Does Every Photography Business Have To Fail?

One of my favorite books of all times is Dr Suess’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go. It’s a great read for everyone from 1 to 100, and can take an entirely different meaning depending on what is happening in your life. retired and broke dr

As I was reading through it this weekend, I realized that for the majority of photographers right now, they’ve come to The Waiting Place.

And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

The Waiting Place is a place photographers go when they are scared to move forward away from the norm. They sell packages a certain way because everyone else does. They charge a certain price because everyone else does.

Nobody would ever pay $10,000 for a photographer just to show up at a wedding, right?

Nobody would every pay $5,000 for a wall portrait, right?

Nobody could ever make a million as a photographer, right?

And yet it’s being done every day, as I write these words.

These are the people that don’t look at what the media is saying about business being down; they’re out there connecting with people who know business is up.

These are people that don’t say, “nobody will pay this price”. Instead they charge what they want and find people willing to pay it.

So my question to you is:

What type of photographer are you?

And in the words of Dr Seuss:

Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!