Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Pro Business Discussion => Topic started by: PSA DC-9-30 on February 01, 2013, 01:50:44 pm
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I've seen some discussion of this here and there on this forum, but I wanted to start a thread similar to the "profit from prints" thread where people can share their thoughts, experiences, and advice on working with stock libraries. (hope you're not all sick of this topic).
One stock library representative I know had a look at some of my travel and scenic images, and said they would likely accept 11 of the 76 I sent them for an initial look. Maybe that does not sound great, but I am actually encouraged by this because it is my first attempt, and my old Olympus dSLR is, of course, no match for the full frame Canikons everyone else is using (I am going to upgrade when I can afford it). I also do scientific imaging with electron microscopes, and ultimately plan to submit some of those images as well. (I do register everything with eCO).
No, I am not going to quit my day job, and I realize that ultimately, given the cost of bodies, lenses, software, time, etc. this is all just an expensive hobby, but I am interested in trying nonetheless.
Anyway, I will open the floor up to your comments, suggestions, experiences, admonitions, etc.... ;D
Thanks,
Kevin
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I've seen some discussion of this here and there on this forum, but I wanted to start a thread similar to the "profit from prints" thread where people can share their thoughts, experiences, and advice on working with stock libraries. (hope you're not all sick of this topic).
One stock library representative I know had a look at some of my travel and scenic images, and said they would likely accept 11 of the 76 I sent them for an initial look. Maybe that does not sound great, but I am actually encouraged by this because it is my first attempt, and my old Olympus dSLR is, of course, no match for the full frame Canikons everyone else is using (I am going to upgrade when I can afford it). I also do scientific imaging with electron microscopes, and ultimately plan to submit some of those images as well. (I do register everything with eCO).
No, I am not going to quit my day job, and I realize that ultimately, given the cost of bodies, lenses, software, time, etc. this is all just an expensive hobby, but I am interested in trying nonetheless.
Anyway, I will open the floor up to your comments, suggestions, experiences, admonitions, etc.... ;D
Thanks,
Kevin
You post in a pro section. Have you any idea what your 'hobby' has done to many depending on stock to pay their way in life? Do you care?
Rob C
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You post in a pro section. Have you any idea what your 'hobby' has done to many depending on stock to pay their way in life? Do you care?
Rob C
No. I didn't realize that I had an ethical responsibilty to avoid submitting images to stock libraries because they are solely reserved as a vehicle for those who seek to have their way paid in life. If my photos make the cut and people are interested in them, I will sell them. If people taking casual snaps with an iPhone are able to do the same at some point, then more power to them.
Do I dare sell prints of my work? Do I dare get gallery representation?
What I have learned from searching for a job and trying to set up a consulting business is that NO ONE cares about your livelihood; they only care about what value you can offer them.
Personally I do wish you well, and I do appreciate your contributions to this forum, but your attitude will do nothing to help you.
BTW, I am a professional photographer, and my 15 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles are all derived from my own photomicrography, as do my eight journal covers, exhibitions, newspaper articles, etc., etc.
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Good for you; as a pro, then, you should know better than to think of stock today.
As for selling prints, putting stuff in galleries, writing here and there, that's nothing to do with stock; it's a diversion from the topic. As for my personal attitude: I never ask anyone to love me. Neither do I present a face that I wouldn't recognize as my own; over several years expressing one's self in a medium such as this I think that would be self-defeating.
"Anyway, I will open the floor up to your comments, suggestions, experiences, admonitions, etc...."
Remember writing that?
Rob C
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Um, well, apparently I don't know better than to think of stock today, and I suppose there are at least some pros who would disagree with your outlook. This is simply a different aspect of the business that I am not familiar with. So, I would appreciate it if you would expand on your discontents with stock rather than condemning me...
And inasmuch as there are people who depend on gallery representation and selling prints, I fail to see how that is a diversion from the topic. Your disapproval seems rooted in people affecting your livelihood, is it not?
