National Geographic Interactive has launched a paid digital product and promoted longtime director of photography David Griffin to a newly created position that oversees all of the company's digital product.

Photographs are used commercially as single illustrations or in telling stories. Given the way the photography business is changing there is a declining demand for single illustrations at price points that can justify their continued production, but there is a growing demand for multimedia and video stories. This story explores this change in demand and points to new opportunities for those who want to earn their living in the photography profession. 

One of the leading producers of short form business profiles (videos of 45 to 75 seconds) is TurnHere.com. The company has a network of over 8,000 freelance videographers working in over 70 countries. It has produced more than 27,000 short videos (7,000 within the last 6 months) for local business around the world.

I had already been a still photographer for over 20 years when I started exploring digital video and the motion medium ten years ago. I had built a successful career shooting editorially for magazines like National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, Travel & Leisure to name a few, as well as producing annual reports for major corporations.  When digital video hit the scene in the late ‘90’s, I was already starting to feel a slight frustration in trying to tell certain stories with a still camera. I was beginning to think and see in terms of movement and sound.  At the same time, technology was making it possible and affordable with digital video cameras and non-linear editing software for me to use this medium to tell my stories.  The new tools were a means to an end.

In the next few years, there will be two major trends in the education business: There will be less demand for books as a teaching resource. Electronic “learning objects” will be used to a much greater degree in classroom and online instruction. Photographers who agree that these changes will occur, and who supply images to those producing materials for educational use, should begin to restructure their businesses and produce content that will be in demand by this new educational delivery system.

Recently, I started a discussion entitled.“What are the future career opportunities in photography?” on several of the groups on Linkedin. The topic has engendered a lively and interesting discussion, and well worth some time in reviewing. This article contains a few of the highlights of the discussion. More can be found at the following Linkedin Groups: ASMP: American Society of Media Professionals - National; Photography Industry Professionals and Stock Photography Buy and Sell Images.

The opportunity to interact with editors from publishing companies, picture researchers, stock agents and photographers at the American Society of Picture Professionals’ (ASPP) Reinvention weekend in Boston provided a clearer picture of where the business of producing images for publication is headed.  Here are a few of my take-aways from the three day conference.

For those who think that the use of photography in book publishing and for educational purposes will remain the same in this years ahead this story provides some numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau to consider. Significant changes can be expected in the near future.

More and more still photographers are getting into video because of the appeal of the hybrid still cameras that also shoot video.  Photographers love the visual coming out of these big chip cameras – what’s not to love?  But they quickly find out that if they aren’t just going to be laying visuals down to a music track, they will need to start thinking about their audio – specifically a narrative track or one driven by sound bites from interviews.  I work in the corporate sector, as well as create documentaries, so I do a lot of interviews.  The interviews, along with a scripted voiceover comprise my audio track and drive the story.  

I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and stopped by Zacuto.  Zacuto is a business that has made outfitting DSLR cameras for video a specialty.  They have cleverly engineered an assortment of their party add-ons that take these cameras to a higher level.  They have also provided solutions to overcome some of these cameras shortcomings.  Depending on the genre you are working in, documentary work, corporate, indie films or photojournalism will ultimately determine which way you’ll need to “trick” these cameras out.

After great success at producing and selling traditional rights-managed and royalty-free imagery for more than 25 years, Ron Chapple started producing microstock in 2006. He uploaded 5,000 images in February 2007 and aggressively produced images for microstock until early 2008. By September 2008, he had about 15,000 images in his iofoto collection, available on a non-exclusive basis through a number of microstock distributors. In October 2007, Selling Stock did a story outlining his early experience with microstock.

While the transition from still photographer to television commercial producer is difficult, David Scott Smith’s odyssey illustrates that an image creator and storyteller can find satisfaction in shooting and producing video.