Abstract
While there is emerging research on the motivations of workers who engage with specific digital platforms, scant attention has been afforded to the contours of the digital economy as they affect workers in occupational or professional contexts. Drawing on interviews with 51 Australian photographers, the authors examined the extent to which, and why, photographers engage with or resist digital platform work. The photographic profession is an ideal context in which to examine such questions due to the fragmentation of the workforce and the recent proliferation of platforms. The findings revealed that the level of worker engagement is explained by platform control over price, service and product quality, and relationship management. The experiences of self-employed, freelance workers complicate our understanding of work afforded by digital platforms. Engaging with the political economy surrounding freelance creative labour, the study enables a richer theorisation of the experiences of platform-generated work in this context.
Keywords
Introduction
Increasing numbers of workers around the world are deriving at least part of their income from work accessed through online digital platforms. Capitalising on advances in mobile technology and high-speed Internet networks, platform businesses connect workers with end-users seeking specific services and intermediate transactions through web-based applications rather than through social exchange. Platforms lower transaction costs and create open markets for access to goods, services and outsourced labour (Coyle, 2017; Drahokoupil and Fabo, 2016). These defining features suggest that the organisation and experience of work derived through digital platforms may be profoundly different from traditional employment modes.
Empirical research has begun to address the motivations of digital platform workers and the costs and benefits of participation. For example, precarious employment and minimal worker protections are risks that have been emphasised in scholarly debates on the categorisation of platform workers as independent contractors (Stewart and Stanford, 2017). Typologies of platform work have been developed to distinguish between labour hire services, crowd-sourcing and micro-task work (Strowel and Vergote, 2016; Thuan et al., 2016). Extant research has also examined the experiences and motivations of individuals engaged in different types of platform work, including in knowledge-based and creative industries, usually in relation to a specific, task-based platform. There remains, however, scant evidence of the extent to which, and why groups of workers, operating within a particular occupational or professional segment, engage with platform work or move between platform work and traditional employment.
This article begins to redress this evidence gap through an exploration of the extent, nature and impact of digital platform work on Australian photographers. The cultural and creative industries have come to be seen as a privileged site for understanding innovation in the economy broadly (Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2008) and a study of primarily self-employed photographers offers insights into how the digital economy is impacting freelance creative labour in a particular professional context where platform businesses offering potential income generation have proliferated in recent years. This approach addresses the tendency of studies of cultural labour in the digital economy to overgeneralise and not sufficiently discriminate between different contexts (McRobbie, 2015). An examination of work trends across a professional field such as photography, unlike studies of workers engaged with a specific platform such as Uber or MicroTurk (e.g. Bucher and Fieseler, 2017), also offers new theoretical explanations of why some (creative) workers choose to engage with platforms, and importantly, why some do not.
Our study, thus, contributes to the nascent empirical literature addressing the income and career prospects of platform-generated, creative work as well as theoretical explanations of the extent of worker engagement and resistance. Digital platforms in the creative industries have gained the attention of neoliberal policymakers as providing economic growth at the same time as being built on ideals of entrepreneurialism, individualisation, creative-self-enterprise and precarious work conditions (Bridges, 2018; McRobbie, 2002; Scolere, 2019). Indeed, a plethora of studies have highlighted how the work of artists, fashion designers, media workers, graphic designers and other creative workers is characterised by intermittent and precarious jobs, poor pay, informal work environments, profound experiences of insecurity and anxiety about finding work (see Gill and Pratt, 2008 for a summary of these features of creative work). The findings demonstrate that whatever the digital platform type, it is the organisation of platform functions in relation to price setting and payment, client relationship management, and product/service quality, which influences participation.
Literature review
Digital platform work
The design of platform technologies and their potentially disruptive influence on existing markets has received considerable attention from management, economics, new media and information systems researchers. Through a triadic relationship, digital platforms connect end-users of a product or service (i.e. buyers or those who need work completed) with suppliers of that product or workers willing to perform the service (Healy et al., 2017; Stewart and Stanford, 2017). Platform businesses have been characterised by the access they provide to resources such as goods, services, labour or capital (Schor and Fitzmaurice, 2014), or by complexity, function or type of task undertaken (Kenney and Zysman, 2016; Thuan et al., 2016). For example, Strowel and Vergote (2016) categorised digital platforms as those providing access to information or content, personal data, goods and services, or money and capital.
Significant questions have emerged about how platform businesses are, or should be organised, and their impact on the rights and wellbeing of workers. Platform workers are generally classified as self-employed contractors or freelancers who are not committed to a single employer long-term, but rather undertake short-term ‘gigs’ sourced online or through an app (Graham et al., 2017; Healy et al., 2017). Cited benefits of digital platform work include flexibility, autonomy, improved work-life balance and the opportunity for supplementary income (Minifie and Wiltshire, 2016; Valenduc and Vendramin, 2016). Platforms have also been lauded for creating new work opportunities, better/cheaper services, and transparency and fairness in parts of the labour market typified by inefficiency, opacity and capricious human bosses (Coyle, 2017; Minifie and Wiltshire, 2016). Hall and Krueger (2018), for example, found that income generation and flexibility have contributed to the growth in Uber drivers. Platform businesses also appear to have created greater employment opportunities for digital workers in Africa and Asia (Graham et al., 2017).
