March 17, 2019
When I first started creating imagery I was lucky enough to be accepted at some of the best photo agencies in the world.
When you were signed up with these agencies you felt that your images would be in safe hands and that you and the agency would both earn a decent wage.
The photographs we took were called stock imagery because when you submitted your images to the photo agency they were put in file cabinets waiting to be asked for. Just like any unique product stock imagery blossomed with the explosion of magazines and advertisers demanding better, higher quality imagery and more unique images to choose for their projects (ads). One of the many things I liked about stock photography was that you didn’t have to deal directly with the clients wanting to buy your images, the stock agencies handled all that for you which freed your time up to travel and create more images.
And the photo agency handled the final captioning, filing and client contacts.
They received 50% of the sale. Back in the early eighties and up to the mid 2000's this was still a viable business arrangement.
Two things happened during the late 90's and early 2000's that completely devastated the Stock Agencies ability to maintain a decent income for themselves and the photographers that worked for them making images.
The first thing that darkened the clear water of successful agencies was the introduction of Royalty Free Images. Royalty free shattered the dominant Rights Managed model of pricing based on usage. And also the ability to track sales and charge the buyer if they used the image for some other purpose without paying.
The other big change to Stock Photography was the transition from film cameras to digital cameras. One of the key factors in this transition was the cost of film. Processing film can get very expensive especially when you are shooting 100's of rolls on a single trip through some spectacular, iconic American landscape.
The average amateur in the early days of Stock Photography didn’t have the funds or the time to travel and create tens of thousands of imagery to process, edit, caption and then submit to the photo agencies. So the competition to submit to these agencies was restricted to mostly professional photographers.
This didn't mean of course that there weren't some great images being created by woman and men outside the so called professional level of image making, that were just as good and sometimes better than the pros but the pros had the time to create great images consistently for the agencies they worked for.
But once digital cameras proved to the agencies that their digital sharpness was good enough to be included in the files of the Stock agencies then the cozy relationship photographers had with the photo agencies was pretty much over. Now anyone could create good images without worrying about the cost of film.
The other thing that helped spur the amateur to taking more pictures was that digital cameras allowed you to set an auto exposure and focus, as did the newer film cameras, that could automatically adjust the settings to get a decent image in all sorts of lighting challenges.
And when you add in the ease of use of camera phones you can see why there is an explosion of images circulating through stock libraries and social media and these images are being trolled by ad men sent to find the all important realistic image for their next authentic ad.
And you can be assured the photographer will not get what his image is worth. And for that matter if you tried to bargain with the ad man he would just go pick another image in the stack of billions of images visible on the social media sites or the agencies web pages and get the price he wanted in the first place, pennies on the dollar.
The transition has been made and the amateur has become the source of image taking and the so called professional are livid that they have to take a back seat to the new wave of image takers, making their once golden egg relationship, the 50/50 split between the agency and the photographer, obsolete, leaving them struggling to make any kind of living off there efforts when now they are competing with billions of photographers and trillions of images being taken with the understanding that those images are not worth what they once were worth.
I received just recently from one of my agencies a sale of one of my exclusive images for pennies. Because of steep reduction in image pricing many professional photographers have quit making images and retired.
Since we now live in a society where more is better we have more images created on a daily basis than we did when photo agencies came into existence.
What has this massive amount of imagery done to the once Rights Managed photo agencies and their professional photographers? They are becoming obsolete.
Rights Managed Exclusivity, imagery that the photographer created and was able to get a signed release from the people or product in the photograph. These images were tracked by the Photo Agency to make sure they weren't being used by similar companies selling in the same competing markets. This protected the buying client and the photographer for possible litigation.
Not all images were Rights Managed Exclusive, there were RM images that didn't have the appropriate releases and they were mainly used for non-exclusive editorial use.
These RM images are no longer needed. Most agencies now, are almost all Royalty Free! Buy a one time use and you have that image forever to do with it as you like. The agencies say no, we monitor the usage and will make sure the photographer who created the image in the first place will be paid more if the usage is beyond the contract agreed upon. That is a load of garbage, royalty free is just what it sounds like. Many buyers using the same image over and over again in different markets while the photographer that created the image never gets his fair share of the license fees.
Royalty free to the client but also royalty free to the creator of the image, the photographers. They receive pennies on the dollar for their time and effort to capture a unique subject.
The question is how can any photographer nowadays make a living at creating imagery and sending them to photo agencies to sell for them. Simply they can’t. Once royalty free was introduced the business community flocked to that marketing scheme and has never stopped getting imagery on the cheap as compared to what photographers received when they were with agencies selling Rights Managed Imagery.
Think about the over saturation of images in the photo market place, the trillions made in a year. These images are mostly created by the general population.
And now they are being sent in to Royalty Free photo sites and getting paraded around the business world as a cheap way to buy images for your product or website.
Without much of a photo understanding. But because of the ease of use and the simple controls necessary for getting an image with sharpness and ok color you see the social media bandwagon of uploaded images of all possible subjects.
This in turn discourages the photographers trying to create their own unique vision of the world and to make a living as a photographer.
