After my presentation in Richmond, VA last evening, a photographer came up to me to discuss how we had once disagreed on one of the forums about how to handle a situation. The details aren’t important, but he wanted to show me that he thought he was still right. In fact, he probably was in that one very specific context but I never would have agreed with him on a public forum.
Why? Well, because his point would have been manipulated by others to become approval for working for free and, to defend against that, I thought it was important to take the other side in that argument. Too many photographers on that forum would have misread my approval for that one very specific situation (which may have warranted working for “free” because of a lot of other benefits) as approval for working for free in most even vaguely similar situations. I have seen it happen too many times on forums–someone says “in this one situation, this one response is a good one” and the masses take that ball and run with it, turning it into “in any situation sort of kind of like that situation, that answer is the best one!” Ugh. The danger of that misinterpretation weighted my response, so I chose to defend the other side.
Photographers (and others) have a deep desire for hard, specific rules. Unfortunately, business doesn’t work that way–what I state aren’t hard rules but rather guidelines and “best odds” ideas for general situations. For example, generally speaking, having 50-75 images on your website is plenty. However, each specific situation has its own context and, therefore, has its own, individual, best response. Maybe your work is better shown with more images as they tell longer format stories or something. Your mileage may vary, as they say.
In other words, business is a bunch of big grey areas. What I (and many others) try to do is tell you what I think works best, but often I have to generalize. In public forums (and on this blog) that information has to be more general and weighted more towards what is best for the industry as a whole–the “best odds for most people” kind of information. At the same time, I wouldn’t trust anyone who says “This is the one and only best way” to do anything or “that way is always bad”–as if it is written in stone some place. Not in business (and not in most things, actually).
Your situation, your specific context may be very different and it is therefore your responsibility to weigh the data/info you get from me (and other sources) within your specific context/needs. If it fits (the premises match, in logical terms), try the advice. If it doesn’t, don’t, or contact me for more specific advice tailored to your personal situation.