Stock photography today is based on one simple truth: You don’t have to be a great photographer to take great photos.

This simple truth is bad news to stock photographers in much the same way that the French Revolution was bad news for the monarchy. Just as the monarchy collapsed in three years under the weight of the French masses protesting in the streets, the traditional stock photography industry has largely collapsed over the last three years under the weight of the digital masses of great images flooding the marketplace from enthusiastic amateurs willing to accept a dollar or two as payment.

Concurrently with this ever-rising tide of great images on the market eroding stock photographers’ profit margins, the publication industry found itself in a revolution of its own. Circulation numbers began dropping dramatically over the last decade as consumers discovered they could access much of the content they desired online for free. While consumers enjoyed the bounty of all this great free content, publications could not make up enough in online ad revenue to cover the gap from the drop in physical print circulation. They were faced with a tough choice – cut costs or die. Some did both, some survived – but at the expense of sacrificing staff members and cutting rates to freelancers like myself.

Both these factors have converged on my livelihood in a perfect storm of looming financial disaster – and yet, even though I am a photographer, I’m not worried.

I’m not worried because we are on the cusp of yet another revolution. The evidence I have for this revolution is purely personal and anecdotal at the moment, but I have hope for the future of my industry and I will tell you why.

Last week while waiting for a connection in Denver international airport, I began reading the news on the Huffington Post and came across a great article from Rolling Stone magazine. The story was truncated with a link to finish reading it on the Rolling Stone website, yet after clicking the link and landing on the Rolling Stone page, a message greeted me that read: The following is an excerpt of an article from the September 2, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone. This issue is available tomorrow on newsstands, and Friday, August 20th online via All Access, Rolling Stone’s premium subscription plan. I was so enthralled in the article that I walked around the terminal until I found a bookstore to purchase the publication. At the checkout counter, I realized the print industry was about to turn a corner, thanks to pay walls.

In 2011 the strategy of the pay wall will be deployed by multiple publications. The New York Times will roll it out in January, while Wall Street Journal has already deployed its pay wall and simultaneously gained subscribers. It is only a matter of time before most, if not all, publications follow suite.

Call me an optimist, but my logic tells me people are willing to pay for good content – exhibit one being the Rolling Stone magazine I purchased. If pay walls are implemented intelligently, they will begin filling the gaps in revenue that decimated the publication industry. With these gaps filled, publications will be able to add back staff and pay freelancers like myself to create more great content.

This will not solve the stock photography problem that pros, including myself, face today. In my opinion, the golden age of stock photography from the late 80’s to the early part of this century was a historical anomaly. Prior to 1980, stock photography consisted largely of outtakes from commercial and editorial assignments, and for myself, I strongly feel that is what professionals must return to.  Millions of enthusiastic amateurs are displacing the role that spec stock photography has played since the 1980′s.  For me to finance a stock shoot on spec is to bet against these millions upon millions of amateurs flooding the market with great images. To do this would be to choose a field of battle unwisely. Rather, if I treat stock photography as it began – that is as extra gravy from assignment work – I win by choosing my field of battle wisely.  In order for me to have that choice, there have to be assignments available; and, my hope is innovations like pay walls will be the path that opens these doors for professionals once again.

You don’t have to be a great photographer to take great photos, but you do have to be a great photographer to consistently create brilliant images and compile those images into a compelling narrative. You do have to be a great photographer to be able to light anyone, anything, anywhere, anytime. You do have to be a great photographer to be able to do this day after day after day.

You don’t have to be a great photographer to take a pretty picture, but to give a pretty picture gravity takes a great photographer.

Waterfall near Petit Lake, Idaho (HDR).

Early summer in Idaho is stunning as the snow melt gives way to hot days and cool nights.  In late June I made my semi annual trek to the Sun Valley area to teach some private photography lessons and had the luxury to spend a day with friends kind enough to invite me to their cabin at Petit lake.  A short walk, slow shutter speeds and seven exposures capturing all the detail from highlights to shadows allowed the above image to come to life.

Photographing a story on the Pushkar camel fair is something I had wanted to do since hearing about it shortly after arriving in India to teach photography in 2002.  In the fall of 2008, the right opportunity presented itself and I found myself under the Rajasthan desert sun surrounded by thousands of nomads.  What I realized immediately was the real story was not the fair, but the thousands of lives in the orbit of the mela.  Just as a satellite has a clear view of the earth, their lives told a story of the bigger picture beyond the surface of what any casual observer would see.  I chose to focus on just one family drawn into the fairs orbit.  Click the play button below to see the mela through their eyes. Don’t forget to click the full screen button on the bottom right for the full effect.

Musicians of the Thar Desert from Jonathan Kingston on Vimeo.

