. What follows from this is that business owner cut back on things like, you guessed it, advertising. But for the savvy ad rep, and the savvy business owner, the flip side is that the competition is cutting back on advertising which means you can actually build your brand for less ad dollars when the competition is sitting on their hands waiting out the recession than you can when times are booming. I can tell you that the businesses that bought into this pitch and believed in it came out of the recession stronger and with more customers than the competition who did nothing and, in many cases, went under. Being the number one sales rep was also made a lot easier because most of my competition (the other reps) didn’t even bother trying to sell because they bought into the accepted norm that you had to wait it out.

Doing the exact opposite of what the crowd is doing is a fundamental investing concept that’s playing out right now. US home foreclosures are at an all time high, people are walking away from houses at a record rate so, it’s a bad time to be in real estate right? Wrong. Smart investors are buying up houses like crazy, at discount prices as we speak. As a matter of fact, the owner of the gym I go to showed me half a dozen on line listings he was thinking of buying and holding on to and a guy that came over to give me a quote on some drywalling in my house spent 30 minutes telling me about all the rental property he is buying and developing right now. Ishityounot.

So what’s all this got to do with being a photographer? I’ll tell you. You’re going to be hearing a lot of clients talk about lowering rates because “we’re in a recession”. You’re also probably going to pick up fewer of those “out of the blue, never heard of them before” types of jobs. The marginal customers you have now, the ones that grind you on every single invoice, take 120 days to pay and constantly try to get more out of you for less money, they’re probably going to stop calling all together. Many will be out of business this time next year. Ignore all of this because, there is an upside. You’ll now be working with clients that understand they can buy market share and build their brand for less money right now who will likely need more photography. You’re also going to get calls from quality clients you’ve never shot for before because their regular photographer is home, sitting on his hands, waiting for the economy to improve (or, he’s gone back to law school or moved back east to live with her parents). Better yet, your own marketing to potential clients has a better chance of being heard because those potential clients will soon be getting less marketing from your competition.

And, if you’re bold enough to raise your rates, laugh in the face of an economic shitstorm and forge ahead with your business, I promise you, you’ll have better work and more time to do it well 24 months from now.

Stock photography continues to be big news these days. Getty’s recent announcement of a partnership with Flickr, the revelation that Photoshleter was courting them for a while, the demise of some microstocks such as Lucky Oliver and the amount of spam I get from all sorts of potential sales portals I never heard of tell me that the 8 second bull ride that is the current state of stock photography isn’t ending soon.

Like most photographers, I read magazines sideways, always checking the photo credits to see who’s selling what. Whenever I’m in Europe, I buy tons of magazines, mostly to tear out the mastheads for future marketing but, I always like to see where they’re getting their images. Lately, I’ve noted a couple of trends that surprised me a little. Firstly, in Europe, there are gobs of Alamy credits out there. Tons of magazines and newspapers (notably, The Guardian) are using Alamy. I’ve never really done well with Alamy but, that’s mostly my fault. The amount of time it takes to get the categorization and keywording right is probably greater than the return on that time invested. Here in North America, another surprise I’ve noted is that the National Post is using a ton of iStock. An issue I went through recently was almost all iStock.

Now, nothing against them but, when you’re illustrating current news with cheap, generic royalty free stock, it’s time for both the investors at the newspaper and news photographers in general to throw in the towel. The party’s over. Worse still, the travel section was completely illustrated with submissions from the visitors bureau or the hotels or attractions they were covering. And it showed. The whole thing looked like an advertorial which makes me wonder, does the average reader / consumer care?

I think they do and here’s why; there are not too many places in the world where National Geographic is an unknown entity. And what they are known for is the quality of their photography. I’ve been to places in the world where people have never seen a television or a newspaper and, since I have a big bag of camera gear, have been asked “National Geographic?” by people who only know those two words in English. I’m not kidding. The point is, even the average Joe in places where televisions, newspapers and other visual media are not common, a person who is, for the most part, completely uninterested or even unaware of the wider world out there, can appreciate and recognize good imagery.

I know it’s a bold statement but, I bet more than 60% of the humans on this planet have seen or are aware of National Geographic and when pressed, would cite “good pictures” as a reason. Give them a copy of the magazine and they’ll open it, flip through it, and “ooh” and “ahh” over every single page. Show them a copy of last Saturday’s National Post Travel section and I’ll bet they either eat it or use it to start a fire with.