However, studies also show that potential benefits are limited by control and power dynamics embedded within the structure and function of the platform. The implications of the quasi-employment relationship created by defining platform workers as independent contractors or freelancers has received growing attention, not least for circumventing traditional employment models in ways that threaten minimum wages and standards (Spencer, 2018; Stewart and Stanford, 2017). Critics have argued, for example, that the organisation of platform work is akin to Taylorism (Valenduc and Vendramin, 2016), fragmenting work and exploiting workers through peer competition and algorithmic management systems that result in an erosion of pay and working conditions (Healy et al., 2017; Spencer, 2018).
The triangular contractual relationships between workers, platforms and clients position platform workers outside traditional definitions of independent contractors or freelance workers in which a direct binary relationship between the employer and contractor is central (Kuhn, 2016; Stewart and Stanford, 2017). Platform workers share with other self-employed freelancers income instability, the precarity of short-term contracts, risks and costs associated with completing tasks, and they are further subject to forms of management and control built into platform technologies (Kenney and Zysman, 2016; Lewchuk, 2017) which, in the larger context of capitalist economies, drive profitability and lower labour costs (Scolere, 2019). These controls were illustrated in a study of creative crowd-workers by Schörpf et al. (2017) who explained how workers were bound to platform businesses such as Elance and oDesk through the use of reputational rating mechanisms that control and restrict access to work. Creative freelancers may be further subject to control mechanisms that infringe upon their creative rights. For example, freelance journalists have been subjected to rights-grabbing contracts that obliged them to relinquish copyright of their work, substantially reducing the potential income to be earned from the reproduction of their creative output (Salamon, 2016).
The extent of control exerted over platform workers varies according to the degree of worker dependency on the platform for income, as well as the level of worker autonomy over hours, assignments and pay rates (Kuhn and Maleki, 2017). These features of control provide a useful framing of platform functions, but they do not explain why workers with other sources of income and thus high autonomy and low dependency on the platform, would choose to participate in this kind of work. Further complicating notions of worker engagement are studies which have identified intrinsic, altruistic and social reasons for participating in platform work (Beerepoot and Lambregts, 2015; Schor, 2017). Participation, and the take up of digital technologies more broadly, is clearly complex and multi-faceted and, as Fleming (2018) has argued in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, influenced by socioeconomic factors such as labour market forces, organisational economics and the complexity and creativity of tasks.
Generally less than 10% of people participate in platform work, but this rate varies by country (McDonald et al., 2019; Minifie and Wiltshire, 2016; Pesole et al., 2018). Nevertheless, there are a burgeoning number of platform businesses, with predictions that worker participation will increase (Evans and Gawer, 2016). Research uncovering the structures, control mechanisms and broader socioeconomic influences affecting digital platform companies is crucial to understanding platform worker participation and the future potential for work that may be increasingly insecure and detached from traditional employment benefits. Yet knowledge of digital platform work has been largely informed by studies of platform workers in defined locations (e.g. Graham et al., 2017; Schor, 2017), and studies of a single platform, and/or platforms which mediate low-skilled or task-based work, including micro-task crowd-sourcing (e.g. MTurk), transportation (e.g. Uber) or food delivery services (e.g. Deliveroo) (Hall and Krueger, 2018; Irani, 2015). In contrast, less attention has been afforded to platform work at an occupational or professional group level, especially where it involves complex creative and knowledge-based work, where there may be a sense of artistic or intellectual ownership of the work undertaken. This analysis of professional photography work derived through digital platforms addresses this knowledge deficit.
Photography and digital platforms
`Freelance and ‘gig’ work have long been defining characteristics of the creative sector (Hoedemaekers, 2018) and worker enthusiasm for the creative economy has fostered a set of labour practices at odds with the more routine aspects of traditional employment relations. Flexibility, informality, individuality and autonomy are championed as necessary pre-conditions for innovation in the digital age and collective protections of rights and fair pay are sacrificed (Salamon, 2020; Thompson et al., 2007). While there has been some engagement with questions about the unpaid labour of digital media users, especially, as they relate to commercially produced content, surveillance and corporate control (Caldwell, 2010; Scholz, 2013), this work tends to frame technologies as disruptive agents within strictly professional contexts.
The proliferation of digital platforms has fundamentally altered creative labour in terms of productivity pressures, job categories and professional practices (Caldwell, 2010). Empirical research on creative work accessed through platform businesses concentrates on crowd-sourcing platforms, despite the diversity of platforms across the sector (Schörpf et al., 2017). For example, Roth and Kimani (2014) described four different methods being used by platforms to create video content for brands. The results illustrate the advent of new intermediaries and the increasingly diverse and inexpensive ways brands are mobilising platform-based creative resources. However, critical questions remain about the extent of engagement with platform work, opportunities for fair compensation and the nature of labour demands, especially from the perspectives of creative workers themselves. Furthermore, precarity refers not only to the extraction of value by platform businesses but also to the potential for worker resistance (Cohen, 2019; Salamon, 2016) which to date, have been examined only in selected creative professions such as freelance journalism and film and television writing (Curtin and Sanson, 2016; Salamon, 2018).
