September 12, 2021

Photography Is Easy Money In The Shareholders

Photography used to be creating personal work, now you are herded cattle being told what to shoot.

Creativity is reduced to redundancy of vision doing the same subject over and over again.

Originality is not in the stock agencies vocabulary in today’s run and gun mentality of snap shots.

Photography once was a career now it is a free for all, everybody is a photographer and the cameras basically does all the work.

Point and Shoot and hope you get a picture so/so but accepted by the agency and see the pennies role in!

Who would have thought that photographers would revert back to the era of snap shots. Weren’t those images put into their family albums as momentous of their lives. 

Now our lives are exposed through billions of people snapping pics of their family and posting them on web sites that exploit the suppliers of their personal lives.

Do we even live a private life now when we are lost in a reality based on taking pictures of an external object whether it is of a portrait, a landscape, city lights, objects, night shots, violence, riots, wars, deadly hurricanes, temperatures rising, pollution destroying lives and we insist that these subjects are necessary to guide the people not into an awakening of ones duty to protect this planet for future generations but force human beings into a maze of self doubt and fear for ones life.

Photography as it stands now is not an art form. Photography is a consumer product just like anything else you would buy at a store.

What once was a great way to earn a living now is a living hell just to survive.  Photography in the past could make you a great living wage doing the thing you love most creating images of substance and beauty and getting paid a nice size paycheck.

To buy an image for an ad, editorial usage or personal use now it is much cheaper to go to a stock photo agency. There you can pay pennies on the dollars to get a professional image while the creator of that image gets 20% of the pennies for an image that cost the photographer days of hiking, days of being persistent in finding that one composition that can enlighten the viewer, creating images in violent protests, paying for his own travels only to see his images being given away for almost nothing. 

Welcome to the new stock photography life in the twenty-first century where the photographers give their images away just so their egos will feel better over their lost income.

Money has always been an addictive, self satisfying for the elitist’s that control the flow of cash away from the photographer that made the image and into the investors big pockets, all in the name of good business tactics.

I would say that is a crock of shit and the ones that make images need to be paid for the profits they allow go to the photo agency and we should get back to a 50/50 split and not these bank robbing thugs taking almost all the profits away from the image contributor.

What keeps one coming back for more losses of profit while the 4 big agencies take and take from the naive photographers making great images but getting a poor share of their efforts to make a great photograph, when the agency didn’t do anything more than take a bigger slice of your hard earned payment.

These companies have one thing in common they are in the photo business for profits and more profits and couldn't care less if the photographers that do most of the grunt work making their classic imagery and can’t earn a decent living wage.

Yes, these mega giants of the stock photo industry do pay photographers for imagery but these photographers are a professional breed that know what to create and how to curate it for profits.

These photographers are portrait photographers, food photographers, travel photographers, war photographers, nature photographers, animal photographers and they have one thing in common they are known to produce sellable images that make money for the photographer and the photo agency.

In the old days, 1980s to 2010s I was one of those photographers that made a good living making images for my agencies. I had 13 agencies selling my images and then changes began to flourish!

Getty began buying up other photo agencies, consolidating their power base and branching out into sports, hollywood movie stars, editorial photos, videos, music and of course stock images.

There is a transition happening in stock photography and that is a lessoning of ones insight in creating a personal image with meaning and purpose and now following the stock agencies needs. So in a sense we are not creating our own internal vision of the subject present in front of us but are pawns moving around a chess board taking images for someone else needs and purposes.

We seem to enjoy being herded cattle feeding on dry ideas and just being closed minded of your talent to make photographs that are original.

What we have now is a leveling off of images with depth and emotion and have replaced them with the ordinary, redundant clichés, copycat images of smiling faces and beautiful homes where the rich live and play while the rest of us suffer!

On a side note I have been with Photo Researchers in New York for decades and they are great people to work with. They still believe in a 50/50 split but they too had to adapt and move a lot of their imagery into a niche where science related photographs are in demand.

