Assignments

Why Businesses Need Professional Photos

By Jim Pickerell | 105 Words | Posted 7/10/2020 | Comments
The French publication BBN Times has published a report outlining four reasons why businesses should use professionally produced photos rather than pictures shot by their employees or amateurs. To read the full story which is in English click here.

Making Money When You Can’t Produce New Images

By Jim Pickerell | 659 Words | Posted 3/26/2020 | Comments
“Sheltering in Place” will certainly hurt many photographers. Photographers won’t be able to get out to shoot new images. Customers won’t be coming to your studio. You might be able to shoot still lifes in your home, but getting props may be difficult. So what can you do to pay your bills? One possibility, particularly if you have a large stock photo collection, is to check out Canva and see if they will pay a one-time fee to purchase rights to a significant number of your images for inclusion in their Free collection that they make available to their Graphic Design customers.

Shutterstock Custom Assignments

By Jim Pickerell | 1548 Words | Posted 12/17/2019 | Comments
Shutterstock Custom assignments seem to be working well for some contributors. Below you will answers to my questions from two of of the more successful Custom Assignment contributors, Adrianne Haskins and Jeremy Pawlowski. Haskins is based in Tenessee and Pawlowski in Portland Oregon.  To see Pawlowski’s work check out this link and for Haskins work go to this site.

Shutterstock Custom Launches Smart Brief

By Jim Pickerell | 442 Words | Posted 10/2/2019 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has launched Smart Brief, a new streamlined and guided experience to make it easier for photo users to quickly and efficiently improve the quality of the brief for a photo shoot. With this update, clients spend less time inputting briefs and more time leveraging collaboration tools to quickly obtain high-quality branded content and reduce the approval process time.

StockFood Studios: Pictures, Videos, and Recipes Made to Measure

By Jim Pickerell | 920 Words | Posted 8/1/2019 | Comments
StockFood has launched StockFood Studios, an innovative production service for food photography. The Munich-based food experts, whose international brand is synonymous with professional food photography, are expanding their portfolio to include commissioned productions. The website www.stockfoodstudios.com offers this new service.

Will Photo Assignments Go The Way Of Stock

By Jim Pickerell | 874 Words | Posted 7/16/2019 | Comments
In the last decade we have all watched the decline of stock photography as more and more photographers got into the game, the total revenue spent by buyers grew very little if at all and even the best photographers have seen significant declines in their annual income. I suppose this benefited the buyers. Now they are able to get the images they need for much less than they had to pay before – and in most cases much less than their real costs of production.

Ad Agencies Turn Away From Stock To Assignments

By Jim Pickerell | 368 Words | Posted 5/27/2019 | Comments
As more and more consumer are turning to social media for information about the products and services they want to buy Ad agencies and brands are finding that they must up the quality of their offerings in order to get attention. According to Erik Radle, CEO of Dallas-based Miller Ad Agency, “People are finding out that the content has to just sing. It has to just dazzle. We’re spending a lot of time doing photo shoots because the days of stock photography being meaningful on social media are over. That just doesn’t cut it any more and will get you ignored.”

Fake Assignment Scams

By Jim Pickerell | 224 Words | Posted 1/4/2019 | Comments
PhotoShelter has reached out to its more than 80,000 photographers to alert them to fake assignment scams that are being sent through the contact form on their PhotoShelter website. There is no reason to believe that the scammers are only contacting PhotoShelter member as it would be easy for then to run the same scam on any photographer who has a website and offers a way to be contacted.

Future Of Photography: Taking Or Creating Images

By Jim Pickerell | 441 Words | Posted 5/3/2018 | Comments
If you enjoy taking pictures and are considering photography as a career, maybe it is time to think again. If you’re in your 20s or 30s it is definitely time to think again. If you’re thinking about majoring in photography at a University, please don’t waste your money.

BrandCamp By Cavan Images

By Jim Pickerell | 853 Words | Posted 4/19/2018 | Comments
As more and more photographers with experience at putting together high production value shoots are leaving the stock photo business major brands are beginning to have trouble finding the images they need in stock photo files. There are plenty of cheap images and plenty of candid, “real life” images, available as stock photos, but often they don’t fit the concepts brands have in mind.

ImageBrief Closing Down

By Jim Pickerell | 619 Words | Posted 3/1/2018 | Comments
After six years of connecting advertising agencies and brands with image creators ImageBrief has announced that they are closing down their marketing services. Effective March 1, 2018 when photographers who have subscribed to the service login the only page available to them is the one where they may download information about their licenses. No other website pages are operational. No new “Briefs” will be offered.

