If you follow the photography business news, the sky is falling:

• All staff photographers have been laid off. Every week, a media organization is laying off their staff photographers.
• All stock photographers are out of business because of RF¹⁾ photos.
• All stock photographers are out of business because of the stock photo agencies have lowered their prices to less than a penny How low can it go?.
• All professional photographers are out of business because of all the “free” photos from Flickr.

What happened is that by having cheap photos, they have expanded the market! Great now, what's that got to do with me? Me, I am a small independent photographer.

Last week, I received a phone call from a construction company to photograph a major equipment move. They started buying photos online and last year spent almost $1,000 on stock photography. They had to rent a major mobile crane for 3 days at the price of over $10,000 per day, a few bulldozers, and a 25 construction crew for a total bill of over $90,000.

Because of their change in attitude, they decided to document and photograph the job. They have done many time this type of job, and never once used a photographer.

The sky is falling! Not really, but the sky is moving to a new position with a different light. It's up to us to adapt.