Dave Busse wrote: >My point is shoot now, have fun, take diligent notes and don't ever >undervalue the long term worth of your collection.
Good points, and I agree. My point however was that there is little money to be made in the railroad photography hobby market for the average railfan, and practically none for the commercial professional. Railroad photography is a very specialized area. There is more competition (of all talent levels) for less (or no) money than any other photographic subject on this planet that I can currently think of. Since this hobby revolves around fun and enjoyment, and the hobby's photographic needs are filled by many of its fans for the fun of it, one shouldn't expect to compare railfanning to the photographic profession in terms of monetary compensation, unless you are on assignment specifically for a railroad company (in which case you are then still often competing with all of the fans who just submit slides for fun and the hope of seeing their work or name in print). In other words, this is a bad market for profitable photographic endeavors because first, it is so diluted with contributions from those who are in it just for the fun of it (nothing wrong with that; I am in it for the fun of it), and secondly, the deferred value of the majority of what we shoot during the course of this railfan hobby is directly related to two things: the future appeal of our current subjects which we can't control, and supply and demand. In the motor driven railfan swarm that covers everything from steam excursions to tie replacements these days, it is damn rare when you have something of very limited supply and therefor a possible valuable future subject. Can you bank on that? I can't. One thing nobody mentioned here was the quality of this photographic work in question (past and present), and I won't touch that here. >And to Dave Cohen re: the lousy pay for train pics. I got $1000 for >one-time rights to publish one of my slides several years ago. One slide. I don't consider railfanning a viable market from one commercial sale. But you did it right and sold them one-time rights (there are many different rights to consider today) and you were compensated realistically for your professional effort. Selling to Canon is selling to a commercial customer, and I think the campaign and your shot were great! They actually spent money advertising in a RR magazine to sell cameras. I don't consider that the average railfan market though, and I was disapointed to see that they dropped the ad campaign. Maybe Canon thinks that we don't have any money to spend? ;) >There is >a market for train pics out there...it just ain't the railfan market. Yes, we are straying away from our topic here though. The transportation industry can be a good market if you specialize in it. Trouble is that most train shots show the identity of the RR company in them and therefore cannot be used elsewhere (some trade magazines excluded) withouth compensation to that company unless it is used for editorial purposes (a lot less money). The 'big' money would be in assignment photography for the railroad companies themselves (John...), or the next best thing would be in the railfan 'business' itself, such as magazines, videos, paintings, T-shirts, etc., and then we come full circle to the $10.00 shot in the fan magazine. That's a big market to some (the publisher), but a noteable income to no one. I have a lot of fun shooting trains. Some times more than others. I like to look back at past shots in slide shows and it brings back memories, mostly good ones of the times that we had and the friends that we were with. I do this for the fun of it. Not the money. I shoot commercially for money, so I have something to campare train photography too. Nothing compares to it. And nothing else is worth so little money to a magazine or editor than a RR shot. That was my point. And that is why I spent part of last week shooting ball bearings and cryogenic deflashing pellets instead of sending slides of new locomotives to fan magazines. Have fun with our hobby, Dave Cohen Photographer [EMAIL PROTECTED] --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 2638
