

For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - ojbyrne
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html

======
roc
> _"Can an amateur take a picture as good as a professional? Sure," Ms.
> Eismann said. "Can they do it on demand? Can they do it again? Can they do
> it over and over? Can they do it when a scene isn’t that interesting?"_

An interesting re-occurrence of Steve Martin's observation in a recently
posted article:

" _[It] was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is
clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: like lucky cards in
poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be
good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the circumstances._
"

~~~
gaius
Yes that's exactly it. Every photographer looks at a professional shot and
says "I could have taken that". But what makes a great lansdcape photo (for
example) is that some guy for 6 months woke up before dawn every day and
humped his gear up the hill and picked the right moment to take the shot, then
sorted through dozens of images to find _the_ shot and that's what appears in
the calendar. Sure you could have taken that shot if by sheer coincidence you
happened to be on that hillside at just the right moment, with all your gear
and your wits about you. But you weren't...

~~~
ilamont
While it's unlikely one amateur could have coincidentally matched the pro's
efforts, a few thousand amateurs working independently could have come up with
at least a few pro-quality shots -- and not demand professional wages to do
it.

Note also that not all pro work is concentrated around difficult shots or
situations. Gabe Rivera of Techmeme tweeted a few weeks ago about Agence
France-Presse flying a professional photographer out to the U.S. to shoot him
as part of an interview package. The photo they used online? His hand holding
a mouse:

[http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jj324Ei1-...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jj324Ei1-ngJUBVLfVYLMjwofwFQ)

~~~
gaius
OK, but a professional-quality photograph still costs money to produce, let's
say a photo costs $1000. That might be the pro charging the magazine $1000 and
delivering the image or it might be a thousand amateurs all "spending" $1 on
their camera, their time, gas for the car, whatever and one of them giving it
to the magazine for free (after we have also accounted for the photo editor
sifting through a thousand submissions). I'm just not seeing where the net
value-add is here.

~~~
cookingrobot
A thousand people enjoy taking the picture - that's worth a lot. A hundred
actually think they took a good one and post it. An editor browses flickr or
whatever and quickly finds a good one and offers that person $50 or a photo
credit, and makes their day. Everyone wins, except the professional
photographer.

~~~
gaius
I still can't help but feel that we're losing something. Where's the next
Ansel Adams in this scenario?

The thousand-amateurs argument is like the argument that the world doesn't
need professional developers, any amateur can build their own apps with Excel
and Access...

~~~
cookingrobot
I think the world gets more great artists when the barriers to entry are
lower, and there are more amateurs in the field. It might have been easier to
name the great photographers of 50 years ago when there were fewer of them,
but I think there are a lot of great photographers now - likely more than when
it was a less accessible art to get into. Another angle is that there are
certainly more "good" photographers now - I think this generations personal
photo collections are way better on average than in the past, because so many
people know good photographers, or can take lots of pictures and get lucky
sometimes. That's really valuable on an individual level.

------
Adaptive
I was a pro shooter for three years and 90% of what set me apart was being a
nice guy to work with, being professional and being consistent.

* Other pros that I took work from were often jerks. Being a nice, direct and reasonable individual takes you a long way in that business.

* Being professional meant having a studio, quoting and billing clearly, being a good communicator with clients. Things amateur shoots don't always do well.

* Being consistent in terms of quality, turn around time, etc.

There is still work out there if you have a stable of good clients that need
and value the above. But in cases where stock photos will do, you're screwed.

------
eric_t
I think it's wrong to say "Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for
snapshots of children and sunsets". It's more of a democratization of the
tools needed to do a successful photo shoot. Anyone can buy a DSLR, the
strobist movement means good-looking lighting for cheap and excellent post
processing tools are available for free.

This means that amateur photographers in many cases can do just as good a job
as a professional. It's pretty much the same reason why magazines and
newspapers are declining, the internet and social networks have lead to a
democratization of news.

To be successful as a professional photographer, you have to offer more than
what amateurs are capable of, and in addition be able to educate your customer
why you're worth the extra cash. As always, it's about staying competitive,
instead of weeping over the past.

~~~
ja27
For a while I've been trying to think of other fields where this will happen.
iStockPhoto has already expanded into stock video, stock illustrations and
stock audio (environmental and music). It's also clearly happening with
written articles and perhaps even entire books.

What's next? Software? 3D models?

