BCADULTART wrote:
........The problem is that 95% of the posts on this forum are by people who know nothing about the agency or major magazine photography business......... 

Chuck

Thank you!

And to add to that. If i recall correcly the last time i visited MM about a year ago, the issue of professional photogrpaher vs GWC / weekend warrior / amateur photographer (or whatever other name you choose) came up.

One relies on what he/she makes with his/her photography to pay ALL his bills, while the other does it for whatever other reason.

Does being a GWC / weekend warrior / amateur photographer mean that your images are less? Hell no. Some amateurs produce better work than the "professionals". But then don't go an sell your work as if it were worth shit!

I am now going to be quite before daddy spanks my bottom again and sends me off to sit in the corner.

Patchouli Nyx wrote:

Andrew Thomas Designs wrote:
Bob, how is your success with stock sites?

You may have mentioned this before but are you shooting any new work for istock or is this mostly/all previous work you took over the years and are scanning it into digital files?

I don't have much opportunity to shoot new for stock, but as time allows, I will add to the library of images I have at iStock.

My fervent hope is to visit Russia some day, so I can take snap shots of peasants and generals that I can then upload to iStock. Maybe I'll stay for a few days, long enough to build a gallery of Russian snap shots for display on my web site. Maybe Time will see them on iStock and decide to use them for a cover. Then I too can lie about how much money I make selling editorial snap shots to magazines. Maybe it will bring comfort to me in my old age... maybe not.

Robert Randall wrote:

Since you seem to rely on revisionist history, distortion of fact, and name calling to press your point, I feel you are no longer worth the time its taking to square this issue.

I'm going to avoid you in the forums from now on, the way I do with everyone that can't be trusted to tell the truth. I suggest you do the same with me.

Yeah bob, run....Go ahead and avoid, just like you avoided the APA and then dance. BTW, I'm not revising anything. You on the other hand have your own self-made crystal ball that lets you view others business, studios and lifes and tell them what they've done, or so you act.

C'mon bob, time to get down back to earth.

StephenEastwood wrote:

not really, if it comes to that in business, then it becomes too costly for some to stay in business and they drop out, the ones who remain take up their business and eventually the price goes back up as there are fewer suppliers of the goods or services needed.  Or else the entire business goes away and it becomes only amateurs and hobbyists, if that happens and everyone is OK with what they can buy from the amateurs that is the way it goes, and the business model and work becomes reflective of that.  In this case clients that want better will pay for better, clients that accept what is available cheap will be happy with what they get.

Stephen Eastwood
http://www.PhotographersPortfolio.com

So Stephen, isn't what you just described what is happening in retail merchandising in this country? You drive down almost any street  and the stores upon stores upon restaurants and more restaurants. And they all can't stay in business. Which one's do and which one's don't and why is complicated, but many drop away as you've described. When there's too much competition, no one makes money or it's at least hard for those there to make money. Everyone gets a little and no one gets a lot.

Of course in something like the photo biz there's the top guys who will always get what they get and at some point in those careers, there's a tipping point where they continue to get jobs on their reputations, unlike perhaps the average shooters who have boatloads of competition. That's perhaps where the bulk of the shooters are for the top can only support so many.

Just my $.02...

D U A R T E wrote:
These posts are too much and I agree that 95% of the photographers no nothing about publishing/licensing.. 

Some days you do a shoot for nothing and make $2,000 for licensing.  Somedays you invest $1,500 for a beauty CD and you make about $5,000 and counting.


Time magazine was being FRUGAL by going to i-stock.  That's the whole concept of the cover. Just because they used the image doesn't mean your a Time photographer.  I know people who have NO idea how f-stops/shutter speeds work yet they pull in about $20,000 a year on micro stock. Even i stock is starting to set standards.

This was just plain dumb luck.

Maybe the TIME cover was something else. A look shows TIME crediting an "Illustration" to whomever created the cover from the photo, adding the label, more money, retouching the background and so on, the digital artist as it were with a credit to the stock agency.

So maybe they went this cheap since they were purcashing an "element of the illustration" and the bulk of any fee went to the illustrator(presuming for the moment they're not staff).

