There Is No Value In Beauty
By: The Art Of Photography
Tags: Beauty, Creativity, Photography

Do you want this image above? You can have it — free. I don’t care. Hi-res, all rights, whatever you want. Why? Because it’s just beautiful.

Beauty began losing value years ago, as soon as the effort required to achieve it starting dropping. And it dropped fast — sampled music let us have quality drum tracks, piano and guitar chords without needing the actual instruments. Target started carrying Michael Graves-designed household items. Everyone got a pretty nice camera. YouTube taught us all the tricks. Google offered up images that people used in their blog posts and articles with a simple search. Filters and editing apps have given us all an understanding of post work (a photographer recently showed me an exchange with a model where she showed him how she liked her face to be retouched). And now, images and video that once took tens of thousands of dollars to achieve are being grabbed on the cheap with camera technology that puts high-end production in the hands of the masses: gimbals, image stabilization, sliders, editing effects… anyone can do anything. It’s not hard, you just have to want to go get it.

So, in the end, a pretty shot of Los Angeles through palm trees is as easy as showing up to the right place at the right time. You’ve got all the tools you need in your hands to make it beautiful, right now. My advantage? I live in LA and I know where it is. It’s no wonder today’s Instagrammers don’t want to share their locations. Access is the last bastion of ownership. And that’s a thinning stronghold, too.

So, yes, the beautiful image is free. Is it right? Is it wrong? Everyone’s got an opinion, but regardless, that’s what’s happening.

How Free Are We Talking?

Image by Leio Mclaren

Unsplash, which carries a treasure trove of beautiful images from various photographers from around the world seems to be at the cutting edge of this phenomenon. Free images (like this one), that you can have with no worry about licensing. All the artists would like is credit, if you don’t mind. And it’s one of the fastest-growing stock photography sites in the world.

And there are plenty more places to nab beautiful images on the cheap.

Sure, there are people who feel it’s the destroyer of artists’ integrity, but they are outnumbered by actual artists, a thousand-to-one. Because most artists already know — our true value is not in the images, but in the making of them. And holding the image hostage, or behind a pay wall, no longer creates any benefit to the photographer — not when it’s so easy to get the image elsewhere. Or by yourself.

On the other hand, giving the image away under your name let’s the world know what you have access to.

Say, for example, I want that exact same beach, but instead of one person, I need a group of people running? I call Leio. And I pay him. Because he has the access.

In similar ways, music companies (practically) give away their off-the-shelf tracks, knowing that the real work is in composing something specific for you.

So easy is it to snap a beautiful photo, apps like Twenty20, ViewBug and 500px have turned the masses into stock photographers, offering contests and competitions for the chance to sell your work on the cheap.

It’s Free Because It’s Easy

You know it’s easy, you just most likely don’t want to look at it. But let’s take a little trip to a remote lake, somewhere in Germany, called Obersee. The following is simply a screen grab of top posts from that location on Instagram right now:

Behold the beauty, the perfect compositions, tones and composition. Any one of these could be used as an album cover, online ad, header image for an article or background for an inspirational social media post. What makes these photographers any different than you? They showed up, that’s it.

Think that’s the only location? There’s literally thousands, just in Germany.

Can’t get to Germany, or even down the street? It’s okay, showing up is not essential. Take a look at this popular Instagram feed from an artist who gathers her imagery exclusively from Google Street View…