Evolution of Photography Market
When it comes to photography market, you will meet various service providers like special events photographers, industrial photographer, commercial photographers, and portraiture. For the best quality output, all these professionals require quality equipment in doing their work. According to statistics done in the United States in 2013 by MarketResearch.com, the revenue in the market as a result of the sale of this equipment totaled to $5.7 billion. By 2015, the revenue was projected to be $8.8 billion by 2018.
In the past century, the landscape of various photographs has been evolving over time and nowadays it has become a normal thing. In the early 19th century, photography was seen as a very costly hobby having tallying camera, a film and developing costs what is called production costs. With the invention of smartphones all over the places, it becomes even much easier to have a snap. You can take a variety of them, delete them as you wish and share your favorite ones with your friends.
Photos help us communicate and express ourselves to others. In this digital era, it has become effortless to share our snaps, upload them to various social media platforms, and create your albums easily. Did you know your photos can tell others who you are as an individual? What you find beautiful, funny, fascinating, crucial, inspiring and even delicious. You showcase your personal style, relationships, interests, and adventures. But let’s go deeper and explore more on photography publishing.
Various Approaches to Photograph Publishing
In this 21st century, there are 3 main approaches to publishing photos in a book. It comes a time as a photographer, you focus on improving your scope and you venture into book publishing. The photographer is usually responsible for marketing, production, and sales; however, there are two factors you ought to consider before publishing your photo:
- Motivation – you should be having your propelling drive. Futile projects can lead to huge losses which may be so hard for you to recover.
- Cost – we have soft costs and cost of goods sold. Soft costs are usually associated with editing, design, copywriting, and proofreading. Cost of Goods sold is the unit price of publishing photographs. It depends on its size and number of pages.
The 3 approaches to photograph publishing include:
- Traditional publishing – in this approach, many aspects of design and production are delegated to the publisher. The distribution and marketing are also handled by publisher
- Independent publishing – this is a good option for niche titles and also as a photographer, you can exert more control over the project, however, the distribution channels are more limited.
- E-Publishing and print on demand – in this approach there are very low overhead costs, there are no middlemen, you will enjoy high-profit margin and the best thing is that you can literally do it yourself. However, you might not like the high cost of goods sold for the publishing nevertheless, you can manage it.
What Are Some of the Challenges faced by Photographers?
Any vigilant photographer who is willing to pursue his career to higher heights, he can always find new opportunities however there are few current challenges they ought to overcome:
- Increased Global Competition- there are various images from various amateurs, part time and DIY photographers resulting to reduced prices in the photography field.
- Changing trend in the images required – there has been a change from print publishing to online publishing. This has changed volume and type of photographs needed.
- The emergence of more powerful smartphone camera – many people are using their iPhone cover what is happening on the scene.