Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/07/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Jul 2, 2013, at 10:33 AM, lrzeitlin at aol.com wrote: > She should realize that stock agencies are the curse of working > photographers. Every sale by a stock agency takes the bread out of the > mouth of a working photographer who would otherwise be employed to take a > similar picture. The availability of stock photos of almost every > description is the justification of the mass layoffs of working > photographers from newspapers and magazines. If you want to show how poor > folk live in Guatemala, don't pay to send a photographer down there. Just > buy one of Tina's photos from an agency. It will be much cheaper and the > magazine will not be troubled by transportation or medical costs. I don't know if you have worked as a professional photographer or not Larry. Most every photographer I've known has worked towards acquiring and maintaining "Stock" libraries. When I worked as a photojournalist I fought to own the rights to my photographs and to resell them under stock licenses. When I worked as a commercial "assignment" photographer I contracted to maintain control of the photographs; to put them in Stock and license them at a later time. Magnum is a professional stock agency. Back in my early days Four By Five was one of the top Stock Agencies for Commercial Studios. We all shot Stock during periods when we were not "on Assignment." Documentary photographers who work on their own projects are by definition producing Stock images. Creating and selling professional quality Stock images, at professional rates, is not a problem for professional photographers. Selling images for pennies certainly has a negative impact on the markets for professional work. Whether working on documentary, wildlife, landscape, commercial, fashion, portrait, editorial, fine art, et al we all want to sell the use of the images in our libraries, as well as prints. It has always been so. Regards, George Lottermoser george at imagist.com http://www.imagist.com http://www.imagist.com/blog http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist