fotoLibrarian

I heard a lovely story the other day. Two, actually, but I wouldn't dream of revealing the second.

A prestigious UK professional magazine, the name of which will be known to you, recently embarked on a cost cutting exercise. Part of the deal was that the picture desk could no longer buy rights-managed images because they were perceived as too expensive, a move wholeheartedly supported by the editor, whose main preoccupation was of course the words.

Instead they were forced to use royalty-free images and CDs from microstock agencies. After three issues the editor cracked and authorised the purchase of rights-managed images again.

He said the magazine looked tacky and artificial, with unreal people. This is because 95% of the RF market is directed at US publishers, who are desperately seeking models with GSOH — in this case Good Skin, Own Hair.

So they're now back to buying proper RM images, and the mag has come back to life.

It's surprising how little it takes.

Incidentally this doesn't of course apply to fotoLibra's RF images, which are as hard-edged and realistic as anything you could possibly hope to buy — and at a much better price, too. Of necessity this will be going up when version 4 comes out, so this insider trader advises you to buy as many as you can right now.

It’s an irresistible offer, isn’t it?

Yet photographers around the world are flocking to do it. Not only do they get the chance to cut their own throats, they can cut their colleagues’ throats at the same time! Yay!

What’s this all about? Microstock photography. The ability to sell pictures on the internet has spawned a rash of dubious stock photo sites who offer (generally crappy) images to designers for a dollar a shot. There are dozens of these sites, with thousands of images available.

And at a dollar a shot, designers inevitably buy. They’d be stupid not to, even if the image only barely meets their requirements.

What does the photographer get? 20 cents, and the glory of knowing that their uncredited photograph will be flogged anonymously through every back alley in the world.

What will the designer expect to pay for the next purchase? Probably 95 cents. So the participating photographer, and all his colleagues, will get even less.

Yet the promise of scalability is what makes these poor suicidal photographers drool. Here’s one overheated imagination:

The concept for photographers is this: instead of selling one image at $80-$120 once, why not sell it for fifty cents 200 times? In the long run, the profit margin can even be much larger than simply selling it at a larger, fixed price. Can you really make any money off of selling images for fifty cents each? Well, if you make just five dollars a day (Sell 10 images on one site, or multiple sites) you will be raking in an extra $150 a month.

The math is fine, but I can spot two flaws in the reasoning.

Firstly, it is possible to get an offer of 50 cents per picture from some of these microstock agencies. Possible, but very rare. You are much more likely to get 20 cents, if anything.

Secondly, the line ‘why not sell it for fifty cents 200 times?’ Unarguable logic. With over 100 million photographs now for sale on line, what are the chances of the same lumpen royalty free stock photo being purchased once, let alone ten times? And 200 times? Hello? Their naïvety makes me weep.

So you put up ten photographs. If you have astounding luck, five of them sell. You make one dollar. You won’t get paid until you’ve made $30 worth of sales, or more — it’s really not worth writing a cheque for a dollar. So what if no more sell? You won’t see one thin dime. Eventually you’ll lose interest and drift away. But the agency still has your photographs, anonymous and uncredited by now, so they will be able to drive the price of a photograph down still further.

And now the designers won’t want to pay more than 75 cents per picture. And good, competent photographers who deserve a fair price for their work find the value of their labours demeaned and diminished.

The worm will turn, because it always does, but for the moment I cannot decide who are the real villains in this piece: the designers, for blindly wanting to drive down prices to the exclusion of all other parameters; the microstock agencies, for greedily fuelling the market; or the photographers, who by supplying adequate photographs are colluding and collaborating in their own downfall.

What is far more obvious is that the participating photographers are the big losers. The mentality of the lemming holds sway.

Price is one thing. Value is another.