Digital Czar wrote:
Maybe the TIME cover was something else. A look shows TIME crediting an "Illustration" to whomever created the cover from the photo, adding the label, more money, retouching the background and so on, the digital artist as it were with a credit to the stock agency.

So maybe they went this cheap since they were purcashing an "element of the illustration" and the bulk of any fee went to the illustrator(presuming for the moment they're not staff).

I think the "professional photographers" who do not know who the illustrator is, have totally blown their cover. Oops! Guess you don't sell many cover photos to Time.

D U A R T E wrote:
These posts are too much and I agree that 95% of the photographers no nothing about publishing/licensing.. 

Some days you do a shoot for nothing and make $2,000 for licensing.  Somedays you invest $1,500 for a beauty CD and you make about $5,000 and counting.


Time magazine was being FRUGAL by going to i-stock.  That's the whole concept of the cover. Just because they used the image doesn't mean your a Time photographer.  I know people who have NO idea how f-stops/shutter speeds work yet they pull in about $20,000 a year on micro stock. Even i stock is starting to set standards.

This was just plain dumb luck.

The whole thing is just to generate buzz, everybody is talking about it, they won.

Aside from the internet paranoia that the sky is falling, the beast has risen from the abyss and the end of the world is coming, the thing is TIME could have done a better approach to frugality by hiring the photographer and shooting the cover without paying him 30 bucks but something more significative, frugal doesn´t means cheap bastard and much of the people I talked about felt that way (non photographers) of course as a multi millionare corporation they don´t owe anyone a favor or a chance, however being TIME people tend to think that they are more or kinda socially responsible and that they would take the opportunity hire the OP for more than 30 bucks for the cover shot, it would have been a win win win situation: photographer gets good money (not 3,000 bucks but much more than 30 bucks) and they are being frugal.

Digital Czar wrote:

It isn't about control, but it is about educating and the like.

You really don't understand...

It might make a little more sense to educate photographers on what thier work is worth and ask them to demand microstock grow up and pay and support sustainable industry practices.  Read the Time Magazine Cover Photo Rip Off for a rather eye opening view of the world of microstock and the damage it is doing to ALL photographers!
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

Mark Stout Photography wrote:

It might make a little more sense to educate photographers on what thier work is worth and ask them to demand microstock grow up and pay and support sustainable industry practices.  Read the Time Magazine Cover Photo Rip Off for a rather eye opening view of the world of microstock and the damage it is doing to ALL photographers!
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

How very right you are! A great clarification.

PYPI FASHION wrote:

Like I said, photographers are to blame for that $30 option.

Photographers were not to blame. The steady decline in stock license prices was driven by many technology factors, including the advent of CD and then DVD technology, the vast improvements in computer speed and storage capability, digital retouching developments, the appearance and great advances in digital technology, and other factors. Also by economic issues with many areas of publishing, including the web indirectly killing many major clients and even markets.

There is no way that any individual photographer or group could have stood against these trends. No more so than a child's sand castle could hold against the ocean.

Mark Stout Photography wrote:

It might make a little more sense to educate photographers on what thier work is worth and ask them to demand microstock grow up and pay and support sustainable industry practices.  Read the Time Magazine Cover Photo Rip Off for a rather eye opening view of the world of microstock and the damage it is doing to ALL photographers!
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

Mark Stout's piece is a MUST READ for everyone in this forum!

glamour pics wrote:

Photographers were not to blame. The steady decline in stock license prices was driven by many technology factors, including the advent of CD and then DVD technology, the vast improvements in computer speed and storage capability, digital retouching developments, the appearance and great advances in digital technology, and other factors. Also by economic issues with many areas of publishing, including the web indirectly killing many major clients and even markets.

There is no way that any individual photographer or group could have stood against these trends. No more so than a child's sand castle could hold against the ocean.

Don't think anyone is saying photographers are to blame, but the vast majority of new photographers, once myself, have failed to educate themselves on the value of their work in the market, and more so, on the value of their work to the clients who license it.  Most do not even know their work is LICENSED and think they work by the hour or "sell" their work. This lack of knowledge is what makes it possible for others to then exploit us and profit at our EXPENSE.  We do have a responsibility to become educated in the business practices of photography.  Whe we don't we all loose.
Mark
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

Bradley Nichol wrote:
The OP chose to place the shot on istock with a prearranged sale price of $30.....TIME Magazine or anyone else can purchase the photo and use it as per the terms under istock.  The Photographer has received a lot of mileage from the shot regardless of whether he made 10K or not.  I would venture to say that the OP's photo would never have been seen by anyone, let alone be used as a TIME Mag cover if he had not placed the shot on istock.

