Articles, Photography

Mastering sustainability in professional photography

16 Februar

A few days ago, it hailed so heavily in Reutlingen (04.08.2023) that the city appeared to have been hit by a snowstorm. The streets were covered with centimeter-high „snow“ and were flooded. In the middle of August, the snow plow had to be deployed to clear the hailstones from the city in southern Germany.

Now, of course, I could argue that we can stop the climate crisis if we only change the way we work as photography creatives, self-employed individuals, and small businesses. However, I believe we’ve reached a point where few would buy into that idea.

One thing that should not be underestimated is that small livestock also produces waste. Although we cannot stop it, as photographers and filmmakers, we can contribute to reducing our carbon footprint.

In this article, I provide a few tips and resources to help media professionals reduce their environmental impact and increase sustainability in their photography work. If I can raise awareness and encourage more sustainable practices, that would be a great achievement.

Sustainable business.

As photographers and filmmakers, many of us are self-employed or have started small businesses. In addition to sourcing equipment sustainably (which we’ll discuss later), we can also start paying attention to sustainability while we’re still self-employed.

This includes our finances. We all know that we put our money in banks, and they then use that money for investments that don’t necessarily match our own values. On top of that, there’s a lot of greenwashing and opacity (at least for us financial laymen), which can make it overwhelming to know where to start.

However, there are banks that perform significantly better than others in some rankings (https://utopia.de/bestenlisten/die-besten-nachhaltigen-banken/). Of course, it’s a matter of weighing the benefits, costs, and effort.

Speaking of effort, one of the simplest things we can change in our businesses are our office supplies and mobility. Whenever I need to buy something for my home office or travel from A to B, I ask myself: is there an ecological option? Can I get there (maybe even better) by public transport and save myself the stress of parking? Or is the standing desk attachment perhaps also available on eBay Classifieds? As a rule, you save money, time, and nerves.

Sustainable Equipment.

The issue with sustainable equipment is that used cameras and lenses, in particular, are often considered bad in our industry. Most people, especially non-professionals or hobby photographers, do not borrow or buy used cameras.

This changes, at least for renting, as soon as you’ve been in business for a few years and can’t afford to buy new equipment for every special customer requirement. That would simply be too expensive.

However, renting or buying used equipment has decisive advantages. The most commonly mentioned advantage is, of course, the price. Since used equipment may have defects or may be older, it is generally cheaper. However, it is usually still perfectly functional, and you can save money if you do not always need the latest and greatest. Renting is especially advantageous when you need equipment with a special feature and the acquisition costs would be too high. Rent services keep up with the times and you can borrow everything you need there. Additionally, in the long run, you save on storage space.

"However, renting or buying used equipment has decisive advantages."

Sustainable photography post-production.

You may be wondering: what does sustainable post-production look like? I’ve been asking myself the same question. Ultimately, sustainable editing follows the principle that less is more. Here’s why:

First, by spending less time at the laptop, you consume less power, which is more sustainable than individually editing 500 images in Photoshop, for example, even if the images don’t need it.

Second, less retouching typically means that the images are not over-processed and will still be relevant in the future. This reduces the need for reproducing the images and conserves valuable resources.

You might argue that this approach could prevent you from being re-booked, but that’s not necessarily true. People change and may want to take pictures again, or companies may launch new products or services or hire new employees. If they’re happy with the shots, they’ll keep coming back.

Sustainable backup and image transfer.

If you want to make your data management more environmentally friendly, you might feel a bit overwhelmed – I certainly do. The options available can be confusing and difficult to understand if you don’t have a background in computer science. Hopefully, this will change in the future.

At its core, however, it’s important to understand that data and photos require energy to be stored. The less data you store, the more sustainable it is. For example, storing fewer photos and deleting files you don’t use can make your backup more sustainable. By doing so, you can avoid storing pictures that you didn’t need in the first place.

You can also make your hardware more sustainable. For instance, SSDs consume less energy because they don’t have to spin a physical storage disk, unlike HDDs. However, SSDs are more expensive to purchase and may not be suitable for long-term data storage.

When transferring images, you can look for hosts or operators that use green electricity, offset their carbon footprint, or support reforestation projects.

Conclusion.

Overall, I hope that this article has provided you with actionable steps that you can take to increase sustainability in your work as a media professional. If you do not want to miss any more articles about sustainability in the creative industry, please follow me here.

If you want to read more, check out my other articles like the backstory to the picture on the left 🙂