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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
SF Gate Article-"Photo hobbyists snapping up more business"
Christopher Trim, Photographer
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Elk Grove | CA | USA | Posted: 10:51 AM on 09.03.09 |
->> Here is an excerpt for the article that I had to shake my head at.
"It'd be nice to get paid, but I don't really care," said the San Francisco resident. "What are they going to pay me, a hundred dollars? I'd rather get copies and show them to my friends."
The rest of the article can be found here.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/03/BU2H19DPFN.DTL |
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Eugenio Cebollero, Photographer
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Kernersville | NC | US | Posted: 11:16 AM on 09.03.09 |
| ->> I'm just curious if there are any published articles from publishers contradicting this "buy cheap" or "free" trend in photojournalism. |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 2:15 PM on 09.03.09 |
->> It's a buyer's market these days. If you're a graphic designer for TIME, which would you rather do?
Choice A:
Spend a couple of hours browsing microstock until you find a good picture of a jar of pennies. When you find it, click "buy" and with a few short clicks it's licensed for eternity for all uses, all regions, etc. for a hundred bucks (or less).
Choice B:
Browse a non-royalty free site like Corbis or Getty for a few hours. Find the perfect photo, click the buy button, then get asked 20 questions about everything from "print run" to geographic scope, sign a legal document threatening mega penalties if you deviate from the agreed upon terms, click "buy" and pay several hundred dollars for limited rights.
Choice C:
Call up a photographer, spend 20 minutes on the phone haggling about rates, regional use, license exclusivity and copyright. Pay a down payment, sign a contract so complicated it has to be sent to your legal department for approval, wait a week, get five or six selects, only one of which will be used, and pay $1,500 - $2,000 for your trouble.
It's not a fixable problem. |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 2:32 PM on 09.03.09 |
->> David really does bring up a very good point, though from a photographers standpoint one that we don't like to hear or or think about.
As a photo editor for a small weekly paper I'm often at odds with myself because on one hand micro stock is so easy and our paper already having an an account all I have to do is click and button and I've got images.
Alternative is trying to go shoot something myself, or calling up a bunch of photographers to see who is available etc.
There are certain things that micro stock is good for and of course some things that need to be shoot locally, but as with the example of a jar of pennies for some sort of finance article, what alternative do I like better ?
A) find a jar, going to the bank and getting pennies, setting up a backdrop, shooting etc
or
B) paying $1 for someone who's already done all that work for me and who's image is probably on par to what I've do myself ?
As someone who supplements a big portion of my income from freelance work I sure don't like seeing people use micro stock but as an editor I can't deny its very cost effective and easy for many of my image needs. |
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Albert McCracken, Photographer
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Lockport | NY | USA | Posted: 3:30 PM on 09.03.09 |
->> We need to educate the general public in pricing photos for big newspaper and magazines. The cameras is like a gun it looks cold in your hand, until you shoot your eyes out.
PS: Brian Kusler please give "$150" a week for next two year. Thank... |
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Chris Stanfield, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Atlanta | GA | USA | Posted: 3:52 PM on 09.03.09 |
->> "We need to educate the general public in pricing photos for big newspaper and magazines."
Why waste the time? This will never happen.
Why not educate them on why you're worth the extra scratch they're going to spend on your services versus Mr. Hobby With a Camera?
For now, we still live in a capitalistic society. |
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Dominick Reuter, Photographer, Assistant
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Boston | MA | USA | Posted: 5:06 PM on 09.03.09 |
->> so the price of a single image is circling the drain... but there are still single frames, and better yet stories, that require the kind of vision and creativity that cannot be replicated on the microstock side.
it's a little sad, but maybe $1 really is what some of these photos are worth.
the answer has nothing to do with educating the public or fixing prices - it is about creating a unique product that cannot be replicated by anyone other than you.
that's capitalism.
(i can't help envisioning a govt bailout of the photo industry... socialized photography!) |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 5:15 PM on 09.03.09 |
->> If you shoot captive pennies in a studio, chances are there are a dozen people who have already done that, and most of them are going to charge less than you.
It really is a byproduct of technology. It's not that shooting a jar of pennies is anything new, or that even back in the film days there weren't multiple images of penny jars. But in "the old days" FINDING those images was a tough job. Huge books of stock photos - updated (in some cases monthly) - meant a very laborious job for art directors that think in terms of "concept". Finding that perfect photo was totally dependent on how many stock books they had and how good they were at thumbing through them. Most failed, so they'd hire a photographer. In the end it was more efficient.
That has totally changed with widely available broadband access, cheap storage and fast, intuitive search capability. Hundreds of millions of images are concept keyword searchable by anyone on the planet with an Internet connection. Anyone with images can drop their stuff into the search and take their chances on whether they'll get discovered. A photographer with $10k/month overhead in NYC has just as much chance as a GYC with $0/month overhead in Cleveland. The GYC is doing it for FUN, so he can do LOTS.
The real danger is most sports photographers DO shoot fairly unique, hard to come by images that are not easily duplicated. But because bad deals are prevalent in other industry areas, they are being driven to take bad deals for images that are worth more than a picture of a jar of pennies.
It's really important to understand that distinction; some imagery (i.e. stock) is now a commodity. But unique imagery of unique events can (and does) still command a premium price - if the photographer is smart enough to take advantage of it. |
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Albert McCracken, Photographer
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Lockport | NY | USA | Posted: 5:38 PM on 09.03.09 |
| ->> Waste of time? No, It will level the playing field. Now the editors from Time or SI will pick a photo for it's quality not how much. If it comes from a working pro and "citizen photographers". |
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Dave Breen, Photographer
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Somerset | PA | USA | Posted: 5:41 PM on 09.03.09 |
| ->> I guess the irony is that a Chronicle staff photographer took the photo of Brian Kustler -- I imagine he has self-portraits available. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 12:54 AM on 09.04.09 |
->> I guess the secret is to NOT shoot "jars of pennies," but rather to seek-out your own niche and do it better than anybody else.
Market into scarcity.
--Mark |
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