6 ms·

I appreciate the work of photographers, but plunking down $500 for a high-res photo and knowing they're going to resell that same photo to others god knows how

I appreciate the work of photographers, but plunking down $500 for a high-res photo and knowing they're going to resell that same photo to others god knows how many more times has always rubbed me the wrong way. I get there's hardware/time involved in setting up a single photo, but hell, not that much.

nightfly 7y ago
These people aren't fabulously wealthy, that's the pricing they need to be able to sustain themselves.
- Darkphibre 7y ago
  Amen. And a many are undercharging for subsistence. The prosumer market, subsidized by day jobs, really impacted the industry.
- jzwinck 7y ago
  By "these people" do you mean the owners of Getty? Photographers aren't getting paid much, the current rate is about 80% to Getty and 20% to the photog. The rate used to be 40% Getty and 60% photog, some people are grandfathered but only if they've been on Getty for 20 years. Typical working photographers on Getty probably get paid dozens of dollars a month. Typical amateurs might get a dozen dollars a year.
- pupppet 7y ago
  They're not wealthy because they've collectively decided to go for the easy money, jumping on-board the Getty train who takes an absurdly large cut of their profit. As consumers we get hosed, but at least they've looked out for number one, right?
jandrese 7y ago
You are subsidizing the thousand other photos that didn't sell with that one purchase. Of course photographers would love to only take pictures that sell, but it's impossible to tell ahead of time which one of the thousand will be the hit.
Aaargh20318 7y ago
It’s not just the time it took to take that single photo. It’a also the many, many photos taken that didn’t make the cut.
nordsieck 7y ago
> I appreciate the work of photographers, but plunking down $500 for a high-res photo and knowing they're going to resell that same photo to others god knows how many more times has always rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, that doesn't bother me that much. What's truly absurd is wedding photography. Photographers get paid $1000+ and keep the copyright. Almost every other work-for-hire intellectual job involves an IP transfer.
- kbenson 7y ago
  I agree somewhat with you, but might be able to put a bit more perspective on this. Photographers use their work product as advertising, so attach their name to their work. They also often do any retouching themselves. This, along with copyright preventing modification of the images, allows those images to accurately reflect the abilities of the photographer. It's a lot like software licensing in that way. As a company, you don't necessarily want someone tweaking your software you've sold to the and either expecting support, or even just possibly leaving a bad association with your software for the people that use it that don't realize that the reason it may be unstable is because someone has made unstable changes. That doesn't make it good, but it does explain their thinking somewhat. Photographers are like software consultants, but because of the different time they came to prominence, they've managed to make it the norm that they retain rights to their work product. This is changing though. It's not too hard to find photographers that are willing to just dump the images to DVD pre-retouching and hand them over for you to do with as you wish. It won't be cheap, because they are losing out on being able to upsell you albums and video collages, etc, and their cost reflects not just the time they spent there, but their experience in knowing where to be and what to do to get the best pictures (in the same way that someone that pays my consulting rate is paying for my decades of experience).
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    This is silly. The most important "ability" of a wedding photographer, bar none, is to not screw up the part where they're actually capturing photos of the event. A wedding is a one-time event that people care a lot about, so this alone is probably well worth the $1000+ premium. Retouching the photos is something that anyone will be able to do at any time, given the untouched originals.

nightfly 7y ago

These people aren't fabulously wealthy, that's the pricing they need to be able to sustain themselves.

Darkphibre 7y ago
Amen. And a many are undercharging for subsistence. The prosumer market, subsidized by day jobs, really impacted the industry.
jzwinck 7y ago
By "these people" do you mean the owners of Getty? Photographers aren't getting paid much, the current rate is about 80% to Getty and 20% to the photog. The rate used to be 40% Getty and 60% photog, some people are grandfathered but only if they've been on Getty for 20 years. Typical working photographers on Getty probably get paid dozens of dollars a month. Typical amateurs might get a dozen dollars a year.
pupppet 7y ago
They're not wealthy because they've collectively decided to go for the easy money, jumping on-board the Getty train who takes an absurdly large cut of their profit. As consumers we get hosed, but at least they've looked out for number one, right?

jandrese 7y ago

You are subsidizing the thousand other photos that didn't sell with that one purchase. Of course photographers would love to only take pictures that sell, but it's impossible to tell ahead of time which one of the thousand will be the hit.

Aaargh20318 7y ago

It’s not just the time it took to take that single photo. It’a also the many, many photos taken that didn’t make the cut.

nordsieck 7y ago

> I appreciate the work of photographers, but plunking down $500 for a high-res photo and knowing they're going to resell that same photo to others god knows how many more times has always rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, that doesn't bother me that much. What's truly absurd is wedding photography. Photographers get paid $1000+ and keep the copyright. Almost every other work-for-hire intellectual job involves an IP transfer.

kbenson 7y ago
I agree somewhat with you, but might be able to put a bit more perspective on this. Photographers use their work product as advertising, so attach their name to their work. They also often do any retouching themselves. This, along with copyright preventing modification of the images, allows those images to accurately reflect the abilities of the photographer. It's a lot like software licensing in that way. As a company, you don't necessarily want someone tweaking your software you've sold to the and either expecting support, or even just possibly leaving a bad association with your software for the people that use it that don't realize that the reason it may be unstable is because someone has made unstable changes. That doesn't make it good, but it does explain their thinking somewhat. Photographers are like software consultants, but because of the different time they came to prominence, they've managed to make it the norm that they retain rights to their work product. This is changing though. It's not too hard to find photographers that are willing to just dump the images to DVD pre-retouching and hand them over for you to do with as you wish. It won't be cheap, because they are losing out on being able to upsell you albums and video collages, etc, and their cost reflects not just the time they spent there, but their experience in knowing where to be and what to do to get the best pictures (in the same way that someone that pays my consulting rate is paying for my decades of experience).
- zozbot234 7y ago
  This is silly. The most important "ability" of a wedding photographer, bar none, is to not screw up the part where they're actually capturing photos of the event. A wedding is a one-time event that people care a lot about, so this alone is probably well worth the $1000+ premium. Retouching the photos is something that anyone will be able to do at any time, given the untouched originals.