A Year In Review

My year in review... Be gone 2024!

The year from hell is finally wrapping up. So long 2024! You provided contrast. So many dark lows and so many high highs. You had it all. I was able to create images that I had tried to achieve for a decade. I also had a close brush with death with one of my kids while also having the 4th
and final child show up in my life. I experienced the worse pain of my existence, some of the most bitter disappointments, and brought into the world my final great joy this year…

What a year….

But before I talk about life, lets look at the state of St. Andre Photography. According to Lightroom I added 7133 images to my lightroom catalogue surpassing last years high of 5378. That makes 2024 officially the highest number of new images added to my computer. Two months account for the majority of those images, July and October. July was a bit of a gimmick month though, as that was my brother-in-law’s wedding and I was one of the photographers. Weddings always end up with lots of images.

At the end of the year I try to tally up the total number of images added to my Final Images folders and divide that by the total of new images. This year I added 88 images to my keeper images. That’s mildly accurate but running with that number I ended up with a 1.2% success rate. Last years was 1.5%. If I removed the couple hundred images that I took for the wedding, I jump to 1.3%. I think the success rate is even higher than this, but this is what the numbers say at the moment.

Once again, I don’t think this is the most accurate way or representing my photography as I take a lot of images over the course of a shoot that mostly helps me identify the right moment to choose from. Now what I think is the most telling numbers are trips to keeper ratio.

I count a total of 40 photo trips for 2024 or about 2.2 keeper photos per trip. A hand full of these “trips” were mundane, like a drive to the local duck pond to photograph birds which produced a lot of images that were blurry. Others were big trips that produced a lot of great images. My trip to Death Valley was three days and I got 11 images. My trip to the redwoods was five days and I got 11 images as well. I am getting to the point these days that any trip I take I get one or more image out of it. Not always, but I have a pretty good success rate in that regard.

Now when I look at sales, this year has been mediocre. As of this point in the year I have sold a bit over 400 prints. This is about on par with my time selling in 2017. So, a seven year backtrack. I am not really counting 2018-2020 as those years I was in grad school/pandemic and I only did like three shows those years.

Now this could tell a few possible stories.

First- economically speaking people this year have really pulled back from buying art. This would be a continuation from 2023 where I saw a drawback in sales as well. Here is an anecdote to help explain what I mean. Once upon a time I could count on my local Saturday Tuacahn market to sell consistently 200-300 dollars in small prints every Saturday. Without fail. I even went back to double check, and I sold between 8-15 images every time I did that Saturday show. This past year, I have had multiple shows where I sold nothing. Now this isn’t an inflation thing on my part, as my small prints have been the same price for nearly a decade. People have stopped buying and even stopped looking.

Second option- Maybe I have too many prints. I have produced so many different prints and I have so many options that people may be overwhelmed. I don’t know if I have any way to prove this. But it seems more like people are not looking through my images any more. There are some interesting research papers on the topic and I often think back to the early days of my art shows and I often only had a few images and sold one metal print off the wall at every show. Don’t know for sure, but I wonder.

Third option- The photographic market saturation in Utah may have been reached. Not so much people have all been sold to, but people are so overwhelmed with photography they have stopped caring. Once again this goes back to the comment above. I was at a show on Saturday and I had maybe 4 groups flip through my images out of hundreds of people who walked by. Usually, I get perusers that like looking just to look. Almost nobody now looks. The one print I sold was to the vendor next to me. Crickets otherwise.

Fourth option- This is a contributing factor for sure, but I have not been too as many shows this year as I have in times past. It seems like I have been busy beyond all reason now that I have 4 kids. I struggled to keep all my crap together when it comes to my business, my college work, and my family. This probably reflected in the fact I got shingles this year, which for people my age is almost aways stress related. I also got crippling sick in July and spent half of that month in bed. On top of that, I don’t love doing shows as much as I use to. But I have not really figured out another way to make this photography thing work.

Looking Forward

The photography business in 2025 is still kind of running the same play book as of this time. I am still planning on doing art shows and I also am still planning on doing photography workshops. I have three planned, but probably need to bill out a few in Zion National Park to really make this thing viable. I have also expanded a bit of my “portfolio” of incomes to me teaching at the University. I am also sitting on a Zion photo book that I have not quite figured out how to turn into something, and I still have my Zion Photography Guide, which needs an update. But frankly those are not the things that are getting me excited and terrified when it comes to 2025.

As I look forward into 2025 I kind of have a crazy idea. One of the things I have always wanted to do is conservation photography. The problem is, I don’t really know how to actually go about doing that. Sure, I can take photos, but how do I get paid for such a project? I don’t really know how that entire side of the industry works. I don’t know anyone in it. So, the entire thing is a bit of an enigma. But I want to try.

With that in mind, let’s introduce you to an idea that I am brewing up. It is called “Fish of the Colorado, and the People Trying to Save Them.” Now what is the project? Well in some way’s it’s a love letter to the people who have dedicated their summers, their years and even their careers to saving the fish of the Colorado River system. It also is a project about the fish of the river too.

Now why do I care? Well in part it’s because I was one of these people. Every day I use to hike the rivers of the Colorado River system and work with these animals. It was my world, and I felt comfortable in it. But then when I got home, went to church and talked to my neighbors, I was something so foreign to them, I became a talking point. I truly was something that no one knew about. But when I do the numbers, in my local county of Washington Utah, there are 200,000 people. The total number of biologists working with the native fish in my section of the Colorado River system might reach ten.

Or about 0.005% of the population.

This career is functionally invisible and the work they do is essentially invisible as it all resides underwater. This project is going to shine a light on it.

Now what am I going to produce in order to do that? I think first and foremost, I want to make a book that shows what these people are doing. This will be a photo book that both shares’ images and stories from the river. In addition, it will show what it’s like to be a biologist spending their days chest deep in a river. What it’s like to work in some of the best places in the world, but also feel the weight of working with the last remaining fish of a species. Second, I want to put together an exhibit that can travel or find a permanent home that helps raise awareness of such a project. The exhibit will both share stores, educate the public and be a vital partner for raising funds for these conservation programs. Third, I want to take my stories and share them with the public in the form of verbal communication. Or in other words, I want to give presentations on the project and what people are doing and what’s at stake.

So that’s the plan!

How am I going to achieve that? Goal setting, planning and a lot of days on rivers over the next two to three years. And help… Lots of help.

Anyone want to help with this?

Who’s ready for the next chapter. I’m not but that is what life is all about.

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.