Stock Photography FAQ

I don't like this computer revolution! Can't we go back to the good old days?

As much as photographers may want to complain about new technologies effecting their traditional business practices, they really have little option other than to find a way of putting these changes in their favor.  Many factors relating to computer technology have made photographers uncomfortable.  There is a fear of the expense associated with embracing new computerised practices, as well as a fear of a technology that has made it easier to steal their work and alter their images (Madlin and Gindin, 1993). Since computer technology has permitted the production of smaller publishing uses, many stock photography prices have had to plummet in order to compensate for the decreased visibility of the image (Madlin, 1994).

Many photography buyers have found the new system of searching for and viewing images through computers to be awkward, and prefer to continue paging through catalogs.  Nevertheless, many photo-buyers have been left without any option but to search through digital images (Burke, 1994) because it is more cost efficient for stock photography libraries to distribute their catalogs in CD-ROMs these days (Levine, 1994).