Stock
Photographers who license rights to their images based on how the images
will be used tend to be adamantly opposed to microstock. The principle
reason for such opposition is that microstock images are licensed for
use at very low prices. With microstock there are a few price variations
depending on how the images will be used, but they are minimal compared
to those used by rights-managed sellers. All other aspects of the
microstock business tend to get ignored. I want to examine some
of these other aspects of microstock licensing and point out how
traditional agency photographers might benefit if their agencies would
adopt some of them.
Photographers trying to license rights to their pictures are constantly
looking for ways to make contact with potential customers. Any given
image is potentially marketable to buyers worldwide. Individual
photographers are unlikely to ever meet most of these potential
customers. Thus, photographers tend to employ a variety of middlemen
operations to assist them in finding customers. One such operation is
Photographers Direct (PD) which has helped more than 15,862
photographers (about 5,000 currently active) make contact with over
20,280 unique buyers worldwide.
Pixmac has removed its exclusively restrictions for its contributors and
raised commission rates. Contributors will now receive 30% of the
revenue collected or at least $0.25 per download for the first $200.00
in earnings. Once their total earning exceed $200.00 they will receive
40%.
When the Huffington Post starts lampooning what they call “Ridiculous
Stock Photos” will art directors judge the concepts as something to
avoid in the future?
Do educational publishers place much value on the pictures they use
in their
books? Based on
what they are willing to pay for such images, the role pictures play in
the educational process has declined significantly over the
last 10 to 15 years. The fees paid for images used in textbooks have
not kept up with changing usage demands. There may be little
photographers can do to alter this trend, but they need to be aware of
and understand the problem as they plan future production for this
market.
iStockphoto has introduced its new round of price increases for 2011.
For those in the macro world (RM and traditional RF) who like to argue
that it is impossible to make money selling images on a microstock site
it may be time to take another look at what iStock is doing.
Beginning stock photographers often ask those with experience for numbers they can use to construct a "business plan." They start by asking what kind of annual return-per-image they can expect to earn from a collection of a given size. This story outlines some of the steps photographers need to take when considering stock photography as a business.
For many photographers seeking to earn some, or all, of their living
producing stock images, one of the most important decisions in 2011 will
be whether to retire from the stock photo business or get into
microstock. Many photographers who are licensing their images at
rights-managed or traditional royalty free prices have seen their
revenue decline significantly in the last couple of years. They are also
skeptical that it is possible to earn any significant money licensing
images at microstock prices. As a result quite a few are choosing to get
out of the stock photography business.
Getty Images, Inc., has unveiled its new Photos.com site, developed for
value-conscious small business owners, marketers, graphic designers, web
designers and other creative professionals. Photos.com currently offers
2.5 million royalty free images and illustrations.
It time for rights-managed sellers to adopt many aspects of the microstock pricing strategy.
The immediate reaction of many RM sellers will be, “I’ll never sell my images as royalty-free.” That’s not what I’m proposing. Photographers will continue to manage the rights to their images. They will continue to be able to license exclusive and restricted uses to their images. But from the customer’s point of view the basic pricing model will look and feel just like the microstock model that they have come to prefer.
If iStock is really interested in improving the quality of its
collection and bringing the work of the best and most experienced
photographers into its top end collections it needs to drop the
requirement that exclusive photographers not have images that are
licensed as RF with any other agency. All the company really needs is
that the specific images they represent, and any similars, not be in any
other collection. They don’t need to define “exclusive” this tightly.
It is interesting that even Getty Images only requires “image
exclusive”, but iStock want to have more control over the lives of its
photographers.
2011 may be the year when the stock photo industry returns to the idea
of exclusive representation -- specifically, being exclusive with a
microstock agency. For many year the widely held belief has
been that the way to maximize returns was to get your images represented
by many distributors. Now, iStockphoto’s has developed an exclusive strategy that may bring
about a change in this way of thinking. While there are several
downsides for image producers to the iStock strategy, the upsides may
more that compensate for the difficulties.
John Fowler points out that his strategy for running a stock photography business isn't working, acknowledges that he needs to make changes and asks for ideas as to what those changes should be. I added some of my experiences and perspective and encourage readers to suggest positive ways forward.
A reader just forwarded to me a list of 50 sites with free photos. One
of the interesting things about some of these sites is that some of the photographers didn’t intend for their images
to be made available for free. By using PicScout’s ImageExchange I was able to determine
that a number of the best images on some of these sites seem to have
been grabbed from paid sites, particularly Dreamstime.
For almost two years I have been following the sales of 197 of iStockphoto’s top sellers.
The tendency has been to think of these people as photographers, but in
fact 98 of them, or almost 50%, list their job description as something
other than photographer.
Ron Chapple, one of the first traditional adopters of the micro-priced model into his larger stock business, says that chances of making a sale have decreased by 90% in recent years.
The use of images for educational purposes has always been about 20% of
the total market for stock images. For some agencies and photographers,
educational sales represent a much higher percentage of their gross
revenue. However, as a result of technological developments and industry
consolidation, it has become extremely difficult for creators to earn
enough from licensing images for educational uses to enable them to
continue to produce imagery for this purpose.
iStockphoto has been working on a way to use language and country data to deliver more locally relevant results since last year.
On Monday, the Getty Images-owned microstock leader delivered on this
promise. The company also launched a new editorial product offering.
Many photographers are advised to develop a specialty and find an
undeveloped niche as a way to deal with the oversupply of imagery. John
Lund presents the case against a stock photo niche and argues that
financial success will come to the photographer who can best create
images that illustrate major concepts and compete successfully with the
other images.
At first glance, PicScout’s new
ImageExchange interface that isolates images that are easily licensable from any Google or Yahoo! search, and displays them in a right-hand panel next to all the returns delivered by these search engines, would seem to be a very helpful tool for professional users looking for images they can license legitimately.
In fact, the returns delivered may be more misleading than useful.
With the introduction of The Costco Art & Image Gallery, Corbis and Costco will sell individual prints and posters as retail products. The images offered are a select group of some 20,000 professional pieces of fine art, photography and illustration from the Corbis collection of more than 6 million images.
Should all Web usages be of equal value just because all the customer needs is approximately a 600 x 800 pixel file?
Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter has published a very interesting analysis entitled “What Google Trends Says About Wedding & Stock Photography, and Photo Websites,” complete with charts that illustrate the trends.
Recently, a new country album by Taylor Swift shocked the music industry by selling over 1million copies in its first week. This is unheard of in a music business, which has suffered similar woes to stock photography. In the past decade, album sales have declined by more than 50%, yet Taylor Swift managed to buck the trend. Is there a lesson to be learned by stock shooters from her success?