Photographers: Tired of the Struggle? Maybe Your Horse Is Dead.

What got you here won’t get you there. Especially if it’s sorta dead.

This horse is alive. You didn’t think I was going to make a photo of a dead horse, did you? What, you think I am some sort of monster? All photos by the author.

There’s an old piece of ancient wisdom that goes like this:

“When you discover you’re riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

Simple.
Honest.
Brutally effective.

But if you hang out with enough photographers, especially the struggling corners of the industry, you’ll see a very different strategy at play:

Photographers don’t dismount.
They buy new saddles.
They enter the dead horse in a branding workshop.
They give it a name, build it a website, and start a podcast about it.

Instead of admitting that something is broken, their marketing, pricing, outreach, message, niche, they double down on distractions and call it “professional development.”

I’ve been around long enough to see it play out a hundred times.

Hell, I’ve done it myself in earlier years.
It’s easy to fall into.
And it’s easier to justify.

Because riding a dead horse feels like doing something.

But it’s not.
It’s just delay.
A touch of decay.
And it smells.
Bad.

What Does a Dead Horse Look Like in Photography?

A dead horse is anything that stopped working a while ago, and you keep doing it anyway.

• You’re not getting leads, but you buy a new camera instead of fixing your portfolio.
• You post daily to social media, even though your target client isn’t even on social media.
• You keep reshooting your portfolio images instead of rethinking your offer.
• You shoot for free (again) to “build” your portfolio, but never send it to anyone to view.
• You spend six months fine-tuning your brand colors and zero minutes emailing three potential clients.

That’s not growth.
That’s busywork disguised as progress.

And when it’s no longer fun, you blame the industry.
You say photography is dead.
You say AI is taking over.
You call yourself a purist and say you’re above all that “marketing” stuff.

That’s not purity.
That’s hiding.

Buying a new camera to fix a dead business is like repainting a coffin and calling it a comeback.

Perhaps you need to dismount the dead horse and adopt one of these happy fellows who are very much alive. One is marketing, the other is business savvy.

The DHS In a Nutshell

Let’s take a look at the Dead Horse Theory as it pertains to photographers:

In photography, when the horse is dead, we don’t dismount. Instead, we:

• Buy a more expensive camera to make the dead horse look better.
• Upgrade our lenses and hope clients will notice.
• Switch genres (“now I’m a lifestyle shooter!”) without ever having committed to one.
• Take a masterclass from a YouTuber who’s never had a client.
• Go to portfolio reviews for validation, not direction.
• Start a new personal project, still not marketed.
• Call ourselves “fine art photographers”, because selling feels gross.
• Hire a social media manager, without a strategy.
• Bundle our dead horses together into a “service offering.”
• Offer discounts and ‘intro rates’, hoping someone bites.
• Rewrite our About page again, hoping to finally sound like a professional.
• Rationalize it all by saying, ‘At least I’m creating.’

Sound familiar?

Here’s the Reality Check:

If your work isn’t landing…
If your phone’s not ringing…
If no one’s hiring you, or even asking for a quote…

You’re probably riding a dead horse.

And the way forward, the only way forward, is to get off.

What to Do Instead

1. Be honest with yourself.

Ask: What’s not working — and why am I still doing it?
Get feedback from peers, former clients, and stakeholders.
Develop thick skin and ASK for help.

2. Dismount.

Identify and bury one of your dead horses this week.
Just stop doing it.
Cold freaking turkey.
(Just choose one… now.)

3. Do one thing that actually moves you forward.

Something small.
Something live.
Something to get you started.

Email a local business and ask if they need updated images. On fact, do this with three local businesses. Every day until something breaks. Every. Day.

Follow up with a client who ghosted you last year.

Write a case study and post it on your website. Case studies can be very powerful, you know.

Package your three best shoots into a nicely designed PDF and send it to five agencies. Do the same thing tomorrow. And the day after that.

Does it feel awkward?

Good.

That’s how you know it’s real.

It’s not noble to stay stuck.

You don’t get points for loyalty to a broken plan.

If you keep riding that dead horse, you may become part of the horse before you realize it.

Look:

You’re not lazy.
You’re not bad at this.
You don’t ‘suck’ at business.

But you are wasting time if you’re pouring energy into tactics that haven’t worked in months.
Or years

And time is one of the most precious resources we have.

It’s not heroic to keep grinding on a dead system.
It’s not noble to stay stuck.
It’s not art if no one sees it.

Get off the dead horse and get moving.
There’s work to be done.

For You:

What’s one dead horse you’ve been riding in your photography career?

Drop it in the comments, give it a name, and let’s bury it together.

I’m Don Giannatti — photographer, creative troublemaker, and mentor to the bold. I help photographers stop playing it safe and start making work that actually matters. You can find me at DonGiannatti.com and on Substack, where I post stuff about art and hopefully provoke thought