Of the millions of stock images which ones are actually being purchased and used by customers? Photographers trying to earn a living need better information about exactly what images are selling so they don’t waste time shooting things no one is interested in buying.
When I got into the industry it was possible to shoot whatever you liked, or what you thought customers might need, because there was enough demand and prices were high enough, that even if a lot of what you produced never sold you could still earn enough from those that did sell to earn a decent living. That is no longer the case.
In those days there was much more editing of submissions by experienced editors. The editors tended to supply photographers with a great deal of specific guidance as to what to shoot, and what to stop wasting their time shooting, than is the case today.
Today, if a photographer gets any guidance at all from his agency, it tends to be focused on broad categories of subject matter and general trends in demand rather than information targeted to the individual photographer’s skills and talents.
In the 1980s and early 1990s there was under supply relative to demand. Now, while demand has certainly increased, there is huge over-supply relative to existing demand. And prices for use of an image have fallen dramatically.
Now, photographers trying to earn a living must use their time much more efficiently. They can’t afford to waste time producing image, on speculation, that no one wants to use. At today’s prices photographers can’t afford to shoot randomly.
Why Don’t Agencies Supply Better Information?
1 - Probably the leading reason is that agencies are concerned about giving up proprietary information and losing market advantage. If other agencies know what is selling they will produce similar material and the original agency will lose market share.
I suspect that if we really knew the facts, we would find that customers buy very different kinds of images at different agencies. While many customers use multiple agencies, most customers tend to settle on one specific agency for most of their needs based on ease of search, customer service and price. Different customers have different need and they buy different images.
Agencies need to consider how much they are losing by not having more of the imagery their customers want to buy. They may not get that by just accepting more and more images into their collections and hoping – somewhere, somehow – the right image will be there for the customer to find.
The agencies also need to consider how much they may lose in the future if they have to rely entirely on part timers and amateurs for new images because professionals will no longer be able to justify continued production. The part timers shoot what they enjoy and don’t pay a whole lot of attention to what customers want. The professionals spend a lot of time trying to figure out and shoot what customers want because in that way they can maximize their revenue. Maximizing revenue is the primary reason for producing new images.
2 – Another reason for not supplying specific information about exactly which images are selling is the concern that photographers will copy the work of others rather than coming up with new ideas. Photographers worry that if all their competitors learn that images they have produced are good sellers, the competitors will start producing similar images, the long term sales value of the original image will decline.
While this will certainly happen in some cases, the benefit of having better informed photographers with a detailed understanding of what customers want, and focused on producing images that meet customer needs, may generate more revenue in long run than multiple sales of the first image in the category.
To reduce the direct copying agencies could use visual search to compare new images with images in the “have sold” collection. If the new image does not add elements that make it significantly better than the older image, then, at the very least, it should not be delivered as high in the search return order as the original image.
If customers were offered a “have sold” collection and a separate “never sold” collection with none of the have sold images in it that could solve a great deal of the problem. Some customers who don’t want to use images that no one else has used would go to the “never sold” collection recognizing that there may be some great new images there. Other customers would go to the “have sold” collection.
3 - Some might argue that if photographers are given this information the only thing they will shoot are the subjects in highest demand. However, only a small percentage of photographers will have the skill, talent and access to subject matter to shoot the highest demand subject matter. In addition, only a very small percentage of the people supplying stock images today will go to the trouble of doing the research and using the information available. But those who do use the information will produce the kind of images the agency needs to grow.
If the leading agencies want to continue to grow they need to help photographers learn by making databases of licensed images available for photographers to review.
For more information on this subject see “
Is Knowing Which Images Get The Most Downloads Enough?”