Career
ASMP has announced two webinars later this month that should be of value to stock photographers and stock photo agents. Both are free if you sign up and listen at the scheduled time. These webinars will also be recorded and made available within a week after the event through a web link. ASMP members will be able to listen to them for free. Non-members will be charged a fee of $4.99.
Be careful what you write in your blog. It’s not private. Over the weekend I received a request from a former mid-level employee of a stock agency who wanted me to delete from our Selling Stock archive a story that was published in 2009.
I’m getting tired of the overuse of the term “Professional” as it relates to photographers. Webster’s defines a professional as “a person who earns a living in an occupation frequently engaged in by amateurs, or a person who is expert in his or her work.” Many stock photographers want to call themselves “professionals” after they have sold their first image.
Does anyone other than photographers think that photographers should be compensated with more than a credit for the use of their images? The response photographer Kristen Pierson received from the publisher of the Warwick, RI Beacon displays a common attitude, not just of the average consumer, but of many professionals and commercial users who should be licensing rights to the images they use.
Getty Images has made a number of strategic decisions in the past few years that have resulted in declines in both its “Creative” (RM and RF) and microstock lines of business. These decisions have also aided Shutterstock in its rise to a commanding position in the market with its subscription licensing model. I want to emphasize that when I talk about declines I am not referring to Getty’s other lines of business - Editorial, Footage, Other or B2B music – which as far as I can tell are still growing.
The
Image Source team responsible for tracking trends in the premium stock photography industry is in the process of publishing a series of briefings following their recent research conducted to determine near-future patterns in the use of conceptual imagery. Intended to help premium stock photographers produce the imagery demanded by image buyers, their research will be published as a series of articles on the Image Source
photographer resource blog over the next couple of months.
Internet entrepreneur and prolific angel investor Fabrice Grinda recently commented on his
blog that stock photography may be the “best business ever” – for the organization marketing the work online, not the producer.
On May 22nd
iStockphoto partnered with the Art Director’s Club to host Portfolio Night in more than 20 cities around the world. The Portfolio Night events were designed to connect aspiring young creatives with renowned advertising creative directors in hopes they would receive feedback on their work and ultimately secure career opportunities.
For those who were unable to attend here is some of the information that was provided.
PhotoShelter, in conjunction with Bill Cramer, founder and CEO of
Wonderful Machine, has released a new free guide on
Pricing Corporate and Industrial Photography. The guide provides useful price ranges for a variety of shoot types including: Corporate Lifestyle, Environmental Portraiture, Corporate Reportage, Headshots, Event Photography and Library Shoots.
Anyone interested in a career as a photographer – as well as those photographers in mid-career -- needs to carefully consider how the business is changing. If we look at image use on the Internet it is undeniable that more images are being made available for viewing. However, for professionals this is not good news.
More image use does not mean more demand for professionally produced images. It does not mean that there will be more opportunities for photographers to earn their living taking pictures. In fact, the opportunities to earn a living as a photographer are declining. Here’s why.
There was a time when one of the keys to being a successful stock photographer was to develop a strong working relationship with a top photo editor at one of the major stock agencies. That period has passed. Rolf Sjogren who managed a high-level team of art directors, photo editors, producers and retouchers for Getty Images from 2001 through 2008 explains what happened and gives us a picture editor's perspective on how the stock photo industry has changed in the last 20 or so years.
A reader wrote "Strikes me that there is so much fragmentation in the stock image space it’s hard for anyone, especially the photographers, to make money." He thinks we need a better way for people to search and license images. See my comments. Let me know if you have other ideas.
If you are a young person who wants a career in visual communications where are the opportunities likely to be? They are least likely to be in print publishing. This article presents statistics that explain why and gives some insights into the potential for video.
Image Source has announced the dates and locations of its latest series of
photographer workshops, starting in London on March 12, 2013 and ending in Los Angeles on March 21st with additional workshops in Copenhagen, Milan, Munich and New York.
In January the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report on Media and Information that provides some interesting insights into the photography business. Median still photographer income in U.S. is $28,860. The median for TV and video camera operators is over $40,000 and almost $53,000 for Film and Video editors.
Recently, a writer for Nikon Pro magazine asked me a series of questions in preparation for an upcoming article on the stock photography market. I have no idea how much of what I had to say will be used, but the questions were very appropriate for a readership of photographers with professional equipment who hope to make a little money from the images they produce.
Recently, a father asked if I would advise his 26-year-old son on “career options in the photography field.” This boy (we’ll call him John) graduated in 2011 from a four-year course (probably costing in excess of $100,000) at a premier West Coast photography trade school. Then he returned to his home in a major East Coast city where he has been freelancing.
Recently there has been a lot of talk in the U.S. press that “uncertainty” is the reason why the recovery is jobless, why businesses are sitting on billions in cash and why business leaders are cautious about expansion into new ventures. Uncertainty is also a major problem for stock photographers.
One of the programs at the recent PACA International Conference asked five industry visionaries to explore emerging trends and predict what the stock photo business will be like in 2022. There was general agreement that the current business model of licensing based on usage is
broken and that in a few years (probably a lot less than 10) it will be necessary to develop a completely different approach to licensing.
In the future, will it be possible for more photographers to earn a
better living than they are currently earning producing stock images? More and
more photographers are jumping into the stock photo business every day
and many hope to make it a career. Here’s
a dozen reasons why future
revenue growth for this industry seems unlikely. I’ve discussed all
these issues before, but it seems useful to briefly itemize them all in
one place.
John Lund is one of the world’s most successful stock photographers. His images have a clean, graphic, conceptual style and generally illustrate business concepts. His images are often humorous. Using photoshop and digital tools he creates images that put people and animals in impossible situations, but they are done so skillfully that viewers often ask, “Did that really happen?” The following are five tips for succeeding in stock photography.
Stephen Walker recently read a report about
Shutterstock’s IPO plans on APhotoEditor. He then posted the on following conclusions on the ASMPstock group on yahoo. "Traditional RM, RF are growing at a pretty good clip? Micro more so!" He also said, "I see these numbers as a strong indicator of growth and positive for stock shooters." I think he is entirely wrong. Read why.
The stock photography industry has to face the challenge of becoming relevant in an economy that has no patience for inadequate business models. Today the vast majority of photographs are used without any contact with the traditional photo industry, which has completely lost control of production and distribution. But the industry continues stubbornly to apply old rules to this new landscape. It does not see, or purposely wants to ignore, that their model does not fit current needs and thus is chasing customers away.
Alamy has announced the expansion of its
100% Royalties project, designed to give young photographers experience of a professional stock photography agency. Launched in a number of universities in the UK and USA in 2011 the project has proved a real success. In fact, it has been such a success that it is being extended into a second year.
Many photographers, upset with the low prices their distributors are charging for uses, have become enamored with the idea that PicturEngine will allow them to set their own prices for use of their work. That may not work as well as they hope.