Getting known in this industry, at any level does consist of putting yourself out there on many levels - the marketing value alone from the TIME Cover will place the OP into another category from the perspective of 'published' and credible - in the eyes of both peers and perspective clients.  For this I would say congratulations and also add that the other commenting photographers here would be very well served to diversify and attempt the same, especially those earning less than 30 or 40 k per year from this as a 'career'.  Being lucrative and successful comes with time, variety, a little leverage, understanding, dedication and 'shit house luck' too. 

$ 30 bucks - grab a drink - take more stock shots - market the TIME Cover to your advantage - and hope to see more of your successes soon, well done mate !

well said...

let's take this to the "truth" level...
if most of you had $2000 in your pocket and Time said "hey, give us that 2 grand and we'll use your photo on our cover" you couldn't get it out of your pocket fast enough! 2k for that tear/advertising is cheap as shit.
Now, granted, I would have never said a thing about only getting $30 for it LOL... let everyone think what they want... "you're published in Time? Wow! you must be rich!!"

Mark Stout Photography wrote:
It might make a little more sense to educate photographers on what thier work is worth and ask them to demand microstock grow up and pay and support sustainable industry practices.  Read the Time Magazine Cover Photo Rip Off for a rather eye opening view of the world of microstock and the damage it is doing to ALL photographers!
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

I don't know how viable your desire to educate photographers on MM is.

Did you read the thread earlier on where it was like a mob mentality that microstock is practically better than having  sex with a woman and that any photographer threatened by low pay penny stocks has something wrong with his manhood.

Mark Stout Photography wrote:
Don't think anyone is saying photographers are to blame, but the vast majority of new photographers, once myself, have failed to educate themselves on the value of their work in the market, and more so, on the value of their work to the clients who license it.  Most do not even know their work is LICENSED and think they work by the hour or "sell" their work. This lack of knowledge is what makes it possible for others to then exploit us and profit at our EXPENSE.  We do have a responsibility to become educated in the business practices of photography.  Whe we don't we all loose.
Mark
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

From your long winded diatribe: "The clients licensing microstock can as easily afford $40, $50 or much more as they can from the images they are currently getting for a quarter or so.  If they can’t they have no right being in business."

You're very wrong.  You write as if all buyers are Time magazine.  They aren't.  They are also students, churches, Mom and Pop businesses, teachers, youth organizations, stay at home parents working, etc.  Yes, there are larger business looking to save money, but they aren't necessarily the majority of the buyers.

BCADULTART wrote:
Mark,

Just read your blog, pretty good work (Yes I am a member of E-P), but you missed an important fact about how much TIME paid Getty/istock.

To anyone who thinks that having your micro-stock image used on the cover of one of the few remaining weekly news magazines is a good thing, All I can say is "I'll have a double Latte" because that is about as far in professional photography as you will get.

Interesting MM's URL tag is:"Where Professional Models Meet Model Photographer...(sic)" , But it does not mention Professional Photographers...LOL

Chuck

I don't think there would be money in the site for the owners if the site was just professional photographers.


Plus, worksafe mode aside, isn't much of the traffic on this site from non-member eyeballs scoping out photos of girls in bathing suits?

MilloDigital wrote:

Thank you!

And to add to that. If i recall correcly the last time i visited MM about a year ago, the issue of professional photogrpaher vs GWC / weekend warrior / amateur photographer (or whatever other name you choose) came up.

One relies on what he/she makes with his/her photography to pay ALL his bills, while the other does it for whatever other reason.

Does being a GWC / weekend warrior / amateur photographer mean that your images are less? Hell no. Some amateurs produce better work than the "professionals". But then don't go an sell your work as if it were worth shit!

I am now going to be quite before daddy spanks my bottom again and sends me off to sit in the corner.

