Are there too many photographs being taken?
Sunday, 23 November 2008
I was recently corresponding with a professional photographer and asked him of his view of the market for professional photography. He said a few things which made me stop and think.
Firstly he said
"A (more) fundamental problem is that people do not buy pictures anymore. Photos are so disposable now that seeing it seems to be enough - there is no desire to own the image."
Clearly this is with reference to the retail market, I am not sure there has ever been a huge retail market where people went out and purchased photographs because they liked them, people are more likely to purchase a painting or a print than an original photograph but I do understand the point he makes we live in society where viewing photographs on the web free of charge makes it even less likely that we go out and purchase photographs. Perhaps a book of photographs would be a more likely way to purchase photography I wonder how book sales of collections of photographs by modern day photographers has faired since the digital revolution started.
I have a growing collection of books of photographs, some by the old and famous but also some by more recent photographers. My regular visits to the photography shelves of book shops and libraries suggests to me that the boom in digital camera sales is at least in part mirrored by books of photographs. The question still remains do we live in a society where photos are so disposable, where the opportunity for a normal person to take a half decent photograph has never been easier and which people are happy to sell the rights through a stock company for a few cents, where you can get your daily fix of photographs free of charge from the web and have no need to purchase photographs whether they be in book or print form?
Another thing he said
"So many pictures are being taken that originality has become almost impossible. Every picture I see looks like a picture I have seen before - mostly. "
I suppose it stands to reason that with so many photographs being taken the quest for something different becomes ever harder but it certainly emphasises the point that to sell photos you are going to have to come up with an original edge that stands you out from the crowd.
These are just two things that as amateurs we overlook when dreaming about making our hobby into a living. I think there are many other issues, not least the ability to be creative when you are commissioned to shoot something that doesn't interest you and the pressure driven by the need to put bread on the table.
Posted by Gordon at 09:47
Labels: professional
Your post is a good read.
Although I see a lot of photographs on the web I continue to have the desire to buy printed photographs and photo books. I do not think that will change in my case. I think the web can not replace the haptics and look of a printed photograph or photographs in books. But certainly one needs to enjoy this inorder to buy a printed photograph instead of looking at it on a monitor. Hard to tell whether there is a decrease in people that do so.
I agree it is increasingly hard to *find* originality among the increasing masses of photographs. However, the ways to achieve an original style with own photography has not changed I'd say. Just put into a picture what *you* see the way *you* see it. :-)
The following quotes from Elliott Erwitt might fit here too:
"I don't like explosions. I don't mind progress. But digital photography has made every man, woman, child and chimpanzee a photographer of sorts and consequently has numbed down the general quality of photographs...." - Elliott Erwitt - On the question: "How do you feel about the digital photography explosion?"
"If you've got no responsibility and don't have to generate a certain amount of cash each month, and can live on a shoestring, and are ambitious enough, then you might have a chance. You can be dedicated but that is no guarantee that you'll make it. I rely on a hunch, little luck, and some cunning." - Elliott Erwitt - on success.