

A Man Can’t Live on Image Credit Alone - wicknicks
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/04/06/a-man-cant-live-on-image-credit-alone/

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liber8
I think Trey Ratcliff (<http://www.stuckincustoms.com/>) and many, many
others, would disagree.

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.

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.

~~~
ojbyrne
Actually Trey Ratcliff licences his images CC non-commercial precisely so he
can charge (or refuse permission) for this exact specific case.

~~~
liber8
My point was that he's been successful precisely because he lets people freely
use his images under the CC license. It's' more or less the cornerstone of his
business plan. His work gets widely distributed and linked back to his site,
which helped him build his tribe and sell other products and services.

~~~
ojbyrne
And my point was that this guy is probably doing the exact same thing (that's
how the essay started - talking about letting people use his photos), but
isn't happy about it.

------
mycroftiv
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.

~~~
MartinCron
I also really hate this argument.

I'm what you call a serious amateur photographer. I make images because I love
the process of creating and sharing art. Telling me that _I_ shouldn't ever
share my work because it erodes the value of others who have an entirely
different motive is borderline price-fixing.

If you, as an established professional, can't compete with hobbyists and
newcomers trying to break in, then you might need to find a different business
model.

~~~
Domenic_S
The sentiment on this thread would be really different if instead of an
unnamed calendar, the client was Coke running a $3MM international campaign
and offering the author $100.

Why is that?

~~~
mirkules
The discussion is about two different things:

1\. The amount of money offered for the author's work

2\. Imploring others to not take "lowball" offers in order to preserve a
certain pricing/business model.

Regarding #1: Everyone is allowed to make any kind of offer, and the author is
free to refuse them, just as he did. Photography is a business, and everyone
is trying to make a deal to make a buck. If Coke offered $100, that's their
prerogative, and it's up to the author to either haggle up higher, or refuse
them flatly.

Personally, I see no reason why the author was so offended -- the emails
weren't rude, they weren't demanding, and the email person "L" was almost
apologetic for having only $100 to spend. Since I don't know what company this
is, we cannot make assumption on why the author thinks they will sell the
calendars for $12.99 (although, there are religious undertones, and my
suspicion and speculation is that they will not sell these at a huge profit as
the author believes)

Regarding #2, that's been covered well. If I want to sell my software at $0.99
per app and it undercuts the competition, great. We saw iOS developers
complain that the $0.99 games are undercutting their profits, but it turned
out to be a sustainable model. It's not my problem if I give my photos (or
product) away for free and undercuts his model.

------
shawnjan8
I think this comment by Tzctplus sums my feelings on the matter the best:

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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...

Once your name is Testino or some other person that is immediately
recognizable and iconic, then yeah, feel insulted, before that? Be
grateful....

------
revelation
_Don’t help to erode the market for high-quality artwork just because you’re
not relying on that market to feed yourself._

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.

~~~
ryandvm
Agreed. If you're trying to make a living selling something that is no better
than what people give away in their spare time, good luck. It certainly isn't
everyone else's responsibility to fix the market.

~~~
slowpoke
_> fix the market_

There's nothing broken with the market, it's the business model that needs to
be fixed. And by fixed, I mean scrapped and replaced by models not dependant
on selling non-scarce goods.

------
swang
Is everyone saying that `the lowball offers come because of the market and
that he should just accept it` not a developer?

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

If a client doesn't want you to pay $Y for an online store, they don't have to
hire you.

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.

~~~
frobozz
> I don't get why there is always a big backlash against the photographer in
> these articles ...

I believe that it is because they often close by exhorting everyone not to
give away photos for free, or sell them for third world prices. They assert
that hobbyists and part-timers are at fault for destroying the careers of
those photography professionals that rely on image sales to put food on the
table.

Just as you are free to decline a $100 offer, I should be free to accept it.
Similarly, you should be free to attempt to persuade potential clients that
your $1000 service or item is ten times as good as my $100 service or item.

What is inappropriate is if you tell me that I shouldn't charge $100 because
you're trying to make $1000 out of the deal.

------
ilamont
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.

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.

------
178
> 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!”?

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:
<[https://flattr.com/explore>](https://flattr.com/explore>). 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' _after the fact_ , just because
they liked it.

------
mistercow
> 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!”

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 _were_ , then yeah, if I
saw a really nice photo in a calendar, I might give the photographer a call.

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.

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.

------
tjr
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?

~~~
jeffesp
I thought the same thing. The unknown that I came up with was distribution
channels. How would I get these great calendars that I created into the hands
of the people? Certainly not unsolvable, but much more work and much more risk
(up front capital) than just creating a calendar.

~~~
tjr
For that matter, I'd be pretty happy if I could sell 200 copies of a calendar
at ~$10/profit on each one. Hardly a full-time business, but it would turn my
money-sucking photography hobby into something that covers buying some new
equipment.

------
AznHisoka
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.

------
Uchikoma
I don't think that there are that much more DSLR photographers now than were
in the past.

Just as journalists, photographers now start to see that what people paid for
was actually distribution not for content.

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.

Now that the internet created a new market place and delivery plattform, the
distribution part broke down.

------
Uchikoma
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, ...)

------
Uchikoma
There is a lot talk of devaluing the work of artists in the comments by
selling cheap.

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.

But I'd guess it's only a problem if oneself is harmed.

