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Articles from June 2011
PhotoShelter (
http://www.photoshelter.com) has released a new e-book entitled
The Photographer’s Guide to Selling Like a Pro. The book provides photographers with concrete strategies and firsthand insight on how to grow a photography business through better sales tactics. It provides key business tips direct from veteran sales leaders in the fields of advertising, automotive, travel, insurance, and home shopping industries.
Getty Images has notified agencies (Image Partners), whose work is currently being licensed by Photolibrary, of Getty’s intention to “retire” (close down) all the Photolibrary websites during the last quarter of 2011.
In an article published in the British Journal of Photography (BJP) and entitled “
Stockpiling Trouble: How The Stock Industry Ate Itself?” Betsy Reid founding executive director of Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) from 2002 through 2009 lays out some of the reasons that the SAA will be closing its doors at the end of 2011. Many in the industry will want to review this article.
When you rent a movie for an iPad it expires and disappears 30 days after the date of purchase. Once you start watching the move it will automatically disappear in 24 hours even if I have not watched it to the end. If you want to see it after 24 hours you’ve got to rent it again. This got me thinking. Why can’t we install a “kill date” into the JPEG files we license for use?
Google has released a new function that allows those who use Chrome or Firefox browsers to search the web for use of specific images.
If you go to to
http://images.google.com you will see a little camera icon in the search box. Click on that icon and you get a popup that says “Search by Image.” Either paste an image URL or drag an image onto this search box you will get a view and list of the URL’s where that image can be found.
After the recent CEPIC conference in Istanbul my wife and I joined a
small group touring Turkey. The trip got me thinking about a potential
future markets for still photography. Are you prepared to deal with these markets? Are you willing to sell to these customers?
The New York Times reports today on
Lytro’s new camera that lets you shoot first and change the focus later. If the focus is off slightly, or you want to change it dramatically from foreground to background or anywhere in between you can change it in the computer once you get back home. Check out this new technology
here. Welcome to another reason why there will be little need for professional photographers in the future.
On May 23rd I announced a
contest. Everyone who provided an answer to the question "Describe a situation where a fee of $10.00, or less, is justified for the COMMERCIAL use of a single image?" would be entered in a drawing to Win $100.00. In addition to announcing the contest to my newsletter subscribers I passed out cards to attendees to the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul. We have conducted a drawing and the winner is Tim Harris of Nature Picture Library and Bluegreen Pictures in the UK.
Creatives need to start exploring ways to deliver their products –
writing, photographs, illustration, video – to students, instructors and
educational institutions without the aid of educational publishers.This article goes into some of the reasons why and how it could be accomplished.
What happens when the iPad becomes the primary vehicle for delivering
educational information? Check out this story for some of the things we think will happen in the education business. Also see how what will happen to in the education business to content providers -- writers as well as photographers -- in the next ten years compares to how microstock has changed the stock photography business in the last decade.
Alamy has over 24 million images online after adding over one million
celebrity images. The company represents over 570 of the world’s
leading stock and specialist agencies and a vast array of photographers
from every corner of the globe.
Given Internet capabilities, society is rapidly moving away from
Business to Business (BtoB) transactions and more toward transaction
where small Businesses sell all types of things direct to Consumer
(BtoC). Some images will continue to be used in major ad campaigns and
there will be other sales of stock photography at traditional prices,
but the number of such requests will decline. Meanwhile image use by small businesses and individuals will increase dramatically. Photographers need to start focusing on how they can prepare themselves for the new market.
PhotoShelter (
http://www.photoshelter.com) has unveiled a full redesign of its e-commerce checkout process in addition to several new e-commerce features that can help photographers sell more images from their PhotoShelter websites. Over 70,000 photographers use PhotoShelter websites and tools to sell photo prints and products, or license their photography as rights managed, royalty free or personal use downloads.
On Friday I published a story on a decision in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York regarding Pearson Education and a copyright infringement suit. There was some incorrect information in the original story. The story has now been corrected. If you read the story before, please re-read it now at this
link.
Last week in a story entitles “
Educational Products For Students” I discussed the new educational publisher strategy for making images available to students. In particular I examined the Encyclopaedia Britannica product called Image Quest and made some estimates about pricing and the royalties photographers might receive for the use of their images. Encyclopaedia Britannica has now provided us with more details of their pricing strategy and we need to revise our numbers.
On Tuesday June 7, 2011 U.S. District Judge James C. Francis IV denied Norbert Wu’s request for a preliminary injunction and sanctions and refused to stop Pearson Education Inc. from communicating with members of a proposed class of photographers. Pearson had been temporarily restrained from negotiating with other photographers and stock agencies with regard to unauthorized use claims until the judge determined whether or not a class action could be certified. Now Pearson is free to move ahead and settle photographer's claims.
Today, the biggest problem for professional photographers is how to get their images seen by potential customers. Most photographers would agree that the way to get the widest possible exposure for their work is to get their images on gettyimages.com. Sources at Getty Images tell me that 96% of the company’s sales come from images customers find on the first three pages of the search returns. Customers have a choice as to how many thumbnails they want to see on any given page -- with a maximum of 100 allowed -- so three pages of images would be a maximum of 300.
The educational market has always been a big segment of the stock photo business. Some agencies and individual photographers earn the majority of there revenue from sales for educational use. Until recently, most of the photographs used for educational purposes were published in textbooks. All that is changing with
Britannica Image Quest that gives students and teachers unlimited access to a 2.3 million image file.
The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has received $170,000 from the Authors Coalition of America (ACA), an organization which distributes money collected for copying non-title-specific works abroad, primarily in Scandinavia and Europe. Non-title-specific works are those that cannot be identified individually or by copyright owner.
There are strong indications that iStock's introduction of higher priced brands has resulted in the company licensing fewer images. In addition many of its customers seem to be turning away from iStock and goint to other microstock sites to purchase the images they need. One non-exclusive photographer with many best selling recreation images on both iStock and Shutterstock reports that his images on Shutterstock are now outselling those on iStock by 3 to 1 while a year ago the reverse was true. Other photographers confirm this trend.
BigStock is introducing a new strategy for licensing microstock images. Their pay-as-you-go system allows customers to pay with a credit card for only those images they want to use immediately and not be forced to purchase packages of credits. There is no minimum purchase.
Corbis Images will sponsor the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA from June 9-11.
The Festival is billed as “three days of peace, love and photography” and will feature exhibits and on-stage appearances by many illustrious photographers, with additional exhibitions, outdoor screenings, and projections.