Two bottles of aspirin on the store shelf.  One is generic and just says, "Aspirin" on the label.  The other says, "Bayer Aspirin."  You'd expect them to cost the same?  The ingredients are the same, but the name brand costs more.  Why?  Because the name brand has a long-standing reputation for producing a quality product.  You know you can trust it.

And that's why a pro photographer's work is valued more highly than the "weekend warrior" who's work might be just as good.

Mark Stout Photography wrote:  http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

Thank you for taking the time to write it.  However, it was long enough that I proceeded to skim it, partly because I am familiar with most arguments that get trotted out in these debates.  I did not detect any new arguments or solutions.  Asking photographers to boycott microstock is basically futile.

Were there any novel points or solutions?

Creative Works LLC wrote:

Two bottles of aspirin on the store shelf.  One is generic and just says, "Aspirin" on the label.  The other says, "Bayer Aspirin."  You'd expect them to cost the same?  The ingredients are the same, but the name brand costs more.  Why?  Because the name brand has a long-standing reputation for producing a quality product.  You know you can trust it.

And that's why a pro photographer's work is valued more highly than the "weekend warrior" who's work might be just as good.

The "weekend warriors" are one thing, and in some ways like the camera clubbers, prosumer amateurs...and they can take as good a photo as a "pro" if they work at it, and perhaps work at it some more, and even work at it some more...and eventually get it right. But it may only be a photo of their own making.

The "pro" makes his/her living from taking photos and "does them on demand" and under the pressures of the job, clients, agency/designer and a host of factors the weekend warriors don't generally have to encounter.

The pro is working by a different set of rules.

Digital Czar wrote:

The "weekend warriors" are one thing, and in some ways like the camera clubbers, prosumer amateurs...and they can take as good a photo as a "pro" if they work at it, and perhaps work at it some more, and even work at it some more...and eventually get it right. But it may only be a photo of their own making.

The "pro" makes his/her living from taking photos and "does them on demand" and under the pressures of the job, clients, agency/designer and a host of factors the weekend warriors don't generally have to encounter.

The pro is working by a different set of rules.

Absolutely.

Sackett Studios wrote:
the price fits the story lol


- Travis Sackett
www.TravisSackett.com

LOL

Digital Czar wrote:
The pro is working by a different set of rules.

So why is the "pro" so defensive and threatened by weekend warriors, amateurs, and low-ballers?

I think its funny how much some of you so-called "pros" are scrambling. Its obvious that some of you have zero faith in your own abilities, so you lash out at the cheap competition.

If you really believed in your superiority, you would ignore microstock.

Mark Stout Photography wrote:
It might make a little more sense to educate photographers on what thier work is worth and ask them to demand microstock grow up and pay and support sustainable industry practices.  Read the Time Magazine Cover Photo Rip Off for a rather eye opening view of the world of microstock and the damage it is doing to ALL photographers!
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.c … to-ripoff/

Wow, I didn't know the evolution of Microstock. Very good article. Highly recommended.

But as far as education photographers, unfortunately I don't see how you or anyone can hold back the tide. You can write all you want but it is just spitting in the wind.

Photography has been devalued and continues to be devalued. Good for buyers, bad for sellers. Photography is now a hobby practiced by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Many of them produce excellent work. I am in a relatively poor country, yet I see dozens of pricey digital SLRs everywhere I go. Eventually I think there will be no more than 100 full-time professional photographers who will have a business model that actually works. Everyone else will need a day job.

It is like nature photography 20 years ago. There were tens of thousands of folks with day jobs taking pictures of mountains and wildlife for the love of it. Occasionally they made a $25 sale to a magazine. They celebrated their triumph. But there were only a few full time pro nature photographers. Galen Rowell and maybe one other guy.

Lumigraphics wrote:

So why is the "pro" so defensive and threatened by weekend warriors, amateurs, and low-ballers?

I think its funny how much some of you so-called "pros" are scrambling. Its obvious that some of you have zero faith in your own abilities, so you lash out at the cheap competition.