Photographers are losing ground to the masses that create imagery of all possible subjects and then post them top sites that sell them for peanuts on the dollar. Or give them, away for free. What does it mean to be a professional photographer in today's fast paste need to be seen not very much.
The photograph is losing its value as an artifact of our history. The creation of a great photograph is undermined by the simplicity of picture taking. How much time does anyone now a days take, really studying an image to understand and feel the images importance.
Photography as an art form is doomed. The instant image taken and uploaded without a purpose instills in the viewer an overwhelming sense that the photograph is not art but a product, an over saturated look at details and scenes that are repetitive and dull.
We live in a world of surface level perceptions without depth and empathy for the subject matter. We cruise by the importance of image creation like we do fads when buying clothes. Photography is now a byproduct of making images. It is their for show and the product the ad man is selling is the star.
March 17, 2019
When you were signed up with these agencies you felt that your images would be in safe hands and that you and the agency would both earn a decent wage.
The photographs we took were called stock imagery because when you submitted your images to the photo agency they were put in file cabinets waiting to be asked for. Just like any unique product stock imagery blossomed with the explosion of magazines and advertisers demanding better, higher quality imagery and more unique images to choose for their projects (ads). One of the many things I liked about stock photography was that you didn’t have to deal directly with the clients wanting to buy your images, the stock agencies handled all that for you which freed your time up to travel and create more images.
They received 50% of the sale. Back in the early eighties and up to the mid 2000's this was still a viable business arrangement.
The first thing that darkened the clear water of successful agencies was the introduction of Royalty Free Images. Royalty free shattered the dominant Rights Managed model of pricing based on usage. And also the ability to track sales and charge the buyer if they used the image for some other purpose without paying.
The other big change to Stock Photography was the transition from film cameras to digital cameras. One of the key factors in this transition was the cost of film. Processing film can get very expensive especially when you are shooting 100's of rolls on a single trip through some spectacular, iconic American landscape.
The average amateur in the early days of Stock Photography didn’t have the funds or the time to travel and create tens of thousands of imagery to process, edit, caption and then submit to the photo agencies. So the competition to submit to these agencies was restricted to mostly professional photographers.
This didn't mean of course that there weren't some great images being created by woman and men outside the so called professional level of image making, that were just as good and sometimes better than the pros but the pros had the time to create great images consistently for the agencies they worked for.
But once digital cameras proved to the agencies that their digital sharpness was good enough to be included in the files of the Stock agencies then the cozy relationship photographers had with the photo agencies was pretty much over. Now anyone could create good images without worrying about the cost of film.
The other thing that helped spur the amateur to taking more pictures was that digital cameras allowed you to set an auto exposure and focus, as did the newer film cameras, that could automatically adjust the settings to get a decent image in all sorts of lighting challenges.
And you can be assured the photographer will not get what his image is worth. And for that matter if you tried to bargain with the ad man he would just go pick another image in the stack of billions of images visible on the social media sites or the agencies web pages and get the price he wanted in the first place, pennies on the dollar.
The transition has been made and the amateur has become the source of image taking and the so called professional are livid that they have to take a back seat to the new wave of image takers, making their once golden egg relationship, the 50/50 split between the agency and the photographer, obsolete, leaving them struggling to make any kind of living off there efforts when now they are competing with billions of photographers and trillions of images being taken with the understanding that those images are not worth what they once were worth.
I received just recently from one of my agencies a sale of one of my exclusive images for pennies. Because of steep reduction in image pricing many professional photographers have quit making images and retired.
Since we now live in a society where more is better we have more images created on a daily basis than we did when photo agencies came into existence.
Rights Managed Exclusivity, imagery that the photographer created and was able to get a signed release from the people or product in the photograph. These images were tracked by the Photo Agency to make sure they weren't being used by similar companies selling in the same competing markets. This protected the buying client and the photographer for possible litigation.
Not all images were Rights Managed Exclusive, there were RM images that didn't have the appropriate releases and they were mainly used for non-exclusive editorial use.
These RM images are no longer needed. Most agencies now, are almost all Royalty Free! Buy a one time use and you have that image forever to do with it as you like. The agencies say no, we monitor the usage and will make sure the photographer who created the image in the first place will be paid more if the usage is beyond the contract agreed upon. That is a load of garbage, royalty free is just what it sounds like. Many buyers using the same image over and over again in different markets while the photographer that created the image never gets his fair share of the license fees.
And now they are being sent in to Royalty Free photo sites and getting paraded around the business world as a cheap way to buy images for your product or website.
Without much of a photo understanding. But because of the ease of use and the simple controls necessary for getting an image with sharpness and ok color you see the social media bandwagon of uploaded images of all possible subjects.
Photography as an art form is doomed. The instant image taken and uploaded without a purpose instills in the viewer an overwhelming sense that the photograph is not art but a product, an over saturated look at details and scenes that are repetitive and dull.
We live in a world of surface level perceptions without depth and empathy for the subject matter. We cruise by the importance of image creation like we do fads when buying clothes. Photography is now a byproduct of making images. It is their for show and the product the ad man is selling is the star.
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