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Author Topic: Wow I'm a commodity now  (Read 4276 times)

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« on: May 15, 2015, 00:28 »
0
There is no greater feeling than selling your art for .35!
« Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 00:35 by JDub12 »


« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2015, 06:06 »
+7
Then why are you in microstock?  Does someone have a gun to your head?

And what is "art"?  It's such a touchy-feely term.  It can apply to anything, so it's meaningless.  Maybe if you like something you can call it art, and if you don't you can call it garbage.  Is everything anyone creates "art?" 

What matters to me is, Do people like my stuff enough to pay for it, and do I feel what they're willing to pay is fair?  I look at how much time it takes me to create an image, and how often it will sell, and for how much each time.  I make the cold, hard decision that the equation works for me.  I feel justly rewarded for my work. 

Notice I didn't call it "art."  I consider myself a business person, not an artist.  Microstock is for business people, galleries are for artists.  If you feel your work deserves to be in a gallery selling for hundreds or thousands of dollars, you're free to go that route and see if the market agrees with you. 

« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2015, 06:49 »
+6
There is no greater feeling than selling your art for .35!
There is no greater feeling than selling the same image over and over again for years even at .35c a pop.   Some images end up making you thousands in the end.

« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2015, 07:27 »
-2
Then why are you in microstock?  Does someone have a gun to your head?

And what is "art"?  It's such a touchy-feely term.  It can apply to anything, so it's meaningless.  Maybe if you like something you can call it art, and if you don't you can call it garbage.  Is everything anyone creates "art?" 

What matters to me is, Do people like my stuff enough to pay for it, and do I feel what they're willing to pay is fair?  I look at how much time it takes me to create an image, and how often it will sell, and for how much each time.  I make the cold, hard decision that the equation works for me.  I feel justly rewarded for my work. 

Notice I didn't call it "art."  I consider myself a business person, not an artist.  Microstock is for business people, galleries are for artists.  If you feel your work deserves to be in a gallery selling for hundreds or thousands of dollars, you're free to go that route and see if the market agrees with you.

Unfortunately "business persons" and beancounters have taken over photography nowadays.........

StockPhotosArt.com

« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2015, 08:57 »
+1
Microstock is for business people, galleries are for artists.

Creating images for stock agencies is a creative process. And the artists (who live of the art) and create work for the galleries are also doing it for the money.

An "artist" creates a work to express a feeling, an idea, a concept or an aesthetic. Stock photographers also do that. So where's the real difference?

Is it because we sell thousands, and an "artist" sells one piece and a dozen signed reproductions? So, is the distinction just in the elitism surrounding the creation of a piece so it can be a target of speculation in the markets, where the true artistic value is secondary to the hype artificially created in many cases to later resell for a higher value?

Can't an artist continue to be an artist just because he allows more people to access his creation?

I'm not placing myself at the level of DaVinci, but how many painters are there too?

ultimagina

« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2015, 09:57 »
0
For me, art implies a high level of originality, art must stand out of the crowd.
This is not the case for stock, where the same idea is replicated hundreds of times without adding anything significant to it.

There is difference between being a professional, an expert  (in photography) and being an artist. There is also a difference between being and artisan and being an artist.

The problem is that FB, Flickr etc are full of people who believe themselves as artists as soon as their learnt how to press a button.
Remember that "Photography" is one of the most popular "last names" on FB  ;)

StockPhotosArt.com

« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2015, 10:26 »
+1
For me, art implies a high level of originality, art must stand out of the crowd.
This is not the case for stock, where the same idea is replicated hundreds of times without adding anything significant to it.

You could say the same about 99% of the painters, musicians, sculptures, etc. You get a few that are original and soon there are thousands replicating the same concept and selling their work in art galleries. But they get to be part of an "artistic style"...

I went to an exhibition of the biggest photographic art competition in my country, promoted by a bank, and the winner showed a dozen of photos of ordinary clouds in a dark room backlited. LITERALLY!

The second winner were photos of the "artiste" and his friends helping him to build a small house, including them sitting outdoors drinking beers in the worst snapshot manner.

The third prize (of that year or one of the following years) went to photos of another "artist" during diner parties with her friends like the ones posted by the billions on FB.

And they all earned tenths of thousands of 's

But they are called artists...

The same could be said about painting where throwing blotches of paint to a canvas puts them above us. Not that I do not like abstract, I really do, but most of the artists clearly invent stupid stories in the interviews to try to bring an intellectual and artistic value to those paintings.

