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Articles from November 2014

Scoopshot Offers Image Embed With IAN

By Jim Pickerell | 670 Words | Posted 11/26/2014 | Comments
Scoopshot is the latest to jump on the embed bandwagon. When users find an image they want to use they have the option of paying the listed price for a download or “Use For Free.” Get more information about how it works.

Lattice: New PhotoShelter Initiative

By Jim Pickerell | 1150 Words | Posted 11/25/2014 | Comments
Recently, Photoshelter launched Lattice, a Pinterest like curation and discovery experience designed to show off the best of more than 200,000,000 images from the 80,000 pro photographers that use PhotoShelter. Currently “boards” are created by in-house staff and “invited curators.”  The vision is that eventually anyone will be available to create boards. Photographers can recommend certain of their best images for addition to boards, but for right now they cannot add images to boards directly.

George Sinclair Dies

By Jim Pickerell | 315 Words | Posted 11/25/2014 | Comments (2)
Following a brief illness George Sinclair, founder and executive director of Universal Images Group, Ltd. died from cardiac arrest on Thursday November 20, 2014, at 9:30pm in London.

6 Reasons For No Revenue Growth

By Jim Pickerell | 1155 Words | Posted 11/20/2014 | Comments (2)
I am constantly challenged on why I think there is likely to be little or no revenue growth in the stock photo business. Many point out that clearly there is a huge explosion in the use of imagery online. Therefore, why won’t that be reflected in the growth of stock photo revenue? They also point to Shutterstock’s consistent 40% growth per year over for the last three years. Here are 6 reasons why industry revenue growth is and will continue to be in the very low single digits, until it finally turns negative.

Bigstock Partners With WIX Website Builder

By Jim Pickerell | 349 Words | Posted 11/20/2014 | Comments
Shutterstock has announced a partnership between WIX and its Bigstock brand. Wix is a website creation tool designed for small businesses with 56 million users in 190 countries. Wix offers a “drag n' drop website building platform with HTML5 capabilities, 100s of designer made templates, top grade hosting, innovative Apps and tons of features for free.”

Drone Photography And Where It’s Headed

By Jim Pickerell | 196 Words | Posted 11/18/2014 | Comments (1)
At PhotoPlusExpo in New York last month there was tremendous interest among videographers and photographers in the DJI Phantom 2 Vision Quadcopter with Integrated FPV Camera. This piece of equipment seems to offer great potential for a host of commercial photography uses. But, there are two major issues with the use of drones for photography – laws regarding aircraft safety and personal privacy. The air safety rules come under the jurisdiction of the FAA. Privacy laws are traditionally state laws.

What Are The Most Popular People Images?

By Jim Pickerell | 4316 Words | Posted 11/14/2014 | Comments
Recently Getty Images has started allowing its customers to organize their search returns by the “Most Popular” images as well as the default “Best Match” that has been the only option for years. I thought it would be interesting to see which photographers that shoot people produce the work that is in greatest demand at Getty images. I looked at the first 500 images returned when a customer does a search for “People” and narrowed the search to “Most Popular,” “RF only” and only photography.

ImageBrief: The RF vs RM Question

By Jim Pickerell | 1139 Words | Posted 11/12/2014 | Comments
ImageBrief has updated its rules regarding RF and provided a long explanation here.  Evidentally, many ImageBrief (IB) contributors have been asking “Why is ImageBrief adding so many RF briefs?” IB’s answer is, “We’re responding to client demands and listening to the market.”

Is Copyright Benefiting Image Creators?

By Jim Pickerell | 1435 Words | Posted 11/11/2014 | Comments (2)
A couple weeks ago I was talking with a well known picture researcher. He said, “I wish all these copyright cases were over!” He pointed out that every time someone files a copyright suit he gets a new list of people whose images he can’t use when searching for images for a new project. Is there some way to protect your rights and still license a reasonable number of new images?

Shutterstock Reports $83.7 Million For Q3 2014

By Jim Pickerell | 1125 Words | Posted 11/7/2014 | Comments (2)
Shutterstock has reported $83.7 million in revenue and total downloads of 31.2 million for Q3 2014. About 30 percent of the revenue was paid out to contributors in royalties. At the end of the quarter the company had 491 employees worldwide. The average price per download was $2.65 up from $2.35 in the previous quarter and an 13% increase compared to Q2 2013. This increase in the average price was due primarily to a growing number of Enterprise and Video sales.

Shutterstock Introduces Sequence For Video Editors

By Jim Pickerell | 296 Words | Posted 11/6/2014 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has introduced Sequence, an in-browser editing tool designed to provide an easy way for anyone to create and quickly share videos with colleagues and clients. Sequence allows users to seamlessly integrate their own footage and music with Shutterstock’s collection of more than 2 million high-quality video clips and music tracks to spark inspiration and bring their vision to life.

Advertising Trends In 2014

By Jim Pickerell | 433 Words | Posted 11/6/2014 | Comments
According to eMarketer’s 2014 Global Media Intelligence Report the revenue generated from global ad spend in 2014 is expected to be $545.24 billion. While total ad spending is expected to increase 5.7% compared to 2013, the percentage of this total spent for newspaper and magazine advertising continues to decline compared to the previous year while the percentage spent on digital will rise dramatically.

Pricing Images For Educational Use

By Jim Pickerell | 838 Words | Posted 11/5/2014 | Comments
Stock photo sellers need to join together through their trade associations and stop licensing rights to their images to educational publisher for the use in online products until publishers agree to a new compensation strategy for such products. Historically, the licensing of photo uses for textbooks and educational materials has been treated in much the same way as the licensing for magazines and newspapers. That needs to change.

Improving The RF Option

By Jim Pickerell | 1116 Words | Posted 11/5/2014 | Comments
There is a segment of the photographic community that insists on arguing that in order to get more reasonable prices for image use we must eliminate RF. Forget it; it’s impossible; it won’t happen. But there are other options.

New Strategy For RM Licensors

By Jim Pickerell | 541 Words | Posted 11/4/2014 | Comments (1)
Are more and more of your customers asking for RF licensed because they must have the flexibility to use the image in any way that develops and for an unlimited period of time? Hans Halberstadt of MilitaryStockPhoto used to dismiss inquiries for RF licenses out of hand, but in recent years has found that many of his ad agency customers insist on the flexibility of an RF licenses.

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This stock photography news site focuses on the business side of photography with a special emphasis on stock photography. Our goal is to help photographers maximize their earnings based on the quality of their work and the commitment they are prepared to make to the trade. The information provided will be applicable to part-timers as well as full time professional photographers. We’ll leave it to others to teach photographers how to take better pictures.

Jim Pickerell launched his career as a photographer in 1963. In 1990 he began publishing a regular newsletter on stock photography. In 1995 the information was made available online as well as in print and was gradually expanded to a daily service. Click here for Pickerell's full biography.

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