This story is not about stock photography. Lately, I have been concerned about the state of Democracy in the U.S. This story outlines some of my thoughts. It is an issue that should concern every U.S. citizen, and maybe citizens of other countries. If you have friends who might be interested in this subject, please feel free to forward the story or use the information in any way.
I launched Selling Stock in 1990 with the goal of helping professional photographer understand the stock photography business and the opportunities it offered. For a couple decades many photographers earned significant additional revenue from the licensing of stock images. A large number earned their entire living by producing photos on speculation and licensing them as stock.
The chart below allows you to easily track the growth trends of Shutterstock quarter-by-quarter over the last 11-years and see the number of images in the collection, number of downloads and the gross quarterly revenue at the end of each quarter. You can also see the average revenue-per-download and revenue-per-image-in-the-collection trends.
Shutterstock has reported Q4 2020 revenue of
$180.9 million up 9% compared to $166.4 million in Q4 2019 and up from $165.2 million the previous quarter. Revenue per download was
$3.91 per-image compared to $3.44 in Q4 2019 and $3.79 the previous quarter. The average revenue per download for all of 2020 was $3.68 compared with $3.43 for all of 2019.
Photographers got a late Christmas present when President Trump signed the massive 5,593-page, $1.4-trillion omnibus spending and COVID-19 relief bill, titled the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. () Buried deep within this omnibus spending bill was the 63-page
CASE Act.
I purchased my first Nikon camera in 1958 when I lived in Tokyo. At that time Nikon was the premier Japanese camera company.
Nikon has announced that they will now move all manufacturing of new equipment from Japan to Thailand. The reasons are simple: Blue Collar workers in Japan average
$18.94 per hour -- Blue Collar workers in Thailand average
$4.15 per hour.
If Jon Oringer of
Shutterstock donated his annual salary of $4,598,580 to image creators who produce the products Shutterstock licenses, and divided it among creators based on the number of images licensed, how would that benefit image creators?
Shutterstock doesn’t want their contributors revealing how much – or how little – they earn. Presumably, this is because they believe that if contributors knew how little they might receive for the imagery they submit they wouldn’t bother to submit anything.
According to aerial stock agency
HOsiHO it is becoming harder and harder for video images creators to earn enough to support themselves. See its appeal to Stock Image Banks
here. There has been a decline in assignments and prices for the use of video clips have declined so much that professional independent videographers are finding it difficult to justify continued production.