With the ubiquitous presence of digital cameras and people posting photographs taken with these cameras,  the overall value of photography is diminished according to the economic law of supply and demand…unless demand is keeping up with supply; is it?

It seems true that the general price for the rights to use a stock image has certainly gone down; this has been the topic of many discussions regarding stock photo sales. Also, I think it has become more difficult to sell photographic prints for reasonable prices, unless the photographic print is of some historical or collector value, in which case prices for prints have been skyrocketing in auctions!

In parallel with this increase in the supply of photographic images, there has been an increase in interest in photography in general. I don’t have any hard numbers to reference here, but my impression is that the low price and skill barrier to doing digital photography has gotten more and more people interested in photography.

This increased interest has heightened demand for books about photography, photography workshops, and historically significant photographic prints. So, there is still money being made in photography, but it’s sources are shifting away from the selling of stock photos, new original prints, and the provision of photographic services (e.g,. wedding and portrait photography) to the education and inspiration of new and upcoming photographers.

Of course, how long are people going to keep going into photography as a “career” if it becomes ridiculously difficult to make a living at it? At some point–according to economic theory–supply will likely peak and begin to descend.

My “take” on all of this (unless you’ve established yourself as the “top banana” in your market) is that providing photographic services has become a poorly paying occupation due to oversupply (i.e., so many people purchasing a digital camera, filling in one of those photographer’s website templates with their greatest hits, and undercutting the next guy’s prices). And trying to sell prints or stock photos of flowers, birds, landscapes, etc–like the thousands of others being put out there by thousands of photographers–is like running a lemonade stand at the end of your driveway: sure you may make a few dollars, but it ain’t gonna pay your mortgage, food & clothing bills, and so forth.

Inevitably, I think it all comes back to the originality of the image. Photography is a means for creating a unique and interesting image. There are other ways of creating 2-D images (e.g., drawing, painting). Photography is just another way.

Pretty landscapes, flora and fauna macros, sunsets, and so on have become a dime a dozen. If you go to a place like Target, you can buy a framed picture of any of these–made in China, no doubt–for a few bucks. If this is the type of imagery you’re interested in creating, pursuing photography as anything other than a hobby is financial suicide.

In the end, it comes down to artistic originality. Creating images that have not been created before is what makes an artist stand out and gives them the ability to charge generous prices for their work.

It doesn’t matter so much that the artwork was made with a camera–ultimately the means of an artwork’s creation is of secondary importance. It’s what was made and whether it’s interesting and unique among the hundreds of thousands of other images out there in the world and on the Internet.

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