freephotography

On May 30, 2019, controversial free stock photo site Unsplash announced that it crossed the 1 million images uploaded mark. That had much of the photo blogosphere up in arms.

College student Gage Skidmore has been in the news for his prolific contribution of free political photos. His Flickr feed makes all his photos available via Creative Commons (including for commercial use) and a number of politicians are taking advantage of these free photos.

One of the most high profile uses? Donald Trump’s homepage, which features a photo of Trump speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, MD.

A few weeks ago, I was perusing my Facebook newsfeed as I usually do first thing in the morning, a cup of hot coffee in one hand, a computer mouse in the other, when I happened upon a post that stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Hey, everyone! I need a photographer to take some professional photos of me. I won't pay you, but I have connections, so I'm a good person to have in your court, if you know what I mean. I could definitely open some doors for you." 

Auckland, New Zealand-based street photographer Sim Ahmed of Aucklandia recently decided to spread the love of photography by displaying and offering his work for free on the streets of his city. After printing out 500 digital prints for 9 cents each three weeks ago, he began framing them, revisiting the locations where they were shot, and sticking them on buildings there.

Photographer Tony Wu constantly receives requests that ask whether he would be willing to work for free in exchange for "credit" and "exposure". Instead of a lengthy response explaining why he doesn't want to work for free, Wu often leaves the emails unanswered, or worse, ends up sending snippy responses that he later regrets. He recently came up with the idea of writing a generic and informational response that all professional photographers can respond with.