Over 300 million imagesare uploadedto Facebook a day. Yes,justFacebook. Once other social media and photo-sharing platforms like Flickr, Unsplash, Instagram, etc. are taken into account, that number quickly grows into the billions.
A lot has changed since the dawn of photography in the 19th century—whenNicéphore Niépce(a.k.a. the “Father of Photography”) peered through his camera obscura from his upstairs window in France and created the oldest surviving photographic image in 1826. At that time, and for over a century, photography was restricted to (primarily white and Western) wealthy hobbyists and career professionals. However, photography has become more democratized, digitized, and open over time. This process began in the 1940s with Kodak’s “Brownie” camera, then quickened with the invention of the digital camera in the late 1980s, and finally culminated with the smartphone in the early 2000s. In 2019, the Pew Research Centerestimatedthat 1/3rd of the world’s population has a smartphone. This means that billions of people have access to a camera!
Along with the democratization and digitization of photography came the rise of open licensing (theCC License Suitewas first released in 2002) and “free” photo-sharing and stock photography websites (Flickr成立于2004年)。尽管这些趋势有很多好处，但它们通常会让专业摄影师感到不安。As photographer and filmmaker Erin Jenningswrotein a 2019 essay, “Not only has accessible digital photography threatened the commercial photography industry, it has also thrown into question the very self-worth of many photographers whose identities were mired in the exclusivity of the analog process.”As aphotographer, I understand this uneasiness as well as the apprehension that comes with publishing images under open licenses. I’ve certainly wondered:如果我心甘情愿地让组织和公司“免费”使用我的作品，这是否合适?这会导致摄影应该永远免费的期望吗?这是否贬低了专业摄影的价值?
Along with the democratization and digitization of photography came the rise of open licensing以及“免费”照片分享和库存摄影网站;尽管这些趋势有很多好处，但它们也让专业摄影师感到不安。
随着时间的推移，我了解了更多关于开放许可的目的，以及摄影师在这些许可下得到的权利。For instance, theattribution requirement在CC许可下实际上可以帮助保持照片和摄影师之间的联系，因为如果摄影师的作品被重用，那么摄影师的名字必须被赋予属性。在这个图像盗窃和图像过载的时代，这是非常重要的。The range of licenses available also gives photographers more freedom to determinehowtheir photography can be used beyond “all rights reserved,” and clarify that to potential users. For up-and-coming photographers, this can be especially useful for building a personal brand and an audience of potential clients.Personally, I try to always openly license my work—something I recently learned was possible onExposure, a storytelling platform for photographers and visual storytellers. After using the platform for years, it was a pleasant surprise to learn that the company had enabledCC BY-NDas a licensing option. It also made me curious:Why did a platform that serves as a creative outlet for professional photographers and storytellers decide to allow open licensing as an option?
To find out, I contacted Exposure Founder and CEOLuke Beardvia email. A photographer himself, I also wanted to know his personal thoughts about open licensing and the democratization of photography.Our conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
VH: The growing democratization of photography has led to a plethora of images online,主要通过免费的照片分享和库存摄影网站。这一趋势是否影响了你作为专业摄影师的身份?你认为这会损害这个行业吗?
LB:我认为，Instagram在过去十年里对摄影的改变比传统的和建立在免费分享或储存[摄影]基础上的照片社区做得更多。Instagram has a fairly large conversion rate. Its scale, reach, and impact on photography still feels unprecedented. It’s effectively one of the biggest stewards of the medium the world has ever seen.
The “professional photographer” part of my identity has a strong feeling around giving anything away for “free.” There are both potentially good and potentially negative outcomes, but it also depends on the context. You certainly learn a lot about what feels right or worth it by exploring free avenues.The communities that grow around services like Flickr can be incredible, and I’m sure many working photographers today got their start there. The proliferation of ways to discover photography though free, stock, or sharing [platforms] has certainly raised the bar both competition-wise and creativity-wise, and I’d say it has been a net positive.
VH: There’s an ongoing debate within photography circles about open licensing and whether or not it harms professional photographers. What do you see as the benefits and drawbacks?
LB:The value of photography has simultaneously been raised and lowered as the internet economy has grown. As a visual medium—with amazing screens in the hands of ~3.5 billion people—photography has so much to offer for the foreseeable future.
Open licensing also has a lot to offer photographers who are looking for new and interesting ways to share their craft and earn work. On the one hand, you have platforms with a huge reach that take on the hard work of distributing and hosting your photos in exchange for an open license (e.g. Unsplash). The long-tail upside might be that someone thinks your style of photography is perfect and hires you for a shoot.The flip side is that free and openly licensed photos may lose all concept that there is a photographer behind the photo. This devalues both the photographer and the photo. I personally struggle with the idea of normalizing good photography as something that has no cost or doesn’t require credit—although, it’s important to point out that CC licenses do require attribution. A comparison would be this one: it’s hard to make good software, but free applications normalize the idea that software should cost nothing.
