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Articles from July 2011

Competing In Today’s Market

By Jim Pickerell | 1481 Words | Posted 7/29/2011 | Comments (4)
In certain segments of the stock photo market Alamy has been experimenting with both price points and the nature of licenses in an effort to grow sales and stem the tide of customers moving to microstock. One particular segment where they have seen a significant decline in sales is travel. Recently, one of Alamy's travel customers outlined for me the details of Alamy's new offer. This story examines the issue.

Do You Love To Keyword?

By Jim Pickerell | 270 Words | Posted 7/28/2011 | Comments (3)
In the digital world everyone loves to work for free. Particularly when it is an opportunity to help someone else earn money as a result of their efforts. With that in mind Magnum Photos is looking for volunteers to help them tag their online archive. If you’re interested sign up here.

Changes Afoot At Getty Images

By Jim Pickerell | 499 Words | Posted 7/27/2011 | Comments
According to the NY Daily News Getty Images may sell its WireImage celebrity and entertainment division to Reuters for something “north of $300 million.” The deal could be announced in the next two weeks. Getty acquired WireImage in 2007 when it purchased MediaVast Image for $207 million.

iStockphoto’s Photos+

By Jim Pickerell | 796 Words | Posted 7/26/2011 | Comments (2)
After lowering royalty rates for non-exclusive contributors in January, iStockphoto introduced a new strategy in early May that made it possible for non-exclusive contributors to offer a portion of their images at higher prices. Non-exclusive contributors are now allowed to nominate up to 15% of their total portfolios for inclusion in the Photos+ brand.

Footage.net Launches Subscriber Analytics Site

By Jim Pickerell | 184 Words | Posted 7/26/2011 | Comments
Footage.net, the stock, archival and news footage search engine, has launched a new subscriber analytics site, providing content partners with instant access to key stats on site activity and user interaction with their data and content.

Shannon Fagan On Opportunities In China

By Jim Pickerell | 2398 Words | Posted 7/22/2011 | Comments (2)
Shannon Fagan, a very successful former New York stock photographer, has set up shop in China as a consultant and content aggregater. He has spent a cumulative equivalent of 2 years in Shanghai and Beijing since 2006 working with, and doing business development for, China's commercial photo agency sector. He permanently moved to Beijing in December last year. He has interacted with nearly all the key players, support components, and service providers, and developed an “insider’s” knowledge of the opportunities and pitfalls of China’s stock photo industry. This interview provides some insights into the Chinese market.

Corbis Acquires Splash News

By Jim Pickerell | 985 Words | Posted 7/21/2011 | Comments
Corbis Images has acquired Splash News for an undisclosed amount. From its Los Angeles base Splash provides candid celebrity photography and video content to the world’s premiere print, online and broadcast media distributors of entertainment news.

ASMP Provides Comprehensive Information On Social Media

By Jim Pickerell | 253 Words | Posted 7/20/2011 | Comments
The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has introduced a comprehensive new Social Media Tutorial on its website, asmp.org. The information is intended to guide imaging professionals through the ins and outs of the networking sites which have become an integral part of the business of photography. Contributors are experts in their fields who provide state-of-the-art data on social media marketing, blogging, posting images and video, legal considerations and terms of service.

Getting Images Seen At Getty: Revisited

By Jim Pickerell | 824 Words | Posted 7/19/2011 | Comments (2)
After reading my story “Getting Images Seen” on how Getty Images orders search returns John Lund did some searches for his own images on the Getty web site. He came up with some additional insights. Check out the full text of his article on his blog.

London: The World's Most Photographed City

By Jim Pickerell | 790 Words | Posted 7/15/2011 | Comments (1)
As photographers head off for vacations with plans to shoot the locations they intend to visit, Alamy has supplied some statistics on the worlds most photographed cities based on the number of images in its collection. I’ve provided their analysis below, but I thought it would be fun to compare the number of images on Alamy with the numbers on Getty Images, Shutterstock and Dreamstime. Keep in mind that Alamy has a lot of editorial celebrity and red carpet images in its numbers. Consequently, there is very little correlation between the Alamy numbers and those offered by Getty creative or the microstock agencies.

James West Explains 50 Year License

By Jim Pickerell | 539 Words | Posted 7/14/2011 | Comments (3)
After I published “50 Year Licensed For Rights Managed” James West provided some clarifications and explanations of why Alamy has offered a 50 year license to one customer. See his explanation and some additional comments by Jim Pickerell.

50 Year Licenses For Rights Managed

By Jim Pickerell | 758 Words | Posted 7/13/2011 | Comments (3)
After reading my story on why usage fees will continue to decline Larry Minden wrote, “Is there no one among the thousands upon thousands represented by Alamy who will stand up to those idiots and tell them a 50-year license is unneeded and an absurd bastardization of an RM license?" This story explains why complaints from suppliers are unlikely to have much effect in the long term outcome.

Keyword Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 971 Words | Posted 7/12/2011 | Comments (1)
Shutterstock has introduced a new tool in the Shutterstock Darkroom section of its site that is designed to help contributors better understand Keyword Trends. The tool allows them to compare five keywords at a time in order to determine the relative number of times a particular keyword is used to request images on Shutterstock.

Fees Paid By Volume Photography Users Will Continue To Decline!

By Jim Pickerell | 2040 Words | Posted 7/11/2011 | Comments (3)
Photographers complain that stock photo fees are way below what it costs them to produce images. And they are right. But, the prices volume user pay for images will continue to decline. Here’s why.

Jay Maisel: Protecting Copyright

By Jim Pickerell | 217 Words | Posted 7/8/2011 | Comments (2)
Anyone who has been in the photo business for any length of time knows that Jay Maisel is one of the truly great photographers and a first-class person. His unique vision kept him busy for over 40 years shooting annual reports, magazine covers, jazz albums, advertising and more for clients worldwide until he retired from active commercial work in the late ‘90s. This story is about what happened when an artist of this caliber exercised his right to protect his work.

World Assignments Closes Its Doors

By Jim Pickerell | 157 Words | Posted 7/8/2011 | Comments
In November of last year we wrote about World Assignments, an organization designed to help buyers find photographers who worked in various locales around the world or had expertise in working in such locations.

Alamy’s US Sales Grow 30%

By Jim Pickerell | 236 Words | Posted 7/8/2011 | Comments
Alamy has announced that its US sales of the company’s images have increased 30% in the past year and as a result they have contracted with the New York Internet Company (NYI) will oversee its infrastructure upgrade for North America, starting in New York.

iStockphoto Update: Examining Microstock Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 8048 Words | Posted 7/7/2011 | Comments (1)
In 2009 I started to use iStockcharts to track about 196 of the top 250 sellers on iStockphoto. While figures for the other 54 of the 250 contributors were available, their names were not. Consequently I left them out of my research. iStock has over 100,000 contributors, but it is believed that well over 90% of the images in the collection and well over 90% of the total downloads belong to the 37,085 contributors whose information is available on iStockcharts.

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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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