This is part three of our four-part conversation with Todd Bigelow. In this transcript we discuss photography and AI. Todd is a professional photographer, educator, and a recognized authority on the business of photography. He has spent years teaching workshops across North America, equipping photographers with the tools they need to succeed. He’s also the author of a must-read book on the business side of photography, available here. We hope you enjoy this insightful, edited discussion!
The text below is a transcription from an interview conducted by Betty of Cradoc fotoSoftware in February 2025. To view this and more interviews, check out the Cradoc fotoSoftware YouTube Channel.
How the Photography Industry Has Changed
I think we’re all pretty aware of it. I do want to point out that when we talk about how things change, I think it’s really important to not sound like the old guy that’s up on his porch yelling at everybody to get off their grass. I’m very accepting of change and always have been, and I tend to roll with it. Obviously, some things can impact our business negatively, and that doesn’t mean you have to openly embrace them and throw a party about it, but we have to accept that all businesses change, all industries change.
And we’ve been through several pretty radical ones. When I started my first internship, there were newspapers in every community, so it was very easy to find that entry level position to show what I was capable of. That internship literally led, at the same newspaper, to my first full time job. It was a small community newspaper where you learn how to do everything, and that really, really set me up well for my future as a freelancer because you had to go out and shoot a portrait, then you had to go out and shoot a high school sports game. And then if the fire department had a fire they’re responding to, suddenly your editors are telling you to race out to a fire, and you had to really learn how to navigate everything quickly. Those were the film days.
Once I left newspapers and I went into magazines, I wanted to start freelancing for the magazines. I worked my way up through newspapers and spent about five years as a contract photographer at the LA Times, and I gained invaluable experience with all of that. The next level for me was seeing if I can make it into working with Time and Newsweek and Sports Illustrated and all those. And it took a push, and I had to get on a plane and go show my face in person, which I think is an important point these days. I do talk about it with students in my workshop and so forth that the digital connection is fantastic. It’s a great tool. It’s an evolutionary tool that I didn’t have when I was starting my freelance career, so I take advantage of it, and I love it.
But that doesn’t mean that we necessarily throw away all the tools that were available to us prior. And I think one of the ways to really set yourself apart as a freelancer, as somebody that’s trying to build a client base, is to meet as many people in person as possible. So at that time, when I was building my clientele, you got on a plane and you flew to New York and you flew to DC and you went to places where a lot of the publications that I wanted to shoot for and some foundations and so forth, that hire photojournalists were located. You make a lot of cold calls, and the majority of them for me would eventually lead into assignment work, but not all of them. And sometimes it took several visits.
So I think that’s one way in which things used to be, which has been, for the most part, discarded. The majority of photographers don’t really consider that a necessary step. Again, take what is useful and use you know, add your own. But I do firmly believe that when you meet somebody because as freelancers, here’s a key component: you’re going to represent a publication, a company, a foundation, whoever, for a short period of time, whether it’s for a one hour assignment, a few days of an assignment, or whatever. And I think that editors can get a pretty good feel for your ease of being around people, they think that’s the skill set we need to take meaningful, impactful photographs that go beyond the surface of something. And, if they can determine that through sitting with you over coffee or something, I think that’s a really beneficial thing to take advantage of.
Then to go into the technical side, the freelance world has really changed because when I really started freelancing, we were shooting, especially for the magazines, you shoot slide film. And I mentioned this before where you have to be very technically proficient. And the reason that’s so important is you would ship your film to your client oftentimes on process. And if your exposure’s in fast moving situations where you’re going inside and outside and and in their fluorescent lights where you just screw on 30 magenta filters onto your lens to balance out the fluorescence, if you weren’t proficient at that, then they got the film at the other end, and they would basically throw them into a trash can because from the light table to the trash can, and you’re probably not going to get hired again. With the technological innovations with digital, a lot of that is not even thought of anymore. Whether you’re shooting a program or an aperture priority, or even a manual, you know, you can really mess up your exposures and throw them into Lightroom and it’s gonna adjust everything beautifully. And your clients are never gonna know one thing. So that ability to do that opened up the pool of photographers out there tremendously.
And in the US Department Bureau of Labor Statistics, which I look at frequently for my workshop, does bring that specific fact into play for why there are so many photographers. The entry level is very low now given the technology available at our fingertips.
