Photo industry doomsday prophesiers, please shut up.

All graduating photography students are required to do an act of reach-out-to-a-professional-photographer. In years past I’ve received about a dozen of these calls. My response is always one of minor shock. I never went school for photography, and therefore have zero alumni status at any of the art schools that the callers are attending. But, never one to pass up an opportunity to talk about myself, I typically impart my experiences of circumventing established systems. In other words I tell the students how to navigate around various rules that their school invariably told them they should follow, and how to get a table at trendy restaurant without a reservation. It is street smarts for those leaping from the ivory tower into the sewer of reality. As soon as I hear the words “no shit” spoken with enthusiasm on the other end of the phone, I know my work is done. Secretly, I always feel incredibly honored to get the calls. It means a lot to me that someone looks at my work and thinks a conversation with me will be helpful to their nascent career. Many of my photography confederates have the same closeted reverence for the calls they receive and also try to impart some sort of insider information not to be found within the hallowed halls of higher learning.

Lately however there has been a bizarre shift. Students have been approaching me at my guest speaking gigs and saying that some of the shooters that they are getting in touch with are expounding, ad nauseum, about the doom of the industry. This is pathetic. The industry isn’t doomed, it’s changing. While I agree this isn’t the most magical time to be a freelance anything, those of us that have been around long enough to be considered a phone call candidate know that these rough periods move down the river and that overall this is a brilliant profession.

If you are scaring students with apocalyptic tales and advising alternate careers, please shut your hole. Stop and think how it would have affected you if you heard doomsday drivel when you were just days from graduating and about to assume the responsibility of your student loan.

Being a veteran photographer is a stewardship. It caries a responsibility to pass the torch of your experiences to those junior to you in the same spirit that a veteran passed their advice to you when you were busting your chops. If you don’t have anything positive to say to those at the starting line of they’re career, then stick your head in the toilette and the let phone ring through to voicemail.

Image and depicted art © Nick Rodrigues.