Just released, the US economy grew in the 3rd quarter by an annually adjusted rate of 3.5% which is more then I though it would. Any of you finding this to be reflecting in the mount of work you are getting?

I have been shooting architecture and interiors professionally for two years now and it seems like a lot of projects put on hold have been resumed (from the builder point of view) and more have been going to bid, but still very little to shoot since everything that is finished has already been documented or there is just not enough money in the firm to justify having it documented yet. It seems, though, from the architects and designers that I have been talking to, that it will start to turn around in the spring for my genre of work.

I think that you are probably a year or two away from having enough of a spike to matter and it will be a long time before it ever gets back to pre 2008 levels. What is going to push it?

Nice for some! Estonian central bank just revised annual growth for 2009 down to -14.2%. Neighbouring Lithuanian economy shrank 14.3% last quarter. Ouch.

Take a look at this. These are times to be cautious with wishful thinking. I haven't lost what little remains of work by not having up to date gear, so it turned out to be wise not to rush and upgrade equipment. Still with my 1DsMII. Solid and worth every penny. IF things get better maybe I wll get into MF.

The economy hasn't yet shown signs of recovery in central Florida. So, I'm not sure what those gov't statistics actually represent. The stats come out of Washington DC. Car sales went up due to cash for clunkers (program expired), home sales went up due to first time home buyer $8K tax credit (program soon to expire), finance sector showed some profit taking while AIG limps, and GMAC is looking for more bailout money. My business is off 30% from last year, but the cost of living rises.

If the US economy is indeed growing, I'd hate to see what it would be like if it were stagnating. Duh.

Nationally the American Institute of Architects has predicted that next year will be at least as bad as this year. This is based on a survey of their members and other indicators. By this time most architects would know what they are working on next year, what is out there to pursue etc. Here in New Mexico we did not get hit nearly as hard as other states (after a bad first half my business did very very well July-Oct) did this year, but next year looks bad....... I have done my own survey with in-state architects which confirms this sour prediction for next year. Beyond July they don't have much and there are few RFPs to pursue new work to fill in the gaps. I am hoping that residential rebounds resuscitating the shelter magazine assignments.

Here is a recent article from the AIA about the recession:
AIA and Recession

When you have two parties that seemingly hate each other more than they love their country you are going to have problems. I have owned my business for 30 years and have seen great times and some bad times. When you adopt a health care plan that is 2,000 pages long, requires the raising of $1 trillion dollars and puts a bigger burden on business owners you are not going to increase job. Plus, you send job after job overseas you are going to have problems generating a recovery. blah blah blah but it is disgusting.

The US used to make products and sell them to the world. Now the world makes products and sells them to us. A recipe for long term financial disaster.

Just saw the film "Schmata, Rags to Riches to Rags" basically the story of the Fashion industry in the USA and one statistic startled me. The USA has gone from domestic production of 95% of the clothing available in this country to 5%. This is Fubar!

Yes, things still suck, but there are signs to look at that could mean improvement. The stock markets have be rising since March. They were the first ones hit and will be the first to recover. The question is how long with it take to translate into jobs; usually this is 5 to 6 months. With this recession and from the models I have been creating and looking at (I teach Applied Calculus at LaSalle University part time and we look at this everyday in class, great time for material for class) main street will be about 10 to 12 months behind the market in this recession.

Also, close to half of businesses surveyed stated that they plan on returning to normal work weeks and pre-recession pay for their employees by this Dec. This is good since this is what will happen before jobs will return, which, by the models I look at, should be this March/April. So spring is not looking really good, but Fall of next year should be notably better then now.

Also, GDP is rising and it is rising at the time and rate that models have predicted, so just as long as no other major event like Lehman Brothers Failing, we should be coming out of this recession slowly, but surely. Whether or not this is natural growth or artifical reamins to be seen; I really would like to see the numbers for growth in the private sector which did not get any direct stimulus but those numbers are not available yet. And we do not want to come out fast, because that will give us inflation.

As long as the recovery remains slow, we should not have a double dip. Sounds weird, but the slower (at first) the better. And I think that I heard exports are on the rise too.

With that being said though, the Case-Shiller index fell this month and foreclosures are on the rise in areas that have previously be not hit by foreclosures. Also, banks are still lending and angel lenders are not returning to the market as fast as we would like.

