Dirck Halstead's perceptive two-part analysis of the photojournalism business is a must-read for photojournalists or anyone considering this career. It should also be a wake up call for stock and advertising photographers hoping to sell their images for use in print publications.
U.K. travel library Robert Harding World Imagery says its recent Web site upgrade has led to a client-uptake increase of more than 70%. The upgrade included offering registered and preapproved buyers to download high-resolution files in two steps.
Graphic Design USA has previewed the results of its 23rd Annual Stock Visual Survey. The full report, which will be published in the September edition of the magazine, shows prevalence of royalty-free and microstock imagery among professional designers, but the magazine does not think this means rights-managed licensing is on its way out.
For the third consecutive year, iStockphoto has let exclusive contributors keep 100% of the revenue generated by their images on August 7, for a total of more than $225,000. The company is also continuing its Punctum Day tradition, celebrating this year with $45,000 in contributor prizes.
Alamy plans to follow Getty Images' lead in offering affordable prices for Web and mobile products. The U.K. company will be creating new small file sizes and lower prices that are basically identical to those introduced by Getty last week.
In his blog
Thoughts of a Bohemian, Paul Melcher argues that "the future of photography is exclusive content," particularly for pros who used to specialize in shooting stock.
German entrepreneur Amos Struck has developed a WordPress plugin that allows users of the popular blogging platform to seamlessly search, purchase and insert microstock images into posts without leaving the WordPress interface. The Microstock WordPress Plugin currently works with Fotolia, but Struck told
Selling Stock that he is working on deals with other microstock providers.
The
Selling Stock subscriber email system was down Tuesday through Thursday this week. The Friday, August 21 email newsletter summarizes our coverage for the last four days.