...the only value for me is if you put money in my hand..

RogersDA

Minor language warning.

Some insight into giving away your work for free.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

SamirD

Wow, he's livid. But his points are valid, especially with the current state of hobby photographers with pro-looking work. It's a case of supply and demand. The supply of great images just went up 10x, and the demand is the same or less since people no longer pay for great images since they can get them for free. What will the result be for the professional that gets paid for photography? Probably a day job...

WillCAD

I never thought about it in just those terms before, but I think I agree with Harlan on this one. You want to interview me and put it on your DVD as a "bonus feature" that you tout as one of the reasons why your DVD demands the price it does, but not pay me for the interview? You're making money off that interview, because it's one of the 6,000 hours of Bonus Material included on the DVD, yet you don't want to share any of that money with the interviewee? Nope. Forget it.

And he's right, there is zero publicity value in being interviewed for a DVD release. It won't get you jobs, it won't get you press, it won't have any positive effect on your professional reputation. So foregoing compensation because of some supposed publicity value is ludicrous.

Not that it will ever be an issue for me. I doubt anyone will ever want to interview me in a professional capacity for a DVD, or even a fish wrapper.

But if they did, I'd want to be paid for it.

run_kmc

Kirk Tuck has commented on this phenomenon recently. Interesting read.

RogersDA

This is an important thing to remember for a lot of photogs...or anyone asked to submit their intellectual property for free / deep discount.

Sometimes it is wise to do - but that has to be the owner's discretion and not the people asking for the copies.

I, for one, would never participate in what I consider to be junk sites such as micro stock sites or other such things. To little gain in my opinion.

SamirD

This thread seems to be a great place to ask, "where do you see the future of photography going?" It will be very interesting to read our various answers and points-of-view.

Personally, I'm seeing photography becoming more commoditized. It's much easier to produce quality work than ever before, so it's more prevalent. However, there's a cost to doing this. And most of the cost for producing the work isn't coming from the work itself, so something outside the photography industry is funding the work. This isn't sustainable. I'm starting to see some breakdown, but it's only with early adopters of DSLRs who have lost their means to sustain their photography and are now dumping their equipment in order to re-coup costs. But someone else is snatching up the equipment quickly (even older equipment), so there's still a lot more people that want to get into photography than the number of people getting out.

WillCAD

SamirD wrote:

This thread seems to be a great place to ask, "where do you see the future of photography going?" It will be very interesting to read our various answers and points-of-view.

Personally, I'm seeing photography becoming more commoditized. It's much easier to produce quality work than ever before, so it's more prevalent. However, there's a cost to doing this. And most of the cost for producing the work isn't coming from the work itself, so something outside the photography industry is funding the work. This isn't sustainable. I'm starting to see some breakdown, but it's only with early adopters of DSLRs who have lost their means to sustain their photography and are now dumping their equipment in order to re-coup costs. But someone else is snatching up the equipment quickly (even older equipment), so there's still a lot more people that want to get into photography than the number of people getting out.

Not being a pro, my views may be a little skewed, but I don't see it being that much easier to produce quality work than before. Sure, there are better tools available, but those tools are also getting far more complex and specialized, requiring just as much skill as before but in different areas.

Uncle Marv will always be at the wedding with his instamatic camera, thinking that he's a photographer because he has a camera with all the latest bells and whistles on it. But those who study the basics of composition and lghting, who delve the depths of their equipments capabilitites, and who steve to improve their understanding of both the technical and artistc aspects of photography, will always be able to put the Uncle Marvs of the world to shame with their images. And those folks will always be in demand as professional photographers.

SamirD

WillCAD wrote:

Not being a pro, my views may be a little skewed, but I don't see it being that much easier to produce quality work than before. Sure, there are better tools available, but those tools are also getting far more complex and specialized, requiring just as much skill as before but in different areas.

Uncle Marv will always be at the wedding with his instamatic camera, thinking that he's a photographer because he has a camera with all the latest bells and whistles on it. But those who study the basics of composition and lghting, who delve the depths of their equipments capabilitites, and who steve to improve their understanding of both the technical and artistc aspects of photography, will always be able to put the Uncle Marvs of the world to shame with their images. And those folks will always be in demand as professional photographers.

I agree that there will always be those that think their equipment is what makes their images good. I think the latest fad of everyone having a DSLR is a perfect example of that. Even pros know what the tiny Panasonic LX3 can do, and yet most people getting a complete DSLR rig at Best Buy don't even know what the LX3 is.

My point on commoditization comes from my own experience. I once was at a shootout, and a model's mom had a 50D with a L series 70-200 2.8 lens. On fully automatic she was getting shots light-years better than what my dinky high-end consumer cameras could do. But she didn't have a clue as to why they were turning out great. She let me play with the setup (drool), and I was able to turn it up a notch. But the baseline images that she shot are still much better than what people could do in the past with the amount of money invested.

Give Uncle Marv that setup and inevitably he will get some pro looking shots. Let him practice, and if he has any skill, he'll be able to get professional looking images on a regular basis. A pro with the same equipment can get even better images, but there's the problem of diminishing returns. How perfect does the perfect shot have to be? And who's going to pay for it?