Blend Images, the world's leading multicultural stock photography agency, has recently announced the launch of a new website with a focus on world-class curated royalty free imagery
and motion clips. The new
Blendimages.com offers an improved user interface, a simplified pricing model, large image previews, and is the only place to search the entire Blend Images collection.
RM photographer working with the major stock production companies may have some very difficult decisions to make in the near future.
With the rise of
Offset,
Stocksy,
AdobeStock Premium and
iStock Signature it seems that RM photographers that are not also owners or shareholders of production companies, like
Blend Images,
Image Source and
Tetra Images, may find that they can earn more by moving their collections to RF.
A reader sent me a note recently indicating that after seeing an
Offset promotion he had asked
Shutterstock the following question: “Do you think, clients - professional or not - are expecting this level of imagery from a high end collection?” The images shown in the promotion were taken in Thailand by Brooklyn-based photographer
Lucy Schaeffer. The Offset tagline said “her images mix refined, understated luxury with the country’s beautiful and dramatic scenery. Be Transported.” The following are links
here and
here show the two images that were shown in the promotion.
Shutterstock has reported Q2 2016 revenue of $124.4 million up from $104.4 million compared to Q2 2015. The growth is due mainly to new customers and increased activity by enterprise clients.
This is an update on the story we
published last week concerning Carol Highsmith’s
copyright infringement suit against Getty Images and other defendants.
Imaginechina has been acquired by Bytedance, a digital tech company based in Beijing. The stock agency will continue to operate independently as a photo, video and commercial licensing agency serving editorial media, advertisers, creative agencies and brands, in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The needs of stock photo customers are changing. Successful agencies and distributors are adapting to those needs. Increasingly, customers are turning away from the large collections that purport to have everything. They are moving toward smaller, tightly curated collections that have a narrow focus in terms of the subject matter they represent.
Aurora Photos is one such agency.
Photographers who saw ImageBrief’s a recent
blog post about Pamela Olivera’s shot that was used worldwide in a Delta Airlines campaign have been asking why Delta would take such a risk on an unreleased picture. Other ImageBrief photographers have commented lately that ImageBrief does not determined whether or not they have releases on at least some of their accepted pictures. They seem to simply accept that every image submitted has all necessary releases.
Law360 reports that photographer
Carol M. Highsmith has filed a copyright infringement suit in New York against
Getty Images. Damages could be worth $1 billion.
Shutterstock investors often ask my opinion of stock photo industry’s future and the potential for Shutterstock’s growth. I tell them growth will slow significantly. Demand from customers willing to pay for the images they use will decline. Shutterstock has grabbed about all the customers they can from Getty so there is not much potential for growth there. Adobe will take a much bigger share of the market. Recently an investor asked me, “What would you do if you were Shutterstock?” Here’s what I told him.