When one analyzes the market for images, it is easy to see that the stock photography business seems to be classified into three image groups that clients can browse and license. Press and news images, creative photographs and a mountain of other visual content that goes from cheap to very cheap, defined as Microstock, although if we want to go lower on pricing, we can also find masses of free pictures from unknown, if not desperate authors, produced to generate internet traffic.
agefotostock, a Spanish company with offices in Barcelona, Madrid, New York, and Paris, has recently launched their newest website classifying images in precisely the three groups they believe the market for photography is organized today.
Three distinct sections identified as, “
Hot off the Press,” “
Creative Stock Photography” and their “
Micro-priced” collection, branded as “
easyFotostock,” clearly indicates the company’s intentions.
While “
News & Press” is their latest offer,
creative, editorial and educational images have been the running horse agefotostock has been riding for many years. In addition
video and vectors are very present on their website. While their “
easyFotostock” collection of micro priced images doesn´t reach rock-bottom prices, nor serves up traditional subscriptions, it offers EasyPacks and excellent microstock content at competitive pricing on the low-end spectrum without killing the rooster.
The company, agefotostock, has been in the market for 48 years and is one of the longest existing stock photography agencies in the world today. It seems they are not ready to abandon the business yet and are pushing forward to continue competing in photo licensing. Their fundamentals are based on the tenacity of their in-house technological developments, the most remarkable being the “
Technological Hosting Platform,” or
THP for short, which handles the
83 million images from more than 450 collections supplied to agefotostock by over 200 providers of pictures and thousands of their photographers. The collection is growing by some hundred thousand images a month and has seen a massive increase in the daily amount since they have started to offer press images.
The latest service that agefotostock has launched is the
PRESS and NEWS offer that comes with a separate search functionality integrated within the same THP engine, therefore capable of offering the PRESS service to those THP distributors interested in such distribution. Their Press & News section provides an open and accessible approach to the business, as compared to the closed door policy of traditional press agencies where access to browse images is only allowed after formal and procedural registration. In this aspect, agefotostock welcomes a more modern concept, watermarking their images on the fly and making them available to anybody at any time.
The news content is suitable for most of the
74 agefotostock distributors worldwide, all using different levels of functionalities from their THP connection. They will be able to increase their offer in their local markets when they are ready to take on and distribute Press & News imagery, at the same time benefitting from multiple API services that vary from single searches to remote database ingestion, high-res downloads as well as photo, vector, and video storage services.
Alfonso Gutierrez, CEO of agefotostock, when asked about his company’s move to simplify the business into three primary segments and to push for a “global content offer” said: “
We have seen the business change profoundly in recent years thanks to Internet functionalities that helped to transform it from licensing images at sustainable prices to one that’s now struggling to live out of licensing millions of images at few cents each and we had to do something about it. Our “global offer” – Press, Creative and Cheap Imagery in one single website offers convenience to a larger client base while giving new opportunities to many of our THP users and distributors.”
Lynn Poh, agefotostock’s International Manager, added: “
we’re seeing a definite interest from clients and most THP partners, who have been requesting for us to expand our offer from the creative to more editorial and press content. Our IT team has tackled this great challenge very adeptly, transforming our website and internal systems into something more modern and in tune what our clients and distributors are demanding, and within such a short timeframe.”
With the launch of this “global offer” of creative, editorial and low-priced images, agefotostock continues to work towards improving and developing new functionalities to provide a better service and strengthen partnerships with existing and new clients and providers and distributors.