Next time I photograph apples on white I'll start saying that I felt a need to do it after a very dark period in my life, where i questioned existence, the world and the meaning of life and needed to think about the creation of life, Adam and Eve... With that story and those hanging in a wall I will be able to sell them for $10.000 a pop.

Edit: In the last few years we've been seeing photos being sold for over a million dollars. Including one that was nothing more than an horizontal layer of sky, followed by a middle layer of river and on the bottom a layer of grass with a really bad cloning job.

I actually liked the image, but did it worth 1 million dollars and was that creative? Or it was considered art just because the guy had a nice agent to promote him and speculators saw an opportunity to make them a profit by inflating the price?
« Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 10:35 by StockPhotosArt »

« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2015, 10:39 »
0
I guess some people just don't understand the difference between 'selling art' and 'selling a license to use an image'

Whatev.

ultimagina

« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2015, 10:53 »
0
For me, art implies a high level of originality, art must stand out of the crowd.
This is not the case for stock, where the same idea is replicated hundreds of times without adding anything significant to it.


You could say the same about 99% of the painters, musicians, sculptures, etc. You get a few that are original and soon there are thousands replicating the same concept and selling their work in art galleries. But they get to be part of an "artistic style"...


That's exactly what I'm saying. Being a good musician, painter, carpenter or a good photographer doesn't automatically make these persons artists or their work a "piece of art", even if they claim it, even if snobs pay thousands for that "art". They might be very good at their craft, but they are just good craftsmen, artisans, reliable professionals or experts.

Is this eye hurting, oversaturated photo, art?
http://www.lik.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/w/g/wg879-echoes-of-brooklyn.jpg

Not at all!

Microstock has hundreds of better photos from this very angle.
But the photographer calls himself an artist and he is selling this crap for thousands of dollars.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 11:11 by ultimagaina »

« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2015, 12:58 »
+2
I understand how it is easy to feel otherwise, but microstock is not photography/art. It is simply a business that sells images at the highest possible profit for a given company. This was really hard for me to come to terms with. It is also why my best, most artistic images never go up on a microstock site with the occasional  exception of P5 and FAA because I set me price for them. The big 4 and most others have sadly become simply distribution channels for images that are pumped out in our spare time in the hope that they might have a chance of selling (over and over again over years). I am all for making high commissions and selling lots of high quality work I am proud of, but microstock for me is what it is, just a way to make a few bucks in your spare time, I could never consider it a distribution channel for my "good stuff" because my good stuff is too important to me to become a commodity.

Should also point out that IMO my art somehow becomes less than art when I am influenced by it's commercial viability. I don't have a framed picture of new brake disks in my living room, but sadly it is one of my best sellers.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 13:04 by kmlPhoto »

StockPhotosArt.com

« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2015, 13:04 »
+2
I guess some people just don't understand the difference between 'selling art' and 'selling a license to use an image'

Whatev.

You are wrong about that. I do understand the difference between selling art and license an image. Or could we call licensing the use of photographic art instead, if we want to be provocative?...

Because "artists", namely musicians, do licence their art to commercials, tv shows, films, etc. Yet, they continue to be considered artists and their songs art. What's the difference? Am I missing something, when most of the singers and musicians are formulaic?

What I do not agree is the concept of art or artist because it's simply based in an elitist, snob and monetary speculative concept. If I sell one, but only one, piece of crap of each of my creations for thousands of dollars each, and act an enigmatic, cryptic or pseudo-intellectual pose I can get away with almost anything.

If someone creates something similar to that "artist", but more competently or even better but decides to make his work available and affordable to many people, than he's automatically dismissed as an artist. Why? Because the people who classify creations as art are businessman, mere speculators that trade in art just like they trade in coffee, cotton or anything else. This is why many works of art are bought by banks!

A similar example of speculation are the diamonds business, one of the most common minerals in the world and certainly more common than most of the other precious stones.

An extremely successful marketing campaign during the 1950's, (Monroe was part of it) encrusted - pun intended - in the mind of Americans that a diamond ring was the right way for a man to propose to a woman. That, along with the almost monopoly that one company has on the trade of this stone, buying almost all the world production but only selling limited quantities, hiper-valued the real value of diamonds. It's the same principle as art.

In fact, if we look at the current concept of what an artist is (someone creating freely, choosing themes of his own inspiration, etc.) would automatically exclude most of the great names of art, including Da Vinci , Michael Angelo, etc. After all they were hired to paint  many or most of their works, and most of the times the themes were decided by those who hired them. Their art was in most cases in the technical execution of the paintings and sculptures.

