New photographers today can buy their first camera, take lessons on how to use it, research photography destinations, order prints and books of their work, and start selling it without ever setting foot in a brick-and-mortar camera store or printing business. It’s hard to imagine how any photo store with an actual sales floor can still survive.
Some definitely aren’t. It’s been more than a year since Ritz and Wolf Camera, one of the larger names in the sector, sold off its remaining physical stores to an asset liquidation firm. Standalone establishments have struggled to hold on as well, and towns from New Jersey to California have witnessed the closing of their local photo shops. That’s a good thing if you like liquidation sales. Otherwise, not so much.
But still some persist, and even flourish, despite tough conditions. In order to understand better how photo shops are competing in today’s turbulent photography market, I spoke with the owners of two different establishments. Read more…
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Sarah Jacobs · Feb 13, 2014
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It isn’t the over 14,000 followers on Instagram or 9,000 on Twitter that made adventure photographer Lucas Gilman a finalist in the 2010 and 2013 Red Bull Illume competition (that was all his own talent), but his social media presence has helped keep him top of mind with clients and landed him a few jobs along the way. Read more…
Gilles Roudiere was born 1976 in France and lives and works in Berlin. He is a self-taught photographer, and in 2005 he decided to give up his job as an executive to concentrate on photography. His work mainly focuses on Central and Eastern European countries. Read more…
Bear Kirkpatrick lives and works in Portsmouth, NH. You can visit his website here
PetaPixel: First Bear, tell us about what spurred your initial interest in photography?
Bear Kirkpatrick: Two things happened, and they never fully blended. My father had a 35mm film camera when I was a boy. One day he, my younger brother, our two black dogs and I went into the woods beside our house — it was winter, we had coats on — and my father took pictures.
When he developed the film and showed us the beautiful black and white prints, it was like the top of my head came off — I didn’t understand right away, but certainly felt right away the elevating nature that photographs had over life. Or had to life. Everything was better. Read more…
Roger Weightlifting, Jonah Natural Gas Field, Boulder, Wyoming 2010
Lucas Foglia grew up on a small family farm in New York and graduated from Brown University and the Yale School of Art. Foglia’s photographs are exhibited and collected internationally. Nazraeli Press just published Foglia’s second book, Frontcountry. Frontcountry focuses on people living in the midst of a mining boom in the modern American West. Read more…
Birte Kaufmann was born in 1981. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She is a visual storyteller focusing on social and society relevant issues. Her work has earned her several Awards and Grants, and has been exhibited worldwide. Read more…
