August 20, 2021

Cheap Images

Lets face it photography as we know it is done. It isn’t the competition that did me in for I enjoyed the challenge of bringing something back to my photo agency they could sell, it is the billions of images made each day and the photo agencies selling those images dirt cheap.

As with all supermarket products volume sales is the key to success and now that is the new wave of mega photo agencies that will screw the photographers out of their hard earned efforts in creating a great image by selling the image for pennies on the dollar to anyone and everyone.

Who gets rich, well of course the people working for the photo agency see a glimmer of profit by working for these multi-million-heirs that own a share of the profits off the backs of the image creator.

This beautiful mother earth, the bright skies, the cumulus clouds dancing around in a blue sky but now we have image overload, too much of one subject after another where is the innovation, the unique viewpoint that can give the viewer a sense of the photographers motive for stopping and setting up his tripod and camera to wait for the potential light to burst through and illuminate the landscape before him.

Images are so cheap because of digital cameras mostly taking the pictures for you, there is no depth to image making now for in the past creating images was first, studying your subject and then plan the visual details that will enhance the possibilities of you creating a landscape you will be proud to photograph.

But in todays modern frivolous desires to take images not for the beauty before the photographer but for the fast paste run and gun approach, for time is precious nowadays demanding people don’t stahl around and study your subject but breeze by like a dancing fly snapping pics without depth and certainly not a reflection of your inner unique perspective.

And because of this, taking pictures are as easy as talking on a phone. Oh yeah, that is where must snap shots are taken anyway from your phone and then from your automatic hand held camera.

Photography used to be a job that allowed you to slow down your life and focus on your inner ideas that could be expressed if you would just study the landscape you are hiking through without feeling you should be somewhere else. The here and now is where all good photographers should be. Life is distracting enough with the covid pandemic but as image creators we must still be present in our own unique reality seeking subjects that inspire us and make us push on to find the composition that will enhance our visual senses and the viewers of our hard earned work.

There is an over saturation of images and because of this the prices are dropping to compete with other mega agencies while the photographers get shafted for their hard earned efforts.

And now with the advent of stock agencies giving their images away for free, how is a photographer going to survive in this constant lowering of prices and the ease of surface gleam photos without character supplying every continent on this polluted world with cheap pics.

To make a living in photography nowadays is almost impossible, what once was a competitive market place with dozens of good photo agencies competing to sell their stable of photographers great imagery, has been reduced to four giants of low cost image volume sales. These corporate agencies pay their photographers almost nothing, how does anyone make a living when your images are sold on the cheap.

The new wave of photographers get their egos stroked just by the agency selling his/her image at bulk pricing along with thousands of other photographer's work.

In todays climate of greed, the corporate investors demand a good return on their investment and this undermines the income of the photographers once again as their percent of the sale dwindles to almost nothing.

Since everyone takes pictures and can sell them why go out looking for images if you work for a company.

You can take the images yourself and the company can pay you on the cheap and save themselves a bundle of money. 

It is not empathy, a connection to the scene in front of the photographer that he will study to make the best image possible, oh no, this employee needs to move on quickly keep racing around just to get a few pics that will be just good enough because this employee has a big date tonight and he isn’t going to miss that for some stupid image of a tin can.

And this attitude grows amongst the younger generation, it is basically to get somewhere and just get the pics and send them directly to their photo agency and their job is done without breaking a sweat.  

Without fully grasping the beauty of the scenes before you, you ignored the possibilities starring you in your closed eyes, oh no! you have to hurry through the city landscape snapping pics at anything that moves losing sight of your inner voice screaming at you to slow down and think the photograph through without letting go of your personal artistic vision!

There seems to be no depth to image creation in today's lackadaisical need for the photographer to be seen as the one with an importance vision with blinder on and not the external world one could study for ever and not fully connect withfully mother nature and her beauty now being demolished by greed from the wealthy crooks of me first and you last.