Microstock
Chris Barton, managing director of Photographers Direct has written a humorous article on the
multiple use of microstock images that shows five young people—three women and two men—promoting the products and services of a dozen different companies, with copy that
would lead the reader to believe that these people were employees of all
these companies. Every rights-managed photographer will enjoy this
piece.
What an image is worth to a customer depends entirely on the customer's intended use. The size of the file delivered has very little to do with how an image might be used, or the value the customer will receive from using it. Granted, there are limits as to how a very small file can be used. But, there are many ways that a medium-size file can be used, with widely varying values. The biggest problem with royalty-free licensing, and particularly with microstock, is not that it prices certain uses very low, but that the system of pricing by file size has tried to ignore use in an effort to achieve simplicity.
One of the key things to understand about stock photography is why some customers are willing to pay more than others to use an image.
The stock photo industry needs a change in strategy so all images can
be made available for all uses at a reasonable price based on the value
the customer will receive from using the image. We need to get away
from the whole idea of rights-managed and royalty-free and recognize
that, in all cases, the price is based on use. Rights-managed licensing has always been much more about pricing
based on use rather than on managing rights. The vast majority of
rights-managed customers are not concerned with rights control or
exclusivity.
The photo discussed in this article is an almost perfect stock photo. It's not cutting edge; it's not trendy. It's not hip or cool. wshat it is is a photo that will license again and aagain for years....extending its revenue stream long after its production costs have been recouped. This is a photo with a very long tail.
In order to find a proxy for which seasonal holidays were important from a stock photography perspective, I decided to look at how many greeting cards were sent. Christmas & Valentine's Day were 1st and 2nd but I was surprised to find Mother's Day in 3rd place. This article goes into more detail about Mother's Day and also surveys stock photography search results associated with the term.
I was recently asked: "If you were shooting stock (hey, maybe you are...), would you be shooting for rights-managed, royalty-free, microstock or some combination?"
This is an interview with Holger Mette, an Australian photographer who's been traveling the world for two years earning his living from a small portfolio of photos he distributes in the microstock market. We discuss travel, photography and microstock, with example photos and links to his microstock portfolios.
[Source:
Microstock Diaries - used with permission. All photos Copyright Holger Mette]
We have done a bad job. A terrible job. If picking a photograph is all about its price and not its quality than we, the photo industry, have made a terrible job at selling our work.
Every time an editor, whether from an ad agency or a magazine decides to use an image because it is cheaper than the others, that means we have all failed to advocate for the real value of photography. We have failed, all of us, Photographers, agents, photo agencies to make the new generation of image buyers see the real value in our images. Thus the current situation.
There are two ways to approach shooting for the stock photo market. The first is to take images you love and hope that someone will want to pay you for them. The more businesslike approach is to try to determine what customers want, and one thing that is beneficial is that the subject matter in demand has not changed: what customers wanted five, 10 or 20 years ago is still in demand today.
"Sales of $1 images continued to generate six-figure incomes for the world's top photographers in 2009," begins the Fotolia press release that highlights the company's three top-selling images for last year. Combined, the three Fotolia top sellers gathered around 10,000 downloads, so the photographers' earnings are nowhere near as impressive as Fotolia claims; however, the images themselves offer an interesting perspective into current buyer needs.
For most of iStockphoto's best-selling photographers, the number of images downloaded per month declined in 2009.
This chart provides information for 198 of the leading contributors to iStockphoto. It shows the total number of downloads each photographer had as of May 1, 2009 and the minimum and maximum number of downloads the photographer had on December 31, 2009. We were unable to report exact figures for the period May through December because iStockphoto changed its reporting policy in June to only supply a greater than number that indicated the downloads were in a certain range. Using this data and interpolating for the first four missing months in the data we were able to make an estimate of the number of downloads each photographer had in 2009.
Photographs of many products and locations can not be used for any type
of commercial purpose without a release. Blanket releases for images of
these subjects are almost impossible to obtain. It is sometimes
possible to get a release for a very specific, clearly defined use, but
not for an undefined “stock use.” Therefore, if the stock
photographer’s goal is to license rights to the images he or she
produces the photographer may be better advised to avoid wasting time
photographing this subject matter. In some cases such images may be
used for editorial purposes.
After great success at producing and selling traditional rights-managed and royalty-free imagery for more than 25 years, Ron Chapple started producing microstock in 2006. By 2008, he went looking for new opportunities, and in 2009 -- the year when many other photographers struggled to survive -- he doubled his income compared to the previous year.
Getty photographer Carlos Sanchez Pereyra recently asked on Linkedin what others thought was the "best way to sell stock." There is no question that Getty Images makes more gross sales than any other brand, but it may not be the best place for most photographers.
In looking ahead to 2010, photographers should focus on how they will adapt to the new realities of the photography business.
Is Flickr a place for a professional photographer to display his work and sell images? Todd Klassy thinks so. Though now he is an amateur devoting three hours a week to shooting and another six to post production and studying photography, he intends to quit his job of 17 years and start working as a photographer full-time after the first of the year.
The story provides a rough estimate of iStockphoto sales and revenue growth since the company was acquired by Getty Images in early 2006. The figures for the years 2006 and 2007 are reasonably accurate because Getty Images was a public company during this period and reporting a great deal of detail about their operations. After the company went private in early 2008 it became more difficult to accurately estimate downloads and revenue.
For most of this year I have been tracking the number of downloads for 117 of the 150 most productive contributors on iStock. (I have been unable to identify the other 33 in the top 150.) Total downloads of the 117 during the last seven months represent about 17% of all iStock contributor downloads. Sixty-five of the 117 contributors have seen a slight decline in average downloads-per-month since March.
In the
previous story
we discussed four major trends in the stock photo industry and listed
eleven other related issues that photographers should consider
carefully as they try to determine the future prospects of their stock
photo business. Below I have discussed each one of these eleven in some
detail.
Stock images, creative stills in particular, have a steadily declining value in the eyes of the buyers. If stock is all an individual has to sell, it is beginning to look like that individual should expect to see steadily declining revenue going forward.
The numbers below show the number of downloads for each of 124 of iStockphoto’s 150 top earners in the months of March, April, and May of 2009, based on total download statistics supplied daily by iStockphoto and compiled by
istockcharts.
Market value for most products depends on how they are used---the value the customer receives. The distinguishing factor is often between
renting and
buying a product: from DVDs to photo equipment, renting based on value received is a very common practice, which has been all but eroded in the photo industry with the proliferation of microstock.
In March, iStockphoto chief operating officer Kelly Thompson told
Selling Stock that the company was working on a new search algorithm and a premium image collection. This Wednesday, iStock launched both. Thompson also confirmed that the Getty-owned microstock leader is on track to break another revenue record this year.