By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:59:16 +0000

Those organizations don’t screen anyone using any meaningful criteria. Requiring membership is just splitting photographers into the “haves” and “have-nots”, where the “have-nots” are excluded regardless of merit and largely on “seniority”, making it more difficult than it used to be for people to actually get somewhere starting out in the industry.
Selling rights-managed images may not be something you can do all pointy-clicky in a month or two, but it’s a solvable problem, even if it means the customer has to deal directly with the agency to make the purchase. By including only royalty-free images, and those mostly from Getty’s various libraries, you’re creating a situation that puts anyone not willing to sell under that model at a major disadvantage versus libraries available from within Photoshop, and further excluding anyone who can’t submit to Getty, which is very exclusive and not an option for most photographers, or essentially any part-time photographers. (And part-time is the only way many people can get started, since the royalty-free business model has devalued the market so much that it takes a long while before you can hope to make a living at photography.)
Photoshop is essentially a monopoly in what it does, and by including these exclusionary things right on the desktop you’re forcing 99% of photographers into a position where it is even more difficult than before to compete or get anywhere in the business, because those services are unavailable to 99% of photographers regardless of their merits, skills, or suitability.
You have to have three years of full-time, published, professional experience to be a general ASMP member. How is a new photographer supposed to get there, in a climate where it is increasingly difficult for a photographer to make a living at all, due in no small part to the very things you’re throwing your considerable weight into supporting? If listings are available to associate members, you would still have a year to wait, just to be able to compete on a level field. And that year isn’t based on any kind of “screening”, just time and paying the fee.
You’re creating an exclusionary privileged class of photographers based on anything but merit.

By: John Nack

John Nack — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:17:48 +0000

I don’t follow you. We want the Directory to be a high-quality resource, and that means doing some level of screening. Adobe doesn’t have the expertise or staff to do that work, so we’ve partnered with ASMP and other professional photographers’ organizations. How is that working directly against the photography industry?
As regards Adobe Stock Photos, it currently features only royalty-free images because the necessary infrastructure for selling rights-managed images hasn’t existed. That’s an area we’re exploring, but streamlining the high-touch world of RM imagery is not a small task.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 19:59:23 +0000

Photographers who are already members of ASMP or similar, that is.
The Adobe Photographers Directory is about as good for photographers as Adobe Stock Photos, including only royalty-free images. That is to say, not good at all.
How about Adobe doing something that isn’t working directly against the photography industry?

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