The recent ballyhoo about Flickr’s ongoing laziness in protecting photographers rights stirred a lot of comments and discussion. Nothing, really nothing, of this is new. I’ve noticed the copyright problems on Flickr (and on the Internet) long before, and many did even before I did. It’s just that now some colleagues start to wake up, wondering where there the heck their business is heading?
Photographer Alfie Goodrich comments in that thread:
There are those of us who chose this as a career, nearly bankrupted themselves with the materials costs of film and paper for three years of art school, slogged long and hard to get pics published before you could do it yourself and who still need to make a living at it to feed their kids.
(I fully agree.) And then Alfie wonders:
Professionals are still required. But how do we make a living?
This comment made me think. Is that statement still true? I don’t think so. Look at other industries that have gone through massive changes. Printing and typesetting, for example. Twenty years ago you could still become a typesetter, making your living by entering text into machines that in return produced a piece of film that someone could use to design the layout of a newspaper, magazine, book, or advertisement. But within just a decade, towards the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, any typesetters’ job reality changed dramatically. Typesetters were suddenly not needed any longer.
What had happened?
Apple had introduced the first PCs with graphical user interfaces, along with some fine layout programs, like Quark Express, and the whole print industry (newspapers, magazines, book publishers, ad agencies) jumped on the ”Desktop Publishing” bandwagon. Overnight they started to do the typesetting themselves. Which made typesetters pretty much dispensable. At first, typesetters were trained to use the new systems, but within short time, the writers just entered the copy themselves, and the designers and art directors arranged the layouts. Typesetters were just not needed any longer, despite their experience and expert-eyes for typography.
Intertype Typesetting Machine
Wood Type & Printing Museum, Hamilton, WI
Photo: Kim Scarborough – some rights reserved
Today, people hardly know what a “typesetter” is/was and frankly, they do not care. Everyone (in the western world) has access to a PC and can enter texts and design simple pages. Okay, you may have to buy a piece of software, but getting something printed onto paper is by far not that difficult or expensive as it was in the past. (Typesetting is still available for money, as there are still copyshops and small design firms that will deal with end consumers to get that odd wedding invitation printed, but it’s a niche and not the most profitable business in the world.)
Now, how does that relate to photography? Easy. Colleagues, please let’s prepare to become the next typesetters. Let’s prepare to become extinct. We are dinosaurs, clinging to old-fashioned business models and equally old-fashioned ethics (“do not steal!”), unable to compete with the new market forces. On one end, thieves are stealing what we produce the second we produce it; on the other end, our customers are now doing the photos themselves or getting them free of charge from serious amateurs who are happy to get a by-line from a local newspaper. And if you are a press photographer, you better be afraid of those HD video cameras, be very afraid! No, photographers are neither wanted nor needed any longer. Nobody is going to finance our exquisite lifestyle and high-end equipment any more. At least not for our work, regardless of it’s quality. We will be out of the loop soon. Yep, that’s the sad truth about professional photography, at least for the majority of us. And by the way, on the Internet, nobody needs those tack-sharp high-resolution files anyway.
Sure, like with typesetters, there will be a few professional photographers around in the future, but just not as many as there are today. And those who can survive will only be able to do so due to their business connections to other dinosaurs (e.g. old-fashioned editors or marketing departments) based on their successes of the past. This will work for niches only, e.g. glossy car brochures, fashion catalogues, studio portraits. The majority of professional photographers, however, will not be able to make a living any more and will have to move on. Just as typesetters did.
(By the way, here is a very revealing article by stockphoto legend Pino Granata over at StockPhotoTalk. Make sure to read also the comments.)
My grandfather worked with such a machine, he died of lung cancer when I was 5 or so, because of the liquid lead (producing lead fumes) these machines used to make the letters.
This article is spot-on.
One wonders how this world will transform itself. It’s so fast and astounding! Talking with a friend, I recently noticed that many of the science fictions we used to watch or read since the 1970ies are kind of reality now.
These SciFis kind of repeating themselves now, there is not much new out there, at least as far as I know. But what would be the science fictions of today, describing the world of tomorrow?
Will we make even the more sinister scifis a reality? Blow the world apart?
