Getty Images May Pay You For Flickr Photos
Miguel Helft of the New York Times is reporting today that Getty Images has announced a partnership with Yahoo’s Flickr that will give top amateur photographers a chance to become contributors to Getty, and get paid at the same rates as photographers under contract with the company.
Apparently, Getty is going to comb Flickr and pick out the top photographers they find, concentrating on areas where they are lacking in content, such as certain parts of the world that aren’t well documented by photography. Also, as Jonathan Klein of Getty points out to Helft, the authenticity of Flickr photos is something that advertisers are looking for and often can’t be duplicated in a studio or shoot setting.
Upon hearing this, and having worked in a photography studio myself, my first question was, “What about the professional photographers who devote all of their time and resources into creating high quality photography only for Getty to troll Flickr?” The comment section of the Times article is being driven by a commenter who noted this same thing.
The amateurization of media is an unstoppable force. Actors lose work while reality shows hit it big. Bloggers attract viewers at the expense of journalists. While there will always be a market for professionally done ads with top-quality photography, a perusal of any of the more hip marketing campaigns out there reveals a deep interest in illusion of realism. Or, better yet, actual reality. There are several commercials on TV right now that either use viral footage or imitate it, and ad campaigns that reproduce a low-fi feel that aim to produce a sense of authenticity.
More and more, expect to see amateur media, including photographs, in mainstream marketing campaigns. Is it a good thing? Probably, but for the pros, it’s a challenge they have to deal with.
Technorati Tags: getty images, flickr
