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Articles from May 2013

Creative Job Openings

By Jim Pickerell | 409 Words | Posted 5/31/2013 | Comments
On May 22nd iStockphoto partnered with the Art Director’s Club to host Portfolio Night in more than 20 cities around the world. The Portfolio Night events were designed to connect aspiring young creatives with renowned advertising creative directors in hopes they would receive feedback on their work and ultimately secure career opportunities. For those who were unable to attend here is some of the information that was provided.

Are Your Promotion Efforts Working?

By Jim Pickerell | 2013 Words | Posted 5/30/2013 | Comments (1)
Recently John Fowler wrote on the Stockphoto Group blog on Yahoo “My promotional efforts are failing me,” and asked other photographers for advice on the promotional strategies that are working for them. John shoots mostly natural history imagery with an emphasis on insects especially those of agricultural, health and economic significance. Here's my thoughts on his options.

Scoopshot To Launch Web Platform

By Jim Pickerell | 392 Words | Posted 5/28/2013 | Comments
Scoopshot is scheduled to release a new web-based platform later this month that will make task creation publicly available. This is expected to increase the number of users, the quality of the content, create more brand visibility and increase user engagement for their media partners.

Pricing Your Assignment Work

By Jim Pickerell | 287 Words | Posted 5/27/2013 | Comments
PhotoShelter, in conjunction with Bill Cramer, founder and CEO of Wonderful Machine, has released a new free guide on Pricing Corporate and Industrial Photography. The guide provides useful price ranges for a variety of shoot types including: Corporate Lifestyle, Environmental Portraiture, Corporate Reportage, Headshots, Event Photography and Library Shoots.

Fraud Claims Brought Against Pearson Education

By Jim Pickerell | 442 Words | Posted 5/24/2013 | Comments
In the case of Pacific Stock, Inc. vs. Pearson Education United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollay in Hawaii has denied Pearson’s request for summary judgment with regard to Pacific Stock’s claim that Pearson had engaged in fraud and fraudulent inducement in its use of 59 images. Pacific Stock has also alleged that with regard to 151 images from 70 of its photographers Pearson exceeded the print run rights granted for the use of its images in Pearson textbooks.

June 11th: Photocentric Day At CEPIC

By Jim Pickerell | 356 Words | Posted 5/23/2013 | Comments
At the CEPIC Congress on June 11th the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) will sponsor the second annual "Photocentric Day," a day of inspiration and learning with the theme: How can the professional generate revenues in the digital world?

Found On The Web – No. 1

By Jim Pickerell | 270 Words | Posted 5/23/2013 | Comments
In my daily research I find many things that should be of interest to readers. Often there is little to say about the subject other than to provide readers with a link to what I’ve found. This will be the first in a continuing series of things I find interesting.

Do Customers Know Your Agency?

By Jim Pickerell | 828 Words | Posted 5/22/2013 | Comments
Corbis, Magnum, Getty and Alamy -- what do these words have in common. Unfortunately, the general public doesn't know. They've never heard of them, and if they have they don't know they are places where you can license the rights to use photographs, or what licensing photographs is all about. Do you care? Should you care? Read the story.

Bulk Pricing: Custom Menus

By Jim Pickerell | 789 Words | Posted 5/20/2013 | Comments
Is bulk pricing always bad? After reviewing the sales reports of a number of Getty photographers we’ve reported that from 25% and up to 40% in some cases of Getty’s total sales are for fees of $25 or less – often a lot less. Hans Halberstadt explains how he uses bulk pricing and custom pricing menus to get much more reasonable fees for the use of his images.

2013 Stock Photography Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 723 Words | Posted 5/17/2013 | Comments (1)
The stock photography business has changed dramatically from what it was five or ten years ago and the future does and the future does not look promising. In this article we’ve provided links to a number of previously published articles that provide a good overview of the industry and where we believe it is headed. If the reader wants to get a basic grounding in what stock photography is all about this is the place to start.

StockFreeImages Aims To Support Digital Advertisers And Protect Consumers

By Jim Pickerell | 951 Words | Posted 5/15/2013 | Comments (2)
Dreamstime just released the following to the press cautioning image user to be careful about grabbing images off the Internet because they could be “violating someone’s copyright.” To aid users in protecting themselves Dreamstime offers a collection of images at Stockfreeimages.com.

