Generative AI is sending traditional stock photography into a death spiral. In response, two stock photography giants, Getty Images and Shutterstock, are merging. For the companies, stock prices are up, but for the photographers, pay will probably go down. Understandably, photographers aren’t happy about it.

I’m not happy about it either. Even before AI, stock photography was a race to the bottom. When I first got into stock photography in 2013, the pay wasn’t great. I had a Shutterstock account and made 25 cents per photo on average. I didn’t expect to get rich or make a living off it, but I did expect fair compensation.

Stock photography is a numbers game. The more high quality photos you have that are in-demand among businesses, the more money you’ll see. With 200-300 photos, I averaged about $130 a year (before taxes). Not much, but enough to buy some coffee or snacks.

Everything changed when the executives attacked. In June 2020, Shutterstock changed its policy to pay out only 10 cents per photo. To me, that was an enormous slap in the face. Photographers like myself spend their own time and money capturing these photos, and 25 cents was already a joke. I’m not a clown, so I deactivated my account.

Nearly two years passed, and I got curious. In January 2023, I reactivated my account, but my earnings haven’t been the same. As of January 2025, I earned $30 for the past two years. For a collection of 300, high quality photos, that’s pretty insane.

Now, with AI entering the chat, compensation will likely drop further. To avoid copyright infringement, stock photo companies want to use photographer’s images for AI training. On Shutterstock, I opted out of this. Unfortunately, my decision to opt out won’t be able to turn the rising technological tide. That tide is rising fast and furiously.

In June 2023, I made a fun video about turning my photos into AI art multiverses, but in the years since, AI has made scary advancements. Jokes about AI’s ability to render hands are quickly becoming a thing of the past, and generative AI is becoming more believable.

Let’s say someone wants a photo of an elephant. What would they choose? A more expensive photo that is 100% real and taken in the wild? Or an artificially generated one that looks the same but is 100% fake?

Unless the photo is clearly labeled as AI, buyers many not know the difference, and even if they do, would a real photo mean more to them than a fake one? The whole purpose of photography is to capture images of the world around us, but with generative AI, our reality is unraveling, one prompt at a time.

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