![]() That is because amateurs are largely happy to be paid anything for their photos. ![]() Last year, it licensed 22 million - and “all of the growth was through our user-generated business,” Mr. In 2005, Getty Images licensed 1.4 million preshot commercial photos. Yet “the price point that the client, or customer, is charged is a fraction of the price point which they would pay for a professional image.” “The quality of licensed imagery is virtually indistinguishable now from the quality of images they might commission,” Mr. And Getty made a deal with Flickr in 2008, permitting Getty’s photo editors to comb through customers’ images and strike license agreements with the amateur photographers. They charge $1 to $100, in most cases, for publishers or others to rerun a photo, often supplied by an amateur. In the last few years, stock agencies have created or acquired so-called microstock divisions. ![]() That meant a flood of pretty decent photographs, and that changed the stock-photography industry. “If you messed up a roll, you couldn’t redo the concert.” Now, though, any photographer can instantly see if a shot is good, or whether the light balances or other technical aspects need to be adjusted. “It used to be you really needed to know how to use a camera,” said Keith Marlowe, a photographer who has worked for Spin and Rolling Stone. “No self-respecting art director or creative director would use a preshot image, because it wasn’t original, it hadn’t been commissioned by them, it wasn’t their creativity.”Īt the same time, the Internet has made it easier for editors to find and license stock photos - they can do it in seconds with a search term and a few clicks, rather than spending seven weeks mailing film transparencies back and forth.Ĭoncurrently, digital photography took off. “When we began, stock photography or licensed images, preshot images being licensed, was perceived as the armpit of the photo industry,” said Jonathan Klein, the chief executive of Getty Images who helped found the agency in 1995. And that is for the publications that survived - 428 magazines closed in 2009 alone, according to the publication database, including ones that regularly assigned original photography, like Gourmet, Portfolio and National Geographic Adventure.Īnd while magazines once sniffed at stock photographs, which are existing images, not original assignments, shrinking editorial budgets made them reconsider. “Pages are at a premium, and there’s more competition to get anything into a magazine now, and the bar is just higher for excellent work,” said Bill Shapiro, the editor of, who ran the print revival of Life before Time Inc. That means less physical space in which to print photographs. In 2009, there were 169,218 - a decline of 41 percent. In 2000, the magazines measured by Publishers Information Bureau, a trade group, had 286,932 ad pages. Magazines’ editorial pages tend to rise or fall depending on how many ad pages they have. ![]() They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market. “There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether. 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. Pruitt illustrate the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. “At the moment, it’s just great to have extra money,” she said. The checks are sometimes enough to take the family out to dinner, sometimes almost enough for a mortgage payment. 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. Pruitt uploaded some photos - taken with a $99 Kodak digital camera - to the site Flickr. But after a vacation to Hawaii in 2006, Ms. Pruitt’s husband is in the military, and their frequent moves meant a full-time job was not practical. Sharon Pruitt, a 40-year-old mother of six who lives on Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
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