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Um, well, apparently I don't know better than to think of stock today, and I suppose there are at least some pros who would disagree with your outlook. This is simply a different aspect of the business that I am not familiar with. So, I would appreciate it if you would expand on your discontents with stock rather than condemning me...
And inasmuch as there are people who depend on gallery representation and selling prints, I fail to see how that is a diversion from the topic. Your disapproval seems rooted in people affecting your livelihood, is it not?
Sometimes, I feel I speak a different language to other English speakers, this is one such time.
But, to try and accommodate you: gallery and print sales are not stock library photography, which is what your post was about, non?
I was invited, and accepted the invitation to join Britain’s leading stock library, Tony Stone, which was eventually sold to Getty as, I think, their first major step into stock, at something rumoured to be around thirty million quid. During my time with Tony Stone Associates and its later iteration as Tony Stone Worldwide, the split used to be 50-50 between agency and snapper. Today, I think none of the majors offers that, and micro is a zillion times worse. Details are available online, as I’d expect anyone thinking about the business would have checked for themselves.
I gave up on stock even when the split was still 50-50 because of three or four major factors: I used to get most of my models stock material from calendar shoots, where the budget was faced by the calendar clients. The advent of political correctness killed my calendar work. I had some holiday brochure clients ranging from Thomsons to local Scottish tour operators, and there was a decent seasonal return on both holiday atmospherics as well as property shoots for them. Holiday atmospherics were also a source of income from the stock agencies, but I remember the day Tony Stone’s man was on the telephone asking that I submit no more views of the Mediterranean, because all of London was sinking with similar imagery. I finally decided that I had to face the new reality of political correctness and give it one more round on my own money. Well, it took me two years to get the investment back, never mind even consider profit and loss of interest (yes, banks paid it then!). Around that time, The British Journal of Photography (certainly then a very respected pro publication) ran an article on the Image Bank, where they proudly claimed to have 36,000 transparencies of the Eiffel Tower. Imagine being the cat supplying tranny number 36,001.
I moved to a Spanish-based agency for a while, and in the first year they managed to bring me about twelve quid for a shot of a resort. The owner’s advice, when he came to Mallorca and we met so he could look at my stuff, was that the secret of success with stock is to do everything as cheaply as possible. That obviously included prices for work used, I later discovered. That was when I decided that it made more sense to go cruising with friends and let photography slide into memory. At about the same time, I received a call (whist moored off Formentor with one such mate, which I thought was a delightful coincidence) from a chap I’d known over the years who ran a design agency in Glasgow. He wanted me to shoot a fashion catalogue for one of his Scottish knitwear clients out here, in Mallorca. We later negotiated a price, and I agreed to put him up in my home and find a hotel for his client and the models. Just a few days later, I was told that he, my old connection, wasn’t now beng allowed on the trip, but that the client would take his place in my home. I ended the negotiation at that point.
In my view, and I hope it answers your question clearly and cleanly and, above all, honestly, stock used to be a very good business in which to dip the toes. At pennies per sale today, I think it madness for anyone other than the hobbyist with an ego problem.
Rob C
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Touche ;D
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... stock used to be a very good business in which to dip the toes. At pennies per sale today, I think it madness for anyone other than the hobbyist with an ego problem
That would be a bit harsh. Unless, of course, you equate esteem and self-esteem, in terms of Maslow hierarchy of needs, to be the same as ego problem. In other words, amateurs' needs for achievement and recognition are as human as the need for safety and satisfaction of physiological needs professionals work for. It is actually a higher level of human motivation. Unless, of course, you assume that people should not aspire to anything else but to provide for food and shelter.
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That would be a bit harsh. Unless, of course, you equate esteem and self-esteem, in terms of Maslow hierarchy of needs, to be the same as ego problem. In other words, amateurs' needs for achievement and recognition are as human as the need for safety and satisfaction of physiological needs professionals work for. It is actually a higher level of human motivation. Unless, of course, you assume that people should not aspire to anything else but to provide for food and shelter.
