Designers hate plagiarism.. it steals our worth. Stock libraries are killing photographers.. but designers still love them.. why?
This article is a reflection on the pros and cons of stock photography. Disclaimer: my girlfriend is a photographer / photo editor who has worked in photo libraries and magazines.. so I have some bias in this department.
I used to work at a web firm that was responsible for the web site of Sun Microsystems in Australia/NZ, and part of the process we provided was to source high quality stock photos from Getty images to feature on the Sun home page. These images were quite cheap - back in the day. Since then many stock websites that are far cheaper have cropped up, providing (again in my opinion) lower and lower quality control and cheapening the photographer's work.
Photography is an artform that I have dabbled in at as hobby for years. I love good photography. BUT I know that I am not a professional, at best I am a hobbyist. Further to that, I love great photography in advertising and media. More than just giving me something to analyse and think about while i'm moving around the city, good use of photography is (in my opinion) an imperative part of most advertising and publication creative work.
Why is it that we, the creative community, are actively cheapening photography? (i know also that this goes on in all facets of creative work, but today we're just focussing on photography).
Websites like istockphoto cheapen photography to a degree that the only way a photographer could possibly earn what they are worth for the creation of an image is if that image were used in SO many campaigns that it would lose all it's creative worth and value - it's a contradictory model.
Shutterstock's submit page says: "Current Payout $0.25 (US) per download. That means that at just 2000 downloads/month, you can earn $500 (US) per month! Many of our photographers earn this and more every month."
istock say: "iStock pays contributors a base royalty rate of 20% for each file downloaded. If you are an Exclusive contributor you can earn up to 40%."
20-40% of the royalty? So the other 60-80% is for istock to host a web site? Besides.. 20% of $1 is 20c - that's crazy.
Just 2000 downloads. I'm wonder how many photographers are really hitting that mark on a regular basis.. my guess is not many - and the ones that do.. probably could have sold those images exclusively through a respectable agency for the same money (without the risk of earning nothing for their submission).
The question is, who in their right mind would commission a photographer to shoot an image when they could just buy a stock photo that more or less fit the bill and use that?
The answer is not many people (and only those who have a high budget). I've been the perpetrator of this crime myself. I've bought istock photos for low budget websites, however I have also been trying to avoid this recently.. When I find myself thinking, maybe I should drop a stock photo into this site design, I stop myself and question if maybe I could dig out my D-SLR and shoot a picture to solve my design problem without supporting the change in the photography industry that I have come to dislike.
So why do many designers support the destruction of professional photography while crying foul about similar tactics that affect their own industry? hypocrisy? selfishness?
I like to think that the REAL problem here is that designers (like the very photographers that submit their photos) have no true understanding of how much damage these practices really do to the photographic industry. The sad thing is, that with the advent of digital photography and the lack of true appreciation of photography as an artform, there is unlikely to be a solution to this problem. The photography industry would seem destined to shrink, to the point were professional photographers only really work in the fashion industry and the glossy magazine industries (where the budgets are big enough and the pockets deep enough to warrant the necessary expenditure).
There are many parallels in other industries and areas.. code freelancing sites come to mind, however the difference is: code freelancing sites only introduce competition across borders; a programmer in Russia might charge less than a programmer in the UK - but this doesn't encourage a cheapening of the work per se. The Russian guy does the job just as well as me, the code freelancing site just networks clients with him, so that he can compete in a different market - it's just free trade (a model that is proven - a t-shirt made in a factory in China is no different (in quality only - morality aside) to a t-shirt made in a factory in the USA).
The online photo library that pays a photographer per photograph downloaded is changing the very structure of the photography industry and also reducing the inherent value of the image. Every download makes the photographer a few cents, however every download makes that image a little more common, a little less special and a little less valuable.
One might go so far as to argue that well before you hit that elusive 2000 downloads with shutterstock or iphoto, your photo is so common that no one wants to use it, because everyone already recognises it - its value is as good as gone.
