Real Talk From a Rep on Surviving in Today's Competitive, Insta-Driven Photo World [RF Video of the Week]

May 15, 2015

By Laura Brauer

As someone working in the print and publishing industry, whose parents are journalists at a newspaper, I’ve been all too keenly aware of how much the industry has changed, is changing and will continue to change, so much so that it might be unrecognizable a decade down the road. In fact, for my very first day of journalism class at Indiana University, the topic was, “Is Journalism Dead?”

The Dawn of Digital was a curve ball for a lot of industries, photography and the art world included. Being a creative person is a definite risk, but the survival rate isn’t so bad. Advertising and celebrity photographer John Keatley sat down with artist rep Maren Levinson, who founded the rep company Redeye Represents, as part of his Survival Guide workshops that teach commercial photographers about how to wrangle the business and marketing side of their work.

In this sit-down, Levinson gives some really great insight about the state of the industry and where it’s going—and though she’s talking from the commercial photography perspective, her observations are universally astute across genres. She may make some photographers feel like crawling up in a hole, but at face value, she’s proving that they have the best chance of surviving in following what they love. In other words, if you got into this industry because you have something to say, and you have a creative way of saying it, then you’ll be just fine.

Check out more RF Videos of the Week, and email associate editor Libby Peterson with submissions.

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