Being such a libertarian on people creating their own realities, I really don't have anything to say about MicroStock. Other than I don't get it. It makes no sense within the reality of markets and goods and services and the ability to profit from one another. RF disks I got, but MicroStock is way different to me. The valuation of the single image is now in a few dollars.
And to refer to the people who buy images as art buyers with some sort of reverence... wow, sorry, I just don't get that at all. I wonder if the designers who are paying $8 bucks for the brochure photography are charging $12 for design?
I'm thinking no...
Awash with images..... but customers?
2 comments:
Indeed. But then it's a market economy - too much supply of images whose creators don't have to make a living of them has driven down prices to where you can't make a living of it.
So with the market for images gone, photographers have to market something else to make a living: service. The ability to deliver the product under all circumstances, the ability to deal with logistics and attitudes, the ability to direct all the talent that can go into a complex shoot, etc. It's not the final image, it's that you were able to produce it to expectation that will get you paid now.
That's why so many professional photographers have taken so long to partake in microstock. If you look at it with a perspective based on the past, it doesn't make sense.
Especially for photographers in the US. Microstock is global, so you're now competing with photographers in countries with much lower costs of production. It's probably better that you don't partake in the microstock market anyway. You can't profit from it, and trying to do so will erode the profits of those that can. Now wouldn't *that* be ironic! ;)
-Lee
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