April 4, 2019

Part 2

The State of Stock 

From an Article I wrote on Stock Photography back in 2006

Royalty Free

I feel the big three agencies,  Getty, Corbis and JupiterMedia are trying to paint a more rosy picture of the industry and especially their cash cow RF than there actually is.  

They claim micro-sites and subscription pricing models won't have a big impact on the Stock Photo Industry and then turn around and embrace these new models, expand these new models, advertise them and market them over RF and RM and say with a straight face they will not effect the very RF and RM licensing models there undermining.  Cigarettes don't cause cancer people smoking them do.  They must see the traditional RF market peaking in terms of pricing and volume.  Why is that?  

We know that our income from RM peaked a few years ago and is on the decline.  We can expect more of same as these new price points dominate the stock industry.  I am not saying we can't have some good sales even some great sales but these kind of sales will happen less and less.  The question you have to ask yourself is should you continue to submit and I say YES!  You have to in order to keep up with dwindling returns on your images.  Without new blood in the system you are guaranteeing your failure.  

If you go to most big agency portals and do a generic keyword search more often than not RF images come up heavy on the first pages.  At some sites there home-page is a walking Billboard for Clip, you can see discounts offered on their clip products even gifts given if they sign up for one of their subscription services.  Check out Index Stock Imagery and WireImage for just a couple examples of what I am talking about.   

Everybody is using clip, it is mainstream.  The proliferation of images from studio production companies is undermining the perceived value of photography.  With so much content to wade through what image buyer has the time to really examine an image and fit it to their ad campaign, the motto now is "just good enough".  

The speakers talked about opportunities for themselves in this changing market place especially when it came to wholly owned images.  This offers them multiple ways to market images at different price points without having to give royalties to an assortment of individual photographers and other content suppliers.  They can then use these images in a subscription service ( with monthly download fees), individual RF sales online and RM sales in Stone+ or any other business scheme they feel can make them money.  I also look at the wholly owned image issue as a bargaining chip when these agencies sell out to a Multi-Media company.  With wholly owned images the new company doesn't skip a beat in marketing these images in their own products.

Wholly owned imagery is probably the worse news for the independent stock photographer because it means his images are competing with heavily art directed concepts that target the very clients his spec images are trying to sell to.  Royalties are an albatross around Jonathan Klein's neck and he wants to get rid of it now as he begins the last restructuring of Getty before he sells it.    

Many photographers see 'work for hire' or simply an employee of a distribution portal or studio production company as a more secure future rather than shooting on spec and hoping your images sell.

The image distributors don't want to wait for images.  Speed is profit.  They want more now to take advantage of this insatiable appetite for image content.  So they tap other smaller agencies, studios and now the amateur market that are looking to sell their content on a world wide distribution platform.  

I feel this is one source of my stress, is how can I keep up and shoot enough good imagery to increase income given that millions of imagery are uploaded daily onto the web.  Is there another way my images can reach the client?

These distribution portals are under the illusion that volume sales will make up for lower 'return per image'.  If you base your licensing model on low price and volume sales only and don't control the production of your product then all you have is a glut of new imagery being created for that market place by you and your competitors and pricing once again becomes the only way to gain market share and that is gained by lowering prices even further.  It’s a no win situation and the RM photographers are feeling the heat.  Also,  in any market place once you begin slashing prices there will always be some new venture capitalist who can lower prices even further by introducing another business model that further reduces pricing.  

Rights Ready and Riser

I don't think these new pricing schemes will increase my income much even though I will participate in them.  Bahar Gidwani former owner of Index Stock Imagery (he is selling Index to PhotoLibrary) says that he is not afraid of Getty's simplified licensing models because they still have the flavor of RM.  Clients demand simple straight forward online transactions.  My belief is this will further erode our income by once again competing on price alone to gain market share.  A bad deal for the individual photographer.  

Will clients look to PC (Photographers Choice) Rights Ready and PC RM as viable brands with quality imagery?  As more and more photographers get discouraged because of the lower income return from PC and move on to other distributors, the PC collection could lose its depth and quality of imagery and make it ineffectual to compete with the growing number of brands on the Getty site.  

Notice once again the treatment of the independent stock photographer.  The only way for us to get images posted on the Getty site is to pay.  Notice no open invitation to submit to Riser.

And what about this new brand called "Open".  Once again the marginalized independent photographer will be left out in the freezing cold and only the big shooters and major suppliers will be invited to participate.  I can feel a breach in the levee now and like New Orleans we are sinking.

CAN THE INDEPENDENT PHOTOGRAPHER SURVIVE

We are fighting against ominous trends in the Stock Industry and all of these trends are put in place to benefit the distributors and not the independent stock shooter.

" The image has to standout from the common place subjects that we see on a daily basis.  Mediocre images have little power anymore".  BS,  all I see are mediocre images parading around as insightful, cutting edge propaganda stroking some creative researchers ego but what real value do these images posses.  In my experience more often than not a great image is what fits the clients picture needs and usually this is a straight-forward and clean concept or subject that is composed, lit, and presented with good color saturation and photographed in a unique way.  Another words the traditional stock shot.  Who defines a great image the client if it fits his photo needs, society if the image transcends the ordinary and touches some internal chime in us all, the consumer if its trendy and hits them on a pop chart level.  We all shoot great imagery but if we are segmented out, marginalized into a lower priority brand (PC) who is going to see our stuff.  