I am also with Alamy a good photo agency to submit to but as time passes they had to lower our slice of the pie and it seems are moving toward an all Royalty Free Agency just like Getty did to compete with Shutterstock.

What we have here is a melting away of ones purpose. Photography is now taken over by corporation beholding to their share holders. We are pawns to be manipulated by a force of wealth that doesn’t have our best interests in heart but their own bank accounts.

In the old days, in the days when the agency was our friend and we new the owners and had meetings with them and our fellow photographers, making new friends and feeling that we were being in the forefront of something special in stock photography.

And we made a good living traveling and making images from our unique perspective by experiencing the beauty of mother earth.

Now stock photography is not about image creation, respecting the photographers that went to the ends of this earth to create in their own personal style iconic images of life on this planet, but selling imagery  cheaply in mass quantities without respecting the efforts of the photographer by giving away his unique style for almost nothing.

Photography is not art but a commodity. And these millionaire owners will sell our hard fought battle to get the best image possible for their files by undermining our ability to make a decent wage and have a decent family life.

It is a photographer’s purpose to show the world what our reality is made of, both the beauty of our lives and its ugly, murderous side, profits off war, pollution, greed, poverty, racism, hate, as these rich cons ultimately will destroy the true purpose of photography and that is to give the viewer a since of our reality created by visionaries world wide trying to document the powerful forces of greedy billionaires destroying our economy for profit by exploiting young photographers to shoot and submit and get ready for that big pay check, income you can’t make a living with.

It is now a commodity like celery on sale in a super market. But if you think about it the celery would probably make more money than your images.

We hike, we fly, we wait for the good light and then we create the image. We send our hard work to the stock agency and we wait patiently for the sales to come in. But they don’t, they can’t! There is just too much excessive imagery being circulated to make even a modest living in this collapsing photo market because of copy cat imagery and the brutal low pricing of our hard earned efforts to create an image worth more than just pennies on the dollar.

Soon photographers will realize that their unique ability to be present in the photograph both mentally, physically and creatively is now in our past life as image creators, for snap shots, out of focus subjects, lighting issues is trying to become the future of  photography.

But it is more than just the impatient photographers running around out in the world taking images of redundancy, with new technology increasing the ability to take images without worrying about composition, light, exposure and a personal perspective, we find that the saturation of imagery being uploaded onto photo agency sites undermines the artistic nature of photography and its deep expression of the human condition.

What do the photo agencies want, what subjects do they ask for more often? They don’t ask for that unique image that shows the good and bad side of our environment under attack but they demand happy, smiling faces, a love nest of actors being paid to sell the all american products you don’t need, corporate products that become distractions from the underlying bait and switch, to take your minds away from pollution, climate catastrophes happening right now, keeping people buying, buying as the world begins a nose dive into climate meltdown!

Photography is your eye on the world. Photography’s importance has been lessened by the amount of imagery being produced with a major percentage of these snap shots, copies of someone else’s vision.

Good photographs have emotion and a deep bond with the subject before them. A photographers perception is enhanced when they can immerse themselves in the scene, letting go of stereotypes, preexisting notions of what a good photograph should look like and just be present in the moments leading up to your composition that gives you solace in your ability to have patience in those moments that bring your subject to fruition. 

In today's world of photographic overload, where everyone now is a photographer, and communication is not personal, one on one, but a means to say look at me on social media, giving your images away for free allowing anyone to repost your work undermining photographers that are trying to make a decent living making images with meaning and visual necessity.

As this planet erupts in violence, enormous storms and heat waves beyond comprehension the oligarchs shy away from the truth of their pollution and want to show only a facade of the good life that is now deteriorating!

Photography was a means to earn a living wage by selling your unique style through the photo agencies that were your friends, your mentors and for a few years everything was going well for the photographers and the photo agencies and then wealthy business men arrived on the scene to destroy the trust between photographer and editor, photo agencies began to go on sale and the corporations of greed bought these agencies and welded them into a price scheme that benefited the agency and investors and not the photographers.

Breaking apart the very fabric of the copyright laws that were made to protect artists from losing control over their hard earned work.

  

 

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.

