John Kung

I’m writing this on my iPod Touch right now, my main computer is currently exporting a ton of images from a shoot I just finished editing. My poor first generation MacBook Pro is struggling under the weight of Lightroom and big RAW files, and it takes the best part of an hour to export a wedding job. It might be time for a new computer, or at least a 2nd computer for me to work on while the exports take place. 

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend regarding the relative merits of film vs. digital. Sure, digital is the way of the future, but it used to be that when you’ve shot a job you give it to the film lab to process, go do some other stuff, then pick up the finished work. Now, photographers have to spend hours in front of the computer processing the job, then spend more time again exporting. We now also have to worry about losing data and having backup strategies… whereas not that long ago ‘archiving’ simply meant putting negs in sleeves with a contact sheet into the filing cabinet. 

This isn’t to say that digital doesn’t have its place – I can’t imagine doing my day to day work not on digital capture, but film isn’t as bad as the marketing departments of digital camera makers tell us it is. The one great thing digital has done is to open the world up to photography. People who had no interest in photography now carry at least a cameraphone, and the more people get into photography the more appreciation there is for photographers. There are those who argue that the number of amateurs selling their services in a semi-professional way is bad for business. I say that the people who hire semi-pros were never going to hire an actual pro in the first place. Why? Because they don’t see the value in it. They can’t see why they should pay all that money when someone else can do it for 1/5th the cost. Is it the fault of the customer for not seeing the difference in quality? Or is it the fault of the pro for not being able to sell their value?

At the end of the day professional photography is a business, and in the face of increased competition you have to work harder and smarter to set yourself apart. Ultimately competition drives customers to learn more about what they will be buying, which means you will deal with more visually literate clients, which I think is a great thing. And speaking of work, Lightroom just finished the export so it’s back to work for me too!