Over the last 2 to 3 years I have watched with a certain amount interest the development of 'cloud sourcing' in relationship to photography and graphic design. From it's initial conception, it has had a dramatic impact on photography and the income that professional photographers who have derived from stock library sales and commissioned work. Like all things 'web', it was initially greeted by the media pundits as a positive movement for change where once individuals worked in isolation, they could now share projects and ideas between dozens if not hundreds of individuals. Each with their own specialty or unique skill set.
However, unlike the scientific and engineering communities who have benefited from this social networking medium, the creative industries and photography, have been particularly hard hit by this revolution. Rather than a growth of shared ideas and imaging that was initially expected, certain web entrepreneurs have used this technology to lure keen amateurs and naive new-comers to the industry to part with their images and copyright on promises of a quick and easy income, while disposing of their images for a fraction of their true value.
Unsurprisingly, this new source of cheap image acquisition has been leapt upon by companies and organizations alike, desperate to reduce their advertising costs. Little care or consideration was given to the impact of their purchasing decisions as long as they were able to purchase an image that bore a passing resemblance to the concept they actually required. Also little regard was given to the technical quality of the images as long the expenditure did not exceed $10!
In many ways, I have been surprised by the uptake of micro-stock by designers and other creatives. This has not just been by small individual one-man bands but also by some well known and established advertising agencies who should have really known better. For years, they have extolled the virtue of purchasing specifically produced well executed images to enhance and promote their clients goods and services but in the rush for profit, they have also ditched the moral high ground.
Many professionals I have spoken to recently have found it quite ironic that 'cloud sourcing' has now spread to graphic design industry with a proliferation of sites such as Design 99 touting speculative design projects, with only the wining pitcher being paid a nominal amount for their time and creativity. The designers, who have for the last 5 years benefited from cheap stock images, are now crying foul of this move and are attempting a similar rear-guard action that photographers attempted several years ago.
One aspect of photography 'cloud sourcing' for which I have never seen as a viable business proposition was the income generated from low priced images. The quantity of stock sales over the last has grown slowly but given the scale of revenue generated by selling an image for £1 instead of £100, it is difficult for me to see how an IT heavy company (picture library) could possible cover it's running costs, continued development of it's database, marketing, upgrading of kit, let alone pay the contributors a reasonable commission percentage.
In September, last year, the truth finally dawned on the industry and the CEO of a major micro-stock library made this admission:
“Since roughly 2005 we’ve been aware of a basic problem with how our business works. As the company grows, the overall percentage we pay out to contributing artists increases. As a business model, it’s simply unsustainable.”
The temporary solution of the micro-stock library was to immediately savagely reduce the contributors' percentage of an image sale. In some cases, this meant a photographer was now earning 11p on a sale of an individual image. This suddenly brought home to the part-time and week-end photographers that photography is a business and that as a business operator, you need to cover the costs of your product production. On salary of 11p per image, I hardly think that this is likely.
However, I am not surprised to see that people are still contributing to this failed business concept. Let us not forget, most new photographers never learn from the mistakes of others. Over the last 20 years, I have seen numerous portrait photographers come and go in Birmingham, all basing their business concept around a free/low cost portrait makeover (usually around £20) and the sitter would receive a free 7'x5' print from the shoot. It always amused me when the photographer exclaimed that he could never understand why the sitter only collected the free print and was never seen again. However the local 1 hour print shop seemed to be doing a 'raring' busy in copy prints.
I don't want to get involved in the argument that continually seems rage between professional photographers and the new stock contributers about the ethical use of stock images but I would argue that a well composed, meaningful designed image should have a value regardless of who took it and the author should receive a fair financial remuneration for its use. It now seems to me that 5-6 years on into this experiment of web 2.0 and in particular, 'cloud sourcing', that this child of the internet has done more harm than good.
Richard Southall
www.emphasis.biz
www.richardsouthall.co.uk
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