The use of images for educational purposes has always been about 20% of
the total market for stock images. For some agencies and photographers,
educational sales represent a much higher percentage of their gross
revenue. However, as a result of technological developments and industry
consolidation, it has become extremely difficult for creators to earn
enough from licensing images for educational uses to enable them to
continue to produce imagery for this purpose.
Global ad spending in 2011 is expected to be up 5.4% to $411.7 billion
according to MagnaGlobal, but the trend for the print segment of the
business in the Western world is not so rosy. Most growth will be in Asian markets and media that does not have a big overlap with stock photography.
If you are absolutely convinced that all stock images must be licensed based on how they will be used, “Weekend With Bachmann” on March 4-6 in Orlando, Fla. may be for you.
At first glance, PicScout’s new
ImageExchange interface that isolates images that are easily licensable from any Google or Yahoo! search, and displays them in a right-hand panel next to all the returns delivered by these search engines, would seem to be a very helpful tool for professional users looking for images they can license legitimately.
In fact, the returns delivered may be more misleading than useful.
With the introduction of The Costco Art & Image Gallery, Corbis and Costco will sell individual prints and posters as retail products. The images offered are a select group of some 20,000 professional pieces of fine art, photography and illustration from the Corbis collection of more than 6 million images.
Have an idea for a photo project but short of money to get if off the ground? Try Kickstarter.
James Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., recently told a media conference in Monaco that tablets will hurt the newspaper business.
Should all Web usages be of equal value just because all the customer needs is approximately a 600 x 800 pixel file?
Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter has published a very interesting analysis entitled “What Google Trends Says About Wedding & Stock Photography, and Photo Websites,” complete with charts that illustrate the trends.
Tom Grill recently offered Selling Stock readers his predictions on where the stock photo business is headed in the next five year. While I agree with a lot of what he had to say, I believe the vast majority of photographers will find stock offers much less of an opportunity than the picture he paints. In the next five years, it will become increasingly difficult to earn a decent living—or even a profit—from producing still images on speculation.