Or will we create a better world, a world of even more interesting technical invention, of positive social creativity and peaceful worldwide collaboration? Well, I hope so. The tools are there I think, we just need to get rid of useless conflicts and barriers in mind and world which prevent people from working together to improve themselves and thus mankind.
I think those who rely on commercial assignment work will always have work, but there is a lot of competition so money will probably weed out those who aren’t committed for the long haul. Stock and editorial work though is definitely on the down slope when it comes to the mainstream photo buyers. I think the new opportunities now are from the general public.
Only right and proper I should reply to this, seeing as you are basing an entire article around a comment I made. Apolgies for any rambling that may occur…. I am currently trying to cook the dinner, watch my kids and write this at the same time.
First, I’m not a dinosaur clinging to old-fashioned ethics but people taking my work and failing to at least credit me does piss me off. That goes for bloggers [how long does it take to make the photographer's name a link? you should know, you bothered to do it but most people dont] and bigger people like the La Repubblica newspaper group in Italy who took my work, re-printed it and then put their own name underneath it as the copyright holder. Why should I not be slightly angry about that? Especially if people are going to make money from my work. Why should I be happy about never seeing any of that money?
You said: “And those who can survive will only be able to do so due to their business connections to other dinosaurs (e.g. old-fashioned editors or marketing departments) based on their successes of the past.”
Yes, I sell to magazines. Yes I have contacts. But many, especially here in my new home of Japan, are very new indeed.
Why study, be an apprentice, build up a CV, gather life experience; in short, why have a ‘past’ if it cannot useful? I am not some old fart trading off my past successes, being thrown jobs out of sympathy as your “based on their successes of the past” makes it sound.
Since leaving art college in 1988 after training as a photographer, I have worked in lots of businesses; the music business, design, internet, public sector, local government. Not before April 2008 had I embarked on a 100% career as a photographer. Since then I have worked hard and made friends at magazines, PR companies, publishing houses and amongst the general public [who have found me on the web] and have started shooting for a living for the first time. It is not easy, no freelance life is, as I have experienced before. But it is still possible to be a professional photographer and I am making money from it. Not bucket-loads, but I am making a living.
Yes, there are lots of talented people out there shooting with digital cameras now, publishing their work instantly and globally, seeing all kinds of things and providing stunning material for an ever-changing media environment. I applaud that. I also teach photography to a lot of those kind of people here in Tokyo. They want to learn more about photography from someone like me who has been doing it a long time and who is currently working in the field.
I will also be doing my best to keep up with them in the future.
Being a photographer shouldnt mean giving all my work away for free or giving up trying to shoot for money. Whether it is a magazine wanting something or a couple from overseas getting married in Japan wanting someone to shoot some interesting and unique shots of them around the city, a lot of clients still want the quality that comes from people who have spent a long time honing their craft. People who have a good eye and who shoot and deliver stylish work…. professionally.
I agree, there are alots of ‘careers’ that dont exist now due to the changing ways of the world. Photography could very well be one that is fading away. But, photographers with a good eye, good ideas, flexibility, charm, panache, both eyes on the future and a bunch of other things I can think of…. they will always be in demand as long as they are able to keep up with delivering pictures in innovative ways of subjects that inspire or move people. And people will pay.
I shoot with stills and am now getting back to video. I totally appreciate what a Canon 5D that shoots full HD through great lenses can do. And you are right, those kinds of bits of kit are changing things. I am not afraid of them though, why should I be?
I am not wedded to some old-fashioned notion of ‘film’. The world is way better off without film. Film and darkrooms were great fun at the time, gave me loads of skills on making stylish pictures but the whole experience also gave me excema, nearly poisoned me on several occasions and besides, nothing about film photography is eco; making film is dirty, processing it is dirty, printing it is dirty. It’s great that people dont shoot so much film nowadays. Great for the planet. Clients still want stuff that looks like film and I have years of experience of working with the real thing, so I know how to make digital pictures look just like film. But I dont miss film at all…..
I am happy to change the way I do things and change the things I do. I have spent an entire working life since the age of 16 doing a whole variety of different things or the same things in different ways.
Change can be good. I embrace most of it happily and readily but not when people use the excuse of `the changing face of media, publishing, creating and ownership’ to justify taking things without asking and without acknowledging the creator.