About My Job: The Photographer

by Conor Friedersdorf

A reader writes:

I don't really have a job, per se, I have a career, as a freelance photographer. Everybody in commercial photography is going backwards, even Annie Liebovitz, who was formerly in the category of a wealthy photographer but isn't so much anymore.

The main thing my clients don't understand is the overhead of running photography business. Digital has replaced film in the commercial photography world, but professional digital cameras and lenses are very...