1) Photography is an art and a job, it provides full-time work for 1000s of photographers around the world since many decades.
All this can exist because taking good saleable images is HARD, * hard.
Some pictures just need for you to be in the good place at the right time, others need hours and hours of time and energy to get the right shoot.
Snapping shots is easy, making something good enough to be sold is way more difficult and requires knowledge and experience, that means time and time IS money however you wanna look at it.
2) Buyers come in every form and shape but they've all one things in common : they're NOT able to make
by themselves the pictures they need, or they do but have no time to waste.
They're more than willing to pay us for our pictures, as long as they can easily find them and grab them to their enslaved editors to photoshop and resize and being printed out.
3) All this was running fine for decades and it was a win-win scenario.
But NOW, some geeks decided to give away their images, just because they can, or just for fun.
And then they became hundreds and thousands and millions of images all available for next to nothing
with a few clicks.
4) Micro snappers were not just happy to shoot for free, they wanted more : more more more !
They were glad to make the covers of Time or Newsweek for 0.33$, or just to do it for free, who cares,
how happy must they have been snapping a cold bottle of wine from the fridge and telling the wife they made the Time cover ! In the meantime, serious macro shooters were in the field to pay their bills and
they see dark clouds at the horizon.
The horizon is getting smaller .. it's getting MICRO !!
5) Let me conclude : Microstock doesnt mean small stock, it can only mean one obvious thing : MICRO EARNINGS for you, HUGE savings for the buyers.
buyers win big time, they cant' believe it.
you microshooters get credited, if any, and get a 0.33$ as a pat on the shoulder.
wow, what a win-win scenario we have.
now tell me.
i've no issues losing my job because of you Flickrs.
if i'm really an old fart, so be it.
i saved enough bucks in my career i'll certainly dont need to beg for money in front of a KFC or flipping burgers at the nearest mcdonalds.
BUT,
when you'll become adults, you'll understand you not only made a big big mistake, but you also
trashed what was until a few years ago a great market open to everybody producing high quality stuff and making everybody happy.
microtards are just unfair competition.
i can't compete with people selling my same photos at 300x times less.
and i do NOT want to.
my price is already the right price, no discounts needed.
it includes taxes, time, energy, expenses, experience.
now you're young and you think to have found the mythical golden egg chicken.
i want to see you all, FIVE years from now, and calculate coldly how much time
you spent to make microstock and how much bucks actually ended up in your pockets.
is it worth it ? is it really worth it ?
if macrostock dies, what else do you expect if not macro shooters going micro as well
and flooding the whole micro industry with top quality images leaving you hobbysts
in the sh-it ?
you'll be left with subscriptions and free-baskets, you know it better than me.
micros are MANIPULATING wannabe photographers from the very beginning,
don't you really get it ? how dumb you are ?
working for a hobby ? then do your * hobby, fine !
working for money ? they ask the * right money, mate !
micros are a monster with NO reason to exist and the more you contribute to it,
the more you are part of this SCAM and of this disgrace.
farewell.
November 06, 2006, 01:14