Photography and AI – The Impact of AI on Photography and Image Licensing
That’s moving quickly, and I’m paying attention to it. I have noticed and spoken about this to some of my students in recent workshops, which is, you’re going to see this obvious evolution of how AI evolves. And, obviously, image-generating AI is a very big part of that. I can’t say with certainty how impactful it is immediately because I don’t have access to those numbers, but I do know that for licensing of images there are many different ways in which we can license images. We can license them for editorial use with publications and magazines. Just this morning, I licensed an image of a wine window from Florence, Italy when we were traveling, my wife and I, and I work everything through my archive and workflow. And, you know, I look for licensing revenue. Now, for an editorial publication, there are guardrails going up where AI is not supposed to be used, or it should be used in such a minimal way that it is still a real photograph.
However, that’s just editorial.
A lot of licensing can go into advertising in the commercial space, which as we know from having been in the business, that’s usually a pretty lucrative license. Now you have to have the rights to any identifiable subject and if you’re on private property and so forth and so on. But without getting into that, I believe that AI is going to have a much more profound impact on the commercial space because people can create, and what I mean by people, those that are looking to traditionally license an image can now create exactly what they want. So they might put in their prompts into the software that is asking for five people sitting around a campfire laughing at dusk in an effort to come up with an image that shows people very happy in the outdoors. And now they could run that across their banner web as a banner ad across websites, or in any given fashion and never have to worry about licensing or any sort of property or or or personal publicity rights, anything like that. So I think that that’s where you’re going to see more impact coming from AI.
The other side is one more point I want to make is that the immediate impact has been more with a lot of people doing headshots. I used to do a fair amount of it back when you could get a decent rate for it. I think that the rate has been pushed down so far because there’s so many people that are, again, going back to the technical capabilities with new cameras and so forth. You can really go in and create headshots very easily, and that’s fine. That’s just the evolution of things. But I do know now that there are quite a few businesses where if you just take a picture of yourself with your phone and upload it, for a certain price, they will do an AI-generated selection of images, and you can pay according to how many different looks you want, all the things that we used to do as headshots. If you wanted two, three different looks, you know, the price is this. And it’s a very low fee. So I think that old-fashioned corporate headshot world or just actor headshots, is going to see some pretty immediate impact from AI.
How AI is Changing Headshot Photography
The other side is one more point I want to make is that the immediate impact has been more with a lot of people doing headshots. I used to do a fair amount of it back when you could get a decent rate for it. I think that the rate has been pushed down so far because there’s so many people that are, again, going back to the technical capabilities with new cameras and so forth. You can really go in and create headshots very easily, and that’s fine. That’s just the evolution of things. But I do know now that there are quite a few businesses where if you just take a picture of yourself with your phone and upload it, for a certain price, they will do an AI-generated selection of images, and you can pay according to how many different looks you want, all the things that we used to do as headshots. If you wanted two, three different looks, you know, the price is this. And it’s a very low fee. So I think that old-fashioned corporate headshot world or just actor headshots, is going to see some pretty immediate impact from AI.
Photography and AI: The Future of Image Creation
Explore this insightful article on how AI is reshaping the photography industry. Plus, don’t miss our blog on advocating for your digital rights.
About Todd Bigelow
Todd Bigelow, a contributing photographer with Contact Press Images, specializes in producing powerful still photography and multimedia content for leading publications, nonprofits, foundations, and corporations worldwide. Their work has been widely published in Sports Illustrated, TIME, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Smithsonian, Der Spiegel, and more. Independent projects and collaborations through Contact Press Images have also been licensed by major outlets such as Vox, Politico, NBC News, and The New York Times Magazine.
With a deep expertise in researching and developing compelling visual narratives, Todd has worked with renowned media organizations, including TIME, Politico, NBC News, LA Times, and Public Radio International. In addition, they partner with mission-driven nonprofits and foundations—including the Southern Poverty Law Center, AARP, and the Irvine Foundation—to create impactful imagery that amplifies critical social issues.
Todd is also the author of The Freelance Photographer’s Guide to Success: Business Essentials (Focal Press/Routledge, 2021), providing photographers with essential insights into building a thriving freelance career.
Website: Todd Bigelow Photography
Instagram: @tbfreelance
Facebook: Todd Bigelow
LinkedIn: Todd Bigelow
Twitter (X): @ToddBigPhoto
Book: The Freelance Photographer’s Guide to Success
Business of Photography Workshop
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