I posted a reply to this, but have since removed it, as I don't think any of this is worthy of a place in professional photography discussion.
Rob C
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MICRO-STOCK ONLY COMMENTS: About 7 years ago I contributed to 8 to 10 micro stock sites, mainly as outlets for images I shot while shooting my more "serious" arty stuff. About 5 years ago that market started a drastic slide in both compensation percentages and total compensation. Literally billions of nearly free image have come into the market from legitimate stock sites, pirate sites, and non-professional individuals begging to have their work used without compensation. No wonder the stock scene has become a killing field survived only by very specialized experts. My hat is off to anyone still in that business and making a living.
While I haven't uploaded any stock images for around 2 years the odd thing is that I'm still getting paid quite regularly. A decent month for me 5 years ago was around $800-1,000/month with 700 images. Now, I cash around $200/month with zero time spent.
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MICRO-STOCK ONLY COMMENTS: About 7 years ago I contributed to 8 to 10 micro stock sites, mainly as outlets for images I shot while shooting my more "serious" arty stuff. About 5 years ago that market started a drastic slide in both compensation percentages and total compensation. Literally billions of nearly free image have come into the market from legitimate stock sites, pirate sites, and non-professional individuals begging to have their work used without compensation. No wonder the stock scene has become a killing field survived only by very specialized experts. My hat is off to anyone still in that business and making a living.
While I haven't uploaded any stock images for around 2 years the odd thing is that I'm still getting paid quite regularly. A decent month for me 5 years ago was around $800-1,000/month with 700 images. Now, I cash around $200/month with zero time spent.
Absoutely; underlines what both Keith and I wrote, that you can no longer spend money on providing stock and see it make you more than you spend. Seems those days have gone for ever.
The trouble with your own situation, were I you, would be the idea that to make $200 whilst the agency makes perhaps 95 cents (and upwards) to my five, would be unbearable. I would say screw them! I would rather starve than be raped.
Rob C
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I'm not sure how raped I am to be getting hundreds of dollars per month for the last two years with no work other than requesting payouts.
As to your 95/5 revenue split; what company doesn't have a similar ratio? If I hired a salesperson at $100,000/yr I would sure expect them to generate 10 to 20 times that amount in revenue.
Nobody in the stock photography business is chained to their work stations. Those that believe they are not getting a fair shake have left that sector. I doubt many of them are dumb enough to give up that continuing income stream.
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I'm not sure how raped I am to be getting hundreds of dollars per month for the last two years with no work other than requesting payouts.
As to your 95/5 revenue split; what company doesn't have a similar ratio? If I hired a salesperson at $100,000/yr I would sure expect them to generate 10 to 20 times that amount in revenue.Nobody in the stock photography business is chained to their work stations. Those that believe they are not getting a fair shake have left that sector. I doubt many of them are dumb enough to give up that continuing income stream.
I guess the problem is that you appear to think of a stock agency as being your employer; a stock photographer is usually not an employee. Your figures are, in that context, bullshit.
Following on, I must assume you feel happy that you finance a shoot completely, and then get 200 bucks where the agent picks up 3,800?
I rest my case, and suggest you call a man in a white coat to come rescue you from yourself.
Rob C
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I guess the problem is that you appear to think of a stock agency as being your employer; a stock photographer is usually not an employee. Your figures are, in that context, bullshit.
Following on, I must assume you feel happy that you finance a shoot completely, and then get 200 bucks where the agent picks up 3,800?
I rest my case, and suggest you call a man in a white coat to come rescue you from yourself.
Rob C
I work for a company and pull down a good income. The product that I manage generates income for the company in the tens of millions a year. Do I bitch about this...no. Do I cry about this...no. Would I care if a stock agency sells my photos for 20x what I get...no, as long as I am ok with what I get. I really don't care how much others profit as long as I am happy with my take. Would I like for, sure...but if I was not happy with my takes I would look for another job or a different photo agency...but I would not bitch and continuously cry about how it was years ago. Things change...and you either change with them or just move along.
