Change is the only constant, posited Greek philosopher Heraclitus. The same can be said for commercial photography, according to Abdulai “Ab” Sesay. “A lot of photographers complain about how things are changing and how they liked the way things used to be. But … there was no used to be,” Sesay says. Commercial photography has always been—and always will be—in a constant state of flux.
Case in point: Sesay, a longtime commercial photographer based in New York who began his career 25 years ago, recalls an interview he did years ago with a well-known photographer for a project called Pro Photo Daily Master Series. “[He] said that when he started out, this was a time when photographers were getting flown around the world to work on projects for sometimes multiple months,” Sesay says. “And when he started, some people were complaining, ‘I have to do this shoot in Africa and they’re only sending me for X number of weeks instead of a month.’” Fast forward to current times, and things have evolved further: Companies opt to hire local talent for photography assignments to save on the travel expenses of sending a photographer abroad. Thanks to an interconnected digital world, “the landscape overall has changed,” he says, which means “there is a much bigger pool of photographers to choose from now.”
While some changes can be frustrating for photography pros, Sesay encourages imagemakers to lean into evolution. He has three career lessons to pass on: One, learn how to learn. “Never feel that you know everything,” he advises. Commercial photography clients’ expectations and needs change all the time, so it pays to develop new skill sets. Two, be open to change, says Sesay, especially since it’s inevitable. And three, align your work with your passion. “You can be very skilled at something, but I think you’ll burn out—and by burn out, [I mean] you kind of don’t want to show up to work—if you feel as though it’s something you’re also not passionate about.” Sesay’s passion is working with people, his preferred subjects. He’s also passionate about lighting and lighting challenges. So, he makes sure his day-to-day work aligns with those interests.
STATE OF FLUX
Artificial intelligence is responsible for the biggest changes in commercial photography right now, says Sesay. When he first started his career, photographers would charge $200 to $500 for a scan after the initial capture and $200 an hour and up for retouching. Then photographers started sending images for retouching overseas, which cost just $5 to $50 per image, according to Sesay. “And now you have AI doing an amazing job at it,” he adds. “There still needs to be a human touch. But all that forces clients to think about how many deliverables they want in a completely different way.”
In the past, photographers might deliver five images for one ad campaign, and those images could last a season. Nowadays many clients want more images with more frequency. “They need content weekly in order to help drive their brand,” Sesay says, “and so the need for imagery and content is greater now than it’s ever been, and a week from now it’s going to be greater than that.” Social media has changed the game by, in many ways, replacing magazine ads. Online, companies can see the return on investment for each and every ad, including data on how many people clicked on the ad, how many opened it, how long they viewed it, and how many times they viewed it.
Working with clients with varying and everchanging expectations is a challenge, so Sesay recommends photographers put together a solid statement of work (SOW) for each client. “It’s super important that you and the client are on the same page,” he says. Both parties should have a clear understanding of expectations. A detailed SOW outlines responsibilities of both the photographer and the client, deliverables, and timelines. For example, the SOW might state that the photo shoot will take place on the 20th of the month, the photographer will deliver selects on the 21st, the client has two days to pick 20 photos from those selects, and the photographer delivers the final edited 20 images on the first of the following month. If the client doesn’t get back to the photographer with their 20 picks until the 31st, that makes it difficult for the photographer to deliver finals on the first. But if the SOW clearly states these deadlines and responsibilities, the photographer can refer to that document when questions arise.
The SOW should also include the budget, Sesay says: what the photographer will be paid, including any deposits. “I would do this before putting together any sort of contract so that all those things in your SOW can be woven into the contract if need be,” he says. “Where some contracts can be kind of boilerplate, your SOW can be referenced within it to help better define some of the specifics.”
LIGHTING FORWARD
In commercial photography, it’s often important to replicate looks you’ve created in the past, says Sesay. “Your dream clients are going to come to you and they are going to pull their mood boards from the work that you’ve done. And clients may want to repeat certain results.” That’s why Sesay advises photographers to jot down lighting diagrams often during sessions. That way, if a client requests a certain look that you’ve done before, or they want you to repeat a look that you delivered to them in the past, you have diagrams that note the equipment used, the distance it was placed from the subjects, what the light metering was, etc.
“There are many times that I look at a picture I have done and forget how I did it,” he says. To track his lighting setups, he uses an app called Notability that enables him to take a picture of the set and then draw a diagram with notes onto the image, “so it’s almost like a living lighting diagram,” he says. It’s a game changer when he’s able to dip back into that app to find out how he made a particular shot that a client likes. “I think clients like that consistency, if you can deliver a similar look to them time after time,” he says.
Lighting is a passion for Sesay, who is currently working on a lighting book as a personal project. “I think you reach all these different plateaus [in your career] and I feel like right now I am in a growth spurt and I kind of want to write some things down so I don’t forget them,” he says. “So, I am working on a lighting book to collect all these thoughts and then provide it as a tool for other photographers down the line.”
One chapter, he explains, will address how to photograph skin, a hot topic among many photographers sharing content online. A lot of photographers, he says, approach the topic “either from a very emotional state, or you have a lot of photographers who intuitively are doing things right but can’t really explain why. … Putting together the science with the application and having a conversation about aesthetics as well, I think, is something that is really, really needed.” He plans for the chapter to first address the science behind light and reflection, how that applies to skin in photography, and then get into the techniques to capture skin tone well.
“People call me a technical photographer,” which is true, says Sesay. A solid understanding of technique is paramount in the commercial photography niche. But Sesay values intuition even more. “I think sometimes in photography there is a battle between what is technically correct and ultimately what just looks good,” he says. “Some people think what looks good also has to be technically correct. But if something just looks good, why not? Some images just look good two stops overexposed.
“I think you need a strong intuition to let you know when to override that technical part of your brain that is telling you, this piece should be this way,” he says. “Just because [a technique is] applied right doesn’t mean it’s effective.”
There are two things Sesay always wants to know, he says: what’s true and what’s effective. And that never changes no matter how much photography does.
Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.
