Tough times if you live from photography

[sepiareverb]

Digital cameras and the internet killed stock quite a few years ago for me. I went from a very pleasant income from shooting new images & continuing sales of a big group of images to about 10% of that a year later. It was that fast. Haven't make a penny from Getty, ageFotostock or Photonica in years. Haven't submitted in three.

 

[waynec]

So, I've never been a stock shooter while some of you have. Of course we all probably wanted to be one.

So, do I understand it right that the fact is, that middlemen saw the opportunity to enter the market between you stock shooters and the large stock houses, by offering low prices to unskilled (and ignorant) photographers on the pretense that they will get their work published, but really it was just an opportunity for these middlemen to make money off of them by paying them nothing per se' and underselling the large stock houses? Is that what happened? Cause if it is, that can be fixed.

 

[Roger Hicks]

So, I've never been a stock shooter while some of you have. Of course we all probably wanted to be one.

So, do I understand it right that the fact is, that middlemen saw the opportunity to enter the market between you stock shooters and the large stock houses, by offering low prices to unskilled (and ignorant) photographers on the pretense that they will get their work published, but really it was just an opportunity for these middlemen to make money off of them by paying them nothing per se' and underselling the large stock houses? Is that what happened? Cause if it is, that can be fixed.

Tried it. Made a (very) few thousand out of it over many years. And that was in the 'good old days'. It was always the library owners who made the money. Even then, there was sometimes an inverse correlation between the honesty of the library owner and the amount they made for themselves, especially in the case of some of the smaller libraries. Plenty were dead straight, of course. Are they now? Possibly.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Made a (very) few thousand out of it over many years.

That's a lot more than I got. Then I discovered local newspapers. In the 'seventies and 'eighties, they could be a surprisingly fruitful source of income, if you lived in the right area and enjoyed jumble sales.

😀