Articles by Jim Pickerell
Dreamstime has announced the start of a celebratory month to mark its 20th anniversary this September. Dreamstime.com was registered in 2000 and disrupted the stock photography market by lowering prices manifold and enabling many photographers to join the industry. In 2004, it gained a top 3 position and has continued to experience sustained and rapid growth, evolving from a handful of photos to featuring 145+ million files in its online library and employing its own proprietary AI, PhotoEye, for filtering the now steady 3 million monthly approvals in 2020.
The IPTC, the global standards body of the news media will be conducting its 2020 IPTC Photo Metadata Conference online this year and it is entirely free for anyone to attend. The conference will take place on Tuesday 13 October 2020 from 15:00 to 18:00 UTC time. (That’s 11:00 to 14:00 EDT.)
In an effort to better understand how the global pandemic and cultural movements have impacted the stock imagery industry, Adobe surveyed 600 global creatives in July 2020. Creators feel challenged in today’s creative environment, and 82% of respondents believe 2020 has forever changed the way they will create.
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Getty Images photographer asked if I could explain how Getty calculates its Premium Access (PA) deals where prices for image use vary widely? He pointed out that on his most recent statement he had a number of PA sales for $0.11 and one for $286.00. The vast majority of PA sales (roughly 60% of all sales) are near the low end, but there are also occasional extreme outliers.
Last week Google announced it’s intention to launch
Google Licensable Badge a function that will place a badge on images which require licensing before use when they are found by anyone doing a Google search. It is expected the launch will happen in the next couple of months.
A young man studying photography wrote recently and asked if I could supply him with some accurate stock photography analysis. I told him I could, but he
wasn’t going to like what I had to say. (This article is free to all readers, but there is a number of links within the story that require payment if readers want more detailed information.)
The schedule for the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) Conference, October 25-30 is now available
here. Online sessions for the week long conference will begin most days at 11:00am EDT and end by 5:00pm EDT. There will be two keynote addresses. On Monday at 11:00am Paolo Malabuyo, Director of UX at YouTube will speak on Embracing Complexity.
With the decline in public sporting events due to Covid-19, and thus the need for photo coverage, many sports photographers have seen a significant decline in demand for their services. But media companies still have time slots and space to fill. Consequently, they are turning more to documentaries and coverage of historical events to fill their gaps. In the UK this is great news for archies like Colorsport whose collection of sporting imagery goes back to the 1880s.
If you are a U.S. photographer hoping to earn at least a portion of your future living expenses from selling or licensing rights to the images you produce,
it is time to seriously reassess your business plan. If photography is a hobby. If the pictures you produce are for personal enjoyment and their earning potential is unimportant. If you have no need to earn revenue from your efforts, by all means continue to take pictures. But recognize that no matter how great your images might be, in all likelihood any future financial compensation you receive will be miniscule compared to the time and effort expended.
The Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) Conference will be virtual this year and available to registered attendees for a full week from October 25th through Friday the 30th.? It is expected that there will be nearly 25 sessions, including two keynotes, nine panels and more than a dozen roundtables, all conveniently stretched over the week and available to you from the comfort of your home.