lomo/twitter cynic

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Let me start off by saying I've always been a fan of the snapshot aesthetic and don't believe The Fine Print is the the only true way. However, I was listening to the radio yesterday to hear Getty Images are offering Twitter users the opportunity to have their photos assessed by a picture editor.

The interviewer quizzed the rep on what they were looking for and it wasn't 'bugs on leaves' shots, it was 'real people' in creative situations for which Getty act as agent for a large bung. What it sounds like they're really after is access to a huge new library of images that look like advertising shots involving attractive young people doing zany things which are beyond your average art director to conceive and the client doesn't have to pay a photographer £x hundred pounds to shoot.

This comes on the back of the whole Diana erotik toy camera at five times the previous price thing, red scale film (sic) mallarky, and so on. I admire the Lomography concept for the outrageous silk purse from a dog's breakfast marketing coup it is, but the thing has the air of a cult with poster replies that are no more demanding than the thoughts in a packet of Love Hearts.

I accept we live in a cynical world but I find this stuff increasingly hard to swallow. Thanks for listening.
 
does it matter? If Getty pay the flickr user then its all good isnt it? Or is creativity not a commodity? or is it that Getty would pay the flickr user less?
 
Not sure what the connection is between Lomo and Getty. I am very cynical about the whole Lomo thing - more the price than for any of the output. Their Lubitel TLR costs more than a Rollei in good condition for example. That said, refurbed Olympus Trips cost £50+ now.

Getty and flickr/twitter seems a good tie-up to me - providing the fees aren't too insulting.
 
gingerjon said:
Not sure what the connection is between Lomo and Getty. I am very cynical about the whole Lomo thing - more the price than for any of the output. Their Lubitel TLR costs more than a Rollei in good condition for example. That said, refurbed Olympus Trips cost £50+ now.

Getty and flickr/twitter seems a good tie-up to me - providing the fees aren't too insulting.
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Anyone who pays £50 for a trip is completely bonkers! Sadly the lens is far far to good for any Lomo style images, I'm not quite sure how we have a market where Lomo cameras with shoddy plastic lenses are worth considerably more than some quality classics likr the OM10 and trip but we do!
 
I may be blurring two different bugbears, but Getty's involvement with Twitter seems like taking a fairly innocent thing, a snap of friends and family, and turning it into yet another commercial opportunity.
If someone offered me a pot of gold for a picture, my immediate thought would be how it compromised the people concerned. The subjects are unlikely to be hardened media spivs represented by Max Clifford but innocent bystanders who think their image on every bus stop and billboard is a nice idea until they realise they've become public property for a pittance.

My instinct is Getty are being less than transparent about the subject matter they were actually looking for, which is advertising shots in one form or another, or at least images of people they could turn into mass artifacts. Finding someone to put in the Photographers Gallery is not their remit, I'd suggest.
I took shots of a vilage fete at the weekend, including running races with children and I'd never flog their images out of context, there has to be some trust and similarly friends in intimate situations shouldn't be a bloomin' marketing angle!

Lomography is linked, if only in my mind, as the kind of shots Getty might be looking for.
 
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