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I work for a company and pull down a good income. The product that I manage generates income for the company in the tens of millions a year. Do I bitch about this...no. Do I cry about this...no. Would I care if a stock agency sells my photos for 20x what I get...no, as long as I am ok with what I get. I really don't care how much others profit as long as I am happy with my take. Would I like for, sure...but if I was not happy with my takes I would look for another job or a different photo agency...but I would not bitch and continuously cry about how it was years ago. Things change...and you either change with them or just move along.
Quite; that's the product that produces the millions, not you.
Why so many red herrings and false analogies from some of you guys? Is it too unpleasant to face the truth of what some of you do? Damage your comfortable self-esteem?
Rob C
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I guess the problem is that you appear to think of a stock agency as being your employer; a stock photographer is usually not an employee. Your figures are, in that context, bullshit.
Following on, I must assume you feel happy that you finance a shoot completely, and then get 200 bucks where the agent picks up 3,800?
I rest my case, and suggest you call a man in a white coat to come rescue you from yourself.
Rob C
Thanks. I did call some folks in white coats. However, when they read the posts here they wanted your address.
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Quite; that's the product that produces the millions, not you.
Why so many red herrings and false analogies from some of you guys? Is it too unpleasant to face the truth of what some of you do? Damage your comfortable self-esteem?
Rob C
Rob, I made the product that produces the millions. Just like you took the snapshot that the agency sells for you. I don't see a difference at all. I don't see it as a false analogy like you do.
Photography is just but one small industry that has been hit by undercutting. My industry, software has been hit hard with offshore development. The textile and furniture industry has been basically demolished in the states by cheaper offshore labour. Photography is just a drop in this big sea.
Rob, and I bet you totally contribute to the downfall of those other industries by wanting cheaper products. I bet you buy products made offshore rather than spending the big bucks for the products developed locally. If so...are you not a hypocrite?
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I have around 100 or so images with a stock agency. They've been there for nearly 10 years. I make only a couple hundred dollars a year off of them, which is why I haven't submitted new images to them in many years. Instead, I market my own stock imagery directly to magazines and calendar companies. In doing so, I make a few thousand dollars each year in stock image licensing fees. Is it enough to live lavishly? Hell no. Does it contribute to my business' bottom line significantly enough to justify the time expense of marketing the images? Hell yes.
Realize that I don't go out of my way to make stock images. I'm an adventure and landscape photographer. When my friends or wife and I go hiking, canyoneering or mountain biking (for fun), I bring my camera and make images along the way. With or without a camera I'd still be out there hiking, canyoneering and mountain biking. So, as I see it, my expenses in doing so are negligible. In fact, because I carry my camera and make marketable images during our adventures, I am able to write off the associated mileage, campground fees, meals, etc. as a tax deductible expense.
All this is to say that you CAN make money in stock photography despite what many will tell you. How much you make and how much you spend in doing so will depend on your skills in marketing your work and the type of stock photography you produce. If you're doing food shoots, or model shoots, your experience will likely be vastly different from my own. Best of luck to you!
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Thanks. I did call some folks in white coats. However, when they read the posts here they wanted your address.
If they were female and cute, I hope you passed it on: I quite fancy the fantasy of nurses; I'm told it's normal at my tender age!
Rob C
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Rob, I made the product that produces the millions. Just like you took the snapshot that the agency sells for you. I don't see a difference at all. I don't see it as a false analogy like you do.
Photography is just but one small industry that has been hit by undercutting. My industry, software has been hit hard with offshore development. The textile and furniture industry has been basically demolished in the states by cheaper offshore labour. Photography is just a drop in this big sea.
Rob, and I bet you totally contribute to the downfall of those other industries by wanting cheaper products. I bet you buy products made offshore rather than spending the big bucks for the products developed locally. If so...are you not a hypocrite?
