Pickerell, Jim

Articles by Jim Pickerell

Selling Images Via The Internet

By Jim Pickerell | 766 Words | Posted 7/26/2019 | Comments

The Internet is a great place for selling things if the finished product must be delivered by FedEx or UPS. But if you’re trying to sell is a digital version of what you’re showing, then long range your business model doesn’t have much future. It’s too easy to “steal,” “appropriate” or whatever you want to call it.

Shutterstock Elements Offers Cinema-Grade Video Effects

By Jim Pickerell | 381 Words | Posted 7/17/2019 | Comments

Shutterstock, has announced its new footage offering—Shutterstock Elements. Over 3,000 elements captured on cinema-grade cameras and lenses have been added to the site, including transitions, lens flares, VFX (visual effects), video kits, film overlays, HUD (head-up display) and UI (user interface) elements. Compatible with all major video editing programs, Elements also includes detailed tutorials on how to optimize effects.

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.

Should Stock Photographers Shoot Verticals?

By Jim Pickerell | 877 Words | Posted 7/15/2019 | Comments (1)

In olden days when stock photographers were trying to produce images that might be used as covers or full page inside magazines it was advised that they turn the camera on its side and shoot verticals of as many situations as possible. But times have changed. Are verticals really selling today? Recently Robert Kneschke reported on his web site that he had reviewed 100 of his best selling images and not a single vertical was among the group.

Photo Infringers Are Mobilizing

By Jim Pickerell | 314 Words | Posted 7/15/2019 | Comments (1)

All the people who love to grab photos they find on the Internet and use them however they please are now mobilizing to stop the U.S. Congress from passing the CASE Act that would establish a small claims court system. These millions of photo users believe they should not be restricted in any way from doing whatever they want with the property of others. Photographers need to ACT NOW.

Getty Moving Rapidly To Eliminate RM

By Jim Pickerell | 3380 Words | Posted 7/9/2019 | Comments (1)

Getty Images is moving rapidly to eliminate RM images from its Creative collection. As of July 3rd, there were only 2,387,383 RM images representing about 8% of the total collection of 28,624,340 images. However, it gets worse. There are 54 independent distributors listed as having RM image collections on the site. But, if you search those collections individually you find that only 4 of them have any images for a total of 129,241 images. In most cases the searcher is told “zero results.” The vast majority of images still being licensed as RM are in the Getty wholly owned collections.

Are Your Images On Getty Being Seen?

By Jim Pickerell | 603 Words | Posted 7/9/2019 | Comments

It is interesting to note that when we searched the 210 individual collections and recorded the numbers in each the total came to 28,591,367. However, if you go to the site and search for all images you are only shown 26,240,654 images. For those who haven’t tried this you can simply go to gettyimages.com, enter any keywords and hit return. When the return come up with the “Filter” option on the left hand side of the screen remove the keyword, leave the search bar blank and click again. Now, you will be shown all the images for the “License Type” you have requested. Be sure the “License Type” is set on RF or RM. Then you can go to “Collections,” choose the one you want and see all the images in that collection.

iStock Facebook “Private” Group

By Jim Pickerell | 518 Words | Posted 7/4/2019 | Comments

A number of iStock contributors interact on the Facebook “private” group for iStock. In reviewing comments and complaints for the last couple years there seems to be general agreement that sales started to decline in late 2018 and the decline has continued into 2019. This is compared to what sales were in 2017 and early 2018.

Shutterstock Enterprise

By Jim Pickerell | 891 Words | Posted 7/3/2019 | Comments (1)

One of the big questions about Enterprise sales at Shutterstock is “Why do big customers want an Enterprise deal?” On average Enterprise customers are paying more per quarter than E-commerce customers. What additional services do they get? In 2018 Enterprise customers generated about 40.9% of Shutterstock’s total revenue, or about $254.8 million. The average Enterprise customer pays Shutterstock $6,370 per year, but they could be getting 750 images per month for $2,388 a year. Maybe they are using a lot of video at $63.16 per clip, but there must be other benefits justifying the paying of the much higher fees.

Free Images on Chinese Website “Xiaba.com”

By Jim Pickerell | 214 Words | Posted 7/3/2019 | Comments

On the iStock contributor forum Brenda Bazylewski of iStock contributor relations recently reported the following. “We (iStock) were recently made aware of the Chinese website, “Xiaba” which was offering iStock imagery for personal educational use only, free of charge. According to the terms of their license, the imagery could not be used for commercial or editorial purposes."

About Jim Pickerell

Jim began his career in 1963 as a freelance photojournalist in the Far East. His first major sale, a Life Magazine cover, was a stock photo of the overthrow of the Ngo Dinh Diem government in Saigon, Vietnam.

He spent the next ten to fifteen years focusing on assignment work, first as an editorial photographer, and later in the corporate area. He regularly filed his outtakes with several stock agencies around the world.

As the stock side of his income grew, Jim studied the needs of the stock photo market, and began to devote more of his shooting time producing stock images. At about this time the 1976 change in the copyright law went into effect, and the industry began to see rapidly growing demand by commercial and advertising users for stock images.

In the early 80's he helped establish the Mid-Atlantic chapter of American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and served as Vice President, President and Program Chairman over a period of six years. He served on the national board of ASMP for two years, was on the committee that produced the ASMP Stock Handbook in 1983, and was active in the fight to reverse the IRS rules that required capitalization of all expenses of stock photo production.

In 1989 he published the first edition of Negotiating Stock Photo Prices, a guide to pricing hundreds of stock photo uses. The fifth edition was published in 2001. In 1990, he began publishing Selling-Stock, a bi-monthly newsletter dealing with issues of interest to stock photographers and stock photo sellers, with particular focus on issues related to marketing stock images. Selling-Stock is recognized worldwide as the leading source of in-depth analysis of the stock photo industry. As a result of his many years in the industry and his work with Selling-Stock, Jim has an expert understanding of the stock photo industry, its standard practices and developing trends. He frequently provides consulting services on stock industry issues to photographers, stock agents and individuals in the investment community.

In 1993, his daughter, Cheryl, joined him in the business. Together they established Stock Connection, an agency designed to provide photographers with greater control over the promotion and marketing of their work than most other stock agencies were offering. The company currently represents selected images from more than 400 photographers.

At age 76, Jim continues to follow stock photo industry developments on a day to day basis and expects to continue to do so far into the future.