In the early 1990s, photography experienced a major technological change with the arrival of the digital camera and the reshaping of interactions between technology, people and the social organisation in which they live and work (Eriksson-Zetterquist et al., 2009). A 2017 IBISWorld risk assessment of Professional Photographic Services estimated that the combined structural, growth and sensitivity risk for the profession was medium-to-high. This risk level is attributed to social factors including constrained household discretionary income and, in similar circumstances seen in the graphic design industry, lower barriers to entry which exacerbates competition among freelancers (Le, 2019). Successive, incremental changes to technology have disrupted the profession whereby consumers are empowered to take high quality photographs and share them widely (Munir and Phillips, 2005). The subsequent limited growth in demand has forced photographers to compete for remaining sales (IBISWorld, 2017). Within this environment, platform businesses that specialise in photographic services have proliferated, offering seemingly limitless opportunities for photographers to generate income.
Approximately, 15,000 people in Australia work as photographers (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2016). While overall revenue growth has been declining, employment has increased rapidly in the past 10 years, with continued, albeit slower growth, projected to 2020 (ABS, 2016). Employment growth has largely been in part-time, self-employed roles, where freelance photographers operating micro-businesses often supplement their incomes with another job (IBISWorld, 2017). Photographers achieve professional recognition through the Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP). Neither membership of this or other professional associations, nor formal qualifications, are required to advertise or work as a professional photographer in Australia.
Photographic platforms variously allow photographers to upload images for royalty-free sale, respond to photo shoot briefs, and access booking services. The most established platforms relevant to photographers have been in stock photography, where sites such as iStockphoto allow photographers to upload images to be sold royalty-free for a price set by the platform. In the last 5 years, new platform companies connecting photographers with buyers have burgeoned. Snappr and Kodakit, for example, offer direct booking services at pre-established price points and platforms such as Oneflare, Freelancer and ImageBrief permit photographers to bid for advertised work. Photographers also commonly source work by building social capital through their own websites, professional networks and word-of-mouth. The assorted modes of platform participation offered to photographers who may already be obtaining work through an asymmetric worker-client relationship raises questions about the extent to which platform business models are likely to jeopardise, or contribute to, opportunities for work in creative professions. Furthermore, the myriad ways photographers might participate in platforms, such as by displaying a portfolio, selling existing images or shooting to a brief, illustrates the diversity in platform business models and the ensuing complexities of worker experiences.
Unlike prior research on platform workers, our study considers how a group of creative workers within a recognised profession perceive the multiplicity of platform-generated opportunities available to them as a legitimate and sustainable source of work. Our findings contribute to recent debates on the expansion and attractiveness of precarious forms of independent contract work, as well as emerging theoretical explanations of how the functions of platform businesses influence worker engagement or resistance. Although confined to one professional group, the study also addresses broader features of the political economy surrounding freelance creative labour.
Methods
We address the following three research questions:
To what extent do photographers participate in digital platform work?
What opportunities and constraints are afforded by digital platforms, compared to traditional avenues of income generation, to generate work for professional photographers?
How do photographers engage with and/or resist digital platform work in the context of their status as freelance professionals?
Sample and procedure
In-depth, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 51 photographers throughout Australia aged from 29 years to 75 years (see Table 1). All photographers in the sample had a registered photographic business or were employed as a photographer for another business. We first promoted the study at the AIPP’s annual conference and through an online registration page accessed through the AIPP’s website, to generate an initial 34 interviews. We then asked interviewees for referrals to other photographers with characteristics of theoretical relevance to the study. For example, interviewed photographers varied according to genre specialisation (weddings, commercial, portrait, sport,); location (state, urban/regional); tenure as a photographer; and type of employment arrangement (employee, contractor and self-employed; part-time/full-time hours). Referrals yielded 17 additional interviews. All photographers offered local or inter-state photography services, and approximately, one-quarter also had some international clients.
Sample characteristics (N = 51).
41% of photographers indicated their weekly hours were highly variable.
As detailed in Table 2, all participants were aware of platform businesses targeting photographers that had emerged recently and most had investigated their potential utility in generating income. Over a quarter of participants were currently registered with a platform although 3 had not generated any income; 13 (25%) were past users of platforms, 7 of whom did not earn any income; and 24 participants (47%) had investigated but deliberately rejected platform work. Patterns of participation were similar regardless of tenure or gender (48% of women and 52% of men were currently listed or were past users of platforms).
Sample participation in platform work.
Although photographers relied mainly on traditional online marketing practices such as building and maintaining a business website and Facebook page, and accessed clients through social networks, ‘word of mouth’ referrals, and repeat business, all photographers indicated varying levels of current and previous engagement with platforms. The high level of awareness of platform functions allowed for detailed discussions about the rationale for their level of participation.
