Articles by Author

Which Countries Produce The Most Stock Images?

By Jim Pickerell | 955 Words | Posted 11/16/2019 | Comments

A lot of the images being uploaded to major websites these days have little relevance to what the market needs. I decided to do searches on Shutterstock for country names to try to get some idea of the number of images from each location relative to what the likely demand is for such images.

Everett Collection Represents Photo Link Collection

By Jim Pickerell | 199 Words | Posted 11/15/2019 | Comments

The Everett Collection now represents the Photo Link Collection! A finely edited portfolio focusing on New York City celebrities during the 1970’s to 2000’s. Highlights include behind the scenes shots and life behind the velvet ropes inside Studio 54.

Growing Revenue At Shutterstock?

By Jim Pickerell | 1184 Words | Posted 11/15/2019 | Comments

I was asked recently what I thought Shutterstock could do to grow revenue. My answer was not much. I don’t think it will be possible to grow the downloads very much. Shutterstock has focused for several years on growing the number of Enterprise customers. But, I don't think that is likely to work either. The one thing they could do is raise prices on at least some of the images they license. See my thoughts on why this is a good idea that they are not likely to adopt.

Value Of Copyright Ownership

By Jim Pickerell | 1098 Words | Posted 11/13/2019 | Comments

With the death of RM licensing on the horizon, photographers need to consider whether there is much, if any, value in owning a copyright. Photography has become a commodity like corn or soybeans. Read this story for what the industry can maintain a value for at least some of the professional images being produced.

Saving RM and Copyright

By Jim Pickerell | 1755 Words | Posted 11/13/2019 | Comments (1)

Getty’s decision to kill RM may be an opportunity for all those agencies and individuals who want to: (1) continue to license images for higher prices based on usage and (2) enforce their claims of copyright ownership. The key will be in providing a service that will help users, not just benefit image creators.

Things You Missed At Adobe MAX

By Jim Pickerell | 561 Words | Posted 11/8/2019 | Comments

If you weren’t at the Adobe MAX 2019 conference in Los Angeles you might want to check out some of the videos of conference presentations. Some of the most exciting events were the 11 Sneaks –demos that showcased early-stage, cutting-edge R&D technology being developed in-house by Adobe employees. Adobe Max Sneaks feature AI photography, animation, and audio tools. These new product features may or may not make their way into the product roadmap, but underscore the innovation and creativity happening daily within Adobe’s four walls.

Death Of Rights Managed Licensing

By Jim Pickerell | 1700 Words | Posted 11/6/2019 | Comments (2)

Getty is shutting down all Rights Managed licensing on www.gettyimages.com. This may effectively be an end to the entire marketing strategy of pricing stock images based on how they are used. While there are still a number of small and mid-sized agencies that continue to price images based on usage, it seems highly unlikely that they will be able to continue to build their image collections or attract many customers in the future. Every stock photographer and stock agent should read this explanation of Getty’s plans for “phased retirement of rights-managed creative images.”

Shutterstock Q3 2019 Financial Results

By Jim Pickerell | 1921 Words | Posted 11/5/2019 | Comments

Shutterstock has reported Q3 2019 revenue of $159.1 million up 5% compared to Q3 2018 and down slightly from $161.7 million the previous quarter. Revenue per download averaged $3.40 per image, which was the same in Q3 2018. Total image and video downloads for Q3 were 46.3 million, up from 43.9 million a year earlier, and down from 46.6 million in Q2 2019. At the end of the quarter Shutterstock had over 297 million images and 16 million video clips, or 313 million pieces of content in its collection.

Not Your Typical Stock From Depositphotos

By Jim Pickerell | 312 Words | Posted 11/1/2019 | Comments

Depositphotos has launched a new series of photo collections to battle stock photo cliches. The company’s content curators repurpose stock photos and compile collections on a weekly basis to highlight photos that are not typical stock photography.

CEPIC 2020 Congress Announced

By Jim Pickerell | 94 Words | Posted 11/1/2019 | Comments

It has been announced that the 2020 CEPIC Congress will be held on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean sea on May 27 through 29, 2020.

About Michael Masterson

Michael Masterson has a broad range of experience in marketing, business development, strategic planning, contact negotiations and recruiting in the photography, graphic design and publishing industries. In addition to his long experience at the Workbook and Workbookstock, Masterson owned and was creative director of his own graphic design firm for several years.

Masterson has been a speaker or panelist at industry events such as Seybold, PhotoPlus Expo, Visual Connections and the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) national conference. He is currently the national president of the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP). He also serves on the board of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in his Los Angeles community. He chaired the marketing committee for the Los Angeles Conservancy, a historic preservation advocacy group, for many years.

He currently heads Masterson Consulting, working on projects ranging from business development for creative companies and sourcing talent for them to promoting and marketing industry events as well as providing resume and professional profile services for job-seekers. He can be reached at zvpunryqznfgrefba@tznvy.pbz.