The photography market is shifting, and if you’ve felt it in your bookings or your strategy lately, you’re not imagining things. In Episode 129, Kim Box sits down with TMA mentor Annemie Tonken for a candid conversation about what’s actually changing in the photography industry, how to adapt your offers when what’s working stops working, and what role AI might play in your business going forward.
The Industry Is Always Shifting (And That’s Normal)
One of the most reassuring things Annemie says early in this conversation is that the feeling of things shifting underneath your feet is not new. “Things are always shifting,” she explains, “but we kind of change with or don’t change with, and then we start to notice the shift.” The photography industry has been through this cycle before. When digital photography was brand new and Instagram was just getting started, there was a huge surge in demand for professional photography because people were seeing it everywhere. Now, fifteen years later, it’s not novel anymore, and the clients who were in their late twenties then are still in their late twenties now. Your clients stay the same age. You keep getting older.
The trap isn’t that things change. The trap is finding a level of success and then gripping it so tightly that you stop adapting. Kim describes watching photographers she admired slowly become dated, and deciding early on that she never wanted to be that. Annemie puts it plainly: keeping an open mind, staying curious, and recognizing when you’re being your own bottleneck are probably the true keys to long-term success. Not changing everything constantly, but knowing when it’s time to pivot a little.
Back Pocket Offers and the Shift Toward Relationship Marketing
So what do you do when bookings slow down and your standard collections aren’t converting the way they used to? Annemie’s advice is not to slash your prices or rebuild your entire business. Instead, she recommends having what she calls a back pocket offer: a scaled-down session that lives off your main pricing guide and gets pulled out only when a perfect-fit client says they can’t swing the full investment. Make it limited, put it on your turf, give it a fun name, and keep it quiet. The goal isn’t to discount yourself publicly; it’s to give yourself a way to get people in the room. “You can write a thousand personal newsletters,” Annemie says, “but forty-five minutes with a person in a room where you’re chitchatting and then delivering photos that they love is worth a thousand of those.”
This connects to a bigger shift both Kim and Annemie are observing in photography marketing overall. Pain point marketing, that familiar strategy of speaking directly to what keeps your client up at night, is starting to feel tired. Clients have seen the playbook. They can feel when they’re being worked. What’s replacing it, at least in the conversations that are resonating right now, is relationship marketing: letting people know who you actually are, building genuine trust over time, and showing up as a real person rather than a polished sales funnel. For photographers especially, where someone is literally inviting you into their home and trusting you with their family, that trust matters enormously. And more often than not, it’s built faster in person than online.
Using AI to Think More Clearly About Your Business
Annemie is upfront that she was a late adopter when it came to AI tools. Like a lot of photographers, she tried ChatGPT early on, got something that sounded nothing like her, and moved on. What changed was when she started learning how to train it, specifically how to build custom GPTs that are fed specific knowledge and context so that the outputs actually reflect your voice and your business. She spent time listening to podcasts, watching tutorials, and putting things into practice, and the results genuinely excited her.
Her most practical suggestion for getting started: use the voice feature of ChatGPT (available on the paid plan) and just talk. Brain dump everything you’re thinking about your ideal client, your offers, what’s not working, whatever is spinning in your head. Then ask it to help you make sense of it. Annemie describes doing this to develop a more detailed customer avatar, and finding that having something actually synthesize and reflect back all of her scattered thoughts helped her get clearer on her ideal client than any worksheet had before. AI won’t give you a finished product most of the time, she’s honest about that. But when you’re stuck chasing your tail, having a tool that can help pull you out of that loop is genuinely valuable. “We get stuck,” she says. “We start to think in circles. And something that is able to help pull us out of that is extremely valuable.”
Listen and Learn More
The photography industry has always had seasons of change, and the photographers who come out the other side are usually the ones who stayed curious, stayed flexible, and didn’t try to go it alone. If this conversation sparked something for you, give the full episode a listen and then come find your people inside the TMA membership community.
Find Annemie at thiscantbethathard.com or on Instagram at @thiscantbethathard.
Ready to build a business that reflects your own creative voice? The Motherhood Anthology membership gives you access to expert mentors, live coaching, monthly marketing suites, and a private community of photographers who are invested in your success. Learn more and join at themotherhoodanthology.com.
The Motherhood Anthology is a community and educational resource for photographers who want a profitable and sustainable business they love. With 15+ expert mentors and 7+ years of proven content, TMA helps portrait photographers build confident, thriving businesses through monthly education, mentorship, and a supportive community of 700+ members.
