The Coming Extinction Of The Freelance Digital Tech

Is the disappearance of the digital tech as we know it coming?  As a working digital tech I think I can sufficiently say that the digital tech as a freelance position is directly related to technology and peoples understanding of it.  The industry is going though a change from film to digital still today and as working photographers come to understand their new cameras their use of techs as we know it today will alter.

Definition Of A Digital Tech

First an definition of a digital tech might be useful in understanding why the position is around and why it's demise is inevitable.

A typical digital tech is used to monitor color and sharpness on incoming images, organize incoming images, maintain the working order of digital equipment and be a the onset digital/computer expert.  This type of position is needed during certain situations.

1. There are so many images being captured that the photographer can't stop to look at the screen and evaluate quality.  ie - fashion and most people shoots.
2. There are so many incoming images, sometimes from multiple cameras, that it would take to much time to stop and rename and organize those images and its easier to have a third party be in charge of this.  ie - catalog shoot.
3. The photographer needs help understanding their equipment and how it works and having a digital tech on board give them the confidence they need to complete the shoot.  ie - could be any type of shoot.
   

The End Of Transition

This may be atypical, but most of my tech clients are in the third group of photographers, photographers who don't really need a digital tech and need help understanding their own camera and computer.  These photographers, who were film shooters 5 years ago, are slowly beginning to become confident with their equipment or they are going out of buisness for one reason or another.  New photographers entering the industry are entering with a very strong understanding of digital photography.  At Brooks Institute it's reported that their film classes have become optional "exploratory" classes.  In short, the client pool for digital techs are shrinking.

Art directors are becoming more digitally savy as well and it is becoming harder to justify digital techs on a budget where they're not absolutely necessary (like in situations 1 and 2).

The Future Of Digital Techs

As the client base for tech's slowly shrink, demands on the skills and services for digital techs will increase.  To stay competitive, techs are offering equipment rental.  This is nothing new, but in the past it has been possible to start as a digital tech without any equipment to rent and build up that collection as you went along.  As the industry changes this will be more and more difficult.

I expect a movement towards more a conglomerated business model, where instead of hiring a freelance digital tech, most photographers will lean more towards using digital tech firms.  This is because the tech firms not only offer digital techs but the most up to date digital equipment and other special services such as online review for remote art directing (which i believe is the future of the industry 5 years from now), studio rentals and long term off site digital assets archiving.  These are services that most freelancer can't keep up with unless they come together as a company or give up the life and take a full time at one of these firms.