To accommodate both metropolitan and regional photographers in all Australian States, interviews (median duration 49 minutes) were conducted either in-person, by telephone or through video conferencing software. Photographers appeared equally comfortable across mediums. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Questions spanned perceived impacts of technological change on the photographic profession; competition and income security; and experience of engaging with platforms.
Analysis
A critical realist approach guided the analysis to uncover the significance of interpretations and meaning construction of participants and also the social contexts, structures and resources within which participants act (Smith and Elger, 2014). This non-relativist conception of social relations and structures allowed for an evaluation of competing, complex and layered accounts of the experiences and impacts of digital platform work.
Theory-driven thematic analysis was undertaken through an iterative process of reflection on emerging themes as the interviews proceeded. We did not precisely define or pre-determine what coding categories would emerge a priori. Rather, we examined the transcripts inductively in context (Dart, 2004), searching for evidence that responded to our research questions. This included evidence of the extent of participation and the opportunities and constraints cited by interviewees, in addition to the more theoretically informed question of how photographers reconcile participation in digital platform work with the autonomy, control and flexibility inherent in their status as creative freelancers. To test the credibility of the analysis, interviews were cumulative and iterative (Smith and Elger, 2014), whereby, emergent themes from earlier interviews were posed to participants in later interviews to gain insights about interpretations of the data. For example, early interviews revealed that establishing protracted client relationships influenced the extent to which photographers engaged with digital platforms and this issue was subsequently explored further in later interviews.
We initially identified all segments of text where photographers had discussed their experiences, or those of others, with digital platforms. This top-level coding process revealed that the opportunities and challenges of engaging with platforms varied according to the type of platform, suggesting that the particular functions adopted by the particular platform business influenced participation. Our second stage of coding thus involved the identification of text reflecting photographer responses to three platform types: Stock, Booking and Bidding. Photographers also discussed their engagement with Directories such as Easy Weddings and Ido.com. We excluded engagement with directories from further analysis because unlike the other three platform types, pricing-setting and negotiation of services is not mediated by the platform and payments from clients to photographers does not occur through the platform. As part of the analytic process, we cross-checked information provided by interviewees against platform websites. For example, we verified that app-enabled or online processes described by photographers in relation to a specific platform, such as the processes of bidding for or booking jobs, and the methods by which they received payments, were in fact features of that platform, as described on its website.
Results
The findings are presented in four parts. The first summarises, for each platform type, how work is conducted on the platform, how payments are made through the platform, and the proportion of photographers in the sample who had (a) tried the platform type and (b) were currently using them. This provides context for the later analysis and theorisation of the photographers’ engagement with, and/or resistance to, platform work. Three emergent themes are then presented: generating income, creative and reputational control, and client interaction. Quotations are identified by pseudonym, sex, age and tenure as a photographer, for example (Jack_M47_9 years).
Types of photographic platforms
The features of the three types of digital platforms operating in photography – Stock, Booking and Bidding – are compared in Table 3. Photographers tended to be registered on more than one platform type and there were subtle yet significant differences across the three types in terms of engagement and resistance. Photographers’ status as freelance creative workers was integral to how they perceived opportunities to access work and income through digital platforms. The ability to generate adequate income, exert creative control and interact with clients emerged as primary themes.
Comparison of photography platform types.
Generating adequate income as a function of time and effort
Photographers considered the subscription-based stock platforms, ‘where you can access thousands of photos for only a couple of dollars a month’, to have significantly diminished opportunities for engagement with stock photography to generate a sustainable income (Saul_M42_27 years). They described a minimal per-image download payment, described as ‘pennies on the dollar’ (Caden_M47_20 years), which was attributed to a dilution effect resulting from platform-driven oversupply of imagery.
Photographers repeatedly emphasised that to derive a sustainable or fair income from stock platforms, they required sophisticated geo-tagging and online collation tools to undertake the laborious (and as freelancers, unpaid) process of organising the requisite large volume of images. According to one interviewee, a fellow photographer had ‘digitised an entire collection of 200,000 images because he knew that that was the only way he was going to make money’ (Sara_F39_15 years).
Other photographers, acknowledging that stock platforms offered only supplementary, modest and inconsistent income, believed that it was still preferable for their photos to be ‘on the stock photo library than sitting on a hard drive’ (Georgina_F52_20 years). Typically, photographers did not shoot specifically for stock platforms. Instead, they sought to sell images from their existing portfolios, thus engaging in a way that required minimal investment in time, resources or additional work. That is, while stock platforms were perceived to charge prices that did not provide adequate compensation for the skill and time invested by the photographer, well-organised banks of images that could be relatively easily uploaded to stock platforms seemed to offer reasonable potential to generate at least supplementary income.
