Rick Strange, a very successful UK travel photographer with over 45 years experience is closing his
www.worldtravelphotographs.com website after over 4 years of very disappointing sales. Considering the excellent quality of his work, this may be a cautionary tale for any photographer considering trying to market work from a personal website rather than using a stock agency.
On the other hand, given current stock agency pricing and image oversupply, the stock agency route may not be the answer either.
In his announcement Strange said, “I have been running this website (
www.worldtravelphotographs.com ) of my images for over four years. In all that time I have achieved
just one sale! It is, obviously, not a cost effective exercise and so it is with sadness and regret that this site, as a commercial exercise, will be ending in the near future.
“I am aware, of course, that the nature of photographic image libraries has changed beyond recognition since the advent of digital photography but I had hoped that this highly?specialized library might at least pay for itself. I realized some while ago that it was not going to be practical to upload the 40K or 50K available images I have shot over the last 45 years in over 130 countries, and stopped at just under 10K.
“Despite
up to 1000 visitors a week and cutting my image usage prices twice it seems that while people from all over the world have enjoyed looking at my pictures they have not wanted to buy any.
“So thanks to all of you who came to visit and bye bye........”
He can be contacted at
evpx@evpx-fgenatr.pbz