It used to be that pros had to compete with pros for a gig and your rep and creativity were what got you the gigs. That was then this is now. Now we compete w/ uncles, secretaries, and any shmo w/ a digital camera and the ability to focus and push the shutter.
I can't tell if this email (including all the snipped material) was a rant or a whine, but either way, it misses the essential changes to photography resulting from technology, something that has been going on since it was invented. Probably the best prior example was the introduction of the box camera by Kodak. There was a time when all portraits were done by professionals, and they made a good living at it. But the amateur camera allowed people to do their own family and friend snaps, and that's exactly what happened. I have a wall of old family photos (back to about 1920) and there are only two taken by a professional - both of people too poor to afford a camera. Video also had a huge impact on photography, mostly in the news and documentary fields. The market for skilled professionals in these areas declined with the rise of video and television. It's an ongoing process.
It is true that "any shmo with a digital camera" can now take photos that are useable (often after a fair amount of Photoshop work) for commercial purposes. This is a result of both the photo technology, which especially through the instant feedback of digital photography eliminates one of the professional's biggest traditional advantages - getting the results without that instant feedback - and also of the display technology, which is more often a computer screen or an electronic billboard rather than the printed page or a printed billboard, allowing use of lower quality images.
This is bad news for a lot of professional photographers, and I haven't met any commercial photographers who are not complaining (although the bad economy contributes to this), and it's easy to feel for Les' plight.
However, there is the possibility of a major change in the nature of photography because of this, similar to the change in painting after the introduction of photography. If photography hadn't been invented, there would probably never have been expressionism, abstraction, minimalism in the world of painting as realism would have continued to be the most important focus for painting. Similarly, "fine art" photography (for lack of a better term) may explode as personal expression and new styles become more central as the "recording" aspect of photography rapidly moves to the "amateur" arena.
Jeff Spirer Photos: http://www.spirer.com One People: http://www.onepeople.com/ Surfaces and Marks: http://www.withoutgrass.com