There is still lots of work to be done to reap the benefits of open licensing, and the majority of this work falls to the stewards of the platforms and tools.
Without openly licensed photos, however, we wouldn’t have visually rich Wikipedia pages or great collections likeNASA’s image gallery. For individual photographers, I think there still has to be a better way. Maybe the answer is a blockchain solution through micropayments or maybe just a better marketplace platform. There is still lots of work to be done to reap the benefits of open licensing, and the majority of this work falls to the stewards of the platforms and tools. I’m hopeful the benefits will greatly outweigh the negatives.
VH: Can you explain why Exposure decided to offer an open licensing option and if there were any specific challenges when making and implementing that decision?
We have taken baby steps into offering an open license as a feature. For context, it’s a toggle you can switch “on” or “off” for specific stories. As the creator, you agree to a CC BY-ND license for your photography within that story. This idea initially came about because we wanted to give Exposure members the ability to allow their family, friends, or clients to download their photos. Since the launch, however, we have seen it used for academic and non-profit purposes too,so we plan on expanding it this year by adding more licenses and the ability to license entire stories (including written content) and not just the individual photos. Our non-profit customers have expressed how helpful this would be to share their cause.
VH:曝光教育用户关于这个开放许可选项或以任何方式宣传它?
The photo downloads feature is advertised as a paid feature because there is an infrastructure cost associated with allowing photos to be downloaded. When the feature is enabled by the member, we give a full legal description of how the license works and also a “basic” description in simpler terms.When a visitor downloads any photo that is under the open license they also see a similar dialog and download agreement that indicates the requirements of the license, including attribution to the photographer/source. This way, they know how and where they can use the photo before they actually download it.
VH: Taking a step back from open licensing, can you share with us one or two of the most impactful stories that have been shared on your platform?
这是一个艰难的问题，因为多年来已经发生了数千次，但现在我特别自豪地主持和分享关于气候变化、黑人的生命也很重要运动和COVID-19大流行的故事。For example, this story fromDoctors without Borders(MSF) which shares the struggle to get the supplies needed tofight COVID-19 in Yemen; this piece by the United Nations Development Programme’s Climate Office telling the story ofclimate-resilient farmingand food security in the outer islands of Kiribati; and this story ofBlack Lives Matter protestsin Cobb County, Georgia by a local photographer.
VH: The goal of the open movement is to build a more equitable, inclusive, and innovative world through sharing—do you believe sharing photography, and creative content more broadly, has a role in achieving that goal?
公开分享信息总是发生在社区内。我坚信，自从阿帕网和现代互联网诞生以来，开放运动已经取得了巨大的成就。随着越来越多的人使用互联网，创意内容仍有发展空间，成为一种真正可访问、包容和公平的媒体。但总的来说，视觉内容已经对世界上大多数人产生了巨大的影响——比历史上任何时候都要多。有一些事情让我担心我们实现任何形式的“开放网络”目标的能力，包括“大型科技公司”的巩固力量，侵蚀网络中立性，以及获得可靠和负担得起(如果不是免费的)互联网连接的差距——正如最近COVID-19对在家没有可靠互联网连接的学生造成的影响。
VH:摄影作为一种职业一直缺乏种族、民族和性别的多样性，这导致了所创作的图像(如库存照片)的多样性的缺乏。你认为像你这样的个人摄影师，以及像Exposure这样的平台，可以采取什么行动来帮助增加行业的多样性?
A quote mentioned in Ibram X. Kendi’s book,How to Be an Antiracisthas recently been very impactful in my thinking about just this. The quote is credited to Harry A. Blackmun from the 1978 Supreme Court case,Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Blackmunwrote,“…in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”
没有变革就没有进步，采取中立立场的现状不允许听到受压迫的声音。
When I think about how this could be implemented in photography and the platforms that support it, I see several paths to a more equitable community: actively raising, promoting, and empowering the work of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and gender diverse photographers; giving resources to those same communities to enhance their ability to work, and; public platforms taking a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech and racism of any kind. There is no progress without change and the status quo of taking a neutral stance does not allow for oppressed voices to be heard.Exposure, as a platform, can do more on all these fronts, but the future looks bright for more giving and more empowering initiatives. OurBlack Lives Matter support statementoutlines what we are doing right now, and there is more to come in the future.
VH卢克，谢谢你和我谈话!顺便说一下，现在有越来越多的公开授权的收藏正在努力增加库存照片的多样性。These includeNappy, theGender Spectrum Collection,Disabled and Here Collection, andWomen in Tech. Check them out!
: Featured image byKollage Kid, titled “Lighthouse” and licensedCC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
