I understood the article. The point I am making stands. That great icon of stock photography, Getty, is in the process of becoming
Actually the Great Icon of commercial stock photography was not Getty.
The Great Icon of commercial stock photography was the Image Bank that had the unwritten motto of you only buy stock for two reasons.
1. You can't do the photograph again.
2. You don't have the time to do the photograph again.
Both of which were not the stock agency's fault and thus they charged accordingly.
Getty acquired Image Bank, and dozens of other agencies and we all know the results.
Every challenge to their industry they have met with this mindset . . . lowered production, lowered fees/percentages to the talent, lowered prices, more quantity.
Personally, I could care less about dollar stock, microstock, or any of that. Some works, I'm sure some can be profitable, I guess some might even be considered good photography but overall it's just usually like that example of the photo of the business people staring into camera . . . a mistake to think it can uniquely brand any product or service or do anything more than use up white space.
With that in mind, I think it's quite fine if anyone wants to shoot it or if anyone believes it's going to enhance their careers or their bank account. It's a free world (or should be), so keep it up. God shoot 22 million more images, because at this stage that will make finding a decent, usable and unique photograph from 44 million images impossible.
There is a famous tale from the Legendary Art Director of Harper's Bazaar, Alexey Brodovitch,
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/magazine/140-...bazaar-140-0607, when handed a over thought and complicated layout from a junior assistant.
Alexey tore off a piece of white layout paper, handed it to the junior A.D. and asked him what he saw.
The J.A.D. said a blank piece of paper.
Brodovitch (and I might be quoting this slightly wrong said), NO, what you see is an elegant use of white space. If you can't do any better than that, leave it alone.
BC