A while back (HERE), I predicted there would be some changes coming at Flickr. While I didn’t outright predict THIS, I did say that there were some people who had to recognize the financial potential of Flickr. Well, it’s happened, Getty and Flickr have formed a potentially unholy union to monetize some of the imagery on Flickr. If I was a shareholder at Getty, my default assumption would be that this is a good thing for me. It’s early days yet and it sounds like this may take some time to develop but, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

My prediction (I can’t help myself), Flickerrers will be falling all over themselves to give away great and valuable work for a chance to say “I’m represented by Getty” and possibly a tasty photo credit while Getty’s margins will be boosted by the huge profits reaped by skinning willing rubes. Buy Getty stock and short companies that sell pro gear like Profoto, Manfrotto etc. There’s gonna be a bunch of full time Getty shooters who are about to see the hits on their images going wayyyyy down.

BTW, in case I actually need to say this, DO NOT take any investment advice from me. Even though my guesses have been better than my brokers guesses so far this year.

As a small business owner, (in case you need to be reminded, photography is a business) I’m always on the lookout for lessons of good and bad service I can implement in my own business. Earlier this week, I got an especially poignant lesson from Canada’s favorite airline.

When doing a job for a client, the difference between success and failure is sometimes measured by how you react when things go wrong. I’ll use my most recent Air Canada experience as an example where they could have turned a bad experience into at least a neutral one and possibly even a positive one, at no cost to them and with the potential for lots of customer goodwill. Not to mention reducing the number of cranks like me using them as an example of bad customer service on blogs throughout the land.

Leaving Paris CDG, they announced that mechanical difficulties were going to delay the plane 2 hours. This made things tight for my connection in Toronto to Calgary but, I thought, if it’s exactly 2 hours or less, I’ll make it. Since the gate agents in Paris were too busy gossiping and drinking coffee in front of about 200 people standing around them in a semi circle in various states of increasing rage to bother calling for boarding long after it was clear the plane was ready, that two hours became three, landing me in Toronto as they were closing the doors on my connection. Here’s the important part, I’m disappointed to have my arrival home delayed but, these things happen and I suspect most people could easily be talked into happy acceptance of the situation at this stage. The problem is, once I deplaned in Toronto, there was no announcement about alternative plans, no instructions on where to go, what to do or who to see. The staff charged off the plane and went home while the schmucks stood in line to have their passports checked on deplaning (?!) Then, when I asked an agent about alternatives, they just shrugged and said “just go check in for another flight”. Long story short, I did, was put on another flight 2 1/2 hours later and jammed into a non reclining lawn chair of a seat and held in a stress position for four hours. Does Amnesty International know about Air Canada?

When I was checked in, the agent hinted that there might be an upgrade waiting for me at the gate. Fair enough. When I got to the gate, they chuckled and told me to sit down.

My point is this, things went badly, through no initial fault of the service provider but there was a crucial moment there where they could have turned this into a good experience. Instead, they made me feel like my business was worthless to them and they could care less about the individual customer. If they had had someone meet the plane and say, “sorry about that, but, we’ve booked you on the next flight, leaving in two hours, here’s your new boarding cards and, for your inconvenience, we’ve upgraded you to business class for the last leg of your flight.” Great, I appreciate the help, thanks for recognizing my problem. Maybe business class is full with full fare paying customers, how about a pass to the lounge to have a glass of wine and wait for the next flight? A wireless access point to check your email while waiting? A dry cucumber sandwich? Nope, nothing. Customers are left to figure everything out on their own, no recognition of the problem is acknowledged and nothing is done to ease the stress of trying to figure out when exactly I will get home. This leaves most customers to their own devices and assuming the worst.

If the service provider had recognized the problem and done any one of the simple, cheap things above, things would have gone more smoothly, I would have felt important and I’d have to find an example other than Air Canada to use to illustrate my point.

The lesson is this; things go wrong. Sometimes they’re your fault, sometimes they’re not. But if someone is paying you for a result, they expect it. And if you can’t deliver, or something prevents you from delivering, be proactive, recognize the problem as soon as it’s obvious things aren’t going according to plan and offer an alternative plan or a solution. Do this every time something goes wrong and your customers appreciate your honesty and likely give you a pass when something goes wrong that is your fault. Pretend it’s not happening and try to sweep it under the rug and customers will always assume the worst, and blame you no matter whose fault it is.

After 5 weeks on the road, I’m home, jetlagged, in need of a haircut, a good old Canadian coffee and doughnut, and about 50 hours to sort through the mess. After nearly 24 hours of being a host of Air Canada’s concentration camp style of customer service, I got home late last night to literally, a 22″ high pile of mail, 484 emails (I answered the urgent ones while I was away), 7000 images on my hard drive and two black labs who were happy to see me but, a bit peeved about the amount of time I was gone.

I’ve been away from the blog for about two weeks now, on the 20th, I left Lyon France to do the planes, trains and automobiles thing through the Swiss and French Alps and, it’s really just a blur so, this week, I’m going to clear the decks, get my images edited and start back later this week with posting my odd mix of pictures and tips, rants and some business advice.