Click HERE to play on iPhone or iPad.

Every year, thousands of camel herders and tens of thousands of camels gather during the full moon of the month of Kartik to trade their livestock. In the midst of this mela, filled with a carnival atmosphere of tourists, hucksters, con men, and heavily mustached and turbaned desert nomads, a family of musicians counts on the festival to bring in the majority of the money they need to survive for the coming year.

In the fall of 2008, I made a trip to India to visit former students and get my creative juices flowing.  After 20 hours of travel, crossing multiple time zones and very little sleep, I touched down to the mayhem of Mumbai at one in the morning and let Paul Liebhardt talk me into foregoing much needed sleep in order to photograph at the Dhobi Ghat before sunrise the following day.  So exhausted that I was not sure which way was up or down, we managed to spend three hours at the Ghat before succumbing to exhaustion.  Here is a little rich media piece I produced from those few short hours.  I look forward to returning to the subject in the future for more in-depth coverage.  Be sure to click on full screen for the full experience.

Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat, Mumbai, India from Jonathan Kingston on Vimeo.

Click HERE to Play on iPhone or iPad

In the heart of Mumbai lies an integral feature of the city. The Mahalaxmi Dhobi ghat where 10,000 workers wash over 1,000,000 pieces of clothing a day, by hand, each individual standing in the soapy water near their washing stone for up to 16 hours. The dhobi ghat is one of the largest examples of this profession in the world and it is finding itself at the center of a a John Henry-esque story of man versus machine is unfolding in this rapidly growing city of over 18 million people.

Ansel Adams once said  -  I can’t verbalize the internal meaning of pictures whatsoever. Some of my friends can at very mystical levels, but I prefer to say that, if I feel something strongly, I would make a photograph, that would be the equivalent of what I saw and felt… When I’m ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my mind’s eye something that is not literally there, in the true meaning of the word. I’m interested in expressing something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.

Walking out into the night sky at the Hui Ho`olana, I am stunned by the beauty and the brightness of the stars.  I grab my camera and clumsily attempt to set it up without the aid of a flashlight.  Dinner is winding to a close at the workshop and Dewitt drives slowly past me down the driveway en route to his house next door chanting – l i g h t, l i g h t, l i g h t — Jonathan you have to have light to make pictures.  Cracking up, I made a few attempts to focus my camera as his brake lights receded in the distance before realizing it was impossible to do it visually, and instead I needed to trust the hyperfocal distance on my lens for this Hail Mary shot.  As I finally manage to lock in the right settings for the shot, I begin to wonder why I hadn’t attempted more night photography of this sort before.  Technologically, the ability had been in my hands since the D3 was released but because it had been such a difficult thing to do with film I had a blind spot to this amazing window to the world.  As I pressed the shutter, I was attempting to do something I would never have attempted with film – which is to tell the story of the stars as stars.  Not streaks in the night sky, or underexposed points of light, but as Ansel says – the equivalent of what I saw and felt.

The process makes me wonder what other opportunities I have looked at but not seen on a near daily basis in my life.  As I begin to think about it, the list grows rapidly.  Hopefully I will have many more starry nights to get those things right.

A starry night sky over a retreat center on Molokai, Hawaii.

There is nothing is quite as delicious as a day off after working 12 hour days for more than a week.  This evening, Dewitt and I headed down to the west end of the island where he has been photographing a beautiful series of wave images.  As we set up on the beach, we discussed plans for our October photography workshop on Molokai, and chatted about some wonderful ideas Rikki had for the upcoming class.  Soon the conversation drifted off into reverie of the musical scene that was before us, and the meditation of photography began.

Rock on Papohaku beach, Molokai, Hawaii (tonemapped HDR image).

Dewitt filmed this short video of me moments before the above frame happened.

Click HERE to watch on an iPhone or iPad

When it comes to sleep patterns, I have two modes in my life.  Assignment mode, when I get up long before the sun to catch the sweet light of the first rays of dawn, and everything else mode, when I prefer to let the day start at a decidedly more leisurely rate paced by a cup of tea and a few pages of the Wall Street Journal.  When my alarm woke me at 4:15am today it took a snooze cycle to change gears from everything else mode into assignment mode.  As oxygen rich cells blood cells began to pump to my  bleary brain, I could feel the excitement build – I was heading to Mo`omomi!

