By David Gewirtz
It's been busy here at Connected Photographer and we're still catching up. Last week, we went to two photo-related events, intending to cover all the excitement for the magazine. First up was DigitalFocus, an event designed exclusively to connect photo industry professionals with those of us in the press. The second was PMA, the big photo tradeshow from the Photo Marketing Association.
"The most exciting time for photography in history."
DigitalFocus rocked. It was quite small, with maybe 30 vendors in a small ballroom at the Dolphin Hotel in Walt Disney World. The purpose of this event was less to get immediate coverage for the vendors, but more to connect the vendors with the press. Not only was there great food (an important pre-requisite for quality journalism), but there were senior executives present from key vendors like Canon and Nokia.
On the other hand, PMA sucked.
Although we've been publishing Connected Photographer for a few years now, we've never done a PMA before. Everyone we'd ever talked to in the photo industry told us that PMA was the show.
And, I guess it is, at least for the old school photo industry. I have probably been to a thousand tradeshows in my career, covering mostly technology industry topics. I have never, ever been treated as rudely as I was at PMA. Managing Editor Denise Amrich reported similar behavior.
One company rep told her that since he'd never heard of Connected Photographer, he wasn't going to speak to her. I had a PR person from a camera company tell me that said company had (and I quote) "No use for online publications." The pleasant folks at Vivitar asked me to leave because (and, again, I quote), "We have real business to do here."
We send Connected Photographer to 300,522 opt-in readers each week. Now, admittedly, that's only about 65% of the total paid circulation of Popular Photography & Imaging, the world's oldest photo magazine. But they were established in 1937, so it took them 69 years to reach their level of subscribership. It took us two.
Before leaving for PMA each morning, I showered, put on a fresh aloha shirt, and even sucked on mints while on the show floor. So, most likely, it wasn't me. I was even mostly polite.
The real clues, I think, came in a discussion I had with a supplier to photo labs and another I had at DigitalFocus with Nokia. The lab supplier described the current market as "a depressing time for the photo industry." The three Nokia execs also described the market, but they called it "the most exciting time for photography in history."
Those two statements provide quite a constrast, and from that contrast, we can draw a conclusion. Basically, the old school photo industry is losing and they're not happy about it.
The problem for that industry (and the boon for consumers) is disintermediation. Back in the 1980s, I took hundreds of rolls of pictures each year, all using a film camera, of course. I was on a first-name basis with the tech at the Palo Alto Kodak photo lab. I must have spent thousands of dollars there, getting my pictures developed.
Now, of course, I can drop my 4GB Compact Flash card into my computer and read 2,000 JPEG pictures at once, right into the computer. The card cost me $144. By contrast, a 24 exposure roll of film costs about $5. Developing that roll costs about $7 at the local Walgreens. Using a film camera, it would cost about $1,000 for the film and processing of 2,000 pictures.
By contrast, I can reuse the Compact Flash card, where, with film, I'd have to spend another $1,000 to take another 2,000 pictures. If you look at the photo industry, you'll realize that all the film processing companies, chemical suppliers, labs, gear makers, and so forth are completely losing their value proposition.
No wonder these folks hate the Internet so much. Rather than using their labs, you can upload images to Kodak or Shutterfly, or any of the other services directly. You can share your pictures online with Flickr, so there's absolutely no need to process film to share pictures.
Some professional photographers apparently also hate the Internet. A few years ago, we published ZATZ Senior Editor James Booth's "Do-It-Yourself Wedding Photography" book. Douglas Dailey, a professional photographer, sent us this note:
As a professional wedding photographer for 23 years, I want to express my dismay that your company would stoop to such a greedy low position and advertise a book on do it yourself wedding photography. Yes, just $19.95 and no experience and you can do your own root canal surgery also. Couples spend thousands on the hall, food, etc. And many memories are only preserved on photographs IF they are captured by someone with experience, and that doesn't mean thousands of dollars either. I will make certain I am off your email list.
Grow up!
You can see Douglas' concern. If we publish a book (incidentally, our #2 best-selling book of all time) that lets you take wedding pictures without his services, he's out of a job.
The thing is, this is incredibly short-sighted. I'll use my own wedding as an example. I'm a very experienced photographer, but Denise and I chose to hire a pro to take our pictures. We could afford it, and wanted the experienced wedding photographer. We haven't had a single regret. The photographer knew how to pose us, put us at ease, and compose great shots. It was well worth the cost.
But what about those couples who can't afford a photographer? Shouldn't they have the opportunity to do their best, capturing their own images? By publishing this book, we're not declaring a law preventing professional photographers from charging for their services. We're just giving alternatives.
That's what's happening with the new world of connected photography. Nobody passed a law preventing the use of film cameras, although, given the high level of pollutants that come from the film chemicals, it wouldn't be a bad idea. It's just that consumers are faced with a choice:
- 2,000 pictures for $1,000 vs unlimited pictures for $144
- An hour or a week's delay to see the images vs. immediate use
- Duplicate printing on an image-by-image basis vs. sharing with anyone, instantly, for free
Faced with these choices, it's clear that consumers have chosen new school over old school. And the photo industry is feeling the pain. The hurt's gonna get worse.
Future Image, a market research firm, estimates that 875 million camera phones will be sold worldwide this year. That means more than five out of every six cameras sold this year will be in the form of camera phones. By 2009, they estimate that only one in ten cameras sold will not be a camera phone.
You can see why Nokia is dancing on the ceiling, can't you?
And so, at PMA, we saw a pile of cameras. They all had a slightly better set of features than last year, took slightly higher image resolutions, and blah-blah-blah-blah. Blah.
The photo industry is undergoing a radical transformation. Much of what was old school will be gone within a few years. Those who are still trying, desperately, to hang on to the good old days are getting more and more pissed off by those of us celebrating this brave new world of personal empowerment through photography.
That's really the big lesson we learned from the show. Will we go back to PMA next year? I don't know. Will it be there to go back to?