> I think only a handful of people have taken part in this thread so to > say most people are stuck in a morass of low-paying agencies may not > be quite true. Personally, I'm not stuck in any agency or in the habit > of making technical excuses to clients or myself!
Shangara: I was not referring to this thread, I was referring to the many dicussions of professional photography that occur on the internet. As for your being stuck in an agency, I never suspected you were. In fact, I'm wondering just how much stock agency experience you have. > Just picking up on what you said earlier (hope you don't mind). If a > 100mb picture earns $40 a year, who is buying it and for what purpose? Who cares? If they are buying and I'm depositing the checks, I will continue to supply them as long as it's profitable. > A file that size I would expect to be used in a top class art > publication for a cover or a double-page spread or a massively sized > poster campaign. If it is being used for any of those purposes, I > would expect it to earn �1-6k, if not more. If it's earning $40 > dollars, well, supplying 100mb files is a waste of resources all > around because it's bound to be used at a fraction of its submitted > size... Now do I have to explain the standard stock photo industry practice of describing agency performance by the dollars per image per year method? > As I said, to my way of thinking and limited experience, size does not > equal quality, and AGE have a "sensible" policy for excepting scanned > and digitally originated images. If other agencies followed, all > contributors, including the agencies, would benefit. This is exactly the point that I find creepy. Most of my competitors will absolutely agree with you here. They will choose the agency with a "sensible" policy over one that can make them five times as much money. If other agencies followed, they would loose the competitive advantage they currently hold over AGE and their contributors would see sharp drops in their income - is this what you're arguing for? For the most part, readers of internet professional photography discussion groups seem to see things the same way you seem to - that is, the photographer as technical solution provider. Indeed many people are happy with this role. But a few of us - including those big stock agencies - are vendors of dreams and images and want to make sure our customers aren't dissapointed. Brian Yarvin Food Photography, Writing, and Recipes http://www.brianyarvin.com http://www.farmsandfoods.com =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
