Has The Internet "Cheapened" The Creative Fields?

IMAGE SOURCE~©MELANIE NEER~PERSONAL PHOTO

Article Originally Published At the Bubblews Website on May 1, 2013, a website which no longer exists.

In a word yes it has, and has particularly hurt writers and photographers. I've been involved with photography ever since I was a child. Back then I used to borrow my mother's vintage Kodak Brownie camera. It wasn't until around 1976 that I got my first 35mm film camera, a Kalimar. I was instantly hooked on the 35mm film photography world, so much so I took classes in how to develop black & white film and prints. By learning how to develop my own film and prints that really triggered my love for photographing and the following year "graduated" to a 35mm Nikkormat El-W SLR. I primarily became a nature photographer, but would also set up my living room like a studio complete with lighting equipment and would do commercial type photos on a holiday theme such as Halloween, Christmas and Easter. The idea then occurred to me, hey why not try and get my work published.

Now back in those days people didn't have computers, most businesses didn't have websites, and the digital format of photography didn't even exist then, so since one couldn't simply send photos as an email attachment, one had to send their photographic work via the old fashioned way, yes, by snail mail. When it came to color photography, I primarily used the now discontinued 35mm Kodachrome slide film, it was the accepted format when submitting portfolios of ones work to a publisher or client. So here I'd be, picking out slides of my work that I thought suitable for a particular publication, mail them off and keep my fingers crossed that at least one of my photos would be accepted and published. It took awhile but lo and behold, when I sent a portfolio of my slides to Unity Magazine, my very first photo was accepted and published on the cover of the April 1980 issue (I include a photo of the cover here). This of course inspired me to keep at it, to keep sending my photos for publication, and from the years 1980 to 1986, I was a regularly published photographer. And what did I earn for my published work? On average one-hundred dollars.

"Life" intervened and I had to stop my photographic endeavors, but all the while in the back of my mind, I hoped to somehow resume my photography work. It wasn't until around 2002 that I became computer savvy and relied on library computers ; it wouldn't be until 2006 that I not only got my own first computer but a film scanner to digitize my slides, negatives and prints to digitize them. But boy, I was in for a shock at just how much times had changed for the photography world in general.

Of course by then most people had access to their own computers, most people were involved with digital photography, but something else cropped up…the microstock websites. Even way back when I was getting my work published there had been the Stock Photo Agencies and in most cases, one submitted their slides and if the company liked the work would keep them and promote your work on your behalf…payment was usually 50-50, meaning they got half of the earnings of your work. Microstock websites work differently however. One can join up these sites and upload their photographic work on-site (no more sending work via snail mail) and hope the work is chosen and published. But the rate of pay is mere peanuts! A "client" wishing for a particular photo to illustrate something can go to these microstock sites and download the image for about $2.00 and usually for "royalty free" licensing, which means once the client has purchased the image can use it over and over again without further compensation to the photographer. And what does the photographer earn with each download of their image? A mere 25¢. This is all a vast difference from the "old" licensing methods in the past, such as one-time rights, meaning the client "purchased" the image for about $50.00, $100.00 or more dollars and could only use it once. If the client wanted to use the image again, they were obligated to pay the photographer again.

The writing world has also suffered similar effects of the whole internet~computer world. Once again, in years gone by, if someone wrote an article or short story for a magazine, one had to submit a typewritten manuscript and send it by snail mail, and rate of pay was so many cents per word, and of course exclusive type articles could fetch even more. Of course all that has changed also. Yes, how easy it is now to either submit articles or short stories again via email attachment, or submit directly on-line to any magazine, newspaper, or other writing site, but as in the case of the photographic world, the writing world as I see it has suffered.

Yes there are pros about the whole internet~computer world. Either as a photographer or writer, we can submit our work via email or directly on-site, and instead of crossing one's fingers that our work may be published and perhaps waiting weeks or even months to find out if any of our work has been accepted for publication, it can be merely a few days or even instantaneously that our work is accepted and published. But at what cost? As I see it, it unfortunately means our work no longer has the value it once had. How sad.

UPDATE TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

There's another hiccup with the digital writing world, especially with those article writing type websites; many tend to "disappear". With so many talented writers, often times in a sense. fierce competition begins and the websites literally become overwhelmed and somewhere along the line, those writing websites just plain can't pay it's writers. This is what happened I believe with the one website I was writing for called Bubblews. One did not have to write long, lengthy "articles" or "Bubbles" to submit to the site; so what happened was, was that people often submitted several "Bubbles" in one day. The original minimum payout one had to reach before being paid was $25.00. One got "paid" every time someone viewed one's article, however, it was mere "pennies" per view of one's article. Then no doubt due to the rising "competition" going on with the website, they upped the minimum payout to $50.00, so naturally, it took a lot longer to achieve that minimum. Well, I have to confess, I didn't write for Bubblews as much as other websites I had been writing for, but I kept checking my status of how much I had earned. I had reached $47.00. Yahoo! Only three dollars short of the minimum. A few days passed, and I decided to check my status again. This is what I got:

Yes…they had disappeared! Charming. No warning of any kind and not only I, but all of the other contributing writers got screwed out of their earnings. At least when I had written for Yahoo.voices (formerly Associated Content), they had the decency to message all of us contributing writers, informing us of their plan to discontinue, gave us time to download our articles we had submitted if we so wish, and best of all, we got our final payout.

I'm still on a "quest" you might say, to find some other outlet to write for, but so far have come up blank. One of the things I would love to do, is to re-submit many of my former articles somewhere, however I've been finding a "hiccup" so far with many of the other types of writing sites: they don't allow for previously written work. So the search continues.