I was asked recently for my predictions on where the stock photo industry is headed in 2019.
There will continue to be massive growth in the number of images added to the major stock photo collections. An increasing percentage will be
produced by amateurs not professionals who might be trying to earn a portion of their living from the images they produce. (In the last 2 years 189% of images added to the Getty Creative collection came from EyeEM and Flickr while only 2.5% came from the 139 specialist agencies that currently supply 25% of Getty’s collection. These agencies used to supply 50% of the collection.)
In addition, more and more images will be uploaded on Free Stock Photo sites making it easier for many images users to find the images they need at no cost. In our Social Media economy more and more people expects to get all the information and images they need for Free. They believe it is their right.
On the whole the number of still images licensed is not expected to increase and is likely to be about the same as in 2018. Readers only need to review
Shutterstock’s sales over the past 2 ½ years to see that downloads-per-quarter have remained relatively flat at about 43 million for the entire period. Recent figures supplied by
Alamy show a flattening of revenue in 2018 after a significant rise between 2015 and 2017. It is expected that this revenue plateau will remain into 2019.
Getty may have licensed a
greater number of images in 2018 than 2017, but at significantly lower prices. Thus, gross Creative revenue generated by Getty has been, and is expected to continue to be, about the same, or less, than the last few years. There are some indications that Adobe Stock may be seeing some growth in the number of images licensed. But any growth Adobe realizes probably results from taking market share from the other major suppliers.
There may be a small amount of revenue growth as a result of the use of video clips, but that is likely to be offset by a decline in the use of still images and illustrations.
Usage fees are likely to continue their long, slow but steady decline as the major agencies compete for market share. Second tier agencies will often find it necessary to match these lower prices in order to make much in the way of sales at all.
Customers
Customers will continue to be increasingly dissatisfied with the time it takes them to sort through the increasingly massive number of returns delivered as the result of any keyword search. This may benefit some of the smaller, well curated specialized collections.
An increasing number of graphic designers will turn to creating graphic illustrations themselves rather than wasting time searching for still photos. In addition, more designers will download cheap or free photos that contain elements they can use as part of there own creations. At that point they may take several elements from different photos and produce a totally new image of their own vision.
Photographers
An increasing number of photographers who have been trying to earn a portion of their living by licensing the imagery they produce will drop out of the market. Most of the new images will be supplied by amateurs who are more interested in showing their work to others and receiving “likes” than actually earning enough to cover their time and costs in producing the images.
For image creators the economics of the business will become increasingly difficult. Given the time, cost and effort involved in production and marketing of new images most photographers will be able to earn more doing something else.