Time magazine won the 2009 World Press Photo of the Year. It can command as many as 40 million readers worldwide, if you include Web site readership. And yet, both the bomb and change jar in these covers came from iStockphoto.
Talk about a new frugality.
To be fair, the change jar photographer (Robert Lam) seems pleased by the magazine’s choice, despite the fact that Time paid iStockphoto just $125 for an extended license, and Robert received only a fraction of that. I’m not so happy about it. I count on publications (at least the ones who aren’t going under) to commission original work.
But what do you think? Is there anything wrong with Time using microstock that anyone could afford, that could appear at any time in any ad for anything? And what about the photographers in these kinds of situations? Is the exposure worth the fact that they’re paid very little?
Terri Stone
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