How Blaine Harrington Sustains a Full-Time Career as a Travel Photographer

Blaine Harrington launched his photography career during his brief motocross racing stint. Through this connection, Harrington found himself covering races around the country and in Europe – sparking his interest in travel photography. After attending Brooks Institute of Photography he spent some time shooting fashion before switching gears towards travel photography to address more authentic subject matter. Through this network and skill as a photographer he worked for publications such as National Geographic Travel+ Leisure Delta Sky and many more publications – living a nomadic life along the way!

His photographs have won several Bill Muster Photo Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), most recently Photographer of the Year award. We talked with him about travel photography as a business and changes in landscape, along with using contests to market himself and his services.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Recent years have witnessed increased scrutiny on the contest ecosystem due to various concerns (i.e. rights grabs, exorbitant entry fees and questionable winners). So what value will contests like SATW bring in 2022?

BH: Over time, the SATW Muster photo competition has taken on new significance as travel industry dynamics have undergone dramatic change. Travel has been severely impacted by events like 9/11 World Trade Center disaster, 2008-2009 financial meltdown and COVID regulations. Two of these three events can only be classified as “Black Swans,” unexpected happenings which cannot be predicted with certainty and have had lasting impacts on industry. As a result, recovery efforts continue today to recover from their events. And the general photography business has experienced what I consider the “perfect storm” of changes: internet access, the decline of print media, digital photography’s proliferation of imagery and major stock agencies taking over smaller “mom and pop” agencies like Corbis; price wars initiated primarily by Getty have significantly reduced costs and resulted in Corbis going out of business altogether.

One reason the SATW competition is so successful is due to its membership being comprised of travel writers, photographers, editors (primarily major newspapers), other travel journalists and a significant number of public relations professionals who represent tourist boards of different countries or states/cities/cruilines etc.

At first, my hope was that winning Muster awards in 18 of 20 years would lead to business opportunities from travel companies that PR people represented. While that didn’t happen quite so frequently, winning Muster awards often meant being invited on press trips as well as individual trips where everything would be covered including international air fare costs.

I do not support rights grabs and would never enter a competition that required me to transfer my copyright, and have also avoided entering contests where entry fees seemed excessive.

Are You Living the Dream of Travel Photography? But have 40 Years Experience and an Extensive Archive

I have always been drawn to travel since I was young. Even before any opportunities presented themselves, my vast amount of time learning different forms of photography helped shape who I am today.

Travel photographers need to be versatile photographers capable of shooting in cities, the countryside, portraiture and documentary-style people photography, light things for events or action shots, helicopter aerial shots as well as aerials from a helicopter. All this plus having firsthand knowledge of world cultures while photographing all walks of life from poor shoeshine boys in India to Fortune 500 CEOs while treating all subjects with dignity is what defines who a travel photographer becomes.

Photography can be a difficult game, regardless of if it’s your first attempt or an experienced veteran like myself. Few have the temperament required for freelance work. While you have control of setting your hours, taking breaks during work hours means more hours will need to be put in during evening work sessions if a bike ride occurs during your workday. You need thick skinned resilience in order to accept criticism (even when inaccurate), as well as always believing in yourself.

Post production for travel photographers takes up much of their time – most of it unpaid. After traveling for one month, I may spend three months (all day long) sitting at my computer adjusting photos in Lightroom, adding keywords and captions, rating photos and selecting keepers – something much different when dealing with thousands of keepers!

Unfortunately, I cannot offer anyone who seeks this “dream job” any positive outlook; that ship has long since set sail.

My website showcases consistent quality throughout, and I have amassed 35,000 photos. After having left Alamy and Getty, this year, due to their one-size-fits-all pricing scheme that makes photography difficult if one photo from an expensive lens costs the same price as one taken with an iPhone; even though one might be far superior than another – does not matter; same price. One even was taken aboard a helicopter I paid $600 for and another taken from an iPhone: regardless, all priced similarly!

Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented emergence of travel influencers on social media who produce high quality travel-related content – but instead of making money off photography alone, they monetize the size of their following. Do these influencers represent competition? Or is there another angle?

Five to ten years ago I would have said influencers with different business models don’t have much of an effect on us or can take away business from us. Now however, that no longer seems true – regardless of who takes away our clients – whether part time photographers, advanced amateurs, influencers – the sheer volume of those taking away our clients hurt us greatly. I often compare it to a pie: what seemed like my piece is slowly being taken away through thousands and thousands of small bites taken from what used to be mine – which ironically enough, none of those little bites would ever amount to anything meaningful in terms of making any viable businesses out of them all!

One of my greatest grievances has been what has happened to stock photo prices over the last ten years, especially. Before this change occurred, print uses had established pricing structures such as ads, brochures, magazine covers and so forth. Now there seems to be little certainty regarding that pricing model for print usage purposes. As Internet usage began to take hold, clients would tell photographers or agents: “we don’t know if this new internet thing will actually catch on; just sell us rights for it at an additional fee along with print rights”. But guess what happened next: it did take off! Internet and digital use was both successful and fatal for print media; yet rights for these new technologies never reflected that we weren’t making money (or as much) from print anymore, which meant these rights were set at or below costs of doing business.

Now we are left in an impossible situation where more photographers produce, the less money they make.

How are your clients finding you? Newsletters? In-person visits from editors? SEO?

BH: Over the years I was fortunate enough to work with various users of travel photography: travel magazines and major newspapers; adventure tour companies for catalogs and brochures; travel guide books with inside uses or covers as well as calendars – however many of these opportunities have since dissipated.

No longer do I rely heavily on traditional marketing efforts to find clients; SEO and people using Google searches have become my main means. Early in my career I found stock photography more valuable (for me) than marketing initiatives; this proved successful until prices fell dramatically.

Add-ons have added complexity and extra work, as I discovered with custom prints sales, self-published photo books, leading tours for other people who hired me as their tour leader, etc. While these may add new revenue streams as part of a side business strategy, these activities don’t provide passive returns – they require constant focus and investment!

Last five years have seen much of my income come from protecting and enforcing my copyrights. With digital media making copying easier than ever before, copycats often copying photography, music, writing and more without my knowledge or consent. Thank goodness I registered most of my work with the U.S. Copyright Office before beginning to find infringements using Pixsy’s reverse search of websites: 100,000 or so violations in China India Africa safari companies have violated my rights! Luckily pursuing copyright infringement works here but not so effectively in other places such as Germany etc where copycats usually pursue copyright infringements successfully.

Other infringers include some of the best-known textbook publishers. Although these companies did not directly “steal” any work from stock agencies, they nonetheless acquired licenses which they then violated without paying royalties as required.

[Infringement is] an enormous issue and I urge all photographers to register their work with the Copyright Office and protect their rights diligently. For my own site, there is a disclaimer warning people not to copy my work infringe.