This is a meta I’ve been working on for quite some
time. I’m finally deciding to finish it
up and post after a conversation in JoAnne’s Fabric over the weekend.
THE DYING ART OF EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY
So there is a common myth I hear time and again, that the
age of digital has made the life of the event photographer easier. In reality, quite the opposite is true,
digital has made it much harder on the even photographer.
In the days of film, a photographer would buy sufficient
film to cover an event, likely in a small number of frames to potentially
minimize the impact of processing issues.
They would then head to the event, their gear packed and ready. Depending on the size of their operation,
they may or may not have an assistant, most I know did. The photographer would shoot the event,
timing film changes to lull periods in the activity. This is a large part of where the assistant comes
in; their job was to change out rolls of film, make requested lens changes and
ensure that whatever the photographer needed was readily at hand. This allowed the photographer to concentrate
on what they were getting paid for, capturing the event. Depending on the length of the event, they
would either call it a day or head to their next event, repeating the
process. At the next convenient time,
they would swing by the photo lab they trusted, drop off the film to be
processed, color corrected, printed and contact sheeted. At the same time they would pick up film to
restock what was used.
At a later time the photographer would pick up all of the
proofs (likely while dropping off another set of film at the lab) for
review. They would take some time,
review the proofs and decide what to show the event coordinator. At a pre-arranged meeting time, they would go
over that selection and arrange for final prints, preferably in some
pre-arranged package deal. They would
return their favorite lab to have all of the printing done, again, usually on
an already schedule trip to the lab.
This left significant portions of time for shooting events, making photo
selections, and occasionally eating and sleeping.
Enter the age of digital.
The photographer, using digital, does much the same for
shooting an event, with the exception that they likely do not have an assistant
with them, unless that assistant is shooting.
After the event, or events, they then head back to their studio, which
may or may not be home, and get to work.
If they are lucky enough to be able to afford an “IT Person”, that person likely handles
most of this work. Most photographers do
not. This is where they then take the
time to download, categorize, and back-up all the photos they shot that
day. Once they are certain they have at
least 2 copies of everything, the clear the cards to prepare for the next shoot
they have scheduled.
Once they’re done with that, either that night, or at some
other time, they have to process all of the photos. These means color correction and exposure
normalization of each frame. Yes, there
is software to help “batch” process based on a normalized color correction but
then they have to go back and look at each frame and perform corrections as
required. This is all work the labs used
to do for them. Next, they go through
the cull process likely the film photographer.
Once this is complete, they then have to arrange to print each photo
and/or burn a disk for the people who will get the shots. If they are giving a disk, they also have to
ensure that every photo has been watermarked so it can’t be easily used without
going through them. In the days of film,
this was pretty much guaranteed because they held the negatives.
The appointment and review portion of photos is much the
same between the film photographer and the digital photographer; it’s the after
appointment portion that changes. The
photographer then goes back to their studio and crops, edits, adjusts and
prints all of the photos as requested by the event coordinator. If they are lucky, they have a lab they trust
where they can send the images for printing and know that they will have the
proper exposure and color balance, if not, they are truly printing it
themselves.
While this may not seem like much to a non-photographer
reading this, please keep in mind that a event photography is typically a low
margin business. If a photographer makes
any “real money” it’s on print packages on the back end. An event photographer has between 10 and 50
thousand dollars of equipment, and very possibly much more.
Add to that, these photographers are now spending time they
used to spend shooting events and creating the presentation for their clients
on things that used to be handled by their lab(s) of choice. Processing is a time consuming effort and it
requires a degree of computer savvy that borders on Graphic Artist, not
photographer.
I’m not saying there aren’t photographers who haven’t
transitioned and made it work quite well for them however, the paradigm is very
different than it used to be and it changes the game with regards to work, productivity
and profitability.
Next one of these will be on why I truly respect the event
photographer, especially in the age of digital.
