Nathan wrote:
> I cannot help thinking about how computers killed the typewriter ribbon
> business.
> And how the printing press in put transcribing monks out of business in the
> 16th century. And...
> I do not mean to sound callous. I know that change is difficult and
> wrenching. But the reality is that technology has changed the business model
> for photography in a fundamental way, and no amount of nostalgia for the good
> old days will undo those changes.
While I understand your sentiment, I don't necessarily agree with your
specifics. Computers greatly increased demand on ink ribbons with a
couple decades of dot-matrix printers screeching away. Laser printers
and then inkjet printers eventually took their place. Demand for IBM
Selectric typewriters died a rapid death, though. As to the monks
being put out of business, it really didn't do that either. They
continued to do what they did, but the growth of their industry
capped. Over a period of a few generations, that task of
writing/copying died down as the manuscripts they did copy were put
into print. But not all of them were put into print and even to this
day there is still a few copying away, but for the past hundred years
they've used the photographic process (both analog and digital). As
new manuscripts were produced in the printing era, the monks didn't do
any manual copying of them as they were not in written form to begin
with.
As to the change as it affects stock photography, it really has less
to do with technology and everything to do with supply, demand and
greed. As supply has gone up, the demand hasn't kept pace. And from a
greed perspective, the buyers are less willing than ever before to pay
for anything. It's our God given right to have all the apps on our
cellphones to be free.
When "microstock" first emerged on the scene, the images were almost
always seconds, overruns and other dross. The good stuff was managed
through a stock agency. Illustrators and designers scarfed up the
cheep stuff and would do all sorts of bit-bending on it to make it fit
a design where the original picture didn't really matter too much.
Through the miracle of modern Photoshop, the source material doesn't
matter much. Then the quality of the microstock images started getting
better and with enough of them (millions upon millions of images added
every year), there is no need to worry about rights management as the
chances that anybody else actually using the same exact picture that
you are using is slim.
This really isn't a technology issue. This is a market issue. An
argument could be made that the technology is a response to the
market, not the other way around.
I remember the days when a decent sized inventory of images managed
through a decent stock agency would yield an average of $5 per image
per year. So, if you had 20,000 images on file, you could average an
income of $100,000 per year. It's a very, very, very tiny fraction of
that now.
So, as it is now a market issue, what do we do? I know what I did. I
pretty much abandoned stock photography. I wasn't getting enough
return on my own investment. My rate of return on a per image basis is
somewhat near normal, but I just don't have enough images out there to
matter. Tina's library is HUGE and she is able to dominate any
particular space she's in. But at what cost? Her production costs are
sunk. The digitization, preparation and key-wording process is
tedious. But once uploaded to the agency, it's pure income after that.
Not much income, but some. Based on sheer mass, she should be able to
eat "Top Ramen" instead of the $0.13 packages from Walmart.
But, if Tina were to start out now, she would never be able to cover
the production costs. Microstock and royalty-free images have
destroyed the market for getting high-end talent, like her, to travel
to all these locations and actually do stock photography. It is only
possible if she is already there for other purposes.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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