As far as making connections though, this is the best time with the most opportunities. Really push forward a marketing plan. Most businesses that decrease marketing during down times loose too much of their name base to return to profitability after the recovery begins. Those that neither increase or decrease gain nothing. Those that become more aggressive gain on average 1.5 additional percentage points of market share during and after the recovery. Want to read a great example on this, look at what happened to Post's market share when they decreased their marketing during the depression as compared to Kellogg increasing their marketing.

I can't get enthusiastic about a recovery coming soon. There are still some parts of the economy that haven't experienced their share of pain. For example, tax revenues are way down in my state. That means the state government knows they're about to be walloped, but they still haven't absorbed the blow. They have only two choices: Suspend capital improvements (there goes a bunch of construction jobs), or cut state employment (there goes a bunch of jobs in education). Then we have to deal with the negative effects of those lost jobs, which can't do anything good for local businesses that are already in trouble. We have a lot of empty office space, and this might be enough to cause a small collapse in commercial real estate, which could bring down another bank or two. I suspect the situation is similar in other states.

Big companies are still very cautions but I see a lot of rebuild confidence in ordinary people who are not as terrified as they used to be of loosing their jobs and thus for they are willing to spend again on photography.
All together I see a lot of improvement as compared to the same time last year. I am up 30% from 2008 but still about 20% less that 2007.
Andre

Wasn't 2007 the year you built the mega studio in Chicago? I still think of you and your lovely bride perhaps enjoying a soak in the Roman Bath after the clients have gone. I hope you have your (2) AFi bodies neatly stashed in case I need one someday.

Warm regards,
David

Take a drive down main street in many regions of the country, and you'll see what the economy really looks like. The Case-Shiller index, GDP, blah, and blah are statisctical extrapolations of data passing through filters. Unemployment is not abating. Employer surveys are specious at best. I'm glad your business is prospering, that clients are booking you. I think if you took a survey of photographers on this forum, the majority would say that business is slow and whatever work that does get booked, is subject to deflated pricing, while the cost of living increases.

I think this economy downslide came here to stay, at least for a very long time. Time and resources are best spent getting prepared for a different world and a different way of life, than wishfully thinking we can go back to the credit spending orgy of the last quarter century. There is no way that can be sustained, and now the debt is due and everybody on the planet has to pay for it,... except for wall street.

Sergio, I don't think it will be that bad. I do think we are in for 2-3 more years of this but I don't think it will last forever. We (the US) are just having a major adjustment to an economy that was obviously inflated. The sad part is that there are people here getting very very rich while the great majority are struggling. Life just never seems to change. But, in fact, we are all living, on average, much better than our parents did. The sink hole is all the new monthly costs we are responsible for that our parents never dreamed of: cell phones, internet, cable, satellite, every member of the family owning a car, health insurance premiums and the cost of college has skyrocketed.

The real problem with professional photography is the introduction and now refinement of digital camera's. NO WAY, most of the people trying to be photographers today would have had a chance even 10 years ago when you had to shoot film. Except for Polaroid's, you had to nail the shot because you knew what you were doing. No second chances. No monitor or LCD to review. Nothing but technical skill and knowledge to know that when you got those transparencies or film back, they were right on. Now, you get constant feedback to the point where it is almost impossible not to get the shot. It has changed and in this case, you are right, it will never go back to skill and waiting for the film. The intellectual cost of entry doors into professional photography have been opened wide, never to be shut again.

I never said that I was doing better, just that leading indicators of the economy are looking better, but that progress in this recession is looking like it will be twice as far behind the markets and big companies than it is in usual recessions. By many predictions, we should start to see jobs being made by the second quarter of next year, although it will probably not be enough to compensate for the growth of new workers into the economy and unemployment will still go up. We are at the bottom of this, just starting to come out and all of the numbers support that; that is all I was trying to point out, not that we are out of the woods yet.

Yes but what you and I do is allot more than just "getting the shot". Its true that almost any idiot with the bucks can now get a decent exposure, but that was never the key to professional success. Like you, one needs to have an eye, design sense, visual talent, creativity to be successful. That will never change and will always be worth a premium. My business since digital, in the face of massive entry level competition, boomed, because at the same time I took a leap in creativity and got more productive with digital.

