What to do with an Editor that won't or can't edit your submissions. Your first reaction is to yell and scream at him or her that they are not doing there job etc..
I have been submitting images to photo agencies for almost 30 years and have had an up and down relationship with my editors. Years ago the relationship with editors was personal. They were your friends and you saw them one on one at Stock Agency meetings and you took them out for lunch and vis versa. There was an appreciation for the images you were creating back then and they wanted and needed a whole range of subjects. Fast forward to 2011 and we have a whole new can of worms. Technology ( has slammed the Stock Photo Business model (cheap, cheap images, sound familiar) and has made the proliferation of images on the web and small hand held devices easier than ever to shoot, upload and get seen and everyone is a content provider for the webisphere. I mean everyone. Given this, do we really need quote "professional photographers" anymore. They seem so high and mighty thinking they are something special and have the inner knowledge that allows them to charge an arm and a leg for services and images to be used in print and web marketing. Why I can do this and keep within my budget and I can take what I used to pay the photographer and now keep that for my own baseline profit. Consumer generated content began the tsunami of images on the web and now studio production photographers are finalizing the race to the bottom pricing by putting the finishing touches on the Stock Photography coffin by submitting to Micro Stock, creating an ever increasing pool of great imagery at rock bottom pricing, great job! Cheap imagery is cannibalizing everything in its path and it won't be long before the big Photo Agencies sell out to Yahoo or Google and give them a business selling platform to sell everything under the sun.
There are still good editors out there that respect photographers and know that to create consistently good images it takes planning, time, money and talent. I will go through what I believe is happening in the Stock Photo Industry that is affecting the Photographer/Editor relationship.
1)There is a generation gap between the new young editors and the old guard stock shooters. What you did in the past is irrelevant to them now. They want edgy fast paced lifestyle imagery with bite and realism. These new editors are juggling alot more than the old style editors that had the luxury to just edit a certain stable of photographers and that was his main job, editing and communicating client image needs to them.
2) Added to this is the financial collapse of the economy and the cutbacks to the agencies staff. In the past most Photo Agencies needed alot of everything as they built up there image files to fill gaping holes in the requests for subjects made by clients. Now they are overwhelmed by the amount of imagery coming in on every subject imaginable and don't know how to handle it.
They have to edit for there Microstock brand, their Rights Managed brand, their Royalty Free brand and now video. In the old days there were enough editors to go around whereby each photographer felt that they were getting some attention.
3) The Rights Managed Independent photographer submitting his imagery to agencies has been sent to the back of the line. Your imagery just isn't as important to the agencies anymore as it once was. You can spend $1,000's of dollars producing a shoot and get one or two images selected, if your lucky, when in the past most or all were accepted into the agency. We cannot compete in volume with the Studio Production Companies and the over the top numbers of consumer generated content the masses are submitting on a daily basis. Think about it. The Stock production companies have the inner ear of the editors and art directors at the agencies. They can produce concept imagery by the thousands tailored specifically to the agencies needs and uploaded and out the door so to speak on a weekly basis. Where the individual photographer has to come up with a concept, scout locations, buy the props, set up the shot, shoot and post process the imagery etc.., all time consuming and hope that his images that he created catch the eye of an editor that has already seen similar subjects and rejects all the imagery without even a real look at the submission. Agencies do send out Creative Research briefs but one gets the impression that these requests are fillers for what the studio guys missed.
5) Check your attitude at the door. Your submissions now go into a folder on some editors desktop and you wait and wait for any kind of edit but you end up sending e-mail after e-mail in a few months begging the editors to at least look at your submissions. And even then they are so overworked that the silent responses to your requests is numbing. And to make matters worse some agencies still have the photographer send in cd's that cost you time and money to burn and send by mail. Where bitching and moaning in the past might have worked nowadays it usually falls on deaf ears. Your just not that important to the overall scheme of where the Photo Business is going. Get in line and shut up and maybe if we feel like it we'll get to your (over a year) submission seems to be the attitude of some editors.
An editor still needs to respect the photographer that takes the time to submit a tightly edited group of images with PR/ MR ready and the majority of editors do respect the photographer/editor relationship. But there are a few that seem to get caught up in the heady art directed power trip and can't be bothered by the lowly independent photographer because his job is more important dealing with the heavy hitters in the industry. These editors miss out on some great images that could be selling for them but aren't because they haven't been edited..
Here patience is a virtue. It pays to be calm and not let your emotions run rampant and do or say something you might regret. Even though you are boiling over with frustration that a quote "professional" is not doing his/her job they are being paid to do.
All a photographer can do is try and be as professional as possible and not get into a blame game with what is happening in the Stock Photo Business. The internet is a free for all but if you stand your ground and respect your efforts to create great imagery you have a chance to bypass the Photo Agencies and sell direct to you targeted audience. In the web era you are not as reliant on the Stock Agencies as you once were. So the moral of this story is to have many revenue streams for your imagery and not to be dependent on just one for your income.
Next, some things to consider before submitting to Agencies.
Jim Corwin
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