I think there is a valid argument that the current generation of consumers have no other experience than the sharing of mass quantaties of poor quality. Whether photos, music, mass produced “art” from Ikea. I think that it has influenced the designers and other media buyers into accepting the mass produced stock imagery as well as they have had no other experience. They have been online, sharing more and more quantities of digital information with little to no price filters to act as quality signals in the market. It’s hard to appreciate a premium on an image created by a professional PJ who toiled for years to perfect their craft when that image is placed along side an image uploaded from a camera phone at the same event.

So I think that two forces are in play here, one the quantity of the available material and two, and more importantly perhaps, is the consumers perceptions of quality of digitally distributed goods.

And you are right with bringing in the metaphor of the Environment. The Tragedy of the Commons lays out this argument quite well from an environmental perspective.

I also agree completely with your desire that we photographers must edit and diligently minimize quantity if we are to achieve quality although I approach that more from a personal ethos toward craftsmanship as I’m not a stock photographer.

But I sadly wonder if we are trying to close the gate after the horses are gone.

http://uncorkedimaging.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/looking-forward-2nd-wish/

And I hope it will provide some encouragement that there are libraries out there doing just that. The travel library I work for only takes content which has worldwide exclusivity; our distribution consists of a network of like-minded agencies in other countries; if you want one of our pictures in the UK you can only get it from us. We edit tightly (some might say savagely). We accept pictures on the basis of quality not subject - if a photographer supplies an image of an iconic location we don’t currently have but it’s not up to our standards then we reject it rather than taking it just so we can say we have an image of that place. And we charge prices appropriate to the quality of the work. Sure these have gone down over the past couple of years - we’re not immune to market forces - but they haven’t gone below a level we consider appropriate for the work.

And it works. So far. I hope and believe it will continue to work and we will continue to grow.

In contrast I see competitors with content and ethos not so different from ours throwing their pictures at every distributor they can in a desperate attempt to increase volume of sales and/or get into markets they can’t reach themselves (if these markets even exist).

The logical conclusion of this is a specialist travel magazine landing on my desk the other day featuring 2 pictures from another travel picture library that had been purchased via 2 different ‘image factories’, traditionally more associated with low-end RF but who now take and are given everything. I don’t know what they charged for the usage but it’s less than we do. And of that fee, maybe 60% goes to the source library which they then have to split 50/50 with the photographer (i reckon at most £15 each for a quarter page use). All this from a client that would have bought these pictures from them direct if they didn’t know they could get them cheaper through another website.

We ended up with twice as many pictures used at higher rates with a simple 50/50 split between us and photographer.

What are they thinking? I can only assume it comes from a basic lack of confidence in the quality of the work; that or a loss of nerve that anyone will pay what it’s worth.

I think and hope they’re wrong.