1. You're bemoaning the death of stock photography (which isn't our focus, by the way, we build websites). But the death of stock is the result of the proliferation of digital cameras. It was a glut of imagery that made it possible for microstock to create massive deflationary pressure in the industry. I can understand that you're upset about losing that revenue stream, but the flip side is that we have digital cameras which make it easier than ever to create images, and cheaper than ever to creatively experiment.
2 Stock photography is in a sorry state, but mourning its death is akin to the bike messenger cursing the fax machine, and the fax machine salesman cursing the rise of email.
3 You can be upset at the state of stock photography, but that hasn't prevented amazing images from being made. Think of how larger, more sensitive sensors allow us to shoot in low light conditions. Everything from light painting to incredible photojournalism has resulted from this shift.
4 But my point is that none of this should affect your appreciation for a great image. I guess I'm taken aback by an attitude of dismissal just because I wrote it as opposed to anyone else.
1. So what’s so laudable about microstock creating massive devaluation in the industry? Strange logic from any photographer’s point of view if he earns his living with his camera and skills.
I fail to understand any correlation between an industry being ruined and the joy of cheap cameras. Experimentation has never depended on cheapness; it has depended on enthusiasm and creativity.
2. Stock photography is not, actually, dead, it has been kidnapped by reservoir dogs. Bike messengers, e-mail and fax machines are excellent examples of false analogies. Those ‘services’ are not end products, just conduits for the message; photographs are the end products, the ‘message’, the gold being mined. Stock photography still exists and is being used extensively. The problem with stock photography is that its financial basis has been blown away by two(or three) principle factors: desperation/fear on the part of established contributors who feel obliged to swallow their pride and play along; the outlook of stock owners whose only concern or ambition is to possess the stock world and enlarge their share of that market to the point of monopoly. These people are fully aware of the damage that reduced pricing does, but that’s not
their pain, it belongs to the saps supplying the goodies. You need but follow the contractual scenarios being played out by the majors to understand that their interest in their suppliers has been reduced to what I’d be inclined to see as the next best thing to contempt.
3. Why should fine images, startlingly good ones, even, depend on the health of the stock industry? I’ve been around and aware of stock from the days that it was considered nothing much more than a second-string to the other work photographers did, a repository for out-takes, right through the period when some of the best shooters around spent more and more time producing their own work for the big agencies and doing very well, thank you, out of it. Indeed, it was seeing that revenue stream that tempted the business moguls into the game in the first place! You should know more about Tony Stone, about the original Image Bank and similar great operations to understand where the attraction lay for the people who later moved in with big wallets and souls of lead.
Whether sensors have influenced imagery itself has absolutely zilch to do with the ruin of stock; neither has it any the more to do with great images which have always been made by those with talent to do so. None of that follows your logic which seems to be claiming that images in photography have become better because things in the profession have become worse; I dispute they are better in any way at all! I’m perfectly capable of using my camera at ridiculously high ISO and it does it well; that does not in the least take away from those fantastic low-light images made by men and women with their basic Leicas and Contax cameras in the 50s and earlier. That stance reeks of young-person ego and arrogance, however old you yourself may be.
4. My appreciation of a great image has nothing to do with this discussion. This discussion is simply about the damage that microstock and cheap deals have wrought upon an otherwise great industry: the marketing of images as a way of life. Specifically, I quote:
"The business of photography is undergoing massive change. People who used to make a ton of money aren’t making the same money any more. Amateurs are giving away photos for free. I totally get it.
But listen. There are so many more incredible photos today than there ever were. And more people consume more photography than they ever did thanks to things like Facebook, Instagram, iPads, blogs, and “best of” compilations. This is the golden age of photography. Everyone takes photos now, and there is inspiration all around us. History is being made, and we’re capturing it.
I love photography."
Giving work away for free, and you “totally get it”;
“This is the golden age of photography” just as it is being destroyed as a profession for many, many people;
“History is being made…” right, and all those wannabes are capturing what, exactly, that’s historically of such great moment?
Yep, a great bit of writing for those who buy into the dream; a load of misleading nonsense for anyone who knows the business reality and its effect upon their life.
But there you go – as the man said, why bother with an old curmudgeon?
Rob C