 

 

August 15, 2021

 

Photography Blog Notes

 

In the spur of the moment a potential image forms in your mind, what a blessing, and it can’t be resisted, you see the potential light getting better and you must act immediately for this beauty is greater than your original intuition, you always have to be prepared to move, anticipate a more startling beauty in mother nature and switch gears from your original focused attention to your new subject lighting up like a christmas tree.

 

The excitement of pushing down on the shutter, your creation captured for we are hunters not looking for an animal to kill but looking for those moments that bring you closer to your own revelations of life and your purpose. 

 

Once an image had been taken we used to worry about our exposure, light, composition, lens used, shutter speed, etc…

 

There was always a nervous energy dropping off your film to a lab and waiting a few hours to pick up your film.

 

It was exciting to open the film box and begin to lay your images on the light table. This was the moment of truth and you had no one else to blame for color, details and exposure but yourself. Sometimes you missed the mark but the majority of the time you hit a home run!

 

Fast forward, now a click and you can see your image make exposure changes, shutter speed changes, filter changes and you are ready to make another image now with the right exposure.

 

In the past as one got better and better dealing with the cameras controls one relied on instinct, your experiences in the past made you a better photographer and once you past the test of knowing your light then it was just a matter of composition and timing.

 

Vision is just being aware of surroundings and what your intuition is saying to you. To be a good photographer you must have patience and a desire to be part of mother nature, immersing yourself in the landscape seeking that one and only image creation that will make your journey worthwhile.

 

But now there is a laziness to image taking. Partly because it seems that everything has already been photographed but in reality it isn’t the over abundance of look alike images that is the culprit it is whether you have a unique perspective that changes a simple image into a great image.

 

Because of digital cameras everything is fast paced, the ease in which one can allow the camera to correct exposure, shutter and then take the photo for you. 

 

A good question would be to ask why does the camera need a photographer. Drones are beginning to fill that bill.

 

Now so easy, so fast, so false, without a subject that you can connect with you will not be able to bring to life a stagnant landscape. Just having a camera does

not mean that you won’t have to think and be present in your vision, looking over your potential subject as if it was a friend.

 

Composition is the framework of a great image. If you don’t dig deeper into the subject before you find the flaws and the angles that will maximize the beauty in the scene whether it is still life, a portrait or landscape.

 

We all can shoot the exterior of places, people and things but without connecting visually with your subject you are just going through the motions.

 

What we see, what we feel can be a mind game, the truth is just being present with an open vision in your reality you will create, your thoughts move the external into your visual existence allowing you an original version of the scene in front of you.

 

Timing is everything when you are photographing, being there in the beauty of nature whether it is fog, rain, sun, lightning, snow you name it being present anticipating the composition of the image forming in your mind because you are intensely aware of your surroundings and are there to make great images.

 

First you must travel to parts of this beautiful country that have the potential to allow you to be creative in your composition and exposure by finding unique subjects through openness and respect of mother earth.

 

Mother nature is your friend and enemy. If you go with a preconceived notion of how and where you want to make an image you will more times than not miss the intuitive image trying to speak to your narrow vision.

 

You must open your heart to nature, open your mind, open your unique talent, by waiting for those moments of intense beauty by exploring your landscape, your details formulating into a composition of beauty. 

 

Your inner openness to allow the subject to dictate to you where the best light is, what lens to use, open your mind and allow the external reality to support your efforts as you set up your tripod and with patience marvel at the scene before you and her beauty as you press the shutter and know that the image taken was worth the time to just be present within the beauty of landscape, you are intensely aware of respecting the beauty of the scene given to you with great light and you will leave with no deliberate destruction of mother earth.

 

 

July 25, 2021

Photography Was Once A Wonderful Job

Instead of photography being a means to sell your hard earned unique imagery, your vision of seeing your photos in magazines, ads, travel magazines etc, and receiving fair payment for your hard work, you now send your images to one of the mega agencies, who then sell your images as Royalty Free photographs for they have eliminated Rights Managed imagery as a viable product.

