Comments on: How many photographers are “professionals”?

By: Start Here: Photography Business Models | Taylor Davidson

Start Here: Photography Business Models | Taylor Davidson — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:11:13 +0000

[...] How many photographers are “professionals”? Getty and Flickr took the easy operational route; selecting images instead of photographers would have broadened the base of photographers and forced Getty and Flickr to educate many photographers about stock pricing, royalty-free and rights-managed licensing schemes, model and property releases and many other nuances involved in stock imagery. [...]

By: Taylor Davidson

Taylor Davidson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:06:31 +0000

That's an interesting (and accurate) way to reword the “professional” and “amateur” distinction.

I would love to know the full details behind the Getty – Flickr – Yahoo negotiations and understand the full trade-offs involved…

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:01:10 +0000

iStock actually refer to their contributors as either 'professionals' or 'hobbyists', saying that 'amateur' implies they're not being paid. I think that's a clear and clever way to define the two groups. Particularly given the quality of some of the hobbyists is equal to, or above, that of many professionals (in rare cases).

I tend to agree with your thoughts on FlickrStock being more in line with the Flickr ethos. I'm very curious about how the Getty deal was more appealing to Flickr.

By: Getty closes down Scoopt: Surprised? | Taylor Davidson

Getty closes down Scoopt: Surprised? | Taylor Davidson — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:57:19 +0000

[...] if(!(x=d[n])&&d.all) x=d.all[n]; for (i=0;!x&&i PHOTOGRAPHY, TRAVEL & CULTURE « How many photographers are “professionals”? How to Live a Nomadic Lifestyle [...]

By: Taylor Davidson

Taylor Davidson — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:00:11 +0000

Actually, I'm familiar with ClusterShot and a fan of the functionality.

I've mentioned ClusterShot on this site before, and as you probably know I recently started testing ClusterShot myself: https://www.clustershot.com/taylordavidson

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:29:28 +0000

I'm by no means a professional, but through the power of Google, more and more buyers are contacting me and my co-workers for images found in our regular galleries. In an effort to build a simple checkout tool to help with the transaction, we ended up creating http://www.clustershot.com. The ability for anyone with a gallery to allow their photos to be purchased is kind of related to your post.

a bit more about it: http://www.actsofvolition.com/archive/2008/nove...