Percocet 93-490. Percocet alieve. Percocet. Description of percocet. Percocet withdrawal. Percocet dangers of abuse….

Don’t take this stuff seriously. It could just as easily be a 12yro with mama’s credit (and, really, it probably is) as an actual business model.

“If you accept a bid, you will pay the agreed upon price regardless of the quality or the suitability of the photos that are provided to you.”

If this doesn’t drive the quality to the ground nothing will.

I can bid, shoot garbage still get paid and not be held accountable

In other words, this is dirt-cheap work for hire. The “photographer” can’t even use their own pictures..

Heck, there are times I could have used this service myself as a photographer. There are times I’ve had to travel to shoot some out-of-the-way location I hadn’t been to before, and wished I could just get some snapshots of the place so I could see what I’m in for, what the lighting is like at different times of day, etc. I don’t need those pictures to be taken by a real photographer. Just someone with a camera who can e-mail me some snapshots. That’s not taking work from photographers. If anything, that’s taking work from location scouts.

I too was initially repulsed by Yet Another “anyone can be a photographer” startup. But I don’t think this one’s worth the stress.

I’m open to being shown wrong, though.

Sounds very much like the “custom stock” model. I think there will be a definite split in the market and the key concept that photographers will need to think of is “where is my value add”. There seem to be three main routes:

1) Focus on being creative, sell your vision, make people know that you will generate something unique that the average person couldn’t even conceptualise let alone shoot. Chances are you will be shooting pictures of mundane things with a view camera.

2) Focus on providing the “service”. Get a reputation for getting the shot, come hell or high water. Coddle the client every step of the way taking away any vestiges of stress about the process. Chances are you’ll be shooting annual reports and weddings.

3) Focus on being famous, there will always be a place for the superstar photographer. You’ll need to make sure that you get yourself into high end NY magazines, even better if you can get your own VH1 reality show or if you’re only 17yrs old. Once you are hot, it doesn’t matter if your work is actually any good or not, your name alone will be enough. Chances are this leads you to shooting magazine spreads.

I would reccomend people take a look at the software industry as somewhere else where the value of good craft has reached almost 0 (due to outsourcing to code farms) and work out how they plan to move forward.

Times they are a changing….