June 1, 2020

Photography Is A Job Done Dirt Cheap

The photographer gives his/her all to create a wonderful image and then to be told that your image you have worked so hard to create will have to go into their Royalty Free files because we have given up on profits for the photographer  from our Rights Managed imagery that once protected photographers with a contract that limited usage and charged a much greater royalty for the image creator. 

What a systematic destruction of a living wage for the photographers, an undermining of good business practices by not sharing the income with the very people that made your agency profitable. 

Stock photo agencies in the past were in partnership with their photographers. There were meetings and advice given but not a narrow perspective on the world but a vision of wonder for any image, back in the day, was an expression of the mindful photographer and the image uniqueness was always welcome.

Now the agencies want to fit the image creators in little slots, to define them as this or that kind of a photographer. How pathetic, if you give someone the go ahead to create from their heart then you have opened the talent door wide open.

But it seems the agencies now want to be an assembly line of dull repetitive photos with no depth or meat on them.  Shallow minds more interested in their titles than on the truth of a photographers hard earned vision.

Now everything revolves around profits not the actual means of profit which is great photographs. 

All the photographers efforts are undermined when they get their first deposit and find themselves stunned at the peanuts the agency is sharing.

But the photo agency does very well because they take 85% of any sale and the photographer gets 15% of a low priced bundling of his imagery with others, a give away to corporations that are demanding cheaper and more cheaper payouts every year. For you see the creator is the pawn in this game of greed, they are the ones doing the hard work and getting less and less for their efforts.

Now think about this, that image you submitted took you days of hiking to locate that perfect landscape and then have the patience to wait for that magic light that created a wonderland of color and beauty in nature. Now you have been told that your image isn’t worth peanuts and you feel betrayed by an agency that seemed honest and worked for the photographers benefit.

Photography is no longer an art form it has become a commodity for the rich to exploit the photographers that are new to this new business model. It is appropriately called screw the artist creating the image in order to pay investors their fair share of sitting on their asses buying and selling people’s livelihood!

Royalty Free imagery is the biggest con game in photographic history. The agency that started this destructive business transaction had no intention of allowing the producers of the images, the photographers to take more than the investors.

And as each year passed both in Rights Managed imagery and Royalty Free images the dollar split between agency and photographer began to slide downward. What a great scam they played, claiming they were protecting the rights of the photographer and his imagery and at the same time allowing

the buyers to exploit the give away of imagery for less and less forcing the old-time photographers to leave this bad business arrangement. The newbies that were coming up as the old guard  photographers business model was being shredded enjoyed just seeing their images published and liked by others. For them this was a hobby and they didn’t have any idea what their images were really worth and they didn’t care. But as the years past even these once amateur photographers realized they were being screwed by the photo agencies but couldn’t stop the fast paste slide into the poor house. 

Photography was a means to express something personal in a visual articulation of your feeling toward your subject. We all seek to express our inner world to the external reality of cruelty.  And just maybe our image creation would help some people realize the beauty of this planet earth and the inhabitants. Photography has always been about influencing popular beliefs and opening the eyes of people to the real issues needing correction.

But in the long run it was a scam to entice photographers to bring their original imagery into an agency from children, landscapes, sports, older folks in their 80’s… What the agency was doing was demanding more and more imagery so they could unload the agency to the three big photo agency conglomerates leaving their photographers in a precarious situation for the new agency could care less about them all they wanted was more images to sell cheap and in volume.  Bundle the images into a sweet deal for the businesses and also a sweet deal for the agency. What does the photographer get, well next to nothing? The creator of the sale, his image, is just a dupe allowing these photo agencies to exploit the very source of their wealth.  What a business arrangement you supply us with the product and we will give you almost nothing in return. Welcome to the new rodeo of stock photography. How long can you stay in the saddle and not be thrown for a loop as you hit the ground and your agency still steps all over your ability to make a decent living.

What a trill the new photographer has when his images are accepted by the RF agency and he sees a grand future coming and he is proud to be part of it. And even after his first sales for pennies on the dollar he still believes that he can make a decent living by shooting stock images. And he buys the latest and greatest lenses, camera bodies, tripods, memory cards, filters and he is now set to journey into the realm of price shock photography, and it is not for the faint of heart. 

It is hard to believe that these mega agencies can be so manipulated to destroy the income of the very people that made them successful, so cowardly to succumb to money, to worship cash, over their photographers, as the new god of power, the investor class that demands profits over the image creators time and effort making them wealthy.

What a con game these agencies are playing on their stock photo shooters or should I say “fools on the hill!” Why even make images to sell for they all end up in the same bed, cheap prices for cheap labor!

What is your motivation to make imagery? If it is money, I hate to tell you this but your chances of making a living at stock photography is pretty slim nowadays. There is just too many people taking images and giving them away for free. 

If however, you have that inner compulsion, that intuitive need to create something of value for yourself and others then I applaud you! You are of the old guard of photographers that have to keep making images no matter what the cost. It is part of our nature since childhood, the need to express our feelings through a lens. To immerse ourselves into the subject becoming part of the scene as we focus on details that when combined with others will tell a beautiful or ugly story that had to be told.  

Photography of the past was an art form but now photography is a cliche a redundant expression of dull ideas copied from the handbook of agencies telling the photographers what to shoot.  The main theme for the stock photo agency now as in the past is smiling faces and food. But now you have no authenticity of character because they all look posed and out of place, a studio set up rather than an honest and open get together of friends, not models. 

Photography is a means of expressing a deep inner emotion, a battle with nature to study and take your time exploring the possibilities of the landscape that reflects something within you.

What has been created is your inner expression externalized for the world to see? And you would like to think that your time and effort in making the image is worth more than just a 10 cent sale!