The stock photography business has its first billionaire. Bloomberg news reported that last week Jonathan Oringer, the founder of
Shutterstock Inc. (SSTK) became a billionaire. Oringer owns 18.5 million shares of Shutterstock, or 55 percent of the outstanding shares. Last week shares of the company reached a record high of $56.44. Today, shares are trading at around $56 per share which makes Oringer’s holding worth in excess of one billion dollars.
Here’s the second in our continuing series of things I’ve found on the web that might be of interest to readers. Rather than my trying to summarize each article it is better for readers to just check out the link. The first article deals with using discarded cell phones in the Philippines to replace costly textbooks. Next National Geographic gives cell phone users guidance and on how to produce great pictures. There is a great photographer’s review of Stocksy and finally brief biographies and pictures taken by 10 of the world’s most famous art photographers.
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.
Registration is now open for the 18th Annual
PACA Conference in New York City October 20-23, 2013. PACA will be teaming up with
Visual Connections to bring a 3-day event, which will feature the PACA Conference on days 1 and 2 and Visual Connections on day 3.
As a result of technological advancements, and the new image search techniques on the horizon, we are about to enter another paradigm shift in the way stock images are licensed. Delaying or ignoring this new trend in image marketing is not a viable option. It will move forward whether individual creators like it or not. The only option is to figure out how to adapt to this new reality in a way that will allow creators to continue to earn a living.
The biggest problem for the
CIR will be finding a way to let all the potential image users know it exists. It may be fairly easy to make the big publishing organizations aware of the CIR. They have been crying for a way to quickly determine if an image needs to be licensed and where to go to license it. But there is a long tail of small design firms and web developers that in the aggregate use a lot more images than these big users. It will be very difficult to reach all these small occasional users and make them aware of the CIR and its benefits.
Last month we reported on the storm over the
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (ERRA) that was passed by the U.K. Parliament. Photographers were up in arms, but it turns out that many of the initial concerns may have been misplaced.
Yesterday we talked about the search by image feature on the
CIR. Today, we discovered that Getty has added a search by image feature to
Thinkstock. Go to the Thinkstock web site and look for the “search by image” button under the search box.
Motivated by the European Union’s challenge to develop a technological system that would make it easier for European citizens to gain access to cultural resources CEPIC has developed the CEPIC Image Registry (CIR) that will allows simultaneous visual or text search across thousands of image databases. Read more about how will work and how it may change the image licensing business.
Two Vancouver art directors faced with using stock photography because their clients don’t want to pay for assignments have launched a blog called
Getty Critics which pokes light-hearted fun at some of the stock photos that can be found at
www.gettyimages.com.
Recently, Google engineer Matt Cutts was asked if stock photos on a web
page have a negative effect on ranking compared to the use of original
photography? In a new Google Webmaster help video he said, “To the
best of my knowledge it doesn’t really make a difference whether it’s a
stock photo versus an original photo,"
Getty has announced that it will be retiring The Agency Collection (TAC)
on iStockphoto in the next few weeks and creating a new collection
called Signature+. The company says the main driver for this move is to
simplify their offer to customers. It is unclear how this will
“simplify” the offer.
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.
In another example of how the news photography business is changing, the Chicago Sun-Times has eliminated all of its 28 staff photography positions. The paper intends to get images in the future from freelance photographers and reporters taking pictures with their smart phones.
Booking opened on June 4 to prospective exhibitors at Visual Connections New York 2013, which will take place on Wednesday, October 23rd immediately following the PACA International Conference on October 21st and 22nd.
Since he started producing microstock images in 2005 Yuri Arcurs, the world’s top selling microstock shooter with over 1,500,000 downloads from iStockphoto alone, has been a strong advocate of non-exclusive representation and not putting “all his eggs in one basket”. Recently he signed an exclusive deal with Getty Images.
Given the prices publishers are charging for their digital products, they are establishing a precedent that images – in fact, all the content – is essentially worthless. See what publishers are charging and what that makes a single photo worth.
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.
Recently John Fowler wrote on the Stockphoto Group blog on Yahoo “My promotional efforts are failing me,” and asked other photographers for advice on the promotional strategies that are working for them. John shoots mostly natural history imagery with an emphasis on insects especially those of agricultural, health and economic significance. Here's my thoughts on his options.
Scoopshot is scheduled to release a new web-based platform later this month that will make task creation publicly available. This is expected to increase the number of users, the quality of the content, create more brand visibility and increase user engagement for their media partners.
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.
In the case of Pacific Stock, Inc. vs. Pearson Education United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollay in Hawaii has denied Pearson’s request for summary judgment with regard to Pacific Stock’s claim that Pearson had engaged in fraud and fraudulent inducement in its use of 59 images. Pacific Stock has also alleged that with regard to 151 images from 70 of its photographers Pearson exceeded the print run rights granted for the use of its images in Pearson textbooks.
At the CEPIC Congress on June 11th the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) will sponsor the second annual "Photocentric Day," a day of inspiration and learning with the theme:
How can the professional generate revenues in the digital world?
In my daily research I find many things that should be of interest to readers. Often there is little to say about the subject other than to provide readers with a link to what I’ve found. This will be the first in a continuing series of things I find interesting.
Corbis, Magnum, Getty and Alamy -- what do these words have in common. Unfortunately, the general public doesn't know. They've never heard of them, and if they have they don't know they are places where you can license the rights to use photographs, or what licensing photographs is all about. Do you care? Should you care? Read the story.