Now, stock libraries ARE a going to remain a fixture in our lives as designers, so what can we do to minimise the impact on our fellow artists?
So, with that said, I hope some people's eyes have been opened to the value of photography, and the need for the creative community to at the very least recognise that producing photographs is not a process of point, shoot, upload and wait for 20c payments per download.
Subscribe to Site Feed | Get Email UpdatesPosted June 27, 2008 five comments..
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I post and contribute to stock.xchng btw, I think that is the ideal solution, as a second to comissioning your own shoot.
Auto avatar plugin should use name + session or just session to generate the image... so there is some tie in visually over who is talking...
"Unite photo hobbyists"?
What a brilliant idea. In fact, lets take the paintbrush away from Picasso so we can just fingerpaint our way into a world of half-assed, untrained "art" thats simply pretty colours on a canvass.
I don't have a problem with photo hobyists sharing their images on the net. The problem is that the pros have been forced into a situation where what was once a profitable side business to their commissioned work, is now hardly worth their while in making a decent buck, but in order to remain competitive against a flooded market, they are duped into "selling" their work for far less that its real value.
Perhaps the reason stock photography doesnt caputre what you really want is because it isn't (what you want) : It's shot to no brief.
It would be great if pros could afford to take a stand against corporate giants out to make a million and screw the industry.
Unfortunately, there are too many buyers out there like Mark who are happy enough with "useful" (ie useable) stock.xchang quality shots.
@Mark, opinion noted... however I think you might have missed the point of my post entirely.
Photography - by my definition would be the production of photographs by a photographer for a particular use or market. The photographer being the professional who's profession is creating said photographs.
Just to hazard a guess, I'd say that under my definition you are not a photographer, rather you are a guy with a digital camera.
I would argue that stock photography's problem is, that (in many cases) it earns a stock library money and cheapens the photographic industry to a point where a photographer can't expect to earn what they deserve for their work. Likewise, the way that designers will use photo libraries like sxc.hu is a simliar problem. It devalues the profession to the point where clients are not interested in paying for photography because they can't see the difference.
"There are so many cameras in the world, if we point them all in different directions I am sure we'd have some decent shots even by brute force!"
That's my point. Devaluing photography AND the photographer.
That's like arguing that if I wrote a computer program that just grabbed every possible colour and layout of boxes then we'd have no need for designers. Likewise, lets get a computer to brute-force write copy using keywords and simple sentence structure.. and maybe we should replace engineers with machines that just stick components together in every possible way?
"Given a choice between limit proprietary photographs, and an abundance of useful ones, the net effect is a win... since now many companies can use good looking photos, not just a few."
The net effect is a win for everyone EXCEPT the professional photographer.. which was the whole point.
@Hillary: I like the paintbrush analogy - very cute.
BTW: The "automatic avatar" feature (which feeds off gravatar.com) works perfectly if you are gutsy enough to put your email address in the post. ;) Having said that.. maybe i should mention that it's running off gravatar... to entice people to use their email addresses.
I think you are being a little aloof in terms of what photography is, and also looking too closed minded at the stock photo community.
Stock photography's problem is, it can never quite capture what you want, if you have something specific in mind.
HOWEVER, unlike hiring someone, it can go above on beyond in giving you inspiration.
Yes it can be samey, and I don't agree with people taking cuts, I like the free GPL photo model
There are so many cameras in the world, if we point them all in different directions I am sure we'd have some decent shots even by brute force!
Now, let's unite some photo hobbyists and let them do copyleft photography and we can tag this and share - we then have a wikipedia of stock photography, I only use that site as others find it hard to apply Free principles to problems without a concrete example.
So, while I'd love to hire a photographer, or drive to anywhere in the world to take a shot myself, I can't.
Given a choice between limit proprietary photographs, and an abundance of useful ones, the net effect is a win... since now many companies can use good looking photos, not just a few.