If you really believed in your superiority, you would ignore microstock.

it's not about ME, but it is about the photobusiness as a whole which is [apparently] lost on you.
Microstock cheapens photography. Today, more than any other time, the buyers of photography are not as quality oriented as once was. "Good enough" seems to often be the norm, along with "We'll FIX IT in PHOTOSHOP". Often we don't shoot the image as good as it can be done because of things like this when the bar is set low. Cheap, driven by marketing folks and accountants at the clients, dictate what is often done. Do it cheap, but don't do it right since it costs money. That is what gets us to microstock, that it's cheap.

I know you'd rather take 1000 images and place them in microstock and get $50, maybe, on a sale rather than work less, do higher quality images(if you're able) and get paid more.  It's as though you'd think the object of being in business is to work more, longer and harder and get paid less per photo. No sense in that at all, but that thinking pervades microstock—along with spaghetti thinking...throw enough spaghetti againse the wall and some is bound to stick!

This whole thread is really about devaluing the whole business of photographey. And perhaps what has sung the death knell is the old theory of supply and demand. There's simply too many photographers, or folks who think they're photographers and the supply of images of any kind is overwhelming, literally. Hence the cheap prices.

Don't think for a moment that when you're bidding an assignment, someone at the client/agency isn't thinking of cutting you out and going with stock for a lesser price. It happens, and has happened even 25 years ago! And then there's illustration which is also a competitor to commissioning a photo. There's all sorts of influences that go on around choosing to do a photo. When the accountants and marketing folks get involved, the train often not only goes off the track, it falls over before it even gets out of the station.

Digital Planet Design wrote:

From your long winded diatribe: "The clients licensing microstock can as easily afford $40, $50 or much more as they can from the images they are currently getting for a quarter or so.  If they can’t they have no right being in business."

You're very wrong.  You write as if all buyers are Time magazine.  They aren't.  They are also students, churches, Mom and Pop businesses, teachers, youth organizations, stay at home parents working, etc.  Yes, there are larger business looking to save money, but they aren't necessarily the majority of the buyers.

So, putting out any old piece of crap is just OK since that's what you can afford to do?

Why does that remind me of "desktop publishing"....where folks think throwing any old thing together is good, when they don't know images, type, design,layout, space, prepress, printing, paper and a few other things computers can't just do for you automagically.

All this shows is how pittifully low you think the bar should be or perhaps is set, which is truly sad that quality means so little.

PYPI FASHION wrote:

Well the Getty image sold for a minimum of $1,995.00.

Well, How about this, I am Jon Rasmussen, credited with with the inset photo (which is not my photo - I shot a different pirate photo sold by Getty) but I am also an iStock photographer. The photo that I shot of the lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama was shot for the Navy(my full-time job) and the copyright is public domain. Getty decided to sell the image, which is free for anyone to get from the navy.mil website. Yeah, the company that owns the company I shoot stock for was selling one of my free images for their benefit and I get $0.00 out of the deal.

I would have at least been better off if they had used one of my iStock images.

Jon

GoAnywherePhoto wrote:

Well, How about this, I am Jon Rasmussen, credited with with the inset photo (which is not my photo - I shot a different pirate photo sold by Getty) but I am also an iStock photographer. The photo that I shot of the lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama was shot for the Navy(my full-time job) and the copyright is public domain. Getty decided to sell the image, which is free for anyone to get from the navy.mil website. Yeah, the company that owns the company I shoot stock for was selling one of my free images for their benefit and I get $0.00 out of the deal.

I would have at least been better off if they had used one of my iStock images.

Jon

Why aren't you getting anything out of it?

and though something is in the public domain, does that grant automatic commercial rights?

GoAnywherePhoto wrote:

Well, How about this, I am Jon Rasmussen, credited with with the inset photo (which is not my photo - I shot a different pirate photo sold by Getty) but I am also an iStock photographer. The photo that I shot of the lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama was shot for the Navy(my full-time job) and the copyright is public domain. Getty decided to sell the image, which is free for anyone to get from the navy.mil website. Yeah, the company that owns the company I shoot stock for was selling one of my free images for their benefit and I get $0.00 out of the deal.

I would have at least been better off if they had used one of my iStock images.

Jon

You are welome to be as ungratefull as you want,  but failing to maintain that you were gainfully employed, under contract by the government using their equiptment on their time borders on dishonest the way you have put it here. But I hope you get your way and the you can give back your salaried earnings so you can live off your I-stock royalties.