Just a reminder to anyone interested in my Rocky Mountain Photography Workshop, there’s only about 30 days left to sign up so, if you’re intersted, check out the details HERE and then drop me an email to sign up.

It’s been a week or so since my last post, frankly, I’ve just been too busy. I met up with some friends last week in Geneva for a train trip and basically, it’s been non stop. Europe might be small relative to North America but, trust me, its bigger than you think.

While idling through the Alps, I spent some time editing and captioning images form the last few weeks and a few thoughts occurred to me about the trip so far. Firstly, I think I stayed one day too many in Arles. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice city with lots of photo ops and, aside from winning gold in the “dog shit in the streets” olympics, it’s one of those places in France you should see, but only for a day or so.

If you remember, I actually looped back into Lyon after discovering what a wonderful city it is but, in looking through my images, there is a drop in quality around the latter half of the second day in Arles. I remember I really couldn’t find great images toward the end of the Arles portion of the trip, no pressing images on my must have list, no little nooks in the city I wanted to explore and no editorial slideshow personal project thingys that caught my eye. So, I went for a drive. A long drive, went all the way to Marseilles and back, didn’t see anything I wanted to shoot. Creative burnout happens. Things picked up again once I left for Sarlat. New place, new images, a list of must have images in pocket and some visual ideas for new images I wanted all stocked the creative fires again but, without those tools, things can go downhill in a hurry.

Five straight weeks of shooting images as part of a travel assignment or stock shooting is much tougher than you think. Leaving aside issues of logistics such as travel, schedules, language barriers, accommodations, weird menus etc., keeping up your creative energy is tough. Continuing to find and capture relevant, interesting and marketable pictures day in and day out while juggling all the other things is very hard to do and, in my opinion, it’s what separates the successful travel photographers from the not so successful ones.

Or, well, the one I like anyway.

I’ve been getting asked a lot about the camera strap I use since an acquaintance in LA asked about it and Steven Frischling posted something about it on his blog after seeing me use it in Hong Kong a few months back so, I thought I’d pass it along so, here goes;

First off, get yourself a PacSafe 100. Now, this is not the perfect camera strap but, it’s damn close. Here’s how you make it perfect. Go to your local hardware store or sporting goods store and get something called Shoe Goo. On the way home, stop at a 7-11 and get a Popsicle. Eat the Popsicle while driving home and save the stick. Once you’re done, eat the second Popsicle (c’mon, you didn’t buy just one did you?) save that stick too.

Spread the Show Goo evenly on the underside of the shoulder pad but, DO NOT get any on the edges. If you get any on the edges, well, you’ve colored over the line. Thanks for playing, now, pack up your stuff and go home. If you get any of this stuff on the edges, it’s only a matter of time before you get it on your fingers and it will then inevitably show up on the fridge door, the cupboard handles, your camera and the TV remote. Worse still it will, eventually, be on the inside of your nose too. You don’t want that.

Now, once you’ve got a nice even film of shoe goo on the shoulder pad, put it away somewhere where the cat won’t find it and go find something to do for a couple of days. When you come back to it, use the second Popsicle stick to touch the goo and see if it’s dry. If it is, you’re almost there. Check it out, the strap should now hang off your shoulder nicely without slipping. Unless of course you’re a real slope shouldered sumbitch or, you’re wearing a garbage bag covered in olive oil in which case, you’ve got much bigger problems and I’d rather you not read my blog.

Now, the second problem is the shoulder pad is independent of the strap itself so, it tends to cause the camera to slide around anyway. Get yourself down to the local seamstress and ask them to put a stitch into the shoulder pad, fixing it to the strap itself. DO NOT tell them that there is a wire in the strap. This will only result in getting you ensnared in a 15 minute conversation about how to avoid breaking the needle when they hit the wire. You want no part of this. They’ll find out about the wire soon enough but, by then the stitch will be done and you can be on your way, letting them replace the needle on their time.

Lastly, do not attach each end of the strap to the individual strap lugs of the camera. You want to attach both ends to the same lug. Of course, this is a personal choice but, this way looks much cooler and people will nod at you on the street in deference to your cool professionalism. Rolling up a pack of Marlboros’ in you shirt sleeve will add to this coolness. Rolling your asthma inhaler in your shirt sleeve will not.

Actually, the real reason is a practical one. If you hang a camera over your shoulder with say, a 70-200 F2.8 IS, which is a ridiculously large and heavy lens, and the strap is set up in the usual manner, the back of the camera naturally rests with the back against your side which then allows the lens to stick straight out sideways and makes a nice, pleasing “thwack” every time you walk through a doorway. Hung from one lug, the camera falls at a 45 degree angle and the lens will point whichever way you want it to which, in my case, is with the lens pointing backwards under my arm. Much more discreet and much safer for the lens.

