[STOCKPHOTO] Re: the more famous they become...
Jorge Parra
> UP if more copies exist. In that market, people tend to pay more
> for famous images, and the more famous they become, the more
> willing they are to pay.
Brian, what intended to say is that original work has kept its value and it
has actually gone up. Prices for postcards had nothing to with my argument.
In Digital every work is original, but it is worth pennies.
Jorge
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Courtesy of The STOCKPHOTO Network - http://www.stockphoto.net/
Posting Rules - http://www.stockphoto.net/Subscriptions.cfm#rules
STOCKPHOTO Archives - http://www.stockphoto.net/Archives.cfm
STOCKPHOTO Bookstore - http://www.stockphoto.net/bookstore/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Brian Yarvin
> and it has actually gone up. Prices for postcards had nothing to with
> my argument.
>
> In Digital every work is original, but it is worth pennies.
Jorge:
The problem with this argument is that the value of stock images
has little effect on the value of fine art in major galleries.
The prices paid (and values attributed) to works of art just aren't set
in the same way that prices for stock images are. The thousands
of prints made by the son and great-grandson of Edward Weston
from the original negatives don't remotely compare in value to prints
made by Weston himself.
It doesn't seem like the equipment used to make an image has
anything to do with an image's value in the art market either. Scans
of Ansel Adams negatives have been made since the seventies and
that has had no adverse effect on his print values either.
I agree that the value of many stock photo collections is declining
rapidly, but this has nothing to do with the value of works of art.
Brian Yarvin
Stock Photography from Edison, NJ
http://www.brianyarvin.com
Jorge Parra
> I agree that the value of many stock photo collections is declining
> rapidly, but this has nothing to do with the value of works of art
Brian, I was not trying to compare Stock to Art either, just spotting the
same argument raised by Peter in which assigning value to contemporary
images on a long term plan will show how little (if any) remains to be
assigned to any file from the end of the century.
Actually , now that you mention this, I find that only the images NOT
entering the stock market may retain its value in the future...
If you take Henry Lartigue as a reference, you can tell he was shooting just
for fun since he was a kid, but then his body of work becaame a great
communication venue to learn about the lifestyle of the "rich and famous" of
the era. THose may be easily called the very first " Lifestyle "images,
according to our contemporary keywording systems, but nonetheless, they have
a great value as images by themselves, and originality is the key to this
value.
Originality both in the subject matter, and in the exclusivity of having
only few "original" prints made by Lartigue himself etc,etc(Shall I add here
that they never went into any stock Agency???), something we easily accepted
as GONE when digital let us know every copy of a digital file is still
identical to the original. Great , we can learn to live with that ,but, if
digital has devalued the intrinsic worth of an image by suplying multiple
originals, and you add to this that you can get 100 of those contemporary
Lifestyle images( Lartigue style) for 50bucks, then jump to the future and
tell me what is going to happen with photography and photographers? Shall we
ask Batman? Or shall we pursue ultra exclusive images for our grand kids to
enjoy its future value while we starve during our lives, VanGoh 's way?
Like I said, Agencies won't give a damn about this, since they are making
good money today and will make good money in the future, either by adapting
to whatever new ways to mass produce images ( robots maybe??)and if at the
end it is not a profitable venture anymore, they will just switch and invest
their easily earned money elsewhere. THe strategies and business research
they run is aimed at keeping themselves in a healthy financial position,
regardless of everything and everyone else.
When RP failed suplying good money, the switch was towards RF, what is the
next step? If Agencies continue with the trend of pushing their contributors
towards long term starvation, I don't feel inclined to be there.
I don't care if I can not reach the Nigerian or Mongolian Markets, much
less if what finally ends up in my pocket is 15 dollars.Only Agencies make
a good profit out of those deals.
The only (partial,and addmitedly ,still unconfirmed ) solution I find to
this dramatic equation is to sell my own images, online and any other
possible way. This is to me, the only way to provide REAL exclusivity and
charge accordingly for that.
Back to Originality by way of Exclusivity.
Jorge
Brian Yarvin
> is the next step? If Agencies continue with the trend of pushing their
> contributors towards long term starvation, I don't feel inclined to
> be there.
> I don't care if I can not reach the Nigerian or Mongolian Markets,
> much
> less if what finally ends up in my pocket is 15 dollars.Only Agencies
> make a good profit out of those deals.
Jorge and Fellow Listreaders:
I am supposed to be doing paperwork today and am looking for any
excuse to avoid it. (I haven't even addressed Bob Croxford's post
about my spelling yet!)
Right now, it seems like I'm right back where I was in 1975. In
those days, agencies provided a nice revenue from images
financed for some other reason but there was no substitute for self
marketing and self promotion.
In between, there were a few small fortunes made by those smart
enough to surf the right waves as agencies grew larger and larger.
But now it looks like the market has become so overheated that it's
hard to imagine that we can follow that same path in the future.
Will photographers and their output be more valuable if they don't
distribute it though agencies? Only if they can find some other way
of promoting and sales.
Brian Yarvin
Stock Photography from Edison, NJ
http://www.brianyarvin.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BPST...@aol.com
photo...@cantv.net writes:
> When RP failed suplying good money,
When was that?
Carl May
/BPS
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Jorge Parra
>> When RP failed suplying good money,
>
> When was that?
Ask Alphonzo.
He knows
Jorge