The analogy is false because, as I underestand it, you are an employee and it's not your money that funds the development; you do what you are paid to do and that's it, the deal of employment. A pro stock shooter does use his own resources and not those of any stock agency; the investment is his, as is the creation, in all senses, of the product. It is not a similar deal. Getty (or Stone - same thing in the end) once offered to fund shoots, but they got the copyright and the photographer a smile. In other words, they wanted to own the source of production too. Greed, yet again.
I live on an island with nothing going for it anymore but tourism. I live right at the edge of our little devolopment, bang up against what was farmland. We used to watch the piglets being born, the goats, sheep and single cow respond to the farmer's calls every evening and abandon the field for their barn. One year, I noted there were no animals. I asked the old farmer why; he told me that the EEC had offered him a bag of money to kill the animals and plant no more cereal. Repeat that across the island and much of Europe (apart from France, where they do what suits them best, and quite rightly) and you realise that local industry dies because of governments and crazy politicians' decisions, made hundreds of miles away from the coalface, in the luxury of their city headquarters. That field now lies barren of edible crop, overgrown with maquis and turning into a pine forest.
My wife was a wonderful cook. We were up every Sunday morning at seven-thirty to be at the local market to buy freshly gathered farm products. The markets still run, if smaller, but they sell the same fruit and veg all year round. Something should indicate to you that it can no longer be local produce. Thank the EEC for that; they destoyed what was local and seasonal and now we get forced and imported shit.
Regarding photographic goods. I have already written that I do not chase the cheap; I buy my Nikon stuff now from London's (Britain's?) premier Nikon dealer. A privately owned company, I believe, and anything but cheap. But I trust them and can speak with the people with whom I want to speak. Last week I had to telephone my bank abroad on five seperate occasions and never got through to the same person twice. I could not get passed through to the manager. (If there even is one.) My problems, of their making, not mine, were not resolved, and each call lasted about forty-five minutes. That's big business for you. If you live in Britain, it can hardly have escaped you how horses have been smuggled into the food chain as cattle. It used to be a direct line from farmer to butcher and from him, the best part of half-a-cow to our freezer. With Big Brother's intervention, the local butchers died off and the supermarkets sell it all (including banking and insurance - why?), and where do they buy? Even the government is finding it hard to discover, with trails leading to France, Luxembourg and Ireland... Look beyond one's nose, and the answer is obvious: greed. On every bloody level, greed; the dream of averice, that something for nothing. It'll be the death of us all, and we shall deserve it.
So no, by your own criterion, I am not a hypocrite.
Rob C
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Anyway, I will open the floor up to your comments, suggestions, experiences, admonitions, etc.... ;D
Stock agencies have been pretty much a waste of my time, especially in the last few years. I get much more income in a year (not that I can retire or anything... ) from buyers finding my website than from 20 years with stock agencies.
Photography is just but one small industry that has been hit by undercutting. My industry, software has been hit hard with offshore development. The textile and furniture industry has been basically demolished in the states by cheaper offshore labour. Photography is just a drop in this big sea.
Supply & demand. The camera features that made it so much easier for established photographers to make marketable images also - surprise! - made it easier for everone else too. The market is swamped with technically acceptable images. To get any income from stock photography, either specialize in a unique niche or go for volume. Adapt or perish.
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1. Stock agencies have been pretty much a waste of my time, especially in the last few years. I get much more income in a year (not that I can retire or anything... ) from buyers finding my website than from 20 years with stock agencies.
2. Supply & demand. The camera features that made it so much easier for established photographers to make marketable images also - surprise! - made it easier for everone else too. The market is swamped with technically acceptable images. To get any income from stock photography, either specialize in a unique niche or go for volume. Adapt or perish.
Hi,
1. Thanks for sharing some reports of experience of then and now. I found stock was not too bad up until the mid-late 80s and then the ever-growing supply of material from more photographers seemed to affect not prices, but frequency of sales, which is a quite different matter. In other words, the value of the sales were still maintained, only there were more people chasing the same market which wasn’t, apparently, growing, but value held. But, in time, not only frequency of sales fell away, but also the value of each.
