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Dan Heller is a freelance travel photographer from Marin County, and has been running his business, danheller.com, since 1996 as one of the largest and most heavily trafficked stock photography sites run by a single individual. His clients span across business industries and the globe, from Shell, Airbus, and Kodak, to individuals buying fine art for their homes or offices. He lives with his wife and son in Marin County, California.
In His Own Words - Dan Heller
Background
I got my degree in Computer Science in 1985 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and worked in the computer industry until 1990, when I founded a company called Z-Code Software. My product was the first commercially available email system designed for the internet. (Before then, internet email was non-commercial and not used by the general consumer public. And commercial email wasn't compatible with the internet.) As the net became mainstream in 1993, everyone from consumers to suppliers rushed into the market, which immediately filled with competing products. Yet, our small, sales-funded company of 45 people still managed to win accounts over the big players like Oracle, Lotus, Microsoft and every other competitor in the market, including start-ups with millions of dollars of venture capital funding. This remained the case until I sold the company and changed careers to one that's more "lifestyle friendly," photography.
Migration
My foray in the internet age was the basis for my knowledge and experience in a highly competitive business context. So, when I got into photography, I simply applied exactly the same business models that I used in the tech world. In two years, my business grew to a point that isn't seen by most pro photographers for ten to fifteen years. What's more, I ended up with what just about everyone in the photo industry said couldn't be done: I had a profitable travel-photography business where virtually all revenue is derived from online sales. All that, and net margins that would make even a software company envious. Best of all, I did it with a modest initial investment not much different than what any hobbyist would spend on reasonably good camera gear.
The Problem
Despite my success, it seemed that others in the industry—pros and amateurs alike—were struggling. To me, it was so clear what the problem was: the paradigm about how to do business wasn't up to date with modern realities. And that problem stems from an archaic business model that pros and educational institutions continue to promote. Such business models were based on historical practices from the pre-internet era when the photography industry was very different. It's not that such advice was "wrong," it just doesn't apply today like it used to. Unlike those days where a powerful portfolio and a good agent or agency were the path to success, the photo industry evolved the exact same way that the business side of the technology sector did: barriers to entry fell, causing buyers and suppliers to rush in. Traditional sales channels and supply chains for photography are changing exactly the same way technology did in the early 1980s when it became cost effective to actually own your own computer. A photographer can now do more for himself than his agency could do for him because he's leaner, faster, and more versatile, able to shift to new directions or respond more quickly to customers and changing market needs than any agency can. Once photography and the distribution model for selling direct to photo buyers opened up, the photography business has taken a fundamental shift as never seen before.
The Solution
In response to the lagging educational paradigms pontificated by the various entities within the industry, I wrote in 1997 the first of a series of articles on the basic "truisms" of the photography business since the internet. This lead to more articles that, individually, attempt to correct the misunderstandings that permeate the collective thinking. These articles have become the basis for my book, which you see in the index at the top of this page. The business climate for photography is still evolving, especially as the transition from film-based medium to digital continues to inch forward. As a consequence to this and other evolutions of legal and economic conditions, my articles have been "fluid" over time, undergoing revisions as the industry matures. Hence, my material is not only the result of my own experiences, but those of others, who for years, have given me feedback on their experiences as well. In the end, this book has become the most current and comprehensive on the subject today.
Allworth Press books written by Dan Heller:
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