rethinking

not so long ago I was approached a number of times by magazines who wanted to use some of my photos for free in their publications.  I was a bit indignant and thought that free was a bad thing, that it meant I was undervalued and free meant that it had no value.

well, thats still true.

but I’ve been rethinking the context of that request and looking at and learning from people who do make a living from their work.

So, whats the difference?  Why is free now ok?

Well – I think you have to take a look at the world we live in now, where everyone can create and publish digital content, including photographs, then maybe this kind of thing is actually free – afterall, everyone can take a picture with a digital camera and share it to everyone else on the internet in seconds now.  This then begs the question – how to make any money out of it?

Well – having read Seth Godin’s blog – he reposts an article about this – and the fundemental point is this:

people will pay for content they can’t get anywhere else – i.e if you’re good, better than the masses and offer something creatively different, something unique, then you have a market.

So, I’m going to get creative and see what comes up.  Not going to give everything away, but also not going to worry too much right now.