Corbis CRAVE For iPad And Web

By Jim Pickerell | 225 Words | Posted 5/14/2013 | Comments
Corbis® Images has launched Corbis CRAVE, a premium image discovery experience developed exclusively for iPad® and as an accompanying web experience.  CRAVE features expertly curated imagery from industry-leading commercial and editorial photographers. At launch there are 47 portfolios from featured photographers.

Bruce Livingstone Interview

By Jim Pickerell | 2329 Words | Posted 5/13/2013 | Comments
With Stocksy (http://www.stocksy.com/) Bruce Livingstone has set out to produce a collection of “authentic” stock images unlike anything customers will be able to find anywhere else. When he uses the work authentic he means a photograph that doesn’t look staged, pretend, forced or unrealistic. Images can be processed, but the processing must match the content. It’s not Instagram. Bruce took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us.

Compensation For Passive Image Use

By Jim Pickerell | 2962 Words | Posted 5/10/2013 | Comments
At the CEPIC Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday June 12th there will be a discussion on a new initiative that could generate significant new revenue for image creators whose images are “crowd sourced” and posted without authorization to various domains on the Internet.   This story examines the “Winston Project,” a system for collecting revenue for “Passive Image Use.” when a user uploads an image created by someone else to a “crowd sourced” domain, or when a user clicks on an image or shares it within the domain.

Photographer Day Rates Survey Results

By Jim Pickerell | 807 Words | Posted 5/9/2013 | Comments
The United Kingdom company Eposure has posted preliminary results of its Photographer Day Rates survey that was conducted online through its blog. Eposure is a company that “brings commercial photographers and businesses closer” and provides information and mentoring programs for photographers.

Shutterstock Reports $51.5 Million In Q1 2013

By Jim Pickerell | 750 Words | Posted 5/9/2013 | Comments
Shutterstock has reported a record 22.3 million downloads and $51.5 million in revenue in Q1 2013. Revenue per download grew 8% year-over-year to $2.29. The Shutterstock collection has grown to more than 25 million images and over 1 million video clips. Revenue is expected to grow in Q2 to between $53 million and $55 million. For all of 2013 revenue is now projected to be between $221 million and $226 million. EBITDA is projected to be between $46 million and $48 million.

Using Images Without Permission Becomes Legal In UK

By Jim Pickerell | 998 Words | Posted 5/8/2013 | Comments (3)
United Kingdom photographers are up in arms over the latest action by their government to make it legal for consumers to use their images without their permission. The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act recently passed in the U.K. provides a way to legally use images found on the Internet when the copyright owner cannot be identified or contacted. Such images are known as “orphaned works.”

Family Imagery Concepts: Image Source Identifies New Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 287 Words | Posted 5/6/2013 | Comments
In an effort to help its photographers shoot the imagery demanded by image buyers Image Source’s trend monitoring team, ISM, have published a report on its photographer resource blog IMSO, that examines the concepts portrayed in recent family imagery. In the process of preparing this report Image Source analyzed changes in the buying patterns or its customers, and researched a wide range of media and customer needs.

More On Price Variations Internationally

By Jim Pickerell | 827 Words | Posted 5/3/2013 | Comments (1)
We reported on price variations to different countries for use of the same photo here and here. Kiratsinh Jadeja who originally raised the issue asked, “Do you think majority of the buyers already know about this and outsource already?”

Education Market Shifts To Digital

By Jim Pickerell | 1030 Words | Posted 5/3/2013 | Comments
If supplying pictures for educational use is a significant part of your business plan you need to be aware of how the market is trending toward digital delivery and how that is likely to affect the prices that will be paid for images used in digital products. In case you’ve missed them the following are links to a few stories we’ve published that deal with this subject in the last few years.

Mobile Images At iStockphoto

By Jim Pickerell | 374 Words | Posted 5/2/2013 | Comments
Since the fall of 2012 iStockphoto had been accepting pictures taken with mobile devices. Currently they have 7433 images on the site. So far, they do not allow contributors to upload their photos directly from their mobile devices. It is not clear whether they are accepting images from contributors who only shoot with a camera phone, or whether they are just encouraging their regular contributors to also submit some images they shoot with their phones.

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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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