2. New cameras. I don’t think that the then established stock shooters had any problems with their camera equipment that digital would have resolved – they were mostly pretty experienced guys who knew not only how to shoot but, most importantly, what to shoot and how to shoot it.
The first problem that digital introduced wasn’t cameras: it was those CDs with a hundred or whatever images sold, all rights relinqished, for a few bucks. That was just the result of more finacial greed, and not on the part of the photographers. It never is on the part of the photographers. The net result of the introduction of those CDs was to devalue photographic images and reduce them to ‘purchase by the ton’ commodities.
That amateurs were given an easier technical ride with digital cameras is actually another red herring: amateurs have always had those amongst them who are as good if not better photographers than many professionals – that’s not in dispute at all. In the areas where they can compete, such as scenics, travel, close-ups of flowers etc. etc. there was seldom any reason for them to find themselves held back and they were not. Where they have helped destroy the professional side of stock is in supplying imagery at the stupid (for the creator) prices with which agencies were eventually able to fob off suppliers, and in such bulk as never seen before.
The other half of supplier responsibility lies squarely on the heads of the pros who, rather than face the agents, continued to supply and only complained to one another. A total boycott would have made some agencies think again: they could not have continued without fresh material, and if their top-of-the-line stuff was left to go stale or even withdrawn…
Non-pros do not usually compete with pros in quality lifestyle, glamour, sport, showbiz portraiture and similar specialist areas Therefore, shooters in those areas might have been forgiven for feeling safe. But the flaw is the much lower prices that the agencies’ attempts to outsell one another allowed to take root, and you can’t go back to better levels. (That’s why I always told any young guy starting out in this business who asked me, that you have to price yourself pretty much where you reasonably want to end up; you can’t charge your client a hundred bucks a day today and expect him to happily stump up a grand next year for the same thing: It won’t fly.)
Why did it go this way at agency level? Just think who owns or owned the two mega agencies: one was an oil baron and the other a computer software billionaire. Neither of these two probably knew or cared anything about the life of the photographer: they represented the biggest of big business and all that mattered was making money by buying up the competition. The final round is inevitably going to be the gobble up of one by the other, leaving a single monopolistic survivor: the perfect deal in any venture.
So yes, I agree with wildlight that doing your own selling is going to be the only reasonable way left to make anything at all out of stock. It will be up to the individual to decide if the hours spent runnng such a business (if as a business), as well as the choice of genre, will be worth what it brings in. My solution? When I saw that it wasn’t paying off anymore I stopped throwing away my pennies.
Bitter? Bet your ass! I’d imagined my trannies represented the greater part of my pension!
Rob C
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Bitter? Bet your ass! I’d imagined my trannies represented the greater part of my pension!
Diversifying risk is never a bad idea.
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... A total boycott...
General strike? Sounds like unionizing would have helped? But then again, if I remember correctly, you are staunchly against unions, no?
... Bitter? Bet your ass! I’d imagined my trannies represented the greater part of my pension!
Seriously, Rob, and I am not trying to be mean or flippant, but what is a life span of a stock photograph? Especially the generic ones, girls, beaches, exotic locales? How long did you expect to milk the same? Those things date pretty quickly. If not clothes, hair and makeup style, then even general look and feel. Even boobs date: the lack of silicone does that to them (ie, dates them, for better or worse). Kodachromes, which I loved dearly, become recognizable, as style, after a while. The same with Velvia.
Coincidentally, just got a flier in the mail: Pink, a Victoria's Secret brand, aimed at younger girls, is totally done in Instagram style, (if not outright by iPhone, then instagrammed). That's what photography is for today's young: Instagram. It's "art" filters and HDR, all the way, baby, not Kodachrome, nor Velvia. Photographic styles date. Ad world has been inundated until very recently with draganized imagery... it seems that Instagram is the new kid on the block. Not Kodachrome, nor Velvia.
