Future Planning

Raising Stock Photo Prices

By Jim Pickerell | 1105 Words | Posted 3/6/2017 | Comments
In the next few months I intend spend a lot of time examining the question, “Can the stock photo industry raise prices on at least some of the images it offers?” The possible answers to that question are either YES, NO or MAYBE.

Stock Photography: An Amateur Business

By Jim Pickerell | 862 Words | Posted 3/6/2017 | Comments
Can the stock photo industry survive if it is only a business of amateur suppliers? It is certainly on road to becoming that business. Gross sale rates have declined so much that most photographers who need revenue from the images they produce to support themselves and their business can no longer justify continued production. (Check out stories here and here.

Enterprise Mystery

By Jim Pickerell | 1109 Words | Posted 12/15/2016 | Comments
Shutterstock supplies very little information about their Enterprise customers and how Enterprise sales work. Yet it is an extremely important segment of their business and critical to understanding the company’s potential for future growth. At the end of Q3 2016 Shutterstock had 35,000 Enterprise customers up from 24,000 at the beginning of the year, or about a 46% increase in 9 months. How much of that 46% is real growth?

Shutterstock Growth Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 901 Words | Posted 12/6/2016 | Comments
I was asked recently if I am optimistic that Shutterstock will maintain its momentum in 2017? The short answer is YES, I believe Shuttrstock’s 2017 growth will continue on the same track as it has in the last two years. In 2014 revenue growth was 39%. In 2015 it was 30% and in 2016 it is expected to be around 18%. I expect the company will continue to maintain its DOWNWARD trend.

High-Level Thoughts On Stock Industry

By Jim Pickerell | 1831 Words | Posted 12/2/2016 | Comments
An investment portfolio manager recently asked me to spend five minutes giving my “high-level thoughts on the (stock photo) industry outlook, competitive dynamics and emerging trends.” I couldn’t do it in anywhere near five minutes. Here are my high-level thoughts.

Image Supply: Are There Problems?

By Jim Pickerell | 949 Words | Posted 11/28/2016 | Comments
Many Shutterstock investors see the steadily rising number of images in the Shutterstock collection and the number of new content creators being added each quarter and come to the conclusion that there is no problem on the supply side of the stock photo business. But, having more and more product is not enough. It needs to be the right product that fulfills the customer’s needs. And the right images need to be easy for each unique customer to find.

Getty Unification Delay

By Jim Pickerell | 581 Words | Posted 11/25/2016 | Comments
A month after the Getty’s initial announcement of its Unification Project Getty has announced that “Due to the complexity of the work required (in the iStock Royalties and Unification Project) we are pushing back most of the changes by about a month.”

Big Data: Is Anyone In The Stock Industry Paying Attention?

By Jim Pickerell | 1511 Words | Posted 11/18/2016 | Comments
The buzz word in the world today is “Big Data” and how it is going to improve everything. But in the stock photo business are the major agencies are really examining the data they have collected? If they were I think they would be more worried about their future and doing a lot of things differently. I don’t see that happening.

Making Up For Declining Stock Photo Sales

By Jim Pickerell | 1142 Words | Posted 11/16/2016 | Comments
As I pointed out in a previous article I recently contacted a number of very successful photographers who, in the 90s, earned most, if not all, of their income from stock photography. After 2000, and despite a lot of continuing hard work and cost cutting, many saw significant earning declines and eventually had to look for something other ways to support themselves and their families.

GDUSA Stock Visual Reader Survey

By Jim Pickerell | 1160 Words | Posted 10/26/2016 | Comments
The 30th annual GDUSA Stock Visual Reader Survey, is now available. GDUSA says that stock visuals have become a vital creative resource for graphic designers, moving over the 30-year period from marginal to mainstream to essential.

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.

Understanding Which Stock Images Will Sell

By Jim Pickerell | 893 Words | Posted 8/26/2016 | Comments
Of the millions of stock images which ones are actually being purchased and used by customers? Photographers trying to earn a living need better information about exactly what images are selling so they don’t waste time shooting things no one is interested in buying.

Is Knowing Which Images Get The Most Downloads Enough?

By Jim Pickerell | 1307 Words | Posted 8/26/2016 | Comments
I have been told that there are at least 650 million images available for easy licensing in various databases around the world. This doesn’t include all the images that can be found by searching Google, Bing and the social media web sites where other images can be found, but not easily licensed. Only between 1% and 4% of these are ever licensed. Do photographers need better information so they don't waste so much time shooting all those images no one wants to use?

Is Studying Photography In College A Good Idea?

