The value of images. How is the photography market doing?

Sunday 11 February 2024, 13:31 by Wilmar Dik | 5,723 views | 15 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

How is the photography market doing? If you are looking for a quick answer, this one covers it reasonably well: badly. But I am talking about photographers' earning potential.

Many other parties that create value with images, and are therefore partly dependent on those creators, are probably earning just fine. But when we are talking about photographers, the story is very different.

The prices photographers receive for their services have been under pressure for years, and that pressure is increasing. In August 2023, a good press release appeared in the media:

The number of photographers registered with the Chamber of Commerce has increased by 34.5 per cent since 2018, from 31,545 to 42,436 in 2023. Of these, 59 per cent have photography as their main activity. 41 per cent state that photography is a secondary activity.

Most media organisations repeat this press release without adapting the text or its meaning themselves. But nu.nl, part of DPG Media, draws a rather strange conclusion.

They conclude that if something is a main activity, you can make a living from it.

If only it were that simple! Many photographers whose main source of income is photography are financially quite dependent on their partner.

In 2018, 38 per cent of people working as a (photo)journalist, writer, photographer and/or illustrator could barely make ends meet. Since then, another 35 per cent of photographers have joined the profession, and the market has also deteriorated because of coronavirus and the considerable inflation of recent years.

How did this photography market come about?

Roughly ten to twenty years ago, taking a good photograph was only within the reach of professional photographers. The major buyers paid acceptable rates.

But those large-scale users pay peanuts in 2023. Photography was always a popular profession, but the arrival of digital photography, a camera in every smartphone, has made photography even more popular.

And when coronavirus made its way around the world, that was also good for photography's popularity. But not for photographers' finances.

During coronavirus, most photographers could not earn a penny for a long time.

I can still hear minister Eric Wiebes saying that coronavirus was part of the entrepreneurial risk for self-employed people. During coronavirus, the government did not reimburse a substantial part of self-employed people's normal income.

Apparently, the entrepreneurial risk concerning coronavirus was very different for self-employed people than for companies with employees. Those companies had a large part of their salaries reimbursed. This put considerable financial pressure on many photographers. Many had used up their buffer.

In the past, many major users of photographs employed photographers. But years ago, organisations that use photographers realised that it was financially much more favourable not to employ photographers.

That idea is not new, and many organisations understand it. Because there are so many photographers, it is not too difficult for commercial organisations to pay little for images.

Market forces in photography?

I sometimes hear people around me say that a photographer is simply part of the market and its forces. Effective market forces only work, however, if a number of basic conditions are met. One of these is that there must be free competition. That is certainly the case in photography.

Another basic condition for effective market forces is that there must be a roughly level playing field between supply and demand. There must be a given relationship between supply and demand.

Because photography is an unregulated profession, that is not the case. It was already not the case in 2018, and since then another 35 per cent of photographers have joined the profession.

It is also important for effective market forces that the product or service is homogeneous. This is usually the case with mass production. But certainly not with a creative profession such as photography.

It is even so much the case that a creator gets copyright on their own photographs when creating images. When it comes to photography, there is therefore market failure.

This is a good article about market forces. You can find much more information about supply and demand here.

Photography is an unregulated profession in the Netherlands

There are far too many photographers for the work available. And that is bad news for the average photographer.

For buyers of photography, it is quite convenient! Because this makes it easy to pay little when buying photography. The market for press photography is seriously unhealthy.

In the creative sector, it regularly happens that people are only willing to pay hobby rates for a hobby photographer.

But at least you get free access to the concert you have to photograph and 'a unique experience'. It is not the case that Muziekgebouw Eindhoven could not pay a normal rate. In 2022, after all, it had a result after tax of more than 1.35 million euros. There is sometimes a difference between being able to do something and wanting to do it.

The largest buyers in a market determine market rates

It has been clear for years that publishers often pay freelancers particularly poorly. The NVJ is working very hard on this. Freelancers, another word for self-employed people, are pitted against each other with a take-it-or-leave-it mentality.

Photographers receive no more than 50 to 65 euros for a photograph in a newspaper. The fact that the photographer has to work for two or three hours for it, and therefore earns an hourly rate of 20 to 30 euros, is not a problem for those publishers.

The idea that publishers cannot afford to pay is nonsense. Take DPG Media, with brands such as de Volkskrant, AD, Het Parool and nu.nl.

They had a fairly OK result in 2022: 'After deducting financial results, taxes and the result of investments, the group's net result came to 200.9 million euros'.

The annual figures of other publishers, such as Mediahuis, the company behind NRC Handelsblad and De Telegraaf among others, with a net result of 65.3 million euros in 2022 and 116 million in 2021, also show that there are sufficient financial resources to pay freelancers properly. Yet they do not do so, simply because they can.

So it is usually not the case that large media organisations do not have the money to pay freelancers properly.

Their interest in good financial figures and attractive distributions to their shareholders is greater than their interest in paying freelancers properly.

Recently, there was a confrontation between ANP and Mediahuis. This was about a rate increase that ANP wanted to introduce for its customer Mediahuis. But Mediahuis was not keen on it.

I do not think there is a single commercial organisation that is keen on a price increase on the buying side.

