Well yes, that's always been the case, and where most general practitioners make their pennies.
The problems arise in the more exotic fields (old) where stock, for example, was a great source of additional income from commissioned work. That's pretty much a memory for some, and for others, not even that.
These are not really what you call new realities; the new realities are far more harsh than that; harsh, because they are beyond the snapper's control: he can't get clients to spend money when they can get stuff for almost nothing; he can't tell them why they should choose his more expensive product because it's good, when he's talking with accountants.
That's not new; I always tried to discover who the real decision makers were in a company, but it seems that today's power people are not the same office holders as before: in other words, power has moved from art departments to accounts departments.
It's ironically funny: we used to talk amongst ourselves, as young photographers, about who was established! How quaint a concept that now appears to be. Without that objective, why would anyone in their right mind dream of investing his all in setting up his business?
But hell, we could argue this forever and get nowhere, and that's not even because we might have fundamentally opposed views: I think it's because the world is in turmoil, and confusion has take over and there simply are no sensible answers anymore.
Rob C
I agree. Our world has generally adopted the mantra good enough about things like photography, copy editing, illustration, layout...heck almost anything. Business cycles are so fast that investing in quality is rarely worth it. Cutting-edge, high-quality art work is done as a passion on the fringes instead of for pay within institutions.
