Stock
PhotoShelter (
http://www.photoshelter.com) has released a new e-book entitled
The Photographer’s Guide to Selling Like a Pro. The book provides photographers with concrete strategies and firsthand insight on how to grow a photography business through better sales tactics. It provides key business tips direct from veteran sales leaders in the fields of advertising, automotive, travel, insurance, and home shopping industries.
Getty Images has notified agencies (Image Partners), whose work is currently being licensed by Photolibrary, of Getty’s intention to “retire” (close down) all the Photolibrary websites during the last quarter of 2011.
In an article published in the British Journal of Photography (BJP) and entitled “
Stockpiling Trouble: How The Stock Industry Ate Itself?” Betsy Reid founding executive director of Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) from 2002 through 2009 lays out some of the reasons that the SAA will be closing its doors at the end of 2011. Many in the industry will want to review this article.
When you rent a movie for an iPad it expires and disappears 30 days after the date of purchase. Once you start watching the move it will automatically disappear in 24 hours even if I have not watched it to the end. If you want to see it after 24 hours you’ve got to rent it again. This got me thinking. Why can’t we install a “kill date” into the JPEG files we license for use?
Google has released a new function that allows those who use Chrome or Firefox browsers to search the web for use of specific images.
If you go to to
http://images.google.com you will see a little camera icon in the search box. Click on that icon and you get a popup that says “Search by Image.” Either paste an image URL or drag an image onto this search box you will get a view and list of the URL’s where that image can be found.
After the recent CEPIC conference in Istanbul my wife and I joined a
small group touring Turkey. The trip got me thinking about a potential
future markets for still photography. Are you prepared to deal with these markets? Are you willing to sell to these customers?
The New York Times reports today on
Lytro’s new camera that lets you shoot first and change the focus later. If the focus is off slightly, or you want to change it dramatically from foreground to background or anywhere in between you can change it in the computer once you get back home. Check out this new technology
here. Welcome to another reason why there will be little need for professional photographers in the future.
On May 23rd I announced a
contest. Everyone who provided an answer to the question "Describe a situation where a fee of $10.00, or less, is justified for the COMMERCIAL use of a single image?" would be entered in a drawing to Win $100.00. In addition to announcing the contest to my newsletter subscribers I passed out cards to attendees to the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul. We have conducted a drawing and the winner is Tim Harris of Nature Picture Library and Bluegreen Pictures in the UK.
Creatives need to start exploring ways to deliver their products –
writing, photographs, illustration, video – to students, instructors and
educational institutions without the aid of educational publishers.This article goes into some of the reasons why and how it could be accomplished.
What happens when the iPad becomes the primary vehicle for delivering
educational information? Check out this story for some of the things we think will happen in the education business. Also see how what will happen to in the education business to content providers -- writers as well as photographers -- in the next ten years compares to how microstock has changed the stock photography business in the last decade.
Alamy has over 24 million images online after adding over one million
celebrity images. The company represents over 570 of the world’s
leading stock and specialist agencies and a vast array of photographers
from every corner of the globe.
Given Internet capabilities, society is rapidly moving away from
Business to Business (BtoB) transactions and more toward transaction
where small Businesses sell all types of things direct to Consumer
(BtoC). Some images will continue to be used in major ad campaigns and
there will be other sales of stock photography at traditional prices,
but the number of such requests will decline. Meanwhile image use by small businesses and individuals will increase dramatically. Photographers need to start focusing on how they can prepare themselves for the new market.
Last week in a story entitles “
Educational Products For Students” I discussed the new educational publisher strategy for making images available to students. In particular I examined the Encyclopaedia Britannica product called Image Quest and made some estimates about pricing and the royalties photographers might receive for the use of their images. Encyclopaedia Britannica has now provided us with more details of their pricing strategy and we need to revise our numbers.
Today, the biggest problem for professional photographers is how to get their images seen by potential customers. Most photographers would agree that the way to get the widest possible exposure for their work is to get their images on gettyimages.com. Sources at Getty Images tell me that 96% of the company’s sales come from images customers find on the first three pages of the search returns. Customers have a choice as to how many thumbnails they want to see on any given page -- with a maximum of 100 allowed -- so three pages of images would be a maximum of 300.
