Assignments
Fashion photographers beware! Much of your market is about to disappear. Why bother dealing with temperamental photographer and models when customers can hang the clothes on a mannequin and give the mannequin a human looking body and expression with Photoshop. That’s what
Looklet is doing.
One of the big questions for a freelance photographer approaching a new client is: “What should I charge.” What do others get for doing the same type of work? What has this client paid in the past? Recently, I was made aware of a web site called “
Who Pays Photographers?” Photographers can go to this site, enter the name of a publication or organization they would like to work for and get some idea of what the organization has paid for previous jobs.
Scoopshot’s new focus on providing image buyers with professionally produced on-demand photography, produced to precise specifications, is a dramatic reversal from the company’s existing strategy of supplying User Generated Content (UGC).
Scoopshot has launched a new initiative that every professional photographer interested in working on assignment ought to consider. Their “
Everyone’s Private Photographer” initiative makes it easy for customers to input a location, anywhere in the world, where they need a photographer and immediately see a 9-image portfolio of each photographer operating in that area who might be able to perform a photo assignment.
At its annual General Meeting (AGM), held this year in Paris member owned
Magnum Photos nominated six new members: a record breaking number. They include:
Matt Black,
Carolyn Drake,
Lorenzo Meloni,
Richard Mosse,
Max Pinckers and
Newsha Tavakolina.
The U.S. Copyright Office has created a
Fair Use Index to assist creators and user in understanding what is considered “Fair Use.” Fair use is a longstanding and vital aspect of American copyright law. The goal of the Index is to make the principles and application of fair use more accessible and understandable by presenting a searchable database of court opinions.
Jerry Tavin and Joe Panker launched
Come Alive Images. This site is dedicated to the commercial potential of GIFs—motion graphics, cinemagraphs, animated photography, looping illustrations and animation, 3D stereo photography and photo/video hybrids.
Early in December ImageBrief introduced a Photographer Search feature. It’s a great idea and something photographers need, but it still needs a little work. This story identifies some of the problem areas and offers suggestions that make "Photographer Search" more user friendly.
If your are a photographer who works hard, but has trouble earning much of a profit then you need to read John Harrington's advice. John is an award-winning Washington, DC based photographer who covers the world of politics as well as doing a wide range of commercial assignments. His success is due in no small part to his excellent business skills.
In his
Kaptur blog last week Paul Melcher pointed out that in the near future brands may want to wholly own the photography they produce so they can then give it away just as Apple did with music when they partnered with U2 to make a massive release of U2’s new “Songs of Innocence” album.
ImageBrief reports that in July they made their highest single image sale ever, a $30,000 fee for a stunning aerial image of
Rio de Janeiro taken by Flavio Veloso of Brazil Photos.
May was another record month for
Image Brief with 128 photographers receiving awards for an average image sale price of $1,238. (That’s $158,464 in total sales.) Three photographers --
Matthew Doggett,
Rainer Waelder and
Slobodan Blagojevic -- each had sales for $10,000 each.
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.
Over the weekend I reported that there were
71 live briefs on
ImageBrief worth a combined total of over $150,000.
Allyson Scott, who has been responding to briefs and submitting images for more than six months, points out that actually making a sale is not as easy as I might have made it sound. Here’s what she had to say.
Currrently there are 71 image requests worth a combined total of over $150,000 on
ImageBrief. Clients looking for photos include: BBH (UK), Conde Nast, Huge Inc, Weiden+Kennedy, Story Worldwide, Expedia Inc, Grey Advertising, Penguin Books, Random House, Hearst, TriBeCa Film Festival, Proximity, Visa, McGarry Bowen, Harper Collins, Young & Rubicam.
Stock photography is changing rapidly. The most serious issues facing stock photographers are:
they have no idea who their potential customers are;
they don’t know what their customers are looking for in the way of images; and
they don’t understand how their customer’s businesses are changing.
PhotoShelter has just released the results of a new survey designed to determine “What Buyers Want From Photographers.” The 48 page report is available for
Free here.
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.
ImageBrief that connects creative and marketing professionals to a curated network of more than 7,500 professional photographers in 115 countries has published an
infographic that outlines some of the risks professional photographers face in the current market.
National Geographic has gathered its expansive archive of still and moving images and its roster of award-winning photographic and filmmaking talent and made them accessible to the creative community in one place, through
National Geographic Creative.
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.
The United Kingdom company
Eposure has posted preliminary results of its
Photographer Day Rates survey that was conducted online through its blog. Eposure is a company that “brings commercial photographers and businesses closer” and provides information and mentoring programs for photographers.
ImageBrief has raised a $700,000 round of financing from Square Peg’s Paul Bassat and Justin Liberman as well as other Australian investors. Originally based in Australia, the company has raised $2.2 million thus far.
Given the competition in the world of professional photography, anything that can help a photographer find customers is worth considering. A reader recently called my attention to
Imagebrief.com that allows art buyers to provide a detailed outline brief of their image needs for current projects. Photographers can review the briefs and submit images for the projects.
Novus Select has announced the addition of David Burnett, Holly Wilmeth, John Hafner and Joseph Puhy to its existing roster of talented artists centered around advertising. All have shot advertising and branding projects for top brands including GM, FedEx, Canon, Cabela’s and more.