By Jim Pickerell | 712 Words | Posted 8/10/2016 | Comments
It is that time of year when students are getting ready to head off to college. Most will go there because it sounds like more fun than going out and getting a job and because they have been told that a “higher education” will give them a better chance at future career advancement and eventually earning more money.

RF Limitations

By Jim Pickerell | 1466 Words | Posted 7/20/2016 | Comments
Many RM photographers are opposed to Royalty Free because they believe that for a single low fee they would be giving away all future rights to use their images. That’s not quite true. Check out this story to see the real differences and understand how much you might really be giving away if you license your images as RF.

Changing World Of RM

By Jim Pickerell | 1109 Words | Posted 6/23/2016 | Comments
Photographers choose to sell their work as RM for three reasons: (1) They believe that everything they produce should only be licensed for prices higher than those charged for RF, (2) They dream that one, or a few, of their images will eventually be licensed for an extremely broad, major use. Customer who make such uses are willing to pay multi-thousand-dollar prices for exclusive rights to such images, and (3) Such high value sales can only happen if images are always licensed based on use. There are several fallacies to these arguments.

Stock Photo Marketing 2.0 – Part 2

By Jim Pickerell | 1336 Words | Posted 5/18/2016 | Comments
In a previous story we talked about five aspects of the image licensing business where serious modification to standard practices are needed, if the industry is move ahead and grow revenue.  In that story I dealt with three of the five:  (1) Pricing Floor For Certain Imagery, (2)  Simplified Pricing and (3) Better Actionable Data For Contributors That Relates To What’s Selling. In this story we’ll examine the issues of (4) Curation and, (5) a Central Database For Small Collections.

Stock Photo Marketing 2.0 – Part 1

By Jim Pickerell | 1623 Words | Posted 5/17/2016 | Comments
If there is going to be a business of producing and licensing rights to stock photos five or ten years from now, the industry needs a serious re-design. There are at least five areas that need serious modification if the industry is to include anything other than User Generated Content (UGC), or if there is to be revenue growth.

Melcher/Pickerell Colloquy

By Jim Pickerell | 2236 Words | Posted 5/3/2016 | Comments
Paul Melcher disagrees with much of my pessimism about the future of the stock photo industry. I have the greatest respect for Paul and his opinions. He is founding director of Melcher Systems and has been working in the stock photo space for more than 20 years. He has a thorough understanding of our industry. He has done much more in depth research of the tech side of the industry than I have, and has much better contacts and networking in that space. For these reasons, it is important for my readers to carefully consider what he has to say.

Where Stock Photo Industry Is Headed

By Jim Pickerell | 903 Words | Posted 4/13/2016 | Comments
I was recently asked for my views on where the stock photo industry is headed over the next few years, the value of the industry at present, and how I think the major players will adapt to the growing availability of user-generated content. Here’s my answer.

What’s Next For Veer?

By Jim Pickerell | 299 Words | Posted 3/2/2016 | Comments
Getty Images has contacted Veer contributors to explain what will happen to their imagery as a result of the sale of Corbis to VCG.  Their imagery will not be integrated into the Getty Images collection. Veer contributors may apply to iStock for possible upload of their content there. The memo says:

Want A Photography Career: Do Your Due Diligence

By Jim Pickerell | 1112 Words | Posted 12/1/2015 | Comments
So you want a career in photography. You like taking pictures. It’s fun. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get paid to do it? You’re a high school student about to graduate. Everyone says you need more education to have a chance at a good job. You’ve no idea how much you’ll have to earn to feed, clothe and house yourself, and maybe some day a spouse and family. But, it seems you should get more education in the career path you want to follow.

RM vs RF: Which Strategy Generates The Most Money?

By Jim Pickerell | 1478 Words | Posted 11/16/2015 | Comments
Photographers with a goal of maximizing earnings from the images they produce, and who continue to insist that in order to realize that goal their work must be licensed as Rights Managed (RM), may need to consider the new realities of the stock photo business.

Photography: Business vs Means of Self-Expression

By Jim Pickerell | 910 Words | Posted 11/11/2015 | Comments
Photography has become much more of a means of self-expression than a business. That’s not necessarily a bad thing unless you are trying to earn your living from the images you produce.

Take Aways From Photo Week

By Jim Pickerell | 1132 Words | Posted 10/30/2015 | Comments
I just returned from the annual “Photo Week” in New York – two days at PhotoPlus Expo, two-and-a-half days at the DMLA annual conference and one day at Visual Connections. Here are a few take aways.