Because ANP apparently needed more income and could not get it from its customers, it went to its photographers and asked its suppliers, the photographers, for 5 per cent retrospectively. Rather strange.

Because large organisations determine the rates, the value of images has come under considerable pressure. This may have partly created the idea that a photograph does not have to cost very much. Stock photography also contributes to this.

The basics of running a business under normal market conditions

Under normal market conditions, demand for a service is roughly equal to the supply of that service. A provider of a service or product determines their own rates based on, among other things, costs and potential sales.

But that calculation is often not even relevant for photographers. Publishers decide for themselves what they want to pay for the photography service.

They name a particularly low amount and find enough people willing to do it for that amount.

If, as a photographer, you calculate that you need, for example, 85 euros per hour to keep your photography business running, you may well be able to tell a publisher that. But if that publisher then tells you that they will pay you 62 euros for a photograph, the conversation quickly ends.

Because photography is an enjoyable profession and you need no more than a Chamber of Commerce registration, supply and demand are completely out of balance. This results in unhealthy rates in the market. Dysfunctional market forces are the cause and contribute to this.

Standard rates for images are often far too low

Many organisations benefit from low rates. Even the government, which normally likes to set a good example, benefits from the low, or too low, rates in the market.

The 70 contracted photographers who work for the government may charge 109 euros per hour while they are photographing on location.

That would be a good hourly rate. Unfortunately, they may not charge for travel time or for the time they need to edit and deliver the images. That is voluntary work.

But travel time and image processing always make up a considerable part of the total time a photography assignment takes. The result is that those photographers are also working for 35 to 45 euros per hour.

So as a photographer, you can quite reasonably calculate that you need 80 or 90 euros per hour. But then you do not even stand a chance of 'winning' a tender. Many large buyers of images only choose creators who are willing to work for a rate that is too low. Take it or leave it.

I have spoken to quite a few photographers who can or will no longer work for the government because of this low compensation. Besides the government, there are also many other semi-government organisations that work with similar compensation.

Recently, a university asked me to take part in its tender. They had seen my work and wanted me to join their pool of photographers.

After looking at the tender, I passed on the invitation. It also contained roughly the same payment structure. So for that organisation too, image processing and travel time were unpaid. That means you are again working for well below 50 euros per hour.

If you are reading this and thinking: well, that is fine, isn't it?

Then realise that being a photographer is a highly specialised profession. Professional photographers are only hired when there is really no other option.

Even publishers will always try to use a stock photograph or a free submitted photograph first for a media publication. That makes sense and is fine, but the result is that an average freelance photographer, without a studio, can only send an invoice for 10 to 15 hours per week.

For that, you have to be extremely flexible and have a good, large network. Otherwise, you will not reach those 10 to 15 hours per week on average.

As a professional photographer, you have to work hard during the remaining time to make sure you can reach those 10 to 15 hours per week. So if you take a part-time job in another sector, you will not reach those 10 to 15 hours per week.

If you are aiming for an average income and can invoice for, say, 13 hours per week on average throughout the year, for 45 weeks per year, you cannot avoid working for an average of 80 to 90 euros per hour.

And you therefore have to invoice this for all the hours you put into an assignment, not just the time you are present at a location.

The government and Fair Pay with the Fair Practice Code?

The Fair Practice Code is the code of conduct for running a business and working in the arts, culture and creative industries. Various chain tables are working on Fair Pay.

I hope these chain tables are successful. You can calculate what Fair Pay should be at a chain table, but it must also be possible to enforce it.

The idea is that organisations subsidised by the government will pay people fairly. Once it is clear what Fair Pay is, I hope the government itself will also review its photography tenders. Not paying photographers for travel time and image processing is far from Fair Pay.

At the invitation of DuPho, I joined the Photography Chain Table for the cultural sector, part of Platform ACCT. We discuss commissioned photography within the creative sector with around 25 organisations.

The result will ultimately be a practical tool describing what is fair in commissioned photography in the cultural sector.

The future for photographers and the value of images

I hope the profession of photographer will continue to exist in the future. Fair Pay could be a possible solution for subsidised organisations. Unfortunately, it is difficult to impose Fair Pay on commercial organisations.

They have less interest in this and will do a lot to pay freelancers as little as possible.

If the government and semi-government organisations also start complying with the Fair Pay rates, which have yet to be determined, the photography market may improve a little. Perhaps the value of images for photographers may even increase.

This may give photographers a little more financial room. And it would also put you in a stronger position when dealing with large commercial organisations, allowing you to say 'no' for once.

There may well be other ways to ensure that image creators can earn a normal income. But unfortunately, there is no simple solution yet.

Because of the large supply of photographers, an average photographer does not have many billable hours. That should have consequences for the rates charged by each photographer. But because the market is so crowded, the ever-decreasing number of billable hours has too little effect on rates.

To clarify rates, it is useful to gain insight into how many hours photographers can invoice. The possible billable hours are an important part of the calculation when determining an hourly rate as a freelancer. A wedding photographer has different billable hours from a corporate photographer or press photographer.

I am curious to see what the future will bring, and I will continue to support image creators! For example, by telling organisations what it is like to be a photographer running a business.

By explaining how rates are created and that a photographer is not expensive when they charge a normal hourly rate. There is still a long way to go, and I hope to be there as a professional photographer! 😊

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