A major reason that photographers avoided booking platforms, expressed repeatedly in the interviews, was that competition for work revolved solely around low price points. In particular, Snappr, which offered photography services including portrait, event, real estate and product photography, was derided by many photographers. Fees for a single shoot were typically cited as under AU$100, which was described by multiple photographers as ‘below the minimum wage’, ‘below the cost of production’ or ‘less than I would pay an assistant’: What does it cost me? What does it cost the business going across town shooting those images, the wear and tear on my gear, my time, my petrol, my post-processing, my internet connect, my upload . . . What are you valuing your time at and is that realistic? (Jack_M47_9 years)
Photographers considered that the low remuneration offered by booking platforms constituted an unsustainable business model for someone who was self-employed, as well as for the platform business itself. For example, they referred to such platforms as ‘a red herring’ and ‘a pyramid structure’ where ‘one person at the top who manages all this makes all the money and [creates] an awful lot of disgruntled people . . . a high staff turnover’ (Pat_M46_20 years). One photographer who was signed up with Snappr but who had not received any work, objected to requests to place the Snappr logo on her business website in exchange for ‘preferential status’.
Bidding platforms, like booking platforms, were considered by many photographers to be structured in such a way that offered insufficient income relative to the time and resources required to engage with the platform and access clients. Although bidding platforms offered opportunities to develop relationships with clients once a bid was won, prices set by bidders were considered to be unrealistically low, especially in relation to commercial photography. Rather than being selected on the basis of price alone, photographers preferred to engage clients who ‘love the style of photography I do and the service that I provide’ (Margaret_F64_20 years).
Regardless of the type of platform or the genre of photography offered, the income earned through digital platforms was perceived by photographers to be less than they could ordinarily earn for the same work.
Client relationships
Photographers spoke frequently about the importance of developing client relationships in order to receive repeat business or referral business. They described how their professional successes had always been dependent on establishing a positive relationship during the initial contact with the client and ‘educating’ clients on the value of their photographic services. This process, photographers argued, enabled them to better understand a client’s needs, scope the time and effort required to undertake the work, and explain to the client what is included in the price. Brad (M47_9 years) explained, If we can find a client and educate them about the value of it and what it is that goes into it, more than likely some of them will value it . . . At that point you can make a sale . . . but if you cannot explain this . . . you’ve just reduced the value of your product.
Platform functions, in particular those of booking platforms, were criticised for undermining this crucial communication process and impeding the development of long-term relationships. One of the few photographers using booking platforms for ‘supplementary income’ and ‘to get my work out for more eyes to see’, described multiple points in the process which could lead to a breakdown of communication with the client: They might call you saying, can you do this within the next 24 hours? That kind of last minute communication . . . Once you’ve agreed to do the job . . . the photographer is required to contact the client and the client generally has very little idea of what their package involves . . . Often clients expect us to send the images to them, which would make sense to me. But the images are sent to Snappr and then Snappr liaises from that point onward with the client. (Tina_F31_10 years)
Bidding platforms, unlike booking platforms, offer photographers an opportunity to have direct contact with the client once they win a bid. However, the process was considered time consuming and frustrating and frequently led photographers to abandon bidding platforms. One interviewee explained that even successful bids frequently resulted in ‘dead ends’ where clients would not respond to a call. Scoping the shoot with a client was also considered challenging: Someone might say I would like a video from a drone of me walking down the beach. Okay, so do you want the raw video or do you want it to be processed? Is this going to have titles? Is this going to go for two minutes or three minutes? Is it going to be in the morning or the evening? So you go back and say these are some questions and you never get a response. (Luke_M56_28 years)
To bid successfully on sites such as Oneflare, photographers must respond in a concise and constrained format: ‘you’ve only got 400 characters to get your message across and win the job’ (Martin_M50_30 years). To be successful, photographers have to constantly monitor the bidding platform. One interviewee reported that briefs ‘come off my phone and my watch’ and the opportunity to bid for a job would be missed without a high level of responsiveness. As Con (M42_28 years) explained, the competitive environment created through the platform’s bidding process demanded constant engagement with the platform, or risk foregoing opportunities for work: I responded to a few quote requests . . . but even if you replied within let’s say 15 minutes to half an hour, the job had already been quoted and delivered, even though they’re supposed to wait until three quotes are supplied.
With few exceptions, engaging with the platform was experienced as a threat to photographers’ creativity and professionalism. At the heart of these objections was the way platform functions undermined relationships with clients, described by Dave (M64_45 years) in the quote below. Thus, photographers saw platforms as undermining their ability to engage directly with clients and develop and sustain networks that could lead to future work: If the personality and the authenticity of the person who’s going to shoot your wedding, or shoot your picture, or shoot your commercial building isn’t going to be there, if there’s no handshaking across the internet platform, if there’s no ability to build rapport that could go into an ongoing commercial relationship, if that’s not there, it’s not going to succeed.
Creative control
Concerns relating to copyright, control over the creative process, and reputational risk were frequently cited as reasons for not engaging in platform work. In relation to stock platforms, Maxine (F33_5 years) highlighted the labour-intensive nature of assuring appropriate copyright arrangements, alongside reputational risk: They said is this your image? I said yeah. They said prove it . . . They had a question about the icebergs in the image. They said this looks like you photoshopped it in, it looks like it wasn’t real. I pulled up all of the shots around that time and showed them that the iceberg in question was in all of my RAWs.