We will hopefully se the light in the end of the tunnel soon.

Though we would'nt be in this "crisis" or recession if it wasn't because of blue eyed americans. No other country in the world would have allowed this. Every sane person would understand that loaning money costs money and eventually it has to be paid. And the system with foreclosure is crazy. Here in Sweden you don't just put your house up as security but also yourself. If your house gets "foreclosure" you won't be able to get any kind of loan in a couple of years. But before that the bank takes everything you own, including your salary before you even can withdraw it out of your account.

USA should be paying all other countrys for creating this worldwide financial crisis.

Really? No other country in the world? You haven't heard about, for example, the real estate bubble in Japan in the '90s? The one in Ireland right now?

We had a housing bubble (not the first one in our history, or even the only one in recent memory). It was fed by relaxed lending standards imposed by our government, at the behest of special interest groups who claimed to be representing poor people unfairly denied loans. Anyone who invested in that bubble directly, i.e. via mortgage backed securities, has to take responsibility for their own foolish investments, since it was pretty predictable. The collapse did indirectly hurt a lot of people who did't make those same foolish investments. But another way to look at this is that the world benefited from an overly optimistic perception of the economy during the bubble years. Things weren't actually as rosy as it seemed. Not as much wealth was being created as it appeared, and many of us said so at the time, loudly.

Our foreclosure process used to be no different form yours, but a lot of people have convinced themselves that buying a house they couldn't possibly afford was really not their fault, that they were somehow victimized by greedy banks. Now they've convinced our federal government to bail them out, and that's exactly what will happen. Many of us who lived within our means, who never made a single late mortgage payment are rather outraged that we're now footing the bill for others who didn't.

Exactly how would you propose the US pay you for these mistakes? Another new tax on those of us who did not contribute to the problem? I'm just glad I have brown eyes...

Not really so, Jozef:

it is forgetting a bit too fast that all the recent financial instruments which did bring all the turmoil and broke the financial system down have been "invented" and put in place by the London City new financial "mathematicians". These financial products based on mathematical formulas were not even understood by their superiors and convinced them that they could never fail since they were "mathematical".

Best regards,
Thierry

It is too easy to play the blame game and throw a pity party for one's self; not a good idea though. Forbes (I think) a while back did a study of the most successful persons in business and they all had a few things in common. They never got too angry and always tried to remain positive. They also did not blame and wait for someone else to fix the problem. We are in a mess, but if you recognize all of the possibilities that are out (and recessions are historically ladened with opportunities), you should be able to capitalize on them and reap the benefits later on, you just need the patience to wait.

Insofar as who is responsible, lets just say that us capitalist did not force anyone to buy derivatives of mortgage backed securities and we certainly did not make them break the golden rule of investing, never put all of your assets into one or even just a hand fill of investments.

This is very true. I own a drill, but would never consider myself a dentist. An illiterate with a typewriter will never become a great writer because they have acquired a computer, and the finest piano in the world will be wasted on someone who is tone deaf. I think the problem with the industry is a reflection of contemporary society, where the emphasis is on quantity over quality. Fortunately there are still clients who appreciate quality, these are the ones to be sought out. Let's not forget that digital technology has benefits for the pro photographer as well, freeing us from some of the technical limitations that restricted us with film.

Just the blue-eyed ones? Huh. That's a very interesting theory.

The reason why I think this recession has come to stay for a long time is because most countries of the world have economies that expect some kind of growth every year. The assumption that growth can be perpetual is the big flaw. The planet has FINITE resources and that is it. Those are the hard limits. There is nothing that can be done about it. Some day a finite resource will be finished. There is no other way around it. Economists I believe have mistaken wealth with money, hence the huge debt the world has. There is not enough wealth to be cashed for the money in debt. Either the world currency is revaluated to what it really is worth, probably a lot less than it is right now and become way poorer than what we are and live with a lot less, or we import goods and commodities very cheaply from Mars.

It is a linear equation of thought in a universe that has proven itself to be cyclical.

USA should pay for trying to to keep others country free? Wow

I can smell WW 3

BTW to bad the MF is been use for this, should be in posted on http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showforum=33

Once Europe pays up for the Cold War and the Marshall Plan, we can talk about what the US owes Europe.