Crossroads

12

The interchange below took place on the STOCKPHOTO web site
in February. The dilemma Bob Thayer has is common to many photographers.
Three experienced stock photographers offer suggestions. If you want more
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the words INFO STOCKPHOTO in the body of a message to HREF="mailto:LISTPROC@INFO.CURTIN.EDU.AU"> LISTPROC@INFO.CURTIN.EDU.AU .
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Selling Through Stock Agency or Direct on the Web

I'm at a crossroads in my career. I wonder if I might get some opinions
from those of you who run stock agencies and those who belong to them.

I've been taking pictures seriously for about fifteen years and have maybe
20,000 transparencies (35mm and 6x7), mostly nature, plants, animals, national
parks, etc. The majority of my work has been done for my own audio- visual
productions and book projects. I have had some luck in selling stock but
my sales have been few because of the time it takes to research, package
and mail out submissions. My photography is still a part time occupation
- I haven't given up my day job yet.

It sounds like I'm a candidate for putting my work with a stock agency.
But I have resisted so far, after hearing stories of how photographers are
abused by agencies. Do agencies want photographers who are not full time?

I know my photographs are going to waste if they are not available to the
market, and today the market still looks to agencies. BUT how long will
it be before all stock photographers have sites on the web and prospective
buyers will simply scan the web - request an image - and have it downloaded
directly from the photographer? No shipping, no originals, no middleman.
Or maybe, buyers will list their needs on the web and we will simply submit
our images electronically for their approval? My concern is that I will
get into an agency just as they go out of style.

Should I devote my energy into setting up my own business and web site or
should I actively pursue an existing agency? Will agencies decline as the
computer age progresses?

I look forward to the discussion and the advise.

Rules for supplying feedback

Feedback:

Your questions are not simple to answer, but here are a few general thoughts.
In addition see my newsletter, Taking Stock, at HREF="//www.pickphoto.com/tso/"> www.pickphoto.com/tso/
but you will have to watch it over time, not just take a one shot look,
if you want to get a thorough understanding of what you should do.

You're discouraged by the time it takes to research, package and mail out
submissions. The questions you need to ask yourself are: (1) Am I making
enough from the sales I do make to justify the amount of time I have to
spend to do the research for all the projects I send out? (2) Are there
reasons why an agency would be able to do it faster and more efficiently
than I can do it or will it take them just as much time?

Remember, if you get an agency to accept your work someone is going to have
to put all that work you now have organized in a new file. Then they are
going to have to do same kind of research you do to fulfill requests. Since
they have full time people to work on this, chances are they will be able
to fill more requests than you can. Chances are they will be aware of more
requests than you see. But, will they work on every request that comes to
the agency, or only those that seem likely to be the most productive from
their point of view? Will they send out your images on all requests that
your subject matter might remotely fit, or will they send John's (another
photographer in their stable) because in their judgement his imagery is
better for particular requests and they don't want to overload the client
with too much to choose from? If that happens is that good for you, or not?

Will prospective buyers scan individual sites of prospective photographers
to find images? That is happening now with limited success for the most
photographers, but there are a limited number of sites that a buyer needs
to search.

In my opinion, when there are thousands of individual photographer sites
and no unified system of organization for searching them the buyers will
totally ignore them. There has to be some system to call up images of a
selected type in an organized way. This probably means keywording in a
systematic
way that is easily understood by even the casual user. If there are a hundred
different systems none of them will get any attention. Hopefully, there
will be a standard, but at the very least only a few approaches. So far,
nobody is willing to work toward a standard and everyone is trying to do
their own thing.

The only people who have anything working now are a few individual stock
agencies and organizations like PNI and KPX. The only entry to these networks
is through stock agencies. A network that would be open to photographers
directly is needed, but there is no indication that one is likely to appear.

In addition the existing networks are offering images at very low prices
and hoping for high volume. So far there is very little evidence that the
volume will ever materialize, but the low prices are becoming well
established.

You also need to think about why someone would want to work to find your
nature, plants, animals and national park pictures rather than those that
are already easily accessible in stock agency files. Are they that much
better? Are they that much different? You are in the area where there is
the greatest supply of imagery and relatively little demand. Jack Hamilton
commented to you based on his specialization of shooting teens for the
educational
publishing market. He has two things going for him. There is a much greater
demand for the kind of imagery he produces than there is supply. Also, he
knows his market and what it needs. He has identified a good niche. Maybe
you know your market too and have a good idea of who is going to want to
buy rights to your pictures, you just haven't indicated that in your post.
You suggest that clients might scan thumbnails and then download large files
as needed. A thumbnail catalog can work for individual photographers, but
the downloading of large files is probably going to require some type of
larger organization or agency.

I can't imagine a photographer paying for the storage space to have a 20MB
to 30MB file of every one of his images online for ready access. More likely
is that when a request is made to use a particular image the large file
will be pulled from a CD-ROM archive and uploaded. But someone has to be
around to handle that operation. Are you ready to tie up your computer for
the time it takes to download this size of a file? Your worried about the
time it takes you to do research, package and deliver images. Custom delivery
of digital files may take about the same amount of time. Only organizations
with huge mass data storage, and a big volume in sales, are going to be
able to approach digital delivery in any other way.

I believe that agencies that focus on maintaining large general files of
film will decline in the computer age, but many existing agencies will find
ways to transition into this new marketing environment. There will still
be many research, pricing and delivery services that agencies could provide
in the digital environment that would save both the buyers and the photographers
time, and thus would be a useful reason for having an intermediary.