With Rights Managed your image was protected by the contract the magazine, news paper, businesses etc, signed.

RM is too complicated compared to royally free where they have created a automated system, tiers of pricing and the costumer just has to choose his poison and then enter his credit card.

All image creation now is not considered art but a product to be sold in volume just like lettuce, wine or beer.

Rights Managed imagery is too costly to sell and monitor a photographer's sale and protect the image from being exploited for other purposes.

So why not just give the photographers income a lower percentage rate of the take and just sell RF imagery.

And that is the new way forward where the agencies sells images in volume and then gives the image creator next to nothing for his hard won image.

Rights managed has been put on the dusty antique shelf to be looked at but never bought! For the only way to make any money at stock photography now is by allowing buyers supreme control, dictating to the agency what they are willing to pay for an image that used to sell for hundreds, thousands of dollars but now sold in volume giving the photographer pennies on the dollar. Oh don’t worry about the mega agency for they are making big profits on volume sales giving the photographer his $1 sale sinking the artist further into muddy waters of poverty!

Frustration having to join a mega agency that could care less about your background as a photographer for you are paid just like the rest of the run and gun photographers with their sell phones clicking away for there is no time to wait and set up your tripod and compose a unique display of mother nature, these new breed of photogs get a kick out of seeing their images in print and who cares about the money.

Selling your images used to be managed by your photo agency. Now your images are sold by technology. Check a box on the mega site, a multitude of prices will come up, you say yea or nay and the images is sold or not.

The mega agencies now take 80% of the sale and you get 20% of the sale.

I am sure as we move through the upcoming years that will change also. For these wealthy money men and women don’t want the slightest amount of income to go anywhere but in their own back pockets.

Being a photographer for over 40 years I have seen the gambit of good times and bad times. And now there is no other way to describe the pricing structure of images created by the photographer as steering their hard fought creation of images to be sold for pennies on the dollar while the wealthy owners and investors rake in the millions of dollars a month while the photographers starve and shop at Value Village.

Now photography is just another means of profit for the wealthy while the image creators end up scrounging for a living wage. What we have here is an illusion of business, a facade of caring about their photographers but really photographers nowadays are just used and discarded like dirty rags. It is an illusion that these wealthy investors care about the artist, what they demand is a return on their investments from this particular mega agency. They could care less about the measly income of the photographers that make them big time profits through volume sales. They should be thankful their images were accepted in the first place.

This is just like any other business controlled by the wealthy, they don’t care how much these worker ants have to do to capture these magnificent
landscapes and what they had to endure to get the classic image, all they want to know is how much they will make off the backs of these artists!

These men and women should be thanking them, the editors of these mega mouthed symbols of greed for accepting images from snap shooters, phone shooters and camera shooters and the funny thing is that the industry has made photography a simple product to be advertised and sold cheap as if the buyers were watching wall street and saw the cost of a product hitting rock bottom.

When you have excess of a product, photographs, you have two choices lower prices or create packaged deals with news organizations, magazines, sports, medical industry, trade etc.. And this will bring in more income for the photo stock owners, for volume sales will lower the percent the photographer receives.

The new economy of trying to sell your image creation has changed the atmosphere of making images. But this should not stop anyone from making images for personal use, assignment use or agency use.

Pick a subject any subject and begin to study and explore the scene or object to see if this would be worth while to make an image of.

You must create your unique perspective in image creation by making images every day and night.

You have to start somewhere whether it is big or small baby steps. Get up early and get going. Explore your small town seeking imagery that inspires, motivates you to want to make more and more images that are calling you to become a photographer.  

Exploration of a scene is your highway to seeing life in a different way, a more respectful way and with more interest in your reality you want to create.

Photography is power over matter. The ability to stop time, freeze a subject in a scene that will remain still forever.  It has a godlike quality which is the attraction to photography for most people.

The few see photography as a means to express themselves through a visual medium that can change the reality we live in. War photographers are willing to get right into the battle field making images of the terror of violence and the corruption of nations.

We used to rely on our memory to keep the picture in focus but eventually the subject fades and you have lost an important visualization of a family member or friend.

