A book about the craziest industry in the world.

If there was a stupid mistake to be made as an advertising photographer, I made it. Not by design. It’s just that no one told me that being a commercial photographer required more business acumen than the ability to sign a charge card slip. I was happily living the delusion that, one day, I would be fabulously successful and all that business stuff would be taken care of by my people.

Unfortunately I had no people representing me at the time I made one of the most costly errors of my career. Ridiculously, I didn’t know it was a costly error until I got people or more accurately, a person, my agent, to educate me about my blunder. From that day forward I became much more diligent about the business side of my career. One of the first things I learned is that having people to tell you how much your mistakes cost you - costs a lot of money.

A little over a year ago, I was asked to write a book based on the articles I’ve writen about the photography industry. The book came out at the end of October, and Chris Garrett was kind enough to let me write a post about it here on DSLR Blog. Below is an excerpt about the mistake I mention above.

When I started shooting, life was simple. I would shoot a model test or a magazine spread and get paid a fixed amount of money for it. The fees were rarely negotiable and usually dictated by the market. Simple! Then I landed my first advertising assignment. I was shooting a small regional ad for a big client at a worldwide agency. I was being treated like a big shot, with valet parking and cappuccinos at all the meetings. It was thrilling. I figured those business-minded photographers with their percentages, markups, usage rights, and agents didn’t know what they were doing. Why should I complicate things? I was getting good money for an easy shot and I didn’t have to pay an agent. I concluded that those other photographers were old school and I was new school, all about the art. I completely screwed myself.

Somewhere between the valet guy parking my car and my second cappuccino I signed away all my rights to the image. The image was shot so well that the client decided to upgrade the ad from regional to national. It ran for three years. A hindsight assessment revealed that my cocky little pen stroke had cost me thirty thousand dollars in additional usage fees.

If you get a chance, give the book a read. Many thanks to Chris and the readers of DSLR Blog for your time.

All the best
Lou Lesko