So, where do we stand?
« Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 13:22 by StockPhotosArt »

StockPhotosArt.com

« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2015, 13:17 »
+1
I understand how it is easy to feel otherwise, but microstock is not photography/art. It is simply a business that sells images at the highest possible profit for a given company.


Microstock, and stock in general, simply licenses images. The question is, are those images the result of an artistic process or not? Despite the considerations we may make about the creativity of each image.

Music from famous artists is also licensed but they never stop being considered art or them, artists...


Should also point out that IMO my art somehow becomes less than art when I am influenced by it's commercial viability. I don't have a framed picture of new brake disks in my living room, but sadly it is one of my best sellers.

You may not have an image of brake discs hanging on your wall. But I'm pretty sure many Mountain Bikers have prints of mechanical parts of bicycles hanging on their walls.

If one of the characteristics of art is to convey emotions/feelings among others things couldn't/shouldn't images of disk brakes be considered art too? After all the emotion of a MTBiker looking at a good photo of a disc brake is as genuine as someone looking to a Picasso.

« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2015, 14:06 »
+1
You may not have an image of brake discs hanging on your wall. But I'm pretty sure many Mountain Bikers have prints of mechanical parts of bicycles hanging on their walls.

If one of the characteristics of art is to convey emotions/feelings among others things couldn't/shouldn't images of disk brakes be considered art too? After all the emotion of a MTBiker looking at a good photo of a disc brake is as genuine as someone looking to a Picasso.
When I was a kid in the 70s, I used to cut out pictures of my favorite fish from Field and Stream to hang on the walls, it was art to me then.

I think history is full of examples of artists that over time came to be appreciated for creating something amazing and timeless. Should by chance years after my death one of my brake disc images make it into an art auction, so be it.  ;)

« Reply #13 on: May 15, 2015, 18:56 »
+2
I guess some people just don't understand the difference between 'selling art' and 'selling a license to use an image'

Whatev.

You are wrong about that. I do understand the difference between selling art and license an image. Or could we call licensing the use of photographic art instead, if we want to be provocative?...

Because "artists", namely musicians, do licence their art to commercials, tv shows, films, etc. Yet, they continue to be considered artists and their songs art. What's the difference? Am I missing something, when most of the singers and musicians are formulaic?

What I do not agree is the concept of art or artist because it's simply based in an elitist, snob and monetary speculative concept. If I sell one, but only one, piece of crap of each of my creations for thousands of dollars each, and act an enigmatic, cryptic or pseudo-intellectual pose I can get away with almost anything.

If someone creates something similar to that "artist", but more competently or even better but decides to make his work available and affordable to many people, than he's automatically dismissed as an artist. Why? Because the people who classify creations as art are businessman, mere speculators that trade in art just like they trade in coffee, cotton or anything else. This is why many works of art are bought by banks!

A similar example of speculation are the diamonds business, one of the most common minerals in the world and certainly more common than most of the other precious stones.

An extremely successful marketing campaign during the 1950's, (Monroe was part of it) encrusted - pun intended - in the mind of Americans that a diamond ring was the right way for a man to propose to a woman. That, along with the almost monopoly that one company has on the trade of this stone, buying almost all the world production but only selling limited quantities, hiper-valued the real value of diamonds. It's the same principle as art.

In fact, if we look at the current concept of what an artist is (someone creating freely, choosing themes of his own inspiration, etc.) would automatically exclude most of the great names of art, including Da Vinci , Michael Angelo, etc. After all they were hired to paint  many or most of their works, and most of the times the themes were decided by those who hired them. Their art was in most cases in the technical execution of the paintings and sculptures.

So, where do we stand?

I agree with you.

My comment was directed to the OP.


« Reply #14 on: May 15, 2015, 19:04 »
0
When I was a kid in the 70s, I used to cut out pictures of my favorite fish from Field and Stream to hang on the walls, it was art to me then.

I think history is full of examples of artists that over time came to be appreciated for creating something amazing and timeless. Should by chance years after my death one of my brake disc images make it into an art auction, so be it.  ;)

Flashback!  And Western Horseman LOL

« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2015, 04:01 »
+3
I'm just amazed that someone contributing in this market place could possibly think he / she is regarded anything other than a commodity.

JanetCA

  • i am me!
« Reply #16 on: May 21, 2015, 21:45 »
+1
your images are the commodity and the price is what the market will pay


 

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