Stock photography survey

Stock Artists Alliance Industry Survey

RF vs RM earnings report in macrostock

A review of my 2009 at Alamy and Agefotostock.

Alamy soft or lacking definition

Alamy's rejection reason "soft and/or lacking definition", or the infamous SoLD, has become a bit of stumbling block for some Alamy contributors and provoked a fair bit of debate on their forums.

In an effort to start clearing up some confusion Alamy have updated their explanation of what they mean when they reject on the basis of SoLD. I say start because I expect this won't completely solve the problems and confusion and imagine they'll be coming out with a more in the future, probably with detailed examples.

While an Alamy rejection can be especially frustrating because of the way it knocks back all your images in the upload queue along with the one(s) rejected it should be remembered that Alamy do at least provide valuable feedback to contributors (on technical issues only as there is no editing at Alamy), which is not something you get from many agencies. So a rejection can at least be put to good use as a learning experience!

If you have an image you're a little doubtful about my main tip would be upload it on its own or in a small batch only. So if it does fall foul of QC you don't get a lot of other good images caught in the rejection too.

Stock photography licensing terms

I'm slowly building up a bank of articles over at fstop57 - the new home of this blog - that will hopefully provide a useful resource to both photographers and picture buyers involved in the stock photography industry.

At times it can seem a little silly to be writing about what you're familiar with and assume much of your audience will be too. However it is all to easy to forget how much can be jargon to those not so involved in a subject or coming it to for the first time.

I've been meaning to do more posts on the RF / RM licensing question for a while and recently read a worrying poll result over at Roberto's mystockphoto blog that reveals the extent to which professionals in the design industry are either ignorant or ill-informed on image licensing. This has motivated me to put up some basic information on stock photo licensing on fstop57.com as part of my resources section. Stock photo licensing basics covers the diferences between rights managed and royalty free licenses.

How to start a new microstock agency

Bandwagons keep on rolling long after there is really any room left to jump aboard.

I'm really quite surprised to find there are still new microstock agencies popping up. Sure it is relatively cheap and easy to throw a site up. However, it takes a lot more effort to build a worthwhile collection of images that might start enticing buyers. Microstock is not new anymore, so any new agency has to somehow differentiate itself to potential buyers who are already familiar with and buying from one or more of the top six microstock sites.

This is where most of the newer sites playing catch up are struggling; their offerings are largely duplications of what is already on offer from the established players built up by non-exclusive contributors seeing each new site as another potential outlet for their images. Potential that unfortunately is often not realised as the buyers don't come in enough volume (microstock is all about volume). Think about it. Why would they, if there is essentially nothing new on offer?

Microstock contributors are becoming increasingly wary of investing time and energy uploading to new startups and so new agencies are resorting to using pay to upload enticements. Read the rest of this post over at fstop57.com

Getty Images opens the flickr front door

I don't envy the picture editors at Getty. The news that they are opening up the Getty Flickr collection for anyone to submit a test batch of ten images to is like opening the flickrgates holding back a deluge of literally millions of images. Already the call for artists pool is overflowing with images, many of which you have to wonder why the contributors imagine Getty might be interested in. The people wrapping their eyeballs around the inevitatble influx of images are going to have a lot on after this announcement.

However, this news goes beyond provoking sympathy for Getty Images' soon to be overworked picture editors. It is pretty revolutionary. Getty used to be akin to the wholly grail of stock agencies. Being a Getty shooter was something to aspire towards; an achievement that meant you were producing work of quality and distinction. A commensurately impressive remuneration usually followed. Now anyone with a Flickr account can throw their hat into the ring.

A lot of long standing Getty photographers understandably lament the passing of the old days when they enjoyed their elite status but you have to hand it to Getty for not restng on their laurels. They've evolved with the changing market place by gobbling up istockphoto and partnering with Flickr to tap into the biggest collection of creative imagery online. As soon as Getty got in the commercialisation of Flickr was ineviatble. This latest move will effectively create a new stock collection cherry picked from the endless supply uploaded to Flickr.

Getty and Flickr have effectively democratised stock photography. Getting into Getty has gone from being the preserve of a relatively few invited high end professionals to an open door 'show us what you've got' policy. There has been the pay to get in Photographers Choice for some time, but that was $50 an image and required high end cameras. The Flickr collection requires a minimum of 3MP! Your phone could quite possibly be adequate to get you images into Getty. Seriously, most microstock sites have tougher technical entry requirements.