Platforms were consistently thought to undermine the professional status of photographers. Objections to booking platforms were framed not only in relation to prospects for remuneration, as discussed earlier, but with respect to their propensity to destabilise and harm the photographic profession. One respondent described her first reaction to Snappr as ‘commodification’ and ‘the death of the industry’. She likened Snappr to ‘a McDonald’s ordering-type photography, rather than choosing to work with an artist because you like their style’ (Jenna_F41_4 years). Booking platforms were considered to devalue the skill, expertise and experience of all photographers, and undermine the creativity of the entire profession. Similarly, photographers characterised other photographers who used booking platforms as ‘keen amateurs looking to turn professional’, ‘those who need education in their pricing structure’, ‘students of photography’ and ‘wannabes’. Manny (M59_15 years) illustrated the diminishing of creative skill associated with particular genres of photography with an example: I did a secret shopper on Snappr . . . I told them I wanted someone to photograph a wedding. You were given the choice of two photographers that were available on that day and at that location . . . You could click on their portfolio and have a look. Neither of them were wedding photographers . . . They were going to send a real estate photographer to a wedding and that concerned me.
Most bidding platforms were considered damaging to the profession. Even platforms believed to be ‘trying to be a step above . . . and educate people who were coming on board’, such as ImageBrief, were perceived as ‘bringing the industry down to a level where it’s on its knees rather than excelling’ (Con_M42_28 years). As described in the following quote from Ben (M42_20 years), platforms, especially booking platforms, were seen as undermining the perceived value of a creative profession reliant on generating an income through successive client contracts: Photography is certainly seen as less glamorous and not particularly high in value but essentially a labour for hire type exercise rather than a creative or an artistic or a professional exercise.
Creative and professional reputation were highly valued commodities by photographers, not only to ensure personal income but to sustain the profession. Zane (M45_6 years) explained, It’s so important to me how I act, how I present myself. Reputation. How we see what’s right or wrong in the industry, what works and doesn’t work. How to maintain a very professional business and be really good at what you do. Push the limits of creativity you know. So as you increase your reputation you should be able to increase your financial reward.
By interfering with client relationships, platform businesses were perceived as both selling photography on price and removing the photographer’s creative control. This perceived risk to the professional reputation of freelance photographers was most apparent in relation to booking and bidding platforms, where, as James (M61_25 years) explained, creative value was supplanted by the sales process: I think that to some extent you lose some aspect of the creativity of the image by doing it that way. I like to add value to my images rather than just selling the image . . . From that perspective I’m able to control my reputation and my brand.
In summary, photographers were mostly negative about, and least likely to participate in, booking and bidding platforms. They also limited their engagement with stock platforms to levels that required only a limited investment in time, money and effort, while maximising opportunities for direct contact with potential clients. Platforms were not considered a source of sustainable income because of the low payments paid to photographers for their work, the costs associated with participating, and the propensity of platforms to inhibit photographer-client relationships. Platforms were also considered to diminish photographers’ sense of control over their creative and professional brand and reputations.
Discussion
This study examined, in the professional context of photography, how the functions of digital platform businesses influence the likelihood that photographers will seek, participate in or resist platform work. Photography platforms exhibit features described in previous typologies. Stock platforms offer opportunities to capitalise on existing portfolios of work; booking platforms offer labour hire; and bidding platforms crowdsource photographic work (Schor and Fitzmaurice, 2014). Our analysis makes clear, however, that the crucial feature determining the level of engagement is the degree to which the platform controls a fundamental dynamic for all the photographers – relationships with clients, including the autonomy to provide a professional photographic product and service, own the copyright and negotiate a fair price for their work.
Design labour is intensely performative, and more so in the context of self-branding on social media (Scolere, 2019). Unlike taxi-drivers or delivery workers, where typical worker-client relationships are short-term and transactional, photographers are motivated to develop – indeed their professional success is reliant upon – a creative reputation and deep social relationships that facilitate repeated transactions with clients over time. Reputation is intimately linked to ownership of copyright and control over the creation and use of images. Previous research has illuminated the risks of exploitation and devaluation of the work of creative freelancers when they are coerced into assigning copyright to profit-driven organisations (Salamon, 2016, 2020). For photographers, value lies in the originality and meaning assigned to the image they create, not just in the production of a commodity for sale (Jones et al., 2016; Thompson et al., 2007). Thus, developing and maintaining a personal and creative reputation was considered critical to professional standing, generating income from the creation of a photographic image, and finding future work.
In contrast to traditional business models, photographers report that digital platforms limit their ability to develop quality, long-term client relationships; negatively impact their creative reputation in the marketplace; and drive down the level of self-generated income on which they depend. As Shapiro (2018) showed in a study of on-demand couriers, platform businesses achieve this through various, but not always visible, forms of workforce surveillance and control. Photographers said that platforms drove down prices which negatively impacted their livelihoods and more broadly, contributed to the commodification of their labour by undermining and devaluing their creative skills and the perceived value of services provided by the professional photographic community. By selling photo shoots or images for a set price, booking and stock platforms assign value to creative production, intervening in the negotiation of value that traditionally occurs between an artist and a buyer. Like journalistic works distributed digitally (Cohen, 2019), the photograph is ‘unbundled’ from the artistic process required to create the image, becoming a commodity produced solely for exchange value (p. 583). Little to no value is assigned to the photographer’s time, labour and creativity, thus lowering with a corresponding reduction in the income of photographers. Hence, while freelance photographers by definition experience insecure working conditions, they resist participating in some activities of self-exploitation which are central to many flexible forms of creative work and which are often rationalised as an integral part of a creative lifestyle (Arvidsson et al., 2010; Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2011).
