An interesting observation

I am wrapping up my 13-week winter “The Small Photography Business” course tonight, at Sheridan college. And one subject we discuss in this course at length is production and pricing of images, books, prints, and so on. For all purposes, weddings, graduations, events, fashion portfolios, etc.

But.

Modern people, like the young woman above, do not do what older people did. Each generation finds this out, to their consternation.

As an example, I love to make beautiful albums, like the ones I produce at artisanstate.com. Beautiful, metallic paper, hard pages, covered to make them invulnerable to spills and fingerprints, that fold fully flat, hand-bound: super stuff for little money.

But one young person, when shown this type of album, just told me “I hate that. It’s like a small kid’s picture book. Quality doesn’t matter, how many people will look at it anyway. I’d rather have more pictures and lower cost”. She would rather have a crappy book with horrible pixelated pictures, printed on the equivalent of toilet paper, because it’s more modern, cheaper, and less like what grandma had.

And the cost of an album is considerable. An album may only cost me $300 to buy, but by the time my time is included, which can be a day or two, it’s going to be $800-$1200. Which is good value, in my opinion. But I am not the market!

Kodak made the mistake of thinking they could dictate what the market should want. No, best not to make that mistake. Please do not undersell yourself, but also please do not engage in wishful thinking regarding market desires.

Makers of albums and wristwatches, watch out.

 

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