Please accept my apologies. I was choosing your posting as typical of many rather than as a personal attack.
I agree with you that some of the greatest pictures ever made have been not very good quality 35mm.
However the world of stock is something I am involved in and interested in. It is highly competitive. Every agency wants repeat business and that repeat business comes from supplying the very best that is possible, not second best. I want people to come back to me as a supplier for the same reasons so I take a lot of trouble looking at where and how the agencies set those thresholds.
Selling stock is not like shooting on assignment for magazines or ad agencies. Clients sometimes ask several agencies to submit images for one project. Neither I nor the agency advising Amanda want to be rejected on quality grounds. Whether you or I like it or not a good big 'un beats a good small 'un any day.
One of my best selling stock pictures ever was covered on both 35mm and 120. The 35mm image was shot using an 85mm lens while the 120 was shot using an 80mm lens. Therefore the subject was a bit bigger on the 35mm frame. The client chose the 120 tranny and cropped more than the 35mm size from it! I know that everything was wrong about his decision but who was I to argue in the face of a fee well into four figures? And repeats six months later?
I am also convinced that the investment taken by some agencies is designed to protect them against future trends. I have seen countless technical specs for digital cameras which use repro at 125 or 133 lpi as their yardstick. I am already selling into usages at 200lpi and have seen printers doing 400 lpi. That is a difference of ten times the information!
I have a printer's calendar hanging on my wall which includes a picture taken at a location near here. I would hesitate to carry a 645 camera down that cliff and would probably choose 35mm. But an Italian photographer came all the way to Cornwall and carried a 10x8 camera onto that beach! He sold the picture, I didn't! There are hundreds of stock shooters out there willing to go the extra mile.
Regards
Bob
On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 05:07 pm, Shangara Singh wrote:
I think you're taking my post, which I thought was trying to help Amanda,
out of context and twisting it for whatever motives you have. I must say, it
doesn't sound like the helpful Bob Croxford I am used to...having a rough
day, maybe?
If the ONLY criteria for selling images was quality, I would give my 5 year
old a 6x7 and let her shoot stock. I think people like HCB and Elliott
Erwitt have proved that "most" people don't give a toss for quality as you
are defining it: pixels and more of them. It's HOW those pixels are arranged
that makes, breaks and sells a picture.
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