This is because Getty are responding to market demand for images that have a feeling of real life and this demand is often coming from market sectors that don't need huge files. Its more about the image being right emotionally, not technically. The defunct photoshelter collection was thinking along these lines; they were on to something but didn't last long enough to make it happen. Getty saw this, and crucially realised Flickr was the quick way to build this new collection.

So, should we all be Getty Photographers now? Check out this thread on the call for artists group and you'll see not everyone wants to jump into bed with Getty. Personally I hate the 20% royalty to photographers, but then you come around to the old chestnut 20% of a big pie is often better than 50% of a small pie. Getty's pie is undeniably large; their credits are easily found and they dominate many markets through sheer size. I'm undecided at the moment but will probably upload some more images to Flickr with a view to putting in my ten to apply. There is no obligation to accept any offer Getty make, and if I decided to knock an acceptance back I could at least brag I turned Getty down. Thing is, I'm not sure "Getty Shooter" will carry the status it currently does for much longer.

What do you think?

Stock photo ideas are everywhere

Sometimes it can be a struggle to come up with new ideas and concepts to shoot for stock photography. Yes, that's me scratching my head trying to come up with my next (who am I kidding?) big idea.

Doing a bit of self portrait modelling for yourself can be uncomfortably introspective sometimes. I don't see the back of my head that often. On this occassion it prompted some unforeseen keywording to take in that worryingly thin area that seems to be developing. Dare I say balding? Well for keywording, at least, I have.

The good news is the photo has sold on Alamy. So at least I can afford to try my luck with whatever magical solution Shane Warne is pushing at the moment. Or I might just thin out gracefully. There could be potential for a series of photos perhaps. Always look on the bright side, silver linings and all that.

Is the gold rush over in microstock photography?

Let me start by making it clear it has never been easy to make any significant money in microstock photography. The contributors making good money have worked hard to build successful collections over time that bring them the rewards for their efforts. However, a few years ago it was realistic for many "Mom and Pop" point and shoot snappers to upload their photos and earn some cash on the side. Some of these discovered they had real talent, saw the potential and went on with work and perseverance to become the people who now make significant income.



The question now is whether it is still possible for a new contributor to start from zero and build a portfolio in the microstock industry that will make them a reasonable return, at least, for their efforts. My short answer is a qualified yes; it can still be done but it is a lot harder with the level of competition now in terms of both quantity and quality of images continually being added. A talented contributor prepared to put in sustained effort could still build an asset - a portfolio - of images that will earn them residual income and possibly develop a career shooting for stock if desired. However the days of submitting snapshots from compact cameras and making a little second income, I think, are pretty much over. Any new contributor needs to being going into this with a high level of skill, good gear and the stamina for the long haul.

Kind of ironic in a way. The barriers to entry into the microstock business have started to rise! There is an interesting discussion on this going on over at the shutterstock forums which is worth a read for anyone considering their next move in microstock. A lot of valuable insight from experienced contributors is being shared in addition to some inspiring examples of what can be achieved.

Selling stock photos in the blogosphere

Is the blogosphere the next big battleground in stock photography?

Newspapers and print media are like walking wounded staggering from the cruel sucker punch the global financial crisis has dealt them. Old media companies that survive will look a lot different in whatever guise they manage to make work and there will be far fewer printing presses rolling out fresh pages. The action is online now, and this has implications for photographers who are finding traditional markets are using fewer images and/or paying less and less for the rights to publish.



Increasingly the demand for images is online and every agency from Getty on down is doing something to promote their content for web use. Where it gets particularly interesting is in the potentially massive but hard to sell to micropublishing world that the Internet has facilitated. The blogosphere is the biggest and most obvious part of this. There are a lot of blogs, I've no idea how many, lets say 3 twillion for the sake of argument, which is academic anyway as the number will have grown exponentially by some dizzying factor by the time I finish this riduculously longwinded sentence. Where were we?

Yes, how to get bloggers to buy images? Pretty tricky given the presumption of "free" amongst many web users and the availabilty of creative commons content on flickr. Alamy, to their credit, are thinking about this, but their novel use scheme wasn't too well received amongst contributors. I have a feeling they and the rest of the 'traditional' agencies better get some sort of working plan together quickly as the microstock agencies are looking to tap into this market and have the ready advantage that their pricing is already very affordable.

