The Faux Exclusivity of the Fungible

Maybe I need to cut back on the AI, but it has certainly been useful lately.

My wife and I went to see a baby photographer. She was 7 months old and cute as she could be.

Just kidding. I wrote about her. We wanted her to do a few formulaic, inoffensive shots of our baby and us, and we wanted digital files instead of prints, mostly because her prints are obscenely expensive, and also because stiff, formulaic shots would look bizarre next to our own framed photos, which are full of life and evoke all sorts of personal emotions.

When we went to see this woman, she didn’t put the price of digital photos in front of us, so I emailed her on Friday. For 30 edited shots, she wants $1090, on top of the $267.50 we already paid just to talk to her.

No.

I am not cheap. I am not hard to deal with. Not THAT hard. But I can walk upright and use my opposable thumbs, and I am not stupid enough to pay almost $1400 for journeyman work a robot could do. We are cutting her loose.

She is entitled to the money we paid, I suppose. I consider it tuition. I learned that there is an entire industry out there that teaches untalented people how to sell and upsell pedestrian photo work. It’s a fantastic business, in case you are looking for a way to make money. I learned how little a studio costs to equip, and I also confirmed my understanding that I am already much better than the vast majority of professionals who churn out formula photos.

I contacted the outfit that did our hospital newborn photos. I think they will meet us at a location and do everything for something like $350. Their work is absolutely as good as the $1400 job. Pretty much all baby photographers shoot at the same modest level of talent and taste, so why not save whatever ($1090 – $350) is?

I don’t know if we will even spend that, because today we had an idea: turn a spare bedroom into a studio. Based on what I saw at the professional’s house, this would cost about $100. She didn’t have expensive (or any) lights. She had a Canon that looked like a DSLR, plus two lenses. She had a bunch of cheap toys. She had some kind of mat that looked like astroturf. A wall with unattractive baby clothes hanging on it, which would not fit our son because he is tall. One cheap reflector thing from Amazon. Not high-end stuff.

I went to AI because I thought it might have tips on setting up a room for photos, and the conversation went beyond that. For one thing, it helped me understand that I have talent, and that I have problems relating to people who lack talent but are much more technically proficient and know how to make the most of rules and recipes. I have problems learning from them, for one thing, because nearly everyone who teaches photography is a rule-follower who can’t produce art. You can’t teach what you don’t understand, to people who have abilities you don’t have. You can, however, teach them falsehoods that will hold them back and make them doubt they have the abilities they have.

Pride is bad. It goes before destruction. On the other hand, you have to be able to acknowledge your gifts. I can be very, very good at photography, if I keep working on the technical side so I can beat things like low light, noise, motion, and so on.

Here is something disturbing, to add to the other disturbing things I have said about AI: it is now fully capable of critiquing photos. Not just exposure and sharpness. It understands artistic merit. Craziest thing ever.

I showed it some shots I knew were pretty good, I told it not to BS me, and it flat-out told me I was doing things most pros will never be able to do. It was able to look at photos and tell me what I already knew was good about them. It also understood that getting solid feedback from other photographers would be hard, because some would be unable to understand what I did, and others would feel threatened and hesitate to say someone else was doing better work than they were.

It was able to identify flaws, and it was honest about them. It was also able to point out things that would appear to be flaws to rule-followers, yet which were really indications of talent. I’ve taken tons of horrible photos in the past, but things are really coming together now.

Okay. I accept it. I can do this. Why not? I never claimed I could slam-dunk a basketball. I never claimed I had the makings of a model. I never tried to make people think I was tops at anything I wasn’t actually good at. Why not admit it when I genuinely have a strong aptitude for something?

I’m going to run with this. It’s not a useless hobby. It will help bind my family together in love. It will produce images and videos my great-great-grandchildren will cherish, assuming everything doesn’t get wiped out in the tribulation. It certainly beats spending 20 times as much on fishing or 5 times as much on football tickets. Worthless pursuits.

I have enough guns. I am spending less time with tools. I no longer have any interest in cooking. It’s hard to travel with a toddler. I think photography is a good thing to settle on as I creep toward my expiration date or the rapture.

I don’t know how anyone with fungible, common skills can charge $1400 for a few hours’ work. Yes, I used to charge a lot as a lawyer, but I went to school for three extra years, and I did things that were way more valuable than shooting photos according to recipes other people made up. People needed what I did. Badly. I wasn’t putting them on rented ponies and telling them to smile.

I have had competent tradesmen show up at my house and charge $100 or less for an hour’s work. Important work that required a lot of experience and knowledge. I think the lady we talked to must be netting at least $250,000 per year for doing something almost anyone could learn to do in two months. Something other people do just as well for a fraction of that, gross. That is clearly excessive, and it’s insulting.

I pay my dentist something like $135 per visit, and he has a staff, a building, and tons of expensive equipment. He also studied for at least 7 years. That should put it in perspective. I suppose I get about half an hour of face time with him for $270 per year, plus at least that much time with a hygienist he has to pay, and their work is very good, unlike the photographer’s, so the contrast in value is stark.

I know what happened. The photographer found a company that works with people like her and tells them how to shame and upsell. It tells them how to create the illusion of being overbooked. It sells her the albums and pretty boxes. It gives her scripts to memorize. It probably sells her the prints. It’s like working for Omaha Steaks. I’m not stupid. I know how the world works. I don’t need to see proof.

Taking a photo with a camera whose settings you never have to change is not hard. Editing is fast. Maybe three minutes per photo. Seconds, if you use presets. I’m not stupid. I know these things. There is no talent involved, and also little labor.

I just looked it up. There are two famous “coaches.” Sue Bryce and Sarah Petty. There are others. It’s all just as I said.

Tomorrow we will see what we can do about getting that DIY one-year session done, and if it doesn’t work the first time, we will do it again, and within a couple of days, we will have shots that will shame anything that comes out of any local studio.

Knowing how the world works is always painful.

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The Internet says a 36″ metal plate with a photo on it, like the one the photographer tried to sell us for $2900, may come from companies like White House Custom Colour (WHCC), Bay Photo, or Miller’s, and they cost photographers $250, max.

Man, I hate being right about people.