The educational market has always been a big segment of the stock photo business. Some agencies and individual photographers earn the majority of there revenue from sales for educational use. Until recently, most of the photographs used for educational purposes were published in textbooks. All that is changing with
Britannica Image Quest that gives students and teachers unlimited access to a 2.3 million image file.
There are strong indications that iStock's introduction of higher priced brands has resulted in the company licensing fewer images. In addition many of its customers seem to be turning away from iStock and goint to other microstock sites to purchase the images they need. One non-exclusive photographer with many best selling recreation images on both iStock and Shutterstock reports that his images on Shutterstock are now outselling those on iStock by 3 to 1 while a year ago the reverse was true. Other photographers confirm this trend.
At the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul a panel of Asian stock agents provided insights into the current market for stock photography in Asia. The panel included: Sandeep Mahewsari of Imagebazaar (
www.imagebazaar.com) in India, Daphne Fu of Panorama Images (
www.panoramastock.com) in China, Daniel Kang of Image Republic (
www.irepublic.kr) in Korea, and Ryusel Yoshimoto of amanaimages (
www.amanaimages.com) in Japan.
On May 23, 2011 in an open letter to contributors Andy Saunders, Vice President of Creative Imagery for Getty Images, outlined what Getty sees as the future of creative co ntent. His analysis will be of interest to everyone engaged in the stock photo business and can be found at
http://www.gettyimages.com/contributors, in the bottom right corner of the contributor log-in page. No password is necessary to view this link.
During the New Media Conference at the CEPIC Congress in Istanbul a panel of picture buyers offered their views on what they are looking for from stock photo collections. Lewis Blackwell moderated the discussion. Picture buyers on the panel included Peter Raffelt of Gruner +Jahr; Matt Burgess of Creature; Martin Casson of Dentsu in the UK; Alexander Karts of Die Bildbeschaffer and Paul Millen from an advertising agency in Istanbul. Two issues of particular interest to image creators and sellers revolved around the use of microstock by these large commercial customers and the lack of outstanding unique images in stock collections.
HP and LicenseStream have launched
Snap Stock Images, a service of Snapfish and a new microstock photo licensing service featuring affordable images from photo enthusiasts and professional photographers. Currently, Snapfish has more than 100 million members in 22 countries. Professional image buyers, including small and midsize business owners, graphic designers, advertisers and marketers, will be able to access hundreds of thousands of images that are available on the site at launch. Many of the images were shot by amateurs, but images from Veer and LicenseStream are also available.
At the annual CEPIC Congress, this year in Istanbul, where stock photo
agents and distributors from around the world meet, I asked attendees
the following and agreed to enter the names of those who answer into a
drawing for a chance to
WIN $100.00.
Describe a situation where a fee of $10.00, or less, is justified for the COMMERCIAL use of a single image?
Selling-Stock subscribers also have a chance to win. Send your answer in now!
Image fingerprinting could be a solution for many of the problems photographers face in trying to protect their images. The technology for providing, in camera, a unique fingerprint of every image a photographer creates is already available. All that has to happen is for the camera manufacturers to build this technology into the next models of their professional equipment.
Ingram Image has entered into a binding agreement to acquire the
goodwill and trading assets of Reflex Stock. Reflex offers a unique mix
of visual content, which currently comprises 10 million images.
Reflexstock.com offers traditional Premium quality Royalty Free and
Rights Managed content alongside Budget Royalty Free, MicroPrice Images
and a subscription service. Ingram also acquires Reflex’s successful
industry Design Blog.
After spending six month translating all aspects of its customer experience into German Alamy has launched a German website at
www.alamy.de.
An increasing number of stock photographers are fed up with low prices and low royalty percentages and are looking for a way to get out of the whole agency/distributor rat race. Many are setting up their own sites and are looking for ways deal more directly with their customers. They recognize that they won’t make as many sales, but feel that the higher fees they will receive for each use will generate more total income in the long run. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that by licensing their images directly to end users photographers would receive 10 or more times the revenue for each image licensed compared to what they are receiving from their agencies now.