The microstockplugin for wordpress bloggers uses images from fotolia, which have to be purchased for use. Its a clever development which in theory may offer users a win win situation by allowing potential affiliate links back to earn them what they spend on photos for their blog. It also opens up the fotolia stock photography collection to a potentially huge new market.

Crestock has taken a different approach with freebieimages.com by attempting to tap into the potential for free advertising the blogosphere could offer. Freebieimages is also a wordpress plugin, the difference being users get to blog images from the crestock collection for free but they will be watermarked.

Both approaches seem to have potential to me, indeed I fully expect one, both or another will soon be available that offers bloggers the choice of a free watermarked image or a blog ready unbranded one for a few dollars more. Any bets which agency gets there first?

Deciding where to market and sell your photos

If there is one thing that is tempting about exclusivity it is the simplicity it would introduce into my workflow if I only had one outlet for my images to consider. While I don't personally think being exclusive to one agency is the right thing for me I can see it does work for some photographers. Only working with one agency obviously is a great time saver when it comes to submitting images. It doesn't stop there though as each agency has their own slightly different way of doing things so often optimising submissions for each one can be a time consuming task before submission begins.



Before that there are of course all sorts of decisions that often have to pondered; will it be RM or RF, Traditional or push it through the micros? This is one reason I like images like the one here of a competitor in the recent Tour of Tasmania cycling event. These guys often manage to have more branding on them than Picadilly Circus and move way too fast to grab a model release. So, despite the emrgence of editorial on some microstock agencies, I consider this an RM (rights managed or L on Alamy) photo and don't spend any time thinking about how or where to try and sell it; It'll go up on Alamy, and perhaps gekkoimages seeing as its Australian content.

Many stock images aren't as clear a decision though. I don't like the idea of putting the same images with agencies working at different price points so I often do have to decide where each image will try and earn me some crust. I think this is an interesting process we have to go through as stock photographers and will be analysing some choices I make in future posts.

How to become a microstock superstar

Despite the number of easy money and get rich quick type articles on microstock photography floating around the web I can tell you it isn't an easy gig. Yes you can make money selling your photos on microstock sites but it does take a fair amount effort, in addition to photography skills, creativity and some business awareness. It is work!

Photographers spend only a small amount of their time with a camera in their hands. To be successful at stock photography you'll quickly discover you need to invest time planning your shoots, editing and post production, keywording your selected images and eventually submitting to agencies. It can be a lot of effort and for measly returns as you start along the road of building a stock photography business. Understandably his is why many photographers quickly tire and never build a worthwhile portfolio that could bring them residual income in the future.

So how do the microstock superstars do it? With the micro agencies only a relatively recent phenomenon how have the contributors earning serious incomes built such successful businesses so quickly? Well there are inevitably some variations between each case and it goes without saying these guys have worked hard making the most of their talent for producing high quality images that the market needs.

On top of talent and effort I think there is an extra element that the most sucessful microstock photographers have incorporated into their workflow that the vast majority of stock photographers haven't. Help. Pretty simple hey? To grow a business you usually need to get help one way or another and stock photography is no different. Take a look at Yuri Arcurs incredible studio set up and insane second photographer productivity to see the extreme example of what we should all be doing!

The trouble is, I think many photographers are inherently one-man-band type operators; it is the personality disorder that predisposes you to photography! So the new improved services from Lookstat could be of real interest to many microstockers ticking over and making some decent income but struggling to break into the next level. Outsourcing keywording and submission tasks would free up a lot of time to do more shooting. It'll obviously depend on costings and how productive in shooting more images a photographer can be with the time saved but it does seem a service that could help a lot of photographers contributing to microstock.

Extended licences boost microstock earnings

I almost titled this post "extended licences and the microstock myth" just to fling a cat amongst some pigeons!

After checking some stats across some of my stock photography outlets I'm again noting how microstock is becoming more and more important as part of my photography business. A couple of new sales really highlight this. On Alamy I found this image of a couple browsing properties in an estate agents window had sold.



It is a common theme for a stock photo and this one has sold a few times over the past year.

Over at istockphoto I found the usual reliable stream of sales with the nice surprise of an extended licence download of this image of a man writing with two pens.



