For the last couple of years I've given a talk (via Skype) to an elective photojournalism class at the University of Missouri which focuses on business. It's the sort of program, created by professor Jackie Bell, that I would have really loved to have been a part of when I was at Mizzou ('98-'02) myself. Last year the lecture focused on contracts and ran down a top 10 of important ideas and clauses that Jackie's students needed to understand and avoid. For this year's lecture I wanted to go a lot broader and stake out some of the bigger themes in freelance photography right now, which I hoped would be more useful to a student today, as they begin to form their approach into the big, bad world. In talking generally about change I wanted to address issues applicable to the students today; I also chose something very general so that the students could ask as many questions as possible. Below is a snapshot of what I talked about, and hopefully it landed with the students in attendance... nearly all of which raised their hands at the beginning of the lecture when I asked who was planning on going freelance to begin their careers. "Not if But When" The life and business of the freelance photographer has always been filled with change and adaption, punctuated by highs and lows, and layered with uncertainty. The worldwide economic crisis, as it slammed headfirst into an ongoing and massive shift in technology and distribution within the publishing industry, has made change almost the only constant in my work as a freelancer. Like it or not you are entering a world where the question is no longer "what will I do if" something happens but instead "what can I do when" it does. Answering that question and being prepared and capable of embracing change is a massive part of the job both in the field on assignment and back in the office. Stepping back the signs of change are as staggering as they are abundant, especially within my corner of the market. The media landscape has been fundamentally reshaped over the last 10 years. Newspapers have been decimated, scores of magazine titles have closed, advertising has shifted to the web, budgets and jobs have been slashed everywhere, and the largest media companies in the world have been humbled by a handful of social media start-ups. In the decade we have become infinitely more connected to one another, markedly more hungry for content and bandwidth, much broader in our skill sets but likely to be paid less, and as deeply confused as our clients about what the future will look like for paid content providers. I'm not here to scare you but you need to feel how fast things are moving and how quickly the deck seems to be reshuffling. Publishing and photography, outside of a few small niches, have changed. The picture only seems dark if you allow yourself to see it that way. In a way all of this change means there are also giant opportunities for growth and staking out new territory. And all of that opportunity  is to be found by embracing the change and evolving your business and skills to lead the way into the future. Embracing the change starts in a small way by not fearing the unknown and unexpected. Assignment photography has always been an incubator for curveballs, big and small. On my own shoots I've had jobs turn 180 degrees, and then back, in a matter of hours on deadline working with difficult subjects and enormous time crunches in terrible weather with gear that is failing. Some stories are even more dramatic. My buddy Andrew Hetherington flew into Jamaica for a big business shoot, had all of his gear confiscated at the airport, and had no choice but to adapt. Andrew went downtown and bought an tourist-grade point and shoot and some (expired) film and went ahead with the show. He made it happen, and got the job done for his client. Even more dramatically are some of Platon's cover portrait shoots for TIME; waiting for days and days for Putin to give him 5 minutes, or evading the Burmese secret police in a car chase to portray Aung Sang Suu Kyi. Whether or not it involves a car chase, every freelance commission takes a turn and every professional photographer's job is directly to embrace that change, fix the problem, move mountains, or simply to be open creatively to finding something even better than the original idea. Plans always change and when you are out there on the road there is always something better to be found that no one could have planned on. Be curious, ask questions, and get it done. Ultimately the change, the curveballs, the insanity is why I love my job. And speaking more practically one of the many things that separates pros from Joes is knowing that all will go wrong and being prepared. Bringing redundant backup gear, stashing extra batteries, owning liability insurance, doing research on your subject; all of that is the mark of a pro as well as being responsible to your client for coming back with the goods. Embracing change isn't limited to the field of course; it's just as applicable in business, promotion, and back in the office. In some ways the business side, no matter changes, will always come down to building and nurturing relationships with clients. But how you create and maintain those relationships when you are just starting out has changed a lot. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, email newsletters, on down the line are replacing source books for some editors and buyers. Agencies themselves are being cut out by some companies who have decided to work directly with content producers and bring their customers straight to their website to see original editorial content. Learning to effectively use the various changing tools of promotion is a tight rope wire. Ultimately we are living during the beginning of an era and therefore are suffering through a lot of noise... those who make their voice distinct and unique will have a huge advantage in pushing their signal through that noise to land with impact on their audience. In photography, in the past, present, and future, one of the best signals as compared to noise will always be new, interesting, and engaging work. Embrace that and your audience will not only listen but they'll use the very same tools to help your message grow. On top of that some people feel that we are moving away from the model where many photographers working for a small handful of giant media companies, and towards something closer to a single artist connecting with 1,000 fans to support and fund their work. Kickstarter and Empha.sis are steps in that direction; crowd-sourcing funding just as websites and publications have crowd-sourced reporting and visuals during breaking events like the tube attack in London. Embracing change in promotion and business is first about gathering the right information and then about applying it to the type of life and career you want to create for yourself. Fortunately there is industry information flying around like crazy right now... it's supremely easier than ever for someone not in NYC to learn what is happening inside the companies and clients you want to work with. You absolutely need to spend the time building a RSS feed, or Twitter list, or whatever technology you want to use to begin to absorb all of the who is who, where are they going, where were they before, and what does their move mean about what is happening in the industry? Additionally it's much easier to connect with other photographers who are trying to figure things out as well. But while we all crave recognition from our peers I try to keep focused on getting my current and potential clients to love my work, not just a bunch of other photographers. Knowledge is the key to embracing the changing tools of connectivity, and the key to learning what skills you can not survive without understanding. It's one thing to sort of know what SEO is, but another thing all together to embrace the fact that your portfolio website is the single most important tool you have to get you work from new clients. Lastly in closing yes things are speeding up but in the change, as I said before, there is opportunity. One small example is the rise of motion work from still photographers, which has grown so large that some agencies are not considering photographers without a reel of video work even for jobs that have no motion needs, just in case they decide to add one on down the line. Photographers who have made it a priority to be involved and fluent in shooting video have been some of the most profitable members of our industry during a difficult time. -------- That's basically what I lectured on... in the follow-up questions there were some about promotion and what is working. I mentioned that there is a danger to the things that are easy and therefore over-used, such as the flood of email newsletters which have started to annoy the already over-worked picture editor. I also made special mention of photographers who inspire their clients by thinking outside of the box and creating experiences that engage us on different levels, such as Phil Toledano's masterful new project "Kim Jong Phil." Another question was about mistakes I made early in my career and what I might have done differently. I made hundreds and am happy for them because I guess it's what got me here. But I talked a little about a complicated idea that I don't think people understand until they understand it... which is that photographers from a newspaper background always have a hard time translating their work and the ways in which they label it and present it into the editorial world. I took a long time before I really got the difference. I think the same thing could be said of a lot of magazine photographers in relationship to advertising, or the fine art world, etc. etc.