Here’s a pic of the final connection to the camera. Only I could answer the question “what camera strap do you use?” with four paragraphs eh!

If you have a camera, you’re a photographer.

If you do travel photography, you often find yourself in places that are dense with tourists. Carcassonne France is one of those places. Gobs of ‘em, everywhere, driving up the price of a pint, encouraging restaurants with the best views to raise prices and lower food quality and attracting all manner of crummy, plastic medieval souvenir swords and tacky t-shit tat along with a certain class of creative peddler who adapts well to the interests of the tourist crowd. For example, it’s well known that Germans have a great deal of interest in the history of the American Indian and their culture. It’s also well known that St. Remy in Provence is a place that Germans especially like to spend their eight weeks of vacation every year. Enter the enterprising street hustler. A few days ago, I rounded a bend in downtown St. Remy and came into a chock a bloc traffic jam leading through the downtown. As I sat there in my car, I heard the distinctive sounds of a pan flute and a charango which instantly transported me to Peru, where I’ve been before. When I looked around for the source of this music, so very odd to hear in France, I spotted, on the sidewalk, two buskers dressed in full deer skin regalia, beaded moccasins and feathered head dresses looking like they just walked off the set of Dances with Wolves. They’re probably raking in a bundle from Germans, appreciative of the cultural lesson, but seriously, someone should tell these guys about the difference between Peru and the Rez. I’d love to be there when a real American Indian on holiday comes around the same corner and spots this scene.

But I digress. My blog/rant today is about that particularly odd tourist, I like to call The Professional. Predominantly English (sorry folks, survey results are in) and, predominantly male, this chap wanders the streets of every tourist town on the radar with a serious pro or prosumer SLR body, a tripod and a camera bag that weighs at least 40 pounds. On top of this, he’s usually wearing a safari vest and has a second bag of gear being toted by his long suffering wife. He stumbles through the streets whacking someone in the head or knocking over displays in shops with his camera pack and snaps off shots or peers into the distance constantly which annoys the hell out of me because I always stop to look and see what it is I’m missing.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have a safari vest (never wear it), a huge bag of gear (most of it left at the hotel as back up gear), and on the odd occasion that I take pictures while on my own vacations, it’s all I can do to talk my wife into dropping a polarizer into her purse just in case. Toting around a couple of extra lenses? well, go to hell. I’ve spotted at least ten of these creatures in the wild this weekend alone, never mind the fact they they probably make more money than I do by selling their holiday snaps on iStock, when their back and shoulders are shot, I’ll have the last laugh.

I had an interesting encounter yesterday in a village not far from here. On the street, I passed a guy in a t-shit and jeans, a Mark III with a wide L lens on it and a newspaper folded and tucked into his pocket. No other kit, no bags of junk or wife trailing behind with the tripod. He saw me, I saw him, when we got close enough, he said “working?” I said “yea, you?” “yep”. “whoyashootinfor?” He said “France Magazine, you?” I said “shooting travel stock”. “good luck”, “yea, you too”. And that was it, no comparing lenses, no discussion about the relative merits of Nikon over Canon, no queries about the best bag or tripod for travel. Why bother? we already know the best travel photography happens when you look less like a photographer and more like someone looking for a place to read the paper and drink a beer.

I set the alarm for 6 the other morning and when it went off, I checked out the window, saw nothing but black and gray and went back to bed. 5 minutes later, reminding myself about the “Gordes Sunset Incident”, I threw off the covers and grabbed my gear. You never know what’ll come up and I decided to drive around for a while and see what I see. Over the course of the day, I drove to about 5 different towns and, while nothing really stood out, I got a ton of great rural Provence shots and lots of details and close ups in shops and cafes along the way. Dull light always equals dull pictures but, it’s really hard to tell the difference between dull light and soft, even light so, sometimes, ya just gotta take a chance.

When I’m on the road, three things generally happen when it’s raining; laundry, emails or reading in a cafe. Simple as that. The number of great or even marketable images that come out of a rainy day for me are pretty much zero. Sure, you can make great black and white, contrasty, Cartier-Bresson like images but, travel publishers don’t pick up many of these. In fact, they want colorful, bright, uplifting images illustrating a travel destination. Besides, who wants to vacation someplace where everyone is grey and carries an umbrella? On the other hand, you’re proably much more likely to be in the right place at the right time if the weather breaks and creates some great light by driving around and making note of some potential shots than you are sitting on top of a washer in a coin laundry somewhere in the old part of Aix.

Then again, I really like Cartier Bresson.