I do think we need to push ourselves to shoot more intuitively instead of a straight capture of our subjects.  Evolve out shooting style, experiment with lighting, see deeper into the subject looking for that gesture that hits the universal.  Also, shooting for the web the images need to be well lit and have a clean concept presentation.  No extra clutter.  Clients are searching at the speed of clicks for that one in a million shot (literally).   

I have a recurring image in my mind of a sinking sail boat.  The boat has been hit with many torpedos.  The torpedos have names attached to them, clip, subscription services, micro-sites, copyright violations, wholly owned images, technology, overhead, work for hire, studio production companies, amateur market etc... and the photographers have climbed the mast and are clustered on the look out platform holding on for their lives and all are saying ," look I think I see a safe harbor ahead all will be OK".  

Declining budgets are driving image buyers to cheaper sources of imagery.  Just like WalMart corporations are squeezing their vendors to reduce costs and crank up the volume of image production if they want to see an increase in their income. On another level the internet allows companies to by-pass the middle man (ad agencies, art buyers) all together.  This in turn lowers the budget at the ad agency which in turn forces them to lower the image costs to stay within budget in order for them to compete when a corporation comes a calling.  

Check out the new trend at some companies web sites.  They are using customer images to sell their product. Consumer/crowd sourcing at its best, www.becu.org.  Some resorts are now crowd-sourcing imagery from customers that have visited their resort and are posting these images/videos as ads on their website.  This trend will continue and expand,  further eroding our chances of making sales. 

We have all heard this before but now it has become a standard reality.  The internet needs content and small image files are just fine.  I have a question that I think poses the main question facing Getty and the individual stock photographer.  How much would you charge for an image to be used as a 5 second ad on a ipod?  Folks that is where we are heading.  This insatiable appetite for cheap images is where the image market is going.  And that is why subscription clip and wholly owned images are the future for the distributors.

Jeffrey Burke talked about the long awaited media convergency that has finally arrived with accessible broadband.  Rich media delivered to the desk top.  " The new big wave that will hit the Stock Photo Industry will be to incorporate in the ad, pictures, text, spoken word, music, motion graphics and more all woven together into a seamless presentation.  He thinks that video/graphics is the next big opportunity for the distributors.  I agree, check out www.mediastorm.org.  This is more editorial/journalism but you can see the commercial potential.  

As the years progress consumers will demand this rich visual experience and where will that leave the still image?  

Jeffrey also talked about a concept introduced by Joseph Schumpeter an Austrian economist called "creative destruction".  "His theory of, gales of creative destruction, refers to the concept of industrial transformation that accompanies radical innovation.  For us this means that new technology or business practices become prevalent and create new market opportunities many older established business or whole industries might suffer serious decline or extinction".  Can you say the Independent Stock Photographer.  

The industry keeps touting how picture needs are increasing but I feel the more important question for us photographers is how are they getting those picture needs met.  The independent photographer cannot be only committed to the same old way of doing business.  We need to try and reach those customers, we used to make a living off, by having our images at many different price levels and yes as much as I hate to admit it at sometime in the near future, the micro-site level as well.    

Can we offer new related service that can re-connect with a distinct market segment we once sold imagery too?  Maybe we can offer along with our images a website that also offers consulting services, articles on shooting, lecture series on topics that hit your target image buyer business needs.  Nothing new hear but action is needed.  We see these kinds of websites happening all over the web now.  Can we bring something new to the table and attract a client base?

Can we change the way we shoot, not radically but enough to give image buyers a fresh perspective on an old theme?

We know its a buyers market.  We know photographers keep creating imagery even though this very creation is the cause of sinking prices.  We know distributors benefit more because it costs them nothing to have these lemmings produce more and more content.  We know it will get worse as China/India and others start ramping up their image content .  We know clients are looking for cheap/free images or they will just steal them off the web.  We also know we have no other choice but to keep moving forward and create imagery we believe will sell and look for the best portals to distribute our imagery.  

Gary Shenk from Corbis thinks that by doing these 4 things the professional can offer the client value that will seal the deal and make the sale.

1) Great Imagery

2) Strong Rights Management

3) Metadata and Search (good keywords)

4) Global Marketing and Distribution

I would add a fifth one,  Consistent high-res 50mb files cropped, cleaned up and ready for download.

What about these that could also separate out your talent from the growing mob.

1) Consistency in producing great images not a one image wonder

2) Knowledge of commercial standards ( model releases, invoices, copyright etc...)

3) Solutions to clients problems

4) Experience

5) Service

I have ranted long enough and I think sometimes the best thing is not to over think things but just act and move on.  I will be shooting and editing more images getting these images out there,  looking for new opportunities that can level the playing field and bring back the Independent Stock Photographer as a viable piece of the stock photo industry puzzle.  

Your friend in an archeological dig finding the bones of an early 21 century creature called dinophotograsoris,

Jim