Trend Survey Deadline Approaching

By Jim Pickerell | 361 Words | Posted 9/8/2016 | Comments
The last day to respond to the Stock Photo Revenue Trends Survey that we launched last month will be September 17, 2016. For more information about the survey see here. The good news, so far, is that 13% of the respondents earn over $80,000 a year from stock sales alone.

Shutterstock Launches Adobe Photoshop® Plugin

By Jim Pickerell | 294 Words | Posted 9/8/2016 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has announced that its vast collection of 100 million high-quality photos and illustrations is now accessible within Adobe Photoshop® software through its new custom built plugin. With more than 100,000 new images added every day, the Shutterstock plugin boasts the largest collection of photos and illustrations that can be licensed directly within the Creative Cloud desktop application.

Archive Value Of News Pictures

By Jim Pickerell | 2756 Words | Posted 9/7/2016 | Comments
I have a theory that a very high percentage of the uses of editorial or news pictures occur in the first month or two after they are shot. Newpapers, magazines and websites use the images when they are fresh and then move on to the next news happening. Of course, certain events will have historical value and key images from these events may be used over and over in future years – Iwo Jima flag raising, World Trade Center, Hindenburg crash, etc.– but it seems to me that such situations represent a very small percentage of overall use.

Alamy Provides Huge Benefits To Photography Students

By Jim Pickerell | 351 Words | Posted 9/6/2016 | Comments
Students who have decided to study photography at the post secondary level (college or university) should sign up for the Alamy Student Scheme and begin to get a realistic idea of the value of their work in the marketplace. Alamy can help the student learn what customer’s want.

Shutterstock Acquires The Kobal Collection and The Art Archive

By Jim Pickerell | 316 Words | Posted 9/6/2016 | Comments
Shutterstock, Inc. has acquired of over 700,000 images from two prominent photo collections: The Art Archive and The Kobal Collection. Both collections, previously held by UK-based The Picture Desk, are now available to Shutterstock Premier customers globally.

Agencies – Buyer and Supplier Relationships

By Jim Pickerell | 1321 Words | Posted 9/2/2016 | Comments
Yesterday, I talked about why the business of licensing rights to stock photos - as currently structured - is Designed To Fail unless some major changes are made. Two of the changes needed are: (1) make finding the right image for a project much easier for the buyer, and (2) improving supplier efficiency.

Stock Photo Agencies – Designed To Fail

By Jim Pickerell | 970 Words | Posted 9/1/2016 | Comments (3)
The basic operating structure of how most stock photo agencies acquire and market images has not changed in 15 to 25 years. Image creator produce and submit their work to an agency. The agency may reject some of it, but most will go into an online collection that customer can review. When a customer finds something she wants to use she pays a fee and the image creator receives a percentage. The agency’s job is to manage the material, make customers aware that the collection exists, license use of the image for whatever they can get and collect money.

Science Photo Library and StockFood Announce Strategic Partnership

By Jim Pickerell | 318 Words | Posted 9/1/2016 | Comments
StockFood GmbH, one of Germany’s leading photo agencies, and Science Photo Library (SPL), the world’s leading source of science and medicine content, have announced a strategic partnership aimed to deliver SPL’s collection of scientific imagery to the German market.

Frans Lanting Seeing Digital Asset Manager

By Jim Pickerell | 119 Words | Posted 9/1/2016 | Comments
The Frans Lanting Studio, located in Santa Cruz, California, home base of one of the world’s foremost nature photographers has an opening for a Digital Asset Manager to manage the Studio’s digital assets from ingestion to application. The position requires proficiency in Mac OS, Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Keynote, Microsoft Office.

MEGA Agency Signs Global Licensing Deal With Newscom

By Jim Pickerell | 495 Words | Posted 8/30/2016 | Comments
The Mega Agency is launching with an archive of 30 million images after signing a ground-breaking agreement with Newscom, the world’s largest multi-agency archive of digital images.