Getting Images Seen

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December 12, 2001

I'm getting more frequent call from very experienced stock photographers who can't get enough
of their imagery where it can be seen by customers. They are trying to figure out what to do.

When they send new submissions to their agencies almost nothing is accepted. Several
photographers have told me that a few years ago when they would make a tightly edited
submission of 400 images they might get 30% to 90% of the images accepted. Now, out of a 400
image submissions of similar quality they might get 3 to 5 images accepted.

In addition, huge quantities of previously selected and filed images are now being returned to
these photographers. A significant number of the returned images had been good sellers in the
past. Now the number of images these photographers have available for licensing has been
drastically reduced. It has long been a "rule" in the stock industry that the more images a
photographer has available for review by customers, the greater that photographer's income is
likely to be.

Stock incomes for these photographers have dropped significantly.
Some of the leading shooters with major agencies tell me their incomes are down 30% to 40%
from what they were three to four years ago. Other photographers tells us that their current
incomes from their major agencies are only 10% to 20% of what they were at their peaks in the
mid-90's.

Does this mean customers no longer want the kind of imagery these photographers produced so
successfully in the past? NO! Does this mean that today's customers will only use RF
imagery? NO! It simply means that editing strategies of some agencies have undergone
fundamental changes in the past few years, and much of the imagery customers want to buy is no
longer being shown.

First, let me debunk the standard argument that this fall-off in sales is because everyone is
using RF. Currently the total RF revenue worldwide is about 15% to 20% of all stock photo
revenue. That means that 80% to 85% of the dollars generated from the sale of stock photos is
for Rights Protected images. And, the overall worldwide stock revenue is only down very
slightly from what it was a few years ago. There is still a huge demand for Rights Protected
imagery.

To deal with the issue of whether the kind of imagery produced in the past will still sell,
let me outline my personal experience.

My imagery is mostly concentrated in the business and lifestyle areas, and much of it might be
thought to be easily replaceable by Royalty Free. My stock income in 2001 is down 7% from what
it was in 2000. Overall, my stock sales in 2001 are about 1/3rd of what they were in 1996.
But, it is important to note that I have not produced a new stock image in over four years.
All the images in my files are at least four years old, or older. These older images are still
selling. Not as well as they did in 1996, but selling.

More significant is what has happened to various segments of my stock photo marketing. (I have
always pursued a diversified strategy and put my images with many agencies.)

In 1996 my income from FPG, Stone and WestLight (now Corbis) were my 1st, 2nd and 4th best
selling agencies. They represented 39% of my total stock income. In 2001 the income from these
three agencies was 10% of what it was in 1996. Certainly there are many factors that affected
this. I'd stopped producing new work, never had many images in the catalogs, and RF was
certainly having some impact on my sales volume.

However, it is worth looking at what was happening at my other agencies, all of which are much
smaller than the big internationally known companies. On average, sales for the five year
period are off only 60%, not 90% as is the case with the big guys. Also, sales from some of
these smaller agencies are better than others. Sales through Stock Connection (which has been
heavily focused on digital marketing throughout the period) are only down 30% for the five
year period.

My conclusion is that while sales are down from what they were in 1996, and are unlikely to
return to those levels no matter how much I would ramp up production, there is still
significant demand for the images I have produced in the past. The key is to get those images
where they can be seen by potential customers. That means working with some different editors.

Why Have So Many Editors Changed Their Strategy?

The primary reason for the change is that the major companies have made decisions to make
most, if not all, of the images they are prepared to sell, available online. There are huge
upfront costs in doing this. Scanning to a certain extent, but mostly keywording. Given the
cost involved this strategy has necessitated limiting the number of images they show to what
they perceive to be the "high demand" subject matter.

What Should Photographers Do?

Recognize that there probably no longer remains a single agency that is prepared to
effectively market EVERYTHING you produce. In that past, that was the theory behind the big
multi-national agencies. And, it worked for a many photographers for a long time.

Now, those big agencies have decided that they only want to represent a very select few of the
images any photographer produces. No one is out there saying, "We will effectively repesent
everything you produce, worldwide."