Mo`omomi preserve sits on a pristine part of the north west shore of the island of Molokai and aside from harboring an abundance of endangered plants, it affords a feast of a view along the famous sea cliffs that Saint Damien hiked so many times to tirelessly serve the Kalaupapa leper colony.  As we bumped down the dirt road to the preserve in our four wheel drive vehicles, the first rays of the dawn reveal ominous rainclouds hanging over the ocean that are slowly being pushed on shore by an incessant wind.  The cars arrive, and we pile out into the cold breezy salty sea air to stake out a spot for our tripods along the coast.  The drive had not been long, but a combination of general lack of sleep over the past week, a strong chance of rain and a stiff cold onshore salty sea wind made me start second guessing my decision to get up this morning.  Cosmically, the universe answered this thought when I reached into my camera bag and took out my small Panasonic point and shoot.  Displayed in large block letters on the back of its screen were 8 words: MODE DIAL IS NOT IN THE PROPER POSITION  It was as if this little electronic device had been tasked to tell me to get on task!  And get on task I did!  After getting lost to the beauty of the sunrise surrounded by sand dunes and sea foam, I began looking around at my students and fellow teachers.  All their eyes spoke as one with the simple joy of having found an excuse to witness a show that happens in all its spectacular glory every morning whether there is someone to witness it or not.  Its moments like these that pluck a guilt string in my heart for ever switching out of assignment mode and missing all the good sunrises – but I know that if I ever get to far off course, my little panasonic will let me know that my mode dial is not in the proper position, and with the flip of a button I will be reminded that I have the greatest job in the world.

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Click below to listen to a short clip of Rikki talking about what turns my head and pre-verbal reactions to subjects.

Click HERE to watch on an iPhone or iPad

Looking east from Mo`moomi Nature Preserve at sunrise, Molokai, Hawaii (tonemapped).

Rocks and surf at Mo`omomi Nature Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii (5 shot HDR, tonemapped).

Rikki often says it not about me taking the picture, but about the picture taking me.  The phrase what will I be taken by today? regularly enters my mind when I am shooting. Its simplicity disarming the inner critic that tells me that I have to go make a good picture. Its a phrase that gives me the freedom to wait.

This evening the banyan trees near the Hui took me.  Below are two of the results.

Click on the player below to listen to a short clip of some beautiful ukulele’s music and singing in the lodge before dinner.

Banyan tree near the Hui Ho'olana, Molokai, Hawaii

Old Hawaiian home with large Banyan tree in the background, Molokai, Hawaii

Driving the red dirt road to Kamakou preserve on Molokai, one could easily mistake the landscape for western Tanzania.  Grassy plains surrounded by wind sculpted trees make my eye look for the giraffe that will never walk into my frame.  Today we found ourselves bouncing down this road in spite of the rain that insists on clinging to the hills in a shroud of ever changing gray.   It has been at least two years since I last wandered into the preserve and I am excited.  Dewitt speaks often about beginning ones day with a full cup, and as the four wheel drive vehicle I am piloting crawls through the mud into the cloud bank, I feel my cup filling with excitement.  The road is a canyon surrounded by cliffs of moss covered trees reaching to the sky.  When the caravan of cars stops, I feel that tingle of excitement travel from my right index finger, up my arm and around my body.  The light is gorgeous.  A giant soft box in the sky.  So much biodiversity I can’t find the words other than to quote what one workshop participant said — this is what eden must have been like.  My cup overflows.

Click HERE to watch on an iPhone or iPad

Click HERE to watch on an iPhone or iPad

Red dirt road to Kamakou Nature Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii

Trees and fog, Kamakou Nature Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii

Leaf and moss, Kamakou Nature Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii

Biodiversity, Kamakou Nature Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii

Tree branches sculpted by the wind, Kamakou Nature Preserve, Molokai, Hawaii

This morning it was not the usual cacophony of birds and subtle song of wind chimes that woke me, but rather the melodic drumming of rain on the tin roof above my head.  Before I was fully conscious I knew our plans of a field trip to the mesmerizing ancient rainforest had washed away and by the time I sat up, I knew that the torrential downpour would make it hard to go anywhere but the computer lab.

“OK Jonathan” I thinking to myself, “how do I ride this thermal of change rather than flapping my wings in frustration?”  The answer arrived moments later when I nearly destroyed a rain laden spider web on my walk to the lab.  Something usually invisible had been transformed into jeweled strings of translucent pearls.  As I took my camera out of its bag, I could feel the thermal of excitement lifting my wings.

By the end of the day, the worst of the storm had blown over Molokai, and I headed down the hill to catch the sweet evening light.  The day didn’t turn out like my agenda had planned, but thanks to keeping my heart and mind open to change, I didn’t flap my wings in frustration all day long, and managed a few good frames in the process.

As a special treat Glenna Garramone performed some of her new songs at the Hui this evening.  Click below to listen.

Crab spider hanging on to a rain covered web, Molokai, Hawaii

One Alii Beach Park, Molokai, Hawaii

Broken fence and vibrant field, Molokai, Hawaii

Dead red car, Molokai, Hawaii