ICL vs Plus Registry

By Jim Pickerell | 1472 Words | Posted 2/13/2018 | Comments
After I published my article proposing the development of an Image Creator Locator or ICL, several readers pointed out that the Plus Registry is designed to accomplish the same goal. See here for how ICL differs from Plus in its aims.

Where Have Photo Assignments Gone?

By Jim Pickerell | 966 Words | Posted 1/29/2018 | Comments
It used to be when a major corporation like British Petroleum (BP) went looking new images their art department would come up with a rather specific concept for what they needed. Then they would review photographer portfolios and hire a photographer to do the job. They would pay $1,500 per day, plus expenses for the shoot. Leading, experienced photographers often received significantly higher day rates.

Shutterstock Introduces Shutterstock Custom

By Jim Pickerell | 248 Words | Posted 9/21/2017 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has launched its Flashstock business as Shutterstock Custom, a proprietary platform that provides an efficient and innovative way for its 1.7 million customers to create branded content.

Getty Custom Content

By Jim Pickerell | 975 Words | Posted 9/15/2017 | Comments
Getty has sent its photographers a new Custom Content assignment for T-Mobile. “T-Mobile is looking for photography shot on mobile phones* that is the total opposite of stock images.” (*The images don’t actually have to shot with a mobile phone, and most of those submitted probably won’t be.)

Stock Agencies Focus On Custom Shoots

By Jim Pickerell | 1756 Words | Posted 9/8/2017 | Comments
Since 2012 ImageBrief has been helping image buyers submit briefs to photographers about their image needs. Now Shutterstock and Getty Images seem to be getting interested in offering their customers custom shoots. In June Shutterstock acquired Flashstock and in early July Getty introduced its Custom Content assignments program to Getty Images and iStock Exclusive contributors.

Legal Portraits

By Jim Pickerell | 199 Words | Posted 8/9/2017 | Comments
Stock photographers looking for a way to make some extra money might want to take a look at this article from the National Law Review. The Law Review argues that law firms need to consistently update their attorney portraits on their websites because “prospective clients may use them to form a first impression” of the law firm.

Photography At The New York Times

By Jim Pickerell | 445 Words | Posted 6/19/2017 | Comments
The New York Times 2020 Group published a report in January 2017 that said its daily reporting needed to become more visual. In April it was reported the day rate for freelance assignments would jump from a previous $200 to $250 (according to some contributors) to $450, with shorter assignments “that don’t meet the full day-rate requirement” paying out at $300, still higher than the previous full day rate.

Virtual Reality In Real Estate

By Jim Pickerell | 321 Words | Posted 5/23/2017 | Comments
According to MediaPost’s IoT Daily, the Real Estate industry is moving into Virtual Reality. It may be an opportunity for stock photographers looking for a way to diversify their businesses.

NY Times Raises Day Rates

By Jim Pickerell | 198 Words | Posted 4/7/2017 | Comments
According to Around The Lens sources close to the New York Times have confirmed that the paper will begin paying freelance photographers a day rate of $450, more the double the $200 they’re currently paying. For shorter shoots, or those that don’t meet the full day-rate requirement, the rate will be $300, still more than the previous full day rate.

Getty Granted Temporary Restraining Order Against Roxanne Motamedi

By Jim Pickerell | 357 Words | Posted 1/10/2017 | Comments
Getty Images has been granted a temporary restraining order against it former VP of Global Entertainment, Roxanne Motamedi. Motamedi held the post at Getty from June 2009 to November 2016 and was based in Los Angeles.

What’s Selling At ImageBrief

By Jim Pickerell | 279 Words | Posted 11/9/2016 | Comments
In a recent promotion ImageBrief sent out a link to its “What’s Selling” collection. This is a hand picked subset of sold images specifically organized for photographers who have asked for insights into the type of images clients are buying.

Image Brief Collections

By Jim Pickerell | 423 Words | Posted 10/24/2016 | Comments
In an effort to make it easier for customers to find the images they need, ImageBrief has pulled together into 72 collections of 11,352 of the best images its photographers have submitted in response to customer briefs. See the list of collections below.

Can Assignment Photography Replace Some Stock?

By Jim Pickerell | 301 Words | Posted 9/12/2016 | Comments
Are graphic designers trying to raise their clients to the next level of quality becoming frustrated with generic images and insisting on more images that relate specifically to the brand. Here’s what one website design company in Pittsburgh is doing. Top Hat IMC, a Pittsburgh website design company, has launched its very own in-house brand photography service.

500px Marketplace Makes Submission Changes

By Jim Pickerell | 125 Words | Posted 5/18/2016 | Comments
In order to safeguard its users, 500px Marketplace has modified its submission requirements by asking for extra details to confirm the identity of its contributors. As of May 16, 2016 contributors must confirm their contact information and provide a copy of their government ID before any new images they submit to Marketplace can be sold.