A Man Can’t Live on Image Credit Alone

I think Trey Ratcliff (<a href="http://www.stuckincustoms.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stuckincustoms.com/</a>) and many, many others, would disagree.<p>The market isn't being "eroded" by people giving away their work. The market was "eroded" by the fact that there are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of people in the U.S. alone who are now skilled enough to regularly take what were once considered "professional" level photographs. There is simply too much supply.<p>If you want to blame someone, blame Canon and Nikon and Olympus and Sigma. Blame capitalism for giving us such unprecedented wealth that huge swaths of the population now have free time to study, scout, take, edit, and publish photos. Don't blame the artists.

I was enjoying this essay and "with" the author all the way until he suddenly swerved into imploring everyone to not give their work away for free, in order to preserve the market value of the work of full-time professionals. This kind of argument has been used a lot against free open source software, and I doubt many readers of HN are very sympathetic to it.

I think this comment by Tzctplus sums my feelings on the matter the best:<p>He gets it. The market is saturated, economics 101 says that will drive the price down, in extreme situations the price is close to 0, the mistake many photographers make is to believe that their skill (and they should stop using the word "art" if they are selling, it would be really useful to frame the situation) is still so unique that deserves an imagined level of compensation.<p>Photographers should understand that if they want to make a living it will be thanks to the value added on top of taking photographs, making good photographs is not enough, lots of people can now do that, and most importantly, the market is global and cruelly efficient.<p>The article's poster talks like if the digital photography revolution hasn't happened, people that have not managed to sell value added to potential clients should realize that the first thing in the road to charging something is recognition, which is what the guy of the calendars was offering (how many of you can boast to have had they pictures published in 20000 calendars? That would look great on a CV and would help you in the differentiation from the mass of photographers struggling to make a living from their skill).<p>You are saying below that they can offer compensation, and that is entirely missing the point, as much as I would like to charge $1000 for each picture I take (set your price, the principle is the same) I know there are hundreds, perhaps thousand of chums out there that would like to take half that, one third of that or less.<p>It is funny that you try to use an example below about restaurants without considering the whole picture: qualified chefs, waiters, etc. working in a fancy restaurant are not a dime a dozen, they also will use ingredients which are demonstrably scarce, that is the reason you can't walk there and set your price.<p>Photographers are not in that happy position just by the virtue of their photographs: any photo website, trade magazine (of which are many, yet another hint about the vulgarity of taking pictures nowadays) should be teaching a lesson to anybody holding a camera: your skill is now a commodity, and as such the first step to make a living out of it is brand recognition, which is what was in offer...<p>Once your name is Testino or some other person that is immediately recognizable and iconic, then yeah, feel insulted, before that? Be grateful....

<i>Don’t help to erode the market for high-quality artwork just because you’re not relying on that market to feed yourself.</i><p>Countless companies run on $0 open-source software. Its responsible for a large amount of the constant innovation happening. And there are still people making a profit on software, quite obviously. It is not destroying a market, it is setting the bar higher for entry.

Is everyone saying that `the lowball offers come because of the market and that he should just accept it` not a developer?<p>I am often surprised how little sympathy photographers get in places like HN. Yes, it is way easier to take photographs as the cost of learning has dropped significantly. But that doesn't mean that there aren't photographers who make great pictures and should get paid, especially if the company that wants to use it is a big enough company to have a budget to sell 20,000 calendars.<p>I disagree with the notion though that anyone can reproduce the photos he took (assuming the header image is one he did take) without investing a significant amount of time and resources into learning about photography. It's not as though he went into the mountains, waited for near sunset and then snapped the photo and went home. It obviously took some degree of planning and effort to do. I like to think I'm at least a decent photographer but I can tell you that even though I have equipment that was probably unimaginable in the 90s, I'm far from being able to take pictures of that kind of quality.<p>I know most software developers _hate_ it when clients quote them something like $100 to redesign an online store and I hear this argument all the time: "If the programmer in some third world country can do it for $100, why can't you? That's what the market bears."<p>Because what you're giving them at least (hopefully) is some quality engineering and your previous experiences that is worth more than what the $100 that other developer is charging.<p>If that company doesn't want to pay $X for the photographer's picture, it's very simple, they don't have to use it.<p>If a client doesn't want you to pay $Y for an online store, they don't have to hire you.<p>I don't get why there is always a big backlash against the photographer in these articles who are trying to make some money just like the rest of us. It's not as though he is scamming anyone.

Welcome to the media revolution. Competing with talented amateur photographers who will work for free or very little money -- as well as publishers who are working on crazy-thin margins -- is only the tip of the iceberg for professional photographers. There's also the issue of empowered consumers who demand choice (whether it be custom calendars or altering the artwork in some way that suits them) and the rise of photorealistic computer-generated imagery.<p>It sucks that the professional media industry (including film studios, journalists, record labels, broadcasters, photographers, magazine publishers, etc.) no longer have the control and fat margins of yesteryear. It's a new world. Evolve with it, find a niche, or move on.

&#62; When’s the last time you saw an image in a calendar or on a urinal cake and said “Gee whiz! I like that enough that I want to track that artist down and send them money!”?<p>That's essentially one of the main problems flattr is trying to solve. Shure, for now it works best online but that will change. I didn't find a real timeline of who flattred what, but this is close: &#60;<a href="https://flattr.com/explore&#62;" rel="nofollow">https://flattr.com/explore&#62;</a>. It's basically a list which answers his question, these are all pieces of work of somebody, and they are receiving money from their 'viewers' <i>after the fact</i>, just because they liked it.

&#62; When’s the last time you saw an image in a calendar or on a urinal cake and said “Gee whiz! I like that enough that I want to track that artist down and send them money!”<p>Well, I'm not in any business that has much need of the kind of photography you find in a calendar or on a urinal cake. But if I <i>were</i>, then yeah, if I saw a really nice photo in a calendar, I might give the photographer a call.<p>Also, if I were a photographer building a portfolio, I might be happy to have a calendar with my work in it, alongside proof that it was indeed my work.<p>That's not to say that people who want free stuff in exchange for publicity aren't going to overstate the value of that publicity, of course. As a general rule, if someone offers to give you X in exchange for Y, they are probably going to try to get you to think X is worth more than it is, that Y is worth less than it is, or both.

Is there really a market for selling 20,000 copies of a landscape photo calendar? If so, maybe photographers should get into the business of creating these themselves, and keeping all of the money rather than a tiny fee?

If the ecosystem is such that people are giving you low-balling offers, don't blame the ecosystem. You are not the one that decides whether your skills and products are a commodity - the market does.

I don't think that there are that much more DSLR photographers now than were in the past.<p>Just as journalists, photographers now start to see that what people paid for was actually distribution not for content.<p>Many people had SLRs in the 70s and 80s, but no access to the market or any exposure or any means to create large prints.<p>Now that the internet created a new market place and delivery plattform, the distribution part broke down.

The guy seems not to understand business properly. If he thinks people have $240.000 in their pocket after selling the calendars, he's misguided. If money was that easy to be made with calendars, everyone would do it (I'd assume printing costs are higher, designers have to be paid, most calendars probably will not sell and offered for $1 at in February 2013, ...)

There is a lot talk of devaluing the work of artists in the comments by selling cheap.<p>At the same time those people are buying cheap stuff from Chinese factories. Perhaps someone tell the Chinese workers that they devalue the value of factory work.<p>But I'd guess it's only a problem if oneself is harmed.