srika

It's a great time for people who love photography! Especially interesting is the last paragraph.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/diginews.html#yr_photo

danny25

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPoHCQ0dMYc

Dan Martin

Good for the average joe, bad for the professional photojournalists. It devalues their work, just like these people who get a DSLR for christmas and suddenly decide they're professional wedding photogs now.

srika

.. I guess everyone's doing it! That was good, I was kinda wondering about risks involved too..

srika

does it really devalue their work? in the end isn't it just about quality of product?

Dan Martin

I can guarantee you if I was a pro photojournalist and my photo was on Yahoo's or Reuter's homepage, I'd want to be compensated for it. Now with this policy, any photo they use is now free. Not a bad deal for them, especially considering most people get their news online today.

If you have a million people offering their photos for free, there's little incentive to use a pro's work.

srika

point taken - I wonder if they will differentiate between the pro and free pics in some way..

CarForAllSeasons

Bingo.

They are taking advantage of all this "nobodies" running around with digital cameras. Most of these people will just be excited to say their pictures are online for all to see. Meanwhile, big business is cashing in on all this free labor. I'm sure the real professional photojournalists are steaming mad about this little move. Digital photography is a great thing. Fantastic really but a major drawback is this hurts the professional photographers of the world. Its hard to spend the money to keep up with the quick changing of technology, and now you have Joe Schmoe out there with his DSLR pretending he is a pro-wedding shooter, photo journalist, or portait artist among others. Its kinda sad really.

srika

are pros mad because amateurs can now take pictures which are as good (or better) than theirs with much cheaper equipment? hey, it's a dog eat dog world.

Dan Martin

As with any photography, there's a lot more to it than having good equipment. Photojournalism is all about being in the right place at the right time. If you're in that right place at the right time, any amateur could get a good shot. The difference is, pros travel the world to put themselves at the right place all the time. They also know how to make a good shot great by including things in the frame that better tell the story.

fdl

So do they need a picture of a plate of chicken?

soopa

good.

so far as i see it, if you're in an industry/job where you can be regularly out bid by an amateurs work it's time for a new gig.

i'm a web designer, like photography this is a job that any no-talent newb can get into and produce mediocre results in short form. professionals like myself are regularly looked over despite our ability to produce quality due to amateurs who can offer a sub-par but sufficient service for free (the family & friends curse - much like what happens to pro wedding photographers) or close to nothing.

do i get upset about that? hellll no.

you fight back, you either show people why they should hire a pro over a consumer or you find a new market for your services.

so far as i'm concerned, if an amateur can "take" something from me all the best to them. they deserve it, and i deserve to lose.

soopa

oh, and btw, that low barrier of entry is exactly what is needed to nurse talent. all the pro's who are upset about this will eventually be overcome by a new generation of pro's who got their start and their foot in the door thanks to this.

there will be an entire generation of people who decide to photograph professionally because they were given a break.

photography, like many industries, craves new talent and is in desperate need of it.

think about how many people here alone have begun offering "professional" photography services because they realized their talent on sites like Flickr and Zooomr, or simply through the kudos given to your early shots posted here. those of you who fit this scenario are new talent. don't become old talent. adapt to change.

Dan Martin

Good analogy between web design and photography.

Curious question though, do you think it's good that Yahoo and Reuters can use peoples photos on their homepage without paying for them? If you designed Yahoo's homepage, would you not want to be paid for it?

soopa

Yes, which is why I wouldn't submit my design to them for free.

It's not like they're crawling peoples personal homepages and harvesting their photographs.

This is an opt-in program. You have to submit to them your photo and agree to it being used.

On top of all of it, if they distribute your photos to partners outside of the Reuters website there is the potential to make a few bucks off of it for, like you said, simply being in the right place at the right time... which is cool by me.

soopa

In reality, this hardly different from what sites like Flickr or YouTube already do.

They make money off you by giving them your photos or videos for free (or in the case of Flickr, not free since you're paying them to make money off your photos).

The only difference between this and that there is the potential for a professional who may have otherwise been paid by Y!/Reuters to be passed over in favor of an amateur shot. Flickr/YouTube don't otherwise pay pro's. But like you yourself said, if there is indeed more to a professional photograph then just the equipment that's used to capture it then that really won't be happening for any other instance then where it should be happening.

Y!/Reuters may be BIG companies but they have just as much a right to use what's GIVEN to them to maximize profits as does what may be your SMALL company.

Dan Martin

I guess if I were a photojournalist I would just be concerned that the industry might go the way of stock photography. Less than 10 years ago, people could make a decent living selling their shots to big stock photo companies. Today, there are so many people submitting photos to stock services that the going rate is only $0.50 to $2 per photo. That's a hard way to earn a buck.

With millions of people around the world submitting photos for free, I can't help but think there's a good chance it will reduce the price per photo for the pros.

Billiam

Like Dan, I very much agree with the parallels you're drawing between web design Soopa. I very much disagree, however, that the professional photography industry is in desperate need of new talent.

