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rfmcdonaldStephanie Clifford's recent New York Times article almost makes me feel guilty for maintaining a fairly active Flickr account.
Trained photographers, one of the persons interviewed said, have an ability to look for and create narratives. Amateur photographers, though, have very low expectations for compensation, recognition--never mind actual money!--generally being enough for them. I know that's the case for me.
Thoughts? Has Clifford happened to capture an actually existing phenomenon? It does strike me that she doesn't adequately capture the existence of niche markets for professional photographers, whether commissioned jobs or art projects, that amateurs can't fill but professionals could profit from.
Incidentally, Mr. Eich's online presence can be found via this Google search, and Ms. Pruitt's Flickr site--she operates under the nom de net Pink Sherbet--is here.
By the time Matt Eich entered photojournalism school in 2004, the magazine and newspaper business was already declining.
Matt Eich, a freelance photojournalist, edits photos in his Norfolk, Virginia home-office.
But Mr. Eich had been shooting photographs since he was a child, and when he married and had a baby during college, he stuck with photography as a career.
“I had to hit the ground running and try to make enough money to keep a roof over our heads,” he said.
Since graduation in 2008, Mr. Eich, 23, has gotten magazine assignments here and there, but “industrywide, the sentiment now, at least among my peers, is that this is not a sustainable thing,” he said. He has been supplementing magazine work with advertising and art projects, in a pastiche of ways to earn a living. “There was a path, and there isn’t anymore.”
Then there is D. Sharon Pruitt, a 40-year-old mother of six who lives on Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Ms. Pruitt’s husband is in the military, and their frequent moves meant a full-time job was not practical. But after a vacation to Hawaii in 2006, Ms. Pruitt uploaded some photos — taken with a $99 Kodak digital camera — to the site Flickr.
Since then, through her Flickr photos, she has received a contract with the stock-photography company Getty Images that gives her a monthly income when publishers or advertisers license the images. The checks are sometimes enough to take the family out to dinner, sometimes almost enough for a mortgage payment. “At the moment, it’s just great to have extra money,” she said.
Mr. Eich and Ms. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether.
Trained photographers, one of the persons interviewed said, have an ability to look for and create narratives. Amateur photographers, though, have very low expectations for compensation, recognition--never mind actual money!--generally being enough for them. I know that's the case for me.
Thoughts? Has Clifford happened to capture an actually existing phenomenon? It does strike me that she doesn't adequately capture the existence of niche markets for professional photographers, whether commissioned jobs or art projects, that amateurs can't fill but professionals could profit from.
Incidentally, Mr. Eich's online presence can be found via this Google search, and Ms. Pruitt's Flickr site--she operates under the nom de net Pink Sherbet--is here.
