Photography website and commerce platform Zenfolio has released its “2024 State of the Photography Industry” report, exploring changing trends among photographers and their thoughts on important topics such as business and artificial intelligence.
Before we get into that, this year’s survey saw a massive 237% increase in total responses compared to last year, thanks in large part to collaborations with other brands including Format, ShootProof , SLR salon, Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and Miller’s Professional Imaging. Across the sample, 78% of respondents are from North America, including 73% in the United States. 28% of all US respondents come from California, Texas, New York and Florida. However, 7,646 photographers from 102 countries participated.
Of these 7,646 photographers, 66.5% describe themselves as strictly photographers, while 21.1% say they are both photographers and videographers. The remaining 12.4% say they are a hobbyist/enthusiast. The percentage of hybrid shooters increased from 17.4% last year. Another interesting note is that 47.9% of respondents claim to be self-employed full-time, an increase of 6.9 percentage points, year over year.
The survey also asks photographers about their specialties. The top three specialties for full-time freelance photographers have not changed: they remain portraits, weddings, and commercials, respectively. However, both portrait and wedding have taken bigger slices of the pie, while sports photography has dipped.
For part-time photographers, wildlife photography dropped out of the top six, and landscape photography took a hit, dropping from second to fourth place and losing nearly four percentage points.
77% of respondents are 40 years of age or older and 28% of responses are from photographers 60 years of age or older. Only 6.2% of respondents are under 30 years old. It might be more obvious if this is because the photography industry itself has few young people, or if younger people are less likely to be captured in Zenfolio’s survey.
The survey also provides fascinating insight into photography gear preferences. In 2023, 52% of respondents shot with a DSLR camera, while 41.4% opted for mirrorless equipment. Just one year later, the proportions have changed. 52.4% of photographers now shoot mirrorless, while 40.1% still work with a DSLR.
The age group that most prefers mirrorless cameras is the 30-39 segment, while at the younger and older ends of the spectrum, mirrorless and DSLR usage is fairly split uniform
For photographers trying to make money from photography, 2024 was similar to 2023. About the same proportion of photographers thought the business was busier, the same or worse than the previous year: 21.5%, 29 .5% and 39.2%, respectively. There is a mild trend to better business.
Like last year, the most lucrative genre of photography is wedding photography, with 23.3% of full-time photographers reporting gross income above $100,000. Sports photography is next, then portraiture.
In terms of how photographers make money, digital files are a bigger proportion of the business than “every other product” except, oddly enough, wedding photography. 52.6% of respondents offer mostly digital items to customers, but also some printed products. 24.2% sell exclusively digital products, while 4.1% only sell physical products such as prints.
Like last year, the 2024 survey also includes questions about AI. Surprisingly, photographers think more positively about AI in 2024, with a 7% increase in positive responses.
Many photographers are now using AI as part of their workflow, primarily within various AI-based photo editing features. Noise reduction, background removal and automatic subject selection are the most popular uses of AI. Less than 10% of respondents say they use AI to generate images.
Zenfolio’s comprehensive State of the Photography Industry 2024 report contains a lot of incredible information beyond what’s mentioned here, so head over to Zenfolio to digest the full details.
Image credits: Zenfolio
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Image Source : petapixel.com