~~~
olefoo
You already see that with software both GNU and non-GNU. The internet means
that any good that can be reduced to bits on the wire will become widely
available at low or no cost. And it's not just piracy, but competition between
substitutes that cost almost nothing to reproduce. Automated fabrication means
that this is beginning to happen to physical goods as well.

What you see happening is producers competing against all other producers in
their field, past and present.

Uniqueness, originality and authenticity become the premium values for any
creative work.

------
tseabrooks
This reminds me of something I realized the other day while shopping for
artwork to decorate the guest room. I'd rather order a print of a photo from
deviant art or some other such website than buy some medium quality picture
from Target or other big box retailers.

~~~
varikin
I agree with that, but also offer another option, local artists. In every good
sized city, there will be an arts community. And within that community, there
are events, art fairs, local shops showing art, galleries, etc. In
Minneapolis, there is the North East arts district,
<http://www.northeastminneapolisartsdistrict.com/>. Also check out local
colleges. Most should have an art department that have a end of year student
sale. There can be some great finds in those.

I have nothing against Deviant Art or Etsy or SupermarketHQ or any other site
to buy great art for the artists, but don't discount the local artists.

~~~
blhack
A lot of the local artists are a bit insane with how much they're trying to
charge for their prints. I've seen moderately interesting prints that cost
>$500 and are from people who do photography as a hobby.

I'm not saying artists shouldn't be paid, but when I cannot tell the
difference between a $20 print from Target or a $500 print by some unknown
artists that I bought off the wall of a coffee shop, I'm probably going to
either just go for $20 thing, or spend $50 and print some of my friends'
photos.

~~~
varikin
At $500 dollars, you might be paying for the framing, printing, and matting,
plus the fact that the artist might be well known in the community and has
people buying his work. Or they are just unreasonable.

But I would hope there are local artists with more reasonably priced artwork.

------
daleharvey
heh sounds familiar, I do gig photography (and travel), just because I like
having the memories and was a fun skill to learn, I upload all my photos to
flickr full size under the cc license, sometimes the bands come across them
and use them for various things, always pretty appreciative.

I have had quite a few sneers and emails complaining about ruining their
livelihoods because I give stuff away for free, I found it pretty strange,
like me going to github and complaining about these programmers giving stuff
away.

( *
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/daleharvey/collections/72157600...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/daleharvey/collections/72157600399774951/)
my music stuff)

~~~
ilamont
That's really good stuff.

I was in a band in the 1990s and remember hiring some photojournalist friends
of mine to take our publicity and live photos. We paid the equivalent of $50
for a few rolls (it was overseas) but I remember in the end we or some friends
started doing it for us for free. Kind of wish Flickr had been around then,
maybe we could have gotten some useful shots from a wider range of people and
cameras.

------
jawngee
I'm the CTO for an image archive (<http://trunkarchive.com/>). You could sort
of consider us a boutique stock agency, but that would be sort of demeaning to
the stable of photographers we rep.

Interesting article, but I doubt professional photographers have much to worry
about. The amateur will fill a niche, perhaps compete with the low-end of the
spectrum of professional photographers, but - ultimately - the kind of image
licensing that nets the most cash, and makes the most careers, is celebrity
and high end editorial.

------
Groxx
Shrinking market due to this trend? Certainly. But who are you going to hire
for your wedding / magazine cover / bikini model shoot?

This strikes me as the market realizing that, when they just need _a_ photo,
there's plenty out there. For cases where a _professional_ is needed, say for
a photo shoot, professionals are still hired. Most of the rest of this seems
like an increase in stock photo use (which was previously unfairly snubbed)
combined with the economy troubles. It's happening _everywhere_ , photography
isn't alone in this.

 _Pages are at a premium, and there’s more competition to get anything into a
magazine now, and the bar is just higher for excellent work._

Is this somehow a bad thing? Lack of competition to improve may very well have
_caused_ this whole trend.

------
hopeless
I've often long said it: there's no money in photographs but lots of money in
photographers.

More photographers = more competition (if you're also a photographer) OR a
bigger market (if you sell _to_ photographers)

which would you choose? I'm an enthusiast photographer but have no intention
of going down the pro route. Instead, I'm building <http://shutterscouts.com>
\-- an idea notebook and weather forecasting service for landscape
photographers. Just went live for beta this week!

