Flickr woes

[gareth]

Well one solution is to use creative commons. Most of my pictures on my web site and on flickr are posted under a creative commons license.

That way people can use them non-commercially as they please, but it makes it quite clear that commercial use is not allowed. You have to contact the photographer for that.

Ikiru says,

There will always be a market for GOOD pro photographers. What there might not be market for is mediocre "pro" photographers.

I'm a part time photographer. Through my hobby people have begun to ask me for pictures for commercial use, and sometimes I pick up the odd commission. So many people ask me, when are you going to turn full time pro?

The answer is probably never. While there are some areas of photography that are still well paid, corporate and weddings for example, the area that I am interested in and work in, documentary, is not. Rates in documentary and news haven't changed in years, and more and more copyright grab is becoming part of getting paid.

So what is happening is that the good photographers are getting out. They either switch to doing weddings, editorial, corporate or they give up photography all together and find another career.

In this digital age there is no shortage of would be photographers to fill the gap, and as this happens and these people accept crap pay and copyright grabs they push the good guys further out.

For me it's much easier to make a living as a power station mechanic.

Perhaps Ikiru will be proven right in the long term. Either the standards in documentary will fall so low, that eventually the clients realise that they have to pay good money for good photographs, or perhaps this genre of photography in a professional sense will just quietly die.

 

[Terao]

The way I see flickr is as a means of advertising, the cost of which to me is that people can nick my photos if they want to. There are photogs out there who have gone from nothing to being high value commercial photogs just through flickr (and of course having talent). I like people commenting on my photos, and its a wonderfully valuable resource for research, history, etc. I just put a creative commons no commercial use license on my shots so should I happen to notice one of mine being ripped off I can sue the people using it. Big corporates are very hot on IP theft and it doesn't look good on their Corporate Responsibility scorecard if they get caught. If you think its difficult to take them on thing again - look what happened to Sony last year.
I also use flickr as an offsite backup for my shots so always upload fullsize high quality jpgs...

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

This is an interesting discussion. I like reading opposing viewpoints about something other than the M8!

Last weekend I met a fellow from NYC at a party. He was a full-time photographer, having worked for some big, hip clothing companies and magazines. He was talking with my girlfriend (a graphic designer) about fees. In his experience, a lot of clients wanted him to do a shoot for a few hundred bucks, which he felt was unacceptable. At first, I agreed with him but then I thought "they couldn't get away with that if there weren't a dozen other photographers of similar quality lined up to do the same job, maybe even cheaper." That's the problem with working in a creative field: there are plenty of people who will do for fun what you want to get paid for.

 

[40oz]

This is an interesting discussion. I like reading opposing viewpoints about something other than the M8!

Last weekend I met a fellow from NYC at a party. He was a full-time photographer, having worked for some big, hip clothing companies and magazines. He was talking with my girlfriend (a graphic designer) about fees. In his experience, a lot of clients wanted him to do a shoot for a few hundred bucks, which he felt was unacceptable. At first, I agreed with him but then I thought "they couldn't get away with that if there weren't a dozen other photographers of similar quality lined up to do the same job, maybe even cheaper." That's the problem with working in a creative field: there are plenty of people who will do for fun what you want to get paid for.

Well, if you have $10-20K in gear, I can't see how you could make a living working for a couple hundred bucks a day. And once you start doing that, why would anyone be willing to pay you more? Quite often, people ask me to do a site for their business. When I give them a quote, they act like it is outrageous. They can't seem to grasp that my price isn't arbitrary any more than the price of their goods.

I can go to a car dealer and ask to buy a new car for $500, but they will say no. There may be used cars out there for that price, but it is hardly the same thing, and I can certainly not expect that all cars are worth no more than the cheapest I could buy one.

Just because someone is lowballing doesn't mean they know something you don't. Much more likely, it's the other way.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

have you tried digital watermarking your photos ?

I do this, as well as tagging EXIF data, and doing two types of image watermarking (one immediately visible, the other only shows when I do some other processing). People complain about the watermarks, but that's exactly what the watermarks are there for.

In the beginning I made these very prominent, but they really were too distracting. Then I went ahead and started doing the other "stuff".

Another thing you could do on flickr is just post small 800x600 (this could be too big for many people's taste, too small for others'; it's the Internet, you'll never please everybody).

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

but I just can't understand why people would favorite only top-quality photos.. that just doesn't make sense!

[sarcasm 2.0b]It's part of a conspiracy to mess with our minds[/sarcasm 2.0b]

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

This is an interesting discussion. I like reading opposing viewpoints about something other than the M8!

M...8? Whatchatakinabot, Andrew? 😉

having worked for some big, hip clothing companies and magazines

Big hip clothing companies? Certainly not the ones I see on TV 🙄

 

[dll927]

As long as there are websites offering to upload photos, this problem is going to exist. In other words, downloading is possible, too. Probably the best real solution is to use passwords that have to be obtained from the original poster via e-mail. At least in that way the poster knows who is up to things.

I'm not about to violate somone's copyright, but I freely admit to downloading pictures strictly to put in folders for my own enjoyment. I have absolutely NO intention of using them for any other purpose.

I'd be quite happy to post some of my own stuff if websites would make it a bit easier to do so. Having to go through various steps and use 'shadow' sites to get through is more trouble than I want to be bothered with.

 

[kully]

Someone using your image without consent is theft. I would be just as miffed if it were the Queen as some spotty oik doing his GCSEs. It's all about being polite - the simple effort of asking. If you give that consent in the same way as I leave furniture in the front garden with a "Free" sticker on it - then this becomes redundant.

I don't agree with the undermining professionals theory though - I've always heard that two people taking a photo of the same scene will come up with two different interpretations. So you'd hope the bloke(ss) who does it for a living would do a better job of filling their brief than a bugger like me.

I think the new world/old world ideas in the posts before were spot on. Take software applications for example, there are lots of very helpful little programmes around written by people who wrote them because they like what they do - amateurs. People have the choice of using these or paying for something available commercially.

In the same way, professional photographers should not be beating on the amateurs because they're taking their work, instead they should be offering something which an amateur can't afford to do because they'll have their normal jobs too.

kully

PS I would never want to take photos for a living, being paid for something is a guarnteed way of killing any enjoyment for me.