Summing up the obvious, professional photography has gone the way of porn: Amateurs, willing to be paid less, dominate. There’s an endless supply of shutterbugs giddy for exposure and not giving damn about getting fair price for the goods.
Commissioned work by professional photographers is officially outmoded with lucky shots from Flickr by everyone with a camera ever. The biz has ceased to be sustainable and struggling photography school grads are bitching about aging housewives making mortgage payment money off of Getty Images in cahoots with Flickr.
Getty Images licensed 1.4 million photos in 2005 and that number’s up to 22 million last year, all due to user-generated content. And though an amateur may not be able to repeat that glory shot on demand, there’s more where that came from (like 4 billion). |NYT|
Here’s a photo amateur I took that The Gothamist got from Flickr for their blog. Why not?
…seized? (do you mean ceased) …do to? (due to)
clearly amateur photographers aren't the only ones taking over, amateur writers are too.
Haha. BURN! I am seizing now.
@Russ: How dare you try and strip Marina of her possible 2010 Pulitzer!
Welcome to the 21st century, photographers.
Nah..Technology killed the Pro Photographer. Just like SSL(serato scratch live) killed Killed the business of DJ'in..
@Defrgrip
Agreed! Digital killed photography. Everyone with a cellphone and a dinky digital camera is a photographer, now.
If amateur pics compete with the one's pros can take, then being a pro means nothing.
Just an amateur that wants to overcharge for pics
Amateur is the new thing for today's Americans, amateur movies, amateur stories, amateur music, amateur food, and now amateur photography.
Isn't photography, professional or otherwise, about the subject? I don't really care how the image was acquired, or even who acquired it. The end result records some kind of emotional response, records some moment in time. "Supposedly" professional photographers master the craft better than lowly amatuers, but that can be subjective at best. Technology has changed everything. But there are now more photos being taken than ever – more content. If you are a "Pro" you should be riding high that people still desire to record life in photos – you just need to do it better than most.