Now with a click of the shutter you have captured the infinity of motion into a 1/4 of a second by pressing a button on your camera at the right moment. These still lives are a good way to study the end result and to understand the elements that were present that made you stop and look and then bond with your subject that made you want to make the photograph. 

By studying the image you will see the flaws of composition and the exposure too dark but this is just what you need to grow and become a better image creator.

 July 7, 2021

Good photographers spend their whole lives making images through their own unique, personal vision receiving the attention of others that admire their hard work.

These photographers are focused individuals that invest their time and efforts in traveling and making pictures of the world.

Photography once gave the image creator a great income, a 50/50 split with your photo agency. The owners of the agency respected their photographers and the efforts they went through to capture the perfect lighting and composition of their chosen subject. And they paid the photographers their fare share.

The agency demanded a decent price for each image submitted and made sure that the companies paid on time. All the image creators had to do was travel and make iconic imagery. Believe me when I say it was the best of times making lifelong friendships with your fellow stock shooters, learning about their techniques in creating beautiful images and enjoying stories of their travels and mishaps.It was really a feeling of family and our photo agency made it so.

In this new era of photography where everyone is a photographer and images are a dime a dozen it is very hard to make a living from something you love to do.

Photography was once assignments, until editors realized the bursting need for all sorts of unique individual imagery.

But if we jump to todays photographer I am amazed that anyone of them could make a decent living shooting something they enjoy.

Once upon a time when you were out traveling, most of the time alone, you were energized to seek out the best landscape, people, city images both in morning light and sunset light.

Your ability to sense a possible classic image in the scenes before you allowed you to slow down and use your intuitive perceptions to find the time of day to be present with your camera.

The freedom you experienced seeking your personal image revelations made you more aware of mother nature and people.

Now everything is shot with an I-Phone and the overwhelming amount of subject being taken literally damages the photographers ability to be noticed.

The unbelievable saturation of all subjects limits the photographers ability to compete especially if he is asking a decent price for his efforts.

Photography now has been reduced to a run and gun formula of snap, snap, snap hoping one of the images will expose a decent light on the subject easily forgotten.

If a photographer has the guts to stop and take in the beauty of mother earth, I mean really see your subject before you that has the potential to give you a reward for hiking up a steep mountain trail then you shouldn’t worry about whether your image creation will be noticed by the Royalty Free agency just be yourself and do what you love to do!

When I begin to feel natures real presence, a scene beginning to shape my visual senses that are present, aware of a subject beginning to evolve before me, angles begin to build a sensory purpose trying to move me closer or further away, patterns beginning to mold a landscape that has depth and beauty if you don’t turn away in these anxious moments of awareness, you feel your need to begin building a scene placing necessary objects and light into your vision of your final image creation. And by taking your time to really see the landscape before you, you decide to stay where you are for the potential subject is just starting to be revealed and you begin to see with open eyes. 

When we ignore the distractions in us and around us and focus our energy to grasp the essence of the scene presented and control your wondering eye that wants to move on trying to keep pace with your inner clock that sets time limits at work and now wants to limit your freedom in a valley of magnificent beauty just waiting before you to be revealed if you look hard enough.

Listen to your intuitive perception that is seeking beauty in the reality we live in, one of confusion, one of a disruptive force of greedy wars that exploit the citizens of the world for profits over human beings.

When you are in tune with your environment you can shed the politics of lies, shed your inner desire to move on beyond the landscape demanding your attention.

Where is your steady need to express your inner self through creating images that reflect your own personal vision?

The subjects are there right in front of you if you can just pause from this hectic pace of monied interest and just be precent before nature’s beauty.

The more images you make the more your visual senses will rev up your photographic eye. Do not allow yourself to be taken over by the imposition of time.

The feeling that you must move on, keep moving without a purpose. You have the talent to make good images. You must accept the fact that not all your images will be great but they will lead you further down the path of knowledge and through experience you will see your subjects on a personal level with details adding to the brilliance of your creations.