Which sale do you think made me the most money? The extended licence download on a microstock site earnt me double the commission that the RM licence for editorial newspaper use in the UK did through Alamy. Food for thought. Especially when you consider that was my only sale that day through Alamy and most days there will be no sales at all! On istock that EL download was in addition to a reliable daily quota of downloads averaging a return of around $1 each. I'm not exclusive on istock either, so those images are ticking away across six other microstock sites too.

There are still plenty of photographers who ask, with a great deal of incredulity; "why would you sell your images for 25c?" If 25c was the reality of microstock photography revenues they would have some point, but it never has been and it is getting increasingly far removed!

The microstock model has always been based on volume of sales so looking at the return from one individual download makes little sense. Instead the return per image over a period of time needs to be considered, just as in traditional stock photography. Compared on this basis the two models stack up much more closely. In fact micro is currently making me more money! Of course it would only take one or two big licence fees through my traditional agencies to reverse this, but that is only a possibility. The revenue from microstock photography, on the other hand, is much more reliable, and currently growing without me adding much to my portfolios.

This is not argument for focusing entirely on micro, more for not dismissing it as an option. Personally I feel having a interest in both sectors of the market is sensible. The images above are compared simply because sales they made popped up at the same time. The Alamy image is obviously not appropriate for RF use and a good example of how Alamy can offer an outlet for photography that isn't appropriate for microstock.

Stock photography in use

I took this fairly mundane looking photo as an illustration of how stock images can end up being used. This is the side of the local hardware store, exhibiting some fairly bland stock photos. They're so bland I doubt they even register with most passers by but you know what? Bland they may be, but they've obviously sold at least once! Stock photos often aren't up to much creatively, but if they illustrate a point for an end user that is what matters.

This is the sort of competent illustrative imagery that microstock sites can be a good outlet for. They are never going to set the world on fire but are useful and can over time with regular downloads make a quite decent return. For shots like this I personally now favour microstock marketing where I can rely on getting a reasonable RPI (return per image). Placed with traditional agencies images like this are now a gamble on the unlikely event of a sizeable licence fee.

Images that might set the world on fire? Well, despite istockphoto's Vetta I still don't want to go the micro route with what I consider my more valuable work.

green recycling concept

green recycling concept
Originally uploaded by alexhd57

Big(ish) sales on micro stock photography sites

The usually heated debate about the merits vs inherent evilness of micro stock photography is really tired and, frankly, academic by now. Like it or not micro pricing is a reality and the only real question for stock photographers is if and how they want to be active in this section of the market. It's never been an easy decision for many photographers and I believe is becoming harder as the pricing differentials between the various business models of photo agencies are becoming increasingly blurred.

While the price points and returns to photographers from micros have been creeping up many photographers with traditional agencies are finding RPI (returns per image) being increasingly pressured downwards and sales generally dropping off. I have a foot in both camps and can say my own experience is reflecting this.

Increasigly with my 'traditional' agencies I'm finding many sales in the $20 - $50 range and fewer over $100. After commissions this puts the return to me in the same ball park as an extended licence type sale on a micro, or a few good sized regular downloads; which are a lot more reliable! I've mulled this point recently as one micro site, canstockphoto, has suddenly become a much more attractive place to market photos. The reason is a tie-in with fotosearch.com, a long established portal for stock photos. This has obviously helped drive traffic to can stock photo, which I'd previously found too quiet, and increased downloads generally.

However, it has also suddenly opened up images with canstock to the possiblity of 'regular' downloads which attract more 'traditional' fees. In the past month I've had two of these netting me commissions better than some of my sales at Alamy, on top of an improvement in the steady flow of micro priced downloads. It has definitely put can stock photo back on my list of sites worth uploading new images for the micro market to.

This is a blog about photography.

Despite recent posts it really has nothing to do with tennis. So, to segway seamlessly back towards more appropriate posts; here's a stock photo I made down at the tennis club when the courts were green. Now they've resurfaced them I'll probably go and shoot some more tennis photos with blue courts!



This image can be licenced at agefotostock.

Shooting recession

Unfortunately the big R word is everywhere at the moment but every recession does present opportunities of one sort or another. Even bankers booted out of the city sometimes find a silver lining in their downfall; www.ft.com/afterthecity.

I shot this stock photo of action on the stock exchange a few years ago, but it's been enjoying a little revival in sales recently as it seems to illustrate the turmoil and potential opportunites that are out there at present.



See the shot in use over at the new website for Australian corporate advisory and public affairs firm, Andromeda Partners.