Take pictures of people and kids. Those can pay quite well. Rich photographers could exclude people because of money before. Now they can’t. Oh well. Times change. The good ones adjust. The bad ones will find something else to do.

Funny that the article is about frugality.

But this seems an odd exception. Do you think that 10, 20 or 30 years ago, Time would have paid $3,000-10,000 for that photo? If it’s an image of a soldier in Afghanistan or an elusive celebrity, sure, they’d pay handsomely, but in this case, I imagine they would have had an art director or staff photographer buy the jar, empty their pockets and shoot it themselves for far less. My magazine buys $50K in photos per year, and we’re trying to get as much as we can for every dime, but we’ll spend that $50K one way or another–sometimes that means stock, sometimes it means an assignment. But every dime we save on stock gets spent in other ways. Stock looks like stock, more often than not, so we don’t rely on it much.

I have to say I get tired of hearing photogs complain about stock. If you want to make a lot of money off of your photos, produce photos that no one else can make. That’s gotten more difficult lately with great cameras becoming so cheap, but that’s life. If you, as a photographer, can buy the same lens for $1,000 or $300, which one will you buy? Would you really say “I’d buy the $1K lens to support independent lensmakers” ? No, you wouldn’t. You’d buy the cheaper one and keep the difference. That’s what art directors are doing when they buy stock images.

Yeah, regulating would be ridiculous. We don’t regulate any other arts. Arts are about talent and inspiration, not formal education and professional experience.

I’d beg to differ on the part of “it’s art not science”. Honestly its both. There is a lot about photography that is a science. Yes you can learn it on your own, but it’s still very much a science in it’s own right. Further to just call it ‘art’ does not do it justice either. imo it’s a mixture of both.

but if you KNEW you could get $3000 for the photo why would you settle for the prestige. Culturally, today, that’s just plain Un-American! Look I do some nice pro bono work (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_kalan/sets/72157625522307892/ ) but if there is a budget I want to be paid!

I can see why some are livid, but stock is stock. No laws, morals, or code of ethics were broached. Consider that some pros would PAY to get a Time cover credit in their portfolio.

I agree. As long as the photo was attributed by Time it would be a tremendous honor!

Relax, it’s called economics. This is happening in almost all “Commercial” Art fields. Not only can you buy cheap stock photos you can buy a template Web site for under $40 that would have previously cost you $2500…and there are template business cards and fliers and postcards and posters and brochures for pennies on the advertising dollar.

But you won’t find your wedding photos on a stock photo site. Nor will you be happy with a template Web site that needs to be unique to your business and its specific requirements, not just your industry. The same goes for all your print collateral.

Just because I have a hammer and nails does not mean that I can build a solid house. That takes experience, skill and talent. Let those who want prefab buy prefab. Commercial Art and Design will always have a place for original producers who know what they are doing and strive to do their best.

The best way to make money in photography these days is to sell your camera.

Here in the southwest a significant percentage of what used to be decent paying trade jobs like carpenter, tile setter, or mason, now mostly go to a group of people willing to work for $8 – $10 an hour. Amateur photogs are the “undocumented workers” of the photography world. Get used to it unless, as someone noted, you can produce at such a high caliber that others cannot copy your quality AND someone is willing to pay your price. Everyone wants a bargain and most can live without the best quality. That’s rather sad but just how it is.

“Lam probably could have asked for 20x more and easily got it…” Sorry, but I don’t think so. TIME has a budget and they would have turned to another source / or hire a photographer if the stock price was too high. Lam would have lost his opportunity (and money) to have his image on the TIME magazine, which in itself a great achievement.

no the easiest way to give up is to sell your camer.

No, stop the technology!

Get over it. The prices of things change over time. Ask the guys who cut the old wooden blocks for the first Sears mail order catalogues.

That’s your choice. Lam makes a different choice.

If you were selling that photograph to Time for $3000 and Lam had a similar photograph and offered it to them for $2000 why should they choose yours when they can get his cheaper? I’d take $1000 for it, am I wrong in doing so?

I have long thought that we in America are being “walmarted” – that is America is becoming less of what it was & we are settling for less than we once got. We settle for less almost everywhere you look. Less money for a photo that a big publication like Time could have paid more for is just part of this trend.

It’s not a science? Really? What F/stop, shutter speed, ISO, kelvin temperature, and focal length do you need to set your equipment to, in order to photograph an African American person walking down a hallway, lit by fluorescent tubular office lights, without using a flash? (You have 30 seconds to type an answer off the top of your head, without looking it up anywhere… Go!)

Having an SLR doesn’t make you a photographer. I have a horse. Doesn’t make me a jockey.

No you wouldn’t buy the cheapest lens. You’d by the highest quality lens you could afford. Frugality, is forcing freelance photographers to sign disgraceful, back-breaking “work-for-higher” agreements, where company’s try to own your copyrights, use your image indefinitely for the cost of a one-time-usage fee, and redistribute your images to third party sources, for additional monetary gain without paying the photographer. The way this industry is moving, all the talented photographers will be crushed, unable to make a living, support their studio,s or purchase new gear, while all the hobbyists, and no talent hacks who shoot everything on automatic, for the cheap thrill of selling a stock print for $.50, to show their moms, will rule the industry. Eventually, there will be obvious quality control issues in print media, and people will support this medium even less than they already do. Eventually the entire industry will completely destabilize, and go the way of manual type-setting.

Newcomers with no business sense don’t help anyone, least of all themselves. In the long run, they’re doing all photographers, professional or otherwise a disservice.

It is not science just because you use scientific principles. We apply scientific principles daily in all kinds of activities that are not science by themselves. Musical instruments are built and played according to precise acoustic calculations. Is every musician a scientist?

That said, you can use a camera for a scientific experiment. Then you have to aim of testing a prediction that you have made in order to advance the body of knowledge that mankind has created.

But the mere act of taking a picture (photography), despite using an apparatus that was designed and constructed by applying scientific knowledge, is not about testing a hypothesis or prediction. It is about composing a snapshot of the material world in order to document an event or evoke an emotion, or both.

Thus it is art.

Surprised I haven’t seen a comment to the fact that this is acceptable for TIme– the guy put up his photo on a stock site to make a few bucks. And did. But a magazine with the name and prestige of Time settling to use stock photography is what strikes me as sad.