Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
I just received three emails from 500px this evening. I was informed that three of my images were sold.
In other words, I can expect a payment of $2.55. In all honesty, it feels like a mockery.
When 500px launched Marketplace in 2014 we photographers could receive a 70% commission if 500px was our sole licensing agent for a particular image. Back then it was actually possible to get a decent payment if you sold a few images.
On 10 April 2019, the world has seen the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole. Some people were staring in awe, some were complaining that the image took over their news feeds, and yet the others started making memes out of it. But Visual China Group (VCG) tried selling it on its website. Since the photo is under the Creative Commons license, this move caused a massive public outcry.
Thanks to a recent trend on Twitter, people are publishing bad stock photos of their jobs. They represent them in a completely inaccurate and unprofessional way, often even inappropriate – but every time it’s completely hilarious. It started with photos of scientists and doctors, but the people of other professions got involved as well, and it’s hysterical.
The season 7 of Game of Thrones is out, and many of us are hyped about it. There are different theories, stories and of course – memes everywhere. But a group of photographers and designers from Depositphotos made something creative to pay a tribute to the popular TV series. They used only stock photos from the website’s library to create alternative posters for Game of Thrones. Not only they look fantastic, but they could easily be used as the official posters.
Recently I got involved in the old debate on using stock images in personal art. The outrage of not taking the images in a composite yourself. This is a debate that will probably still be going until the end of time. My stance is that art is art. It’s not how you create it that matters, but the end product. This is why today I am featuring an artist who creates his art purely with stock images.
Pulkit Kamal, also known as Polka, is a self-taught artist from Mumbai, India. He makes surreal and ambient atmospheric images only from stock pictures available online under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. His visual art depicts dormant human emotions such as depression and anxiety, and are often accompanied with poetic excerpts from his unpublished fiction novel ‘The cold you, the cold me.’ Pulkit holds a master’s degree in business administration from UPES, Dehradun, and is currently managing advertising and branding for a brand in Mumbai.
If you ever quite liked the idea of strolling though town wearing a “Happy senior couple piggybacking at the beach” long sleeved t-shirt, well, your time has come. The clothing line you never even knew you wanted is finally here (kind of), thanks to Adobe Stock. Don’t be so quick with the “Buy now!” button, though. It’s just a marketing campaign.
Swedish ad agency Abby Priest was approached to create a campaign for Adobe Stock. The basic idea was to highlight the shift in style between modern stock and the overused cliché stock images of old. What they came up with was “a limited-edition clothing line giving a salute to the most infamous stock images creatives love to hate.” Gone are the happy, warm, smiling faces, replaced by a new, slightly less enthusiastic generation.
Shutterstock has been one of the world’s leading microstock agencies for more than a decade now. Like other microstock sites their business model is a simple one. Sell a lot of image licenses very inexpensively, focusing on quantity and bulk sales. For many photographers, that’s not always been an ideal situation. A vast archive of images leaves little room for yours to be noticed.
They want to help improve things, though, with the release of a new plugin for Adobe Photoshop. This plugin allows users to search images to test out watermarked images quickly and easily in their designs. It also suggests similar images, features curated content. It also has buttons to be able to easily license images once you know they work for you, all without leaving Photoshop.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!