The findings revealed that photographic platforms act as intermediaries with three core functions that profoundly impact the work of photographers: pricing and receipt of payment; product quality and service; and the establishment and management of client relationships. Table 4 illustrates how high levels of control in relation to these three functions, dissuades photographers from participating on booking and bidding platforms and to a lesser extent, stock platforms. We refer to functions, rather than the overall business model adopted by a particular platform (Kenney and Zysman, 2016), because photographers sometimes described different types of engagement with the same platform. Price-setting and payment source indicates the degree to which the platform controls when and how much a photographer is paid for her or his work. All three platform types built high levels of control into their business models by setting the price for photographic work (rather than allowing photographers to do so) and by facilitating payments to photographers through the platform (in contrast to permitting direct payments by clients to photographers). Relationship management refers to the level of control the platform exerts over the direct photographer-client relationship, including facilitating initial client contact and managing client interactions. Photographic platforms exert high control by managing client contact and dictating to the photographer when and where they are required to perform the work, thereby restricting the ability of photographers to develop ongoing professional relationships and maintain creative control. Where platforms exert lower control over relationship management, photographers can contact clients to discuss a quote or explain the complexity of the job.
Levels of control in platform functions.
Bidding platforms closely manage initial client interactions. However, once a photographer wins a bid, she/he can contact the client to negotiate details of the work. At this point, the control of the platform over the worker-client relationship diminishes.
The degree of control over product and service quality indicates whether the platform function encourages or mandates client and/or photographer judgements, and directs the creative process by defining the location where the shoot took place, the creative and post-production input that impacted the quality of images, and the timing of delivery of images. The time imperatives described by photographers aligns with Scolere’s (2019) study of graphic designers who, in an age of social media, face new temporal patterns characterised by continuous, face-paced demands to churn out meticulously sequenced design work. Similarly, Gill and Pratt (2008) suggest that the problem is not so much that cultural work now extends across different spaces but rather that the temporality of life becomes governed by work. Platform control over product and service quality also influences photographic client assessments of service or image quality. Booking and bidding platforms exert high control on this function and stock platforms exert lower control.
Kuhn and Maleki (2017) propose a conceptual framework for describing the platform worker relationship, based on the degree of worker autonomy and economic dependence. Our findings support their assertion that the operational features of platform businesses influence the dynamics of control between workers, clients and the platform. Photographic platforms deploy functions which attempt to prevent previously independent workers from building personal client bases. This control over worker-client interaction explained why photographers resisted or discontinued platform work. Kuhn and Maleki (2017) propose that participation is also influenced by the degree to which a worker depends upon a platform for income generation. The tendency of photographic platforms to limit opportunities to earn a fair income, relative to the time, effort and resources required to engage with the platform, was a key component of photographers’ reluctance to engage in a consistent or prolonged way. However, although stock platforms exert strong control over the worker-client relationship, photographers used these platforms more frequently than booking or bidding platforms because posting their existing portfolio of images required less effort. Shooting specifically for stock required a greater investment in time and resources but yielded similar income, so photographers avoided participation at this level. Likewise, maintaining a profile on booking platforms and responding to briefs on bidding platforms required considerable effort but yielded inconsistent work. Hence, these platforms were perceived as highly problematic.
Contrary to Kuhn and Maleki’s (2017) model, our study shows that photographers’ reluctance to engage with platforms was not necessarily because they had access to substantive alternative forms of income. Even if photographers earned only a modest income through the use of traditional marketing practices such as a business website and Facebook page, and accessing clients through social networks and ‘word of mouth’ referrals, these strategies generally required less effort, resulting in a greater return on investment for the same or less work. They were also more likely to lead to future work because the perceived value of their creative work could be established through a direct relationship with their clients. Many photographers in our study had attempted to earn income by engaging with digital platforms. Yet despite considerable efforts, this work did not generate sufficient income and they subsequently left the platform. Others had investigated platforms as an option but decided before actually participating that the return on investment was likely to be insufficient. Photographers who did engage tended to do so in order to build a portfolio in a new genre and/or, like other platform workers (e.g. Schor, 2017), supplement income derived through more traditional self-employment channels. Kuhn and Maleki’s (2017) conceptual framework requires expansion to include a further dimension that considers the relationship between worker effort and reward.
Our findings demonstrate that the existence (and growth) of digital intermediaries offering opportunities for work in an occupational or professional field does not, as is sometimes assumed, guarantee that workers will engage. A recent European survey found that although 8% of working age adults regularly participate in platform work, less than 2% derive their main income in this way (Pesole et al., 2018). Similarly, in Australia, only 2.7% of those actively participating derive 100% of their income from digital platform work (McDonald et al., 2019). Just over half of the photographers we interviewed had previously or were currently engaging with digital platforms, but one-third of those had not derived any earnings. The difficulty in generating even a supplementary income relative to the effort involved in participation was a crucial factor explaining photographers’ decisions to withdraw from platform work.
