 As China's advertising industry gets mature and fashion media spring up all over the country, demands for commercial pictures are booming. In today's Business Life, we will present you how the merely 10-year-old commercial picture market operates in China and how the professional photographers and picture providers play their roles in the market.
The first snow of this winter fell in Beijing on December 20, 2002. It lasted for a whole week. Guo Sansheng is a professional photographer with Frends, which is a well-performing fashion magazine authorized by China Textiles Association. Recently he was assigned a new case, to take a series of pictures of model in snow for the fashion column of Frends magazine. Model's clothes are picked from the new product release of a fashion company. After the make-up, the model in the minivan will dress light and go outside in the snowfield where the temperature is 15 centigrade degrees below zero.
Less than 30 years old, Guo Sansheng has gained his fame in China's fashion photograph circle with pieces of works on many fashion magazines in the country. The expenditure on this case is no more than 200 US dollars, so insufficient for him to use more photography equipment, lights and staff members. Also, due to the limited budget, Guo's plan to rent a warm and spacious house van for models' rest and make-up had to be aborted.
In today's China, many models can earn 500 to 1,000 US dollars per day. But the day payment for this job is less than 100 US dollars. However, this doesn't dampen their enthusiasm. They know, if their photos are published on famous magazines, they will get famous and get rich as well, and this is their dream.
Reputation in the circle helps Guo to win more job opportunities. Tomorrow he will fly to Hong Kong to work for Chanel, a world-famous fashion brand. He will stay there for one week, working for Chanel's new product release.
Frends that Guo works with is outstanding among the batches of fashion magazines in China. It is a picture-filled monthly. Each periodical has 200 exquisite pages.
Zhu Guangrui is the Editorial Director. Along with dozens of young ladies, Zhu constructs the main body of the magazine. They generate 280,000 periodicals in monthly publication. Unlike other competitors including Harper's Bazaar and Elle, who are backed up by some prominent overseas fashion magazines, Frends is a purely local magazine. Therefore, the eminent success of Frends is worth more celebration.
Zhu Guangrui: our magazine is picture-focused. In recent years, copperplate colorful exquisite print magazines like ours are getting fewer. The market competition is fiercer. So we have to do our best to improve the quality of pictures and texts. We will devote more in terms of money, people and other resources so as to attract readers' attention and meet our own demands for quality pictures.
Just across the street to Frends is Panorama Stock Photos, a key commercial picture provider in China. This is a well-known office building called Fuhua Mansion, where you can find the regional offices of World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other international financial institutions. To be neighbor of this prosperous companies lends Panorama Stock Photos a special position. Panorama's boss pursued study and worked in Germany for several years. Apart from buying pictures from Chinese photographers, Panorama also acts as a sales agent for famous European photo companies such as Zefa, Agefotostock.
To date, Gamma, Getty Images, DPPI and other large overseas photo companies have entered China and scooped up market shares in the market. The convenience of the Internet enables almost all photo companies to provide service to clients from every corner of the world. According to Panorama's management, if some Chinese photographers are able to use their sales channels and gain over 10,000 US dollars in sales dividends per person each year, there is no need worrying about the provision of quality photos, especially for those overseas clients.
Lu Chen (CEO of the Panorama Stock Photos Co., Ltd.): at the beginning, we were unfamiliar with the Chinese domestic photo industry. Years later, we realized that the main clients for photo companies came from the advertising sector. When we started our company, there were few international ad companies in China, and Chinese enterprises paid little attention to advertisement. In 1997 and 1998, things became different, advertisement and media raised more demands for commercial pictures. Our company now grows by 50% in sales volume every year.
Actually, private commercial photography outlets already emerged 10 years ago. Black Ice Studio was outstanding at that time by absorbing numerous young people to take fashionable individual albums. Mr. Wei Bing with several young photographers built up this small picture outlet. No one knew then that in the following few years, they would produce a sales volume topping 700 US dollars. Meanwhile, however, some Taiwan-based commercial photography companies made profits of five million US dollars annually on the same market.
Wei Bing (GM of Black Ice Studio): nowadays, there are some photo companies and freelance photographers specialized in advertising photography. A few of them act as agents for overseas photographers in China. These people know that some Chinese advertisement clients acknowledge the works of overseas photographers. This opens a door to overseas photographers to enter the Chinese market and find a niche. At the very beginning, most of them were from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Later, more came from the US and Europe for the huge development space in China. Our clients usually believe that those photographers are more internationalized, and this is what they're looking for.
The sharp increase of market demand for commercial pictures can be attributed to two reasons. One is that many financially powerful overseas advertising companies have shifted their eyes to China. The second reason is the opening-up of China's publishing industry. Miss Su Mang is the Editor-in-chief and Assistant Publisher for Trends Bazaar. It may be related to her several years of life experiences in France, Su's demeanor reflects fashionable traits. Trends Bazaar is an influential fashion magazine in China. It's jointly published by illustrious US-based Harper's Bazaar. Actually, Trends Bazaar is just the Chinese edition of Harper's Bazaar. On the cover you can find the name of Harper's Bazaar.
As we know, fashion seemingly aims to affect people's lifestyle. However, it is the commercial interest that is the real driving power. As fashion lets you feel you are living a unique life, it tempts your heart and makes your purse light. As for fashion magazines, their targets are to lure your eyeballs, just as Su Mang puts it as "eyeball economy."
Su Mang: now, we are in a graphic age. Pictures have transcended texts. It is photos that jump into readers' eyes first. Bazaar has a high demand for pictures' quality, thus a high cost. In my view, our local photographers are all good at techniques, imagination and innovation. However, an excellent fashion photographer should be sensitive to fashion elements besides professional techniques. The lack of this creates the gap between overseas photographers and our local ones. How to be more professional, and take pictures which can fit into the magazine's style remain challenges to many photographers.
Mr. Chen Zhun's studio is located in downtown Beijing. So far, Chen is the most favorable freelance photographer of Tends Bazaar. After having spent a decade in Europe as a professional photographer, Chen came back to China one year ago. Recognized by the Chinese peers for his excellence, Chen Zhun now is a star photographer that some China's fashion magazines are after. It seems that he has realized the dream held by other photographers -- get big orders, high payment and chance to travel around the world.
Chen told us a joke: if you are a magazine editor and you ask the editors of another magazine for Chen's telephone number, you may get a wrong number. This somehow indicates that high-octane photographers in China are still insufficient.
Compared with overseas counterparts, China's photo market is still in its infancy. However, its accelerating market demands have become an object of envy. As it gets mature, China's commercial picture industry will play an even greater role on the world market.
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