It's not that difficult at all to get your foot in the door and earn some income as a photographer. There are such a vast number of things that the word "wants pictures of" in some way, shape, or form. But to have an entire career as a professional photographer is something that I feel is actually quite difficult to achieve. I believe you get the proverbial cream rising to the top because of this and it is only those that have a deep seeded passion for photography that end up doing it as their career. When you're passionate about something, your end results (or even the journeys you take to achieve them) tend to really shine.

soopa

actually i agree with you. i don't recall the point i was attempting to make with that comment but i didn't mean for it to come out that way.

soopa

I'd be worried too, but that's their problem. Photographers like anyone this day in age need to remain agile. Like Billiam points out, those who are trully passionate will find a way to succeed despite an ever changing landscape.

There's two sides to every coin and the stock photo analogy demonstrates that beautifully.

I remember paying as much as $800 for lackluster stock photography from Getty/PhotoDisc in the late 90's. This increased my cost of operating as well as the cost to my clients for my services. Now thanks to sites like iStockPhoto I can pay as little as $1 for a wide variety of unique photos, decreasing my operating costs and the costs of the small businesses people like me cater too.

What happened to the stock photo industry was a blessing for my industry.

srika

We are seeing the products of the (rapid) advancement of modern technology over the past 5-10 years. Computers are fast enough to allow anyone to do pretty much anything. Add their affordability into the picture and its no surprise what people are doing with them. Look at software like Lightroom. It lets anyone dress up a picture into a pro-looking shot within a matter of a few clicks and minutes. I think another big part of it is how cheap RAM is today, compared to even a few years ago. It's releasing people of restrictions.

This same kind of revolution happened about 5 years ago in the music industry - at least dance music. A website called Acidplanet came into existence, and gave anyone with a computer and an internet connection the ability to remix the music of popular artists. This was such a crazy outlet and opportunity for unknown "producers" to get heard and noticed. Myself included. I never really thought I could "remix" until the inception of Acidplanet. A big part of it was because I never tried, because I never had one of the main ingredients: the original source materials - mainly for me, vocal loops. Now that these were available, anything was possible. It was after doing a few Acidplanet contests that I gained some confidence in mixing - now I have 30+ remixes released. Now, the funny thing is, I don't consider myself a "pro". I have a LONG way to go. All the mixes are on small peon labels in Europe and have nary left even a scratch on the plane of global dance music. It's taken me a long time - too long - to really feel like I am in position to make a mark. I think I have skill in music but I'm just not quite "there". If an "Amateur" is 0 and "Pro" is 10, I think I'd be around 5-7. I think I'm getting closer though. But lately I haven't even been doing much music. But I'm gonna get back into it pretty soon. /tangent

All this being said, I have MAD respect for the remixers of the 80's and early-mid 90's. These are true pros that did it the "old skool" way. In the 80's you remixed a track by splicing tape. Into the 90's as well. Not to mention production of a track - all done with hardware. It was a combination of pure skill - but it also had to do with money. The equipment needed to make a pro track was VERY expensive. You have the synthesizers and all those things - which were moderately expensive - but the part where it started getting really expensive was the production phase - the hardware FX, the studio, the mastering. So it really was a combination of talent and money. If you had the talent to do it, but had no money (or some type of funding for your goals) - you were SOL. I suppose there were cases of "connections" as well. But those were not easy for the average joe to find. There was no internet, all you had was mail. You couldn't call a studio and say you want to release some music. You could send a letter to a record label, and include a tape I suppose. That was pretty much it. The average joe was completely detached from pro media.

The same thing happened with DJ's. And even now, you have the vinyl purists that say playing digital music is sacrilege. You had to do everything analog back in the day - recording, mixing, everything. It was a PITA to adjust all the levels, etc. Now you have software that lets any average joe whip together a fully balanced and pro-sounding DJ set within a few minutes. The only real effort being to pick out the tracks.

As has been said above - if you are a professional and you find that newer people are starting to "invade your space" - guess what, you have to change what YOU are doing. You have to go farther and get more innovative to separate yourself. Isn't that some great motivation to progress yourself in your own field? I love the way BT talks about technology. He is one of the pioneers of electronic dance music, probably electronic music in general, starting from the early 90's. He is constantly trying out new things and do you know what? When he finds something new that blows him away, something that nobody has ever seen or heard before - he TELLS EVERYONE about it - he TEACHES people how to do it. Why? Why not just keep it to himself, as a secret nobody else knows? Because telling other people about it ensures that he will never get "comfortable" with where he is at, that he will ALWAYS be working to progress and evolve in his creativity.

One of the things he is famous for is the "stutter" effect. His new album has some of the most complex stuttering I've ever heard. He used to do this by hand (and a lot of people still do - its akin to writing HTML by hand, vs using Frontpage, to make an analogy) - but soon (if not already) he is releasing a software drum machine that will allow any average joe to do stuttering on their computer, quickly and easily. Down to some ridiculously small micro-notes. The software is called Break Tweaker, here is some info on it:

http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/bt/

So HE himself is making this technique that he has worked so long and hard to master, readily available to the general public. Why? Because he is a pioneer in his field and he believes in continual progress. There are two schools - people who don't like sharing their knowledge and expertise with n00bs, and people like BT. Probably some people in-between too. Followers and leaders, perhaps?

Anyway, what's my point. My point is, technology is making everything easier, like it or not - you are not going to stop it. If you want to stay in the game, the burden lies on YOU to progress yourself and try to separate yourself from the rest. We are living in a total luxury land now in terms of accessibility - a combination of technology advancements and the internet. And, it's here to stay.

This reminds me of the grandpa sitting in his chair telling his grandkids "when we were young, we didn't have TV". Same concept.