Over on a microstock newsgroup, someone posted link to an interview with a pro photographer at ASSIGNMENT ZERO. Never heard of them? A place where amateurs write “news” stories and interviews, which are then edited, published, and used on the Assignment zero web site, and the original writers happily accept ‘ZERO’ dollars in fiscal compensation.
Let’s take a moment and think about the context of this interview, which is on a site that promotes the ‘value’ of getting lots of work from lots of people in exchange for no fiscal compensation. So let’s see who’s getting the ‘most’ out of this business model; Not the people doing the writing or interviewing.
Then the Microstock subject comes up quickly in the interview with this pro, and many sentiments are framed to ‘nicely’ reflect the opinion of this pro. But what the pro says is he doesn’t DO microstock. The between the lines interpretation of it is that he hasn’t yet seen the sales model hit a price point where the return on value for his efforts and the amount of work required is worthwhile. Then, if you look at the photographer’s portfolio on Corbis, every image is Rights Managed. Heck, based on that portfolio, he doesn’t even DO Royal Free.
White sheep write about people who like white sheep. Black sheep write about people who like black sheep. People who just like sheep read both sides with grains of salt, and bias correcting lenses firmly in place.
Update: It appears that this photographer does do RF for about half of his getty collection. I guess I was too fuzzy brained after only 4 hours sleep to figure out how to search by photographer name on Getty. So, he does DO RF, but still NO micro. Consider this post duly ammended. PS: Thanks, Richard.
I like the part of the interview where he says that the ad market sees value for microstock photography. Of course, everyone sees the value of photography except for the photographer themselves. I would rather have no one see my work than go microstock.