But, it is ok to be bitter. I am often. It's human. And natural. Just like greed.
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Slobodan,
1. Unions. Unions had a place – possibly still do. But it isn’t unions that are the problem: it’s when they are hijacked by political extremists, and the ones I know about first-hand were in engineering, and that was how it was. Proto-reds took control, not because there were many of them about, in reality, but because of the usual lack of activity from the huge, rational majority: apathy. Apathy about votes closed down so many British engineering companies it is frightening to think about it.
For those photographers already members of photographic associations, there is a certain potential strength in numbers, and perhaps they could have been organized a bit better to act collectively. Where these associations differ from the bog-standard union, is that members don’t usually expect collective bargaining because the membership is largely of the self-employed – God help us, even the taxman has a thing about us. So, a call to arms would have possibly had an effect if taken in time. But, I suspect that apathy would have won yet again; apathy and fear.
2. Actual stock. Yes, I agree that many picture (unless historical) have a finite lifespan. Maybe mine are now old enough to have reached historical value… I think I jest. But some things don’t have to be new: monuments and such – one of my most frequent sellers (to my surprise, I have to admit) was a shot in Rhodes of the Temple of Diana, I think - would have to look it up – and the whole point of it (that genre) is to preserve what was in days of yore.
Going to the girls genre: yes, things do change but not as rapidly as you might think: we are not talking fashion or hairstyle shots, but even those can certainly have reference value for some markets. It’s also far from clear that plastic implants are really all-conquering… but, that’s only part of the picture as far as I’m concerned: much of the damage was done by political correctness well before penny-stock agencies came along, and amateur competition in the genre was not a threat. I would have liked to have been gainfully employed after official retirement because freedom from the urge or need to find commissions never meant I had lost my love of photography; doing the occasional shoot now and then would have been a great way to achieve a small but welcome revenue stream as well as spiritual satisfaction. But, you know where the photo stock market has gone as well as do I: there’s no point to shooting anything that’s going to cost money, which travel most certainly does – the odds are too stacked against one.
3. Greed. No, it’s not the same as bitterness or actually particulary natural outwith modern man. Bitterness comes from anger created from frustration and helplessnes in the face of an injustice in the form of a situation over which one has no control. Like watching someone you love die for reasons not of their making; or your living taken away by people already well-off with other jobs. Greed is unnatural: even a beast of prey stops killing when it has eaten enough. Most people I know also have a normal cut-off point; I don’t think I know anyone willing to work themselves to death for a few dollars more if they are already comfortable. But I guess I have just been lucky: the outer world now seems filled with such people.
So, apart from bitterness, add depression at the thought of what’s now out there. It’s a lot more than photography that’s changed: so have people. It’s funny: I never thought the day would come when I found myself thinking about, and regretting, the death of morality. Without morality, we people are not much more than slightly intelligent pigs. I watched part of a programme today on Aljazeera about medicine in India; they were working on pig hearts as a way of teaching young surgeons to perform heart ops on people: seems the two organs are almost identical. Not a lot more to add, really.
Rob C
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... I don’t think I know anyone willing to work themselves to death for a few dollars more if they are already comfortable...
Then Scots and Serbs have much more in common than I thought :) Apart from being four-letter words, that is ;D
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Then Scots and Serbs have much more in common than I thought :) Apart from being four-letter words, that is ;D
I see it as European heritage.
;-)
Rob C
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Although the heydays of stock photography are now over, it is still possible to make enough to buy every year a new lens. Depending on the size and quality of portfolio, this could be a beaten-up Kiev prime or a nice Schneider zoom.
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Although the heydays of stock photography are now over, it is still possible to make enough to buy every year a new lens. Depending on the size and quality of portfolio, this could be a beaten-up Kiev prime or a nice Schneider zoom.
Indubitable so, Les, but as a professional venture, on a time/reward basis, is that worth the doing?
Rob C
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Indubitable so, Les, but as a professional venture, on a time/reward basis, is that worth the doing?