Our findings also illuminate a new explanatory dimension of participation not considered in prior research, which is the negative, long-term impact of digital platform businesses on a professional community. The control exerted by platforms over the price of photographic work, the perceived quality of the product and service, and the photographer’s ability to source, develop and maintain client relationships, were considered by photographers across genre specialisation to not only offer few opportunities for a reliable income, but also be damaging to sustainability. Those who avoided or resisted platform work positioned those who did use platforms as newcomers with few alternative income streams or with an insufficient portfolio of quality photography. Some interviewees characterised such photographers as amateurs who were responsible for undermining professional standards and limiting opportunities for ‘real’ photographers to make a decent living. Hence, despite that photographers espoused what Salamon (2020) refers to as a ‘freelance class ideology’, grave concerns about the negative impact of platform businesses on the creative community was a salient disincentive for participation (p. 2). This resistance, for reasons beyond income generation, may be at least partly explained by the obfuscation between production and creative identity manifest in various forms of creative work (Hoedemaekers, 2018).
The sample accessed for the study limited the ability to reveal social or demographic factors such as ethnicity or socioeconomic status that enable some professionals to resist participation in low paid, insecure work accessed through digital intermediaries while compelling others to do so. Clearly, this warrants further research attention. However, in contrast to Duffy and Pruchniewska (2017) who argued that the smokescreen of digital entrepreneurism obscures oppressive and unfair labour conditions and particularly disempowers workers outside the white male paradigm, we found few differences in the level of engagement between male and female photographers.
Overall, the findings demonstrate that for photographers, the ways in which a platform functions as an intermediary between the seller/worker and buyer/client in creative work distinctly shapes their perceptions of that platform as a sustainable source of work and ultimately determines the extent to which photographers engage or resist. Although the business models adopted by digital platforms offering photographic work vary, what is important to these creative workers is how the platform functions; that is, the extent to which functions support or alternatively, close down options for photographers to set prices, manage client relationships, and ensure the quality of the service and product they provide.
Conclusion
The reluctance of many photographers to engage with digital platform work, be it for pragmatic or ideological reasons or both, is illustrative of the contested space of digital labour politics (Chen, 2018). The fact that photographers seem unwilling to participate, at least willingly or in large numbers, indicates that although we may be in the early stages of uptake (Drahokoupil and Jepsen, 2017), the proliferation of platform businesses in some professional contexts may not equate to widespread engagement. As Fleming (2018) suggests, we must avoid fetishising automating technologies because their potential does not always align with their empirical realisation. Importantly, and as the findings of this study show, resistance is evident even among freelance creative professionals who face prolonged disruption to their industry and limited growth in employment and consumer demand (IBISWorld, 2017; Munir and Phillips, 2005).
The responses to the emergence of disruptive technologies and new business models evident in photography share some similarities with previous studies of freelance creative occupational or professional groups such as graphic designers and journalists (e.g. Salamon, 2016; Scolere, 2019). For example, freelance journalists have been reported to adopt a range of strategies to resist the more exploitative dimensions of the digital economy and rights-grabbing contracts (Cohen, 2016; Salamon, 2018). However, while journalists have been reported to engage in class-action lawsuits, boycotts and strikes, the only conscious, deliberate resistance strategies adopted by photographers to resist the devaluation of their labour by digital platforms was non-participation. This may be partly explained by the fact that photographers, unlike freelance journalists, primarily earn their living by selling to individual clients or small businesses rather than large companies. This may significantly limit their opportunities to join a trade union or participate in labour organising and activism designed to resist the demands of an identifiable corporate entity such as a print media organisation. As Gill and Pratt (2008) argue, the distinct lack of trade unionisation and labour organisation in many areas of the creative economy is both a cause and an outcome of work that is individualised, deregulated, cheaply purchased and largely beyond scrutiny.
In contrast to prior work, our conceptualisation of levels of control in platform functions offers an important theoretical step forward in revealing that first, creative professionals are not always willing to conform to the calculative rationalities that platform companies project onto them (Shapiro, 2018) and second, explanations for the level of engagement and resistance. In the context of photography, digital platform functions can undermine worker-client relationships, limit creativity, push down prices and provide inconsistent access to work. The findings may have relevance to platform-mediated work emerging in other industries such as health care and professional services where expertise, knowledge and/or creativity, and the establishment of enduring client relationships are central to the product or services being offered. What is clear is that there is an urgent need for research to explore the experiences of workers in professional categories and contexts that extend beyond the current focus on those who engage with a single labour platform, especially in low-skilled or task-based work such as driving and delivery services. Such insights are crucial in considering the profound ways in which the digital economy is reorganising work, especially in creative and professional fields, and the opportunities and outcomes for those engaged in such work.
Footnotes
Authors’ note
All authors have agreed to the submission and the article is not currently being considered for publication by any other print or electronic journal.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded through an Australian Research Council Discovery Project No. DP180101191.