Image creation is studying your objective and using your unique inner perspective to compose your photograph with details that enhance the image but also reveal your unique inner talent.

 

June 24, 2021

The End Of Stock Photography Revisited

Photography was once a wonderful job where you had the freedom to travel and photograph people, cultures, landscapes, still life, mother nature, abstract subjects, food, clouds and everything under the sun.

And through photography the image creators experienced the world first hand, the good, the bad and the ugly. There was respect for the photographer and the photographs created imagery.

Back in the old days film was the golden egg and you had to make images through your inner perception of light and composition, bracketing images under harsh lighting situations. You really had to be careful with your exposures making sure you kept the highlights and shadow details.  Photography was a career, the best career you will every have. You were paid well for the images you made.

In the beginning of stock images photographers were welcomed to send their images to the photo agencies or drop them off in person if they happened to live in the same city as their agency. Back in the 80’s these new breed of agencies split the sales 50/50 and then had photographer meetings where the editors gave the photographers insight on trends, subjects that were becoming popular. These new breed of photo agencies respected the images that all their photographers created. They wanted originality in their photographer’s creations that would sell for a high price.

They respected you and you respected them. But the whole stock photo business slowly became a tidal wave of new and inexperienced photographers giving their images away for peanuts.  

They were conned into believing that a new means to sell your hard earned work was being developed and your images would be put on a disk and sold to companies that needed original subjects to sell their products with, this became the new means of exploiting photographers hard earned photo creations and was called Royalty Free images.

This would be the virus that would eventually undermine a photographers ability to earn a decent living wage through the making of images with meaning and purpose.

And once digital cameras became the leader of making content, film was abandoned and creating photos became taking photos and millions and millions… of eager photographers began blitzing agencies with imagery that was just good enough to be submitted and accepted and as image volume increased and the payment for the efforts of these young men and women photographers slowly over time was reduced. Instead of a 50/50 split it became 60/40 then 70/30 and now it is 80/20 and because of the competition between getty, shutter stock, alamy and adobe, images are given away for free or pennies on the dollars.

The photographers were and are being scammed for their hard earned efforts and volume sales, no matter how small adds up to profit for the investors and the owners of the agencies.

You can’t make a living earning almost nothing and expect to survive in this greedy arena of powerful wealth that is addicted to the exploitation of photographers.  

When you look back at the old days of photography it was based around film, and film was expensive so there wasn’t as many photographers seeking fame and fortune. But digital cameras changed all of that and made everyone a photographer with no need to think and compose your subject by listening to your inner intuition giving you the details needed to make a great image.

Images are a commodity and they are sold cheap because volume in the stock photo industry is the nectar of honey bees moving money up the ladder into the pockets of owners that couldn’t make a decent image if they tried.

A photographer in today’s climate of selfish greed loses his ability to make a decent living doing the only thing that makes him feel part of the world culture.

They give their life to create photographs with purpose, putting their welfare at risk, their determined effort to show the world what is actually happening in all countries across the globe run by dictators, oligarchs that see only a cash cow to be exploited at the expense of the people. These criminals don’t care
who gets hurt as long as they get their fare share of
the loot.

In the past photography was about slowing time down, allowing your inner vision to really see the landscape in front of you and not to ignore the subtleties that were forming that would enhance your image creation.

Nowadays it is a quick click and you're moving on approach to image taking.

When you look deeper into time well spent, when you are really present in the compositional flow with your senses, feeling the connection with the subjects illuminating presence forcing you to dig deeper in the exploration of your own inner mind and the external reality shifting to accept your inner vision, now you are becoming a real photographer.

Reality becomes an illusion if you seek images through shallow constructs that will not inspire anyone looking at your images.

It is easy to create a superficial photo which leads to
mediocrity, a false expression of your true inner abilities.

It is what you bring to the scene before you that will make or brake the illusive vision that is dying to be revealed.

Photography is still a beautiful way to express yourself. Don’t think about the money but your own immersion into the external world full of subjects that need your visual expertise to show others who you are and what is truly happening in this corrupt world of the wealthy oligarchs.