Rob C
Not, if you blow all your earnings on Kiev lenses.
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... In other words, they wanted to own the source of production too. Greed, yet again.
It's what drives capitalism. But I agree, the workers should own the means (source) of production. Welcome to the Dark Side ;)
... That field now lies barren of edible crop, overgrown with maquis and turning into a pine forest.
That's what you get when corporations/big business & government get together. As Mussolini put it, "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
<stands back & awaits the furious onslaught from certain quarters>
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It's what drives capitalism. But I agree, the workers should own the means (source) of production. Welcome to the Dark Side ;)
That's what you get when corporations/big business & government get together. As Mussolini put it, "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
<stands back & awaits the furious onslaught from certain quarters>
Relax, Bill, no need to stand back; most everyone else can differentiate between what a pro snapper does at his own expense in product production and the rôle of an employed worker in a factory. I've been both.
;-)
Rob C
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After looking at Rob's latest image on Recent Professional Works, I think perhaps the most serious challenge to the longevity of such stock images would be the girl's tans.
Tans to die for?
You have a good point, Keith, and I haven't sunbathed in decades. (Do you remember Ibiza, or was that Espalmador or Formentera?) This little lady, though, was of mixed origin and the tan came with the attractive territory.
Actually, given the opportunity, I think I would currently prefer doing interior shots in black/white in old mansions with girls in lots of lace, broderie anglaise and stuff like that. In short: Sarah Moon's Pirelli, 1972, but sans colour. I just can't get that production out of my head since I saw it back in the year. Why without colour? My printer produces better b/white than it does colour, and I think b/white more satisfyingly beyond the norm. It adds something that colour often lacks: colour can feel too real for dreams to survive.
And without dreams, what's left? What's the point? Might as well just go for a walk down to the supermarket and gaze at the shelves. Women do that all the time... better solution than mother's little helpers.
;-)
Rob C
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After looking at Rob's latest image on Recent Professional Works I think perhaps the most serious challenge to the longevity of such stock images would be the tans.
Tans to die for?
Not so fast. It is quite contemporary. Just google Tanning Salon Mom (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=tanning+salon+mom&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) ;D
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Put it this way. I've ditched all the libraries I was in. The effort for the return diminished to pointless, bordering on insulting.
I've tried the micro's and other libraries, I found it just devalued my product.
I sell direct to clients, most sales I get £180. plus taxes for, sometimes less and sometimes more. I do more in a moth this way than all the libraries I was in provided in a year. I get to know my clients, build a customer base and keep all the money, what I am directly getting £180. for, Alamy was selling on a good day for $50. or more normally about $5. and I would get 50% some months down the line. It's a £ucking bad joke, photographers let the shinny suits brigade take our living by being bone lazy.
Micros will suck the life out of you, you need to being uploading lots and lots of images every month to many micros to get anything back and it isn't a five minute job. Some sites will reject an image or batch of images for "quality" issues others will take them, then they sell them on subscription for $0.25 a time.
By all means give it a go, you can't harm the industry anymore than already achieved. Expect nothing back and you will not be disappointed.
I can't recommend Photodeck enough for setting up your own online selling, if you go with them quote YG@UWJZSV (yes I will get a kick back, just a small discount on my next years fees), I would not be using them if it did not work!
I paid over £4k some years ago to have a bespoke site built, that never worked properly and would not do half of what Photodeck does.
I contacted them the other day about them designing my site for me, I don't have the time to get my head around the finer points and there is lots of stuff I'm not happy about. But it still works for me, sells images and builds a client base. http://kevinallen.photodeck.com/-/galleries
Kevin.
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Kevin,
I'm happy you have found a realistic way to market your material, and I think that a part of your success has also to do with your subject. I imagine that it appeals to a more 'serious' market than do many usual GP sites, where you can buy anything from landscape to babies and kittens. Perhaps such a specialised market allows for more repeat business too, as you indicate happens with you.
More power to your arm.
Rob C