When I asked for a professional camera from my husband for Christmas after the birth of our first child, I had no idea it would lead to me becoming a photographer. My career as a Physical Therapist is filled with a lot of pain and suffering and the happiness of photography is an amazing reprieve. It brings me joy to express myself creatively, exercise my eye for beauty and I see it as a privilege to be able to capture memories that will be cherished a lifetime. After the many comments from others on my photos such as, "these look professional," and "you should do this for a living," I decided to take the leap, and I began a small side business about a year ago in portrait photography. I have been experiencing firsthand that the industry of photography is insanely cut-throat.
Porter's Five Forces model is a competitive analysis method used in business analytics to assess an industry's current profitability and competition (Martin, 2023). The five forces that comprise this model are: competitive rivalry, supplier power, buyer power, threat of substitution, and threat of new entrants and are critical dimensions that influence every industry (Danao, 2024). These five forces combine to provide a "picture" of the competitive landscape and when used to analyze the photography industry, this framework illustrates just how fiercely competitive this industry is.
Competitive rivalry evaluates the quantity of existing players within the industry and assesses how established they are (Danao, 2024). For instance, in the Chicagoland area where I operate there are roughly 2,000 registered photography businesses and countless others that are not registered making the market highly competitive. There are constant price wars occurring. I am always having to keep up with the changes or risk having no clients because the threat of substitution is very high with how saturated the market is. The threat of substitution refers to the likelihood that clients/customers might switch to a different service or product (Danao, 2024).
Additionally, with the introduction of AI into photography many competitors are offering superior products. AI can help the worst photographer create stunning images as long as they are not "blown" (overexposed) and this has introduced another level of competitive rivalry. Buyers are increasingly picky, demanding images edited in ways that require countless hours of learning the skills and then applying them. In addition to this, they demand lower prices and can do so because they have such strong buyer power. Buyer power refers to the influence customers have over a business, and it is very high in the photography industry due to many competitors (Danao, 2024). It is very important to set yourself apart to reduce buyer power and many photographers have adapted to providing full experiences with their shoots, including things like multiple shot sites, wardrobe, hair and makeup, small gifts, and food and drink.
The threat of new entrants evaluates how easy it is for new competitors to enter the market and involves assessing the barriers to entry in an industry (Danao, 2024). Barriers to entry are quite low in the photography industry, making the threat of new entrants high. In this day and age as long as you have a smartphone that can shoot images in RAW (large files that allow the most edits) and have a subscription to and understanding of Photo Shop or Lightroom, you can create images that are better than most. Moreover, my personal threat of new entrants and competitive rivalry is even higher than some in the industry because the geographical area I practice in contains a university that is constantly educating the next generation, and these players are willing to work for free to build their portfolio. This "shoots" the threat of new entrants sky high and it is impossible to compete with free with some of the buyers in the market.
Lastly, supplier power refers to how much influence a supplier wields over a business's profit (Danao, 2024). In the photography industry the supplier power is fairly high. If you want to own a professional camera, there are really only two suppliers: Canon and Nikon. These two giants dominate the market and although there is some rivalry between the two that works in photographers favor, they keep their prices very similar. Most photographers are fiercely one or the other for the simple fact that once you acquire almost any gear with one supplier the cost of switching to the other is very great (meaning Canon and Nikon have been very good at reducing their own threat of substitution).
Thus, in applying Porter's Five Forces to the photography industry of which I am now a part, the outlook is rather desperate. To recap, competitive rivalry is high, threat of substitution is high, buyer power is high, the threat of new entrants is high, and lastly, supplier power is high. So, how much competition is there in the photography industry? It's insanely cut-throat and to survive you have to continue to find ways to stand out, differentiate and reduce buyer power.
Martin, M. (2023, November 6). How Porter’s five forces and help small businesses analyze the competition. Business News Daily. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5446-porters-five-forces.html
Danao, M. (2024, February 12). Porter’s five forces: Definition & how to use the model. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/porters-five-forces/
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