The growth of smartphones and the selfie movement have had a strong impact on photographers, especially local workers who often make a living taking pictures for tourists.
According to a statistic from Bankmycell, nearly 81% of the world’s population already owns a smartphone. This is both a good thing to make it easy for people to take pictures, but also a thing that affects the lives of some other subjects.
Photographers in Barsana, a popular temple town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, are among those who have seen this firsthand as their incomes plummeted following the rise of tourists. guests have smartphones, BBC website reported.
These people provide instant photography by taking photos of visitors and then selling them prints to take home. However, with the increasing number of smartphone users, their services have become obsolete and this situation greatly increases the competition among local photographers, and even leads to carelessness. da.
One of the photographers said:Once upon a time, tourists were looking for us, asking us to take pictures of them. Now, we’re pitching them, but they’re not interested.”
They used to be a stable income, but in recent years they have faced many difficulties. One person predicts that the future of this profession is very bleak and will only last two years at most. The world is increasingly sharing photos on social networks and fewer and fewer people want to buy paper photos, making it very difficult for photographers to cover costs, from ink to printer and equipment maintenance, sometimes while paying for the assistant.
In the pandemic situation, difficulties are compounded, because people are looking for ways to save costs and avoid photographers due to fear of spreading the virus.
There are still some days when some photographers manage to make a lot of money, giving them hope for the future of their profession and providing for their families with the camera, but for the most part, the profession is becoming more and more popular. so it’s very precarious.
Reference: Petapixel
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