Solving The Problem Of Too Many Images

Posted on 1/24/2014 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (3)

Yesterday, I wrote about the problem of the growing size of image databases and how this is making it difficult for customers to easily find the right image for their projects. Many good images are never seen by anyone because they get buried in the search returns delivered.

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Copyright © 2014 Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.

Comments

Bill Bachmann Posted Jan 25, 2014
Jim,

You always are telling (especially beginners) everyone to send to Microstock and give them away basically. Now you write complaining and now say let's raise the prices of the "good" ones.

Why don't you tell everyone --- "Don't give you images away hoping to sell many times for $1 each time. " Encourage new photographers--- and also the experienced ones --- to only send their images to RM or RF sellers! Then if that message gets out, then the amount of REALLY CHEAP images that are GOOD will drop and customers will then be forced to pay your "minimum " you talk about.

But if you keep writing -- as you often do -- that everyone should try to sell Microstock cheap and make up with it on volume ..... that will defeat your whole NEW premise of raising prices to some minimum. It does not happen period!

When I lecture new people in stock, and in my books, I totally tell them NOT to sell to Microstock for cheap. That is what you are saying now with the minimum, but you can't also say send everything to Microstock. Even your hero Yuri has stated clearly that the Microstock model "does not work!"

What do you think, Jim? Don't try to do it both ways....

www.billbachmann.com

Charles Cecil Posted Jan 25, 2014
Jim: This is a very thoughtful proposal which seems to have a lot of merit and I hope it gets some serious discussion in the marketplace. However, popularity alone cannot be the sole factor used in arriving at price. You just barely touch on the cost, difficulty, and time required to make an image. I can't use a tripod at a national monument in Washington, D.C. without first getting a permit from the National Park Service (unless I'm very quick and very lucky and the park rangers are busy doing something else). Some monuments, like the Korean War and the FDR, require additional permissions from other organizations or from the individual sculptors. This is onerous and time-consuming. Sometimes getting permission to enter work sites or factories or private grounds requires permission in advance. Similarly, if I go to Senegal to get images it costs me more than if I go to Baltimore. Yet today all of these images will be treated equally by most agencies, priced by the same calculator. A photo of offloading a container ship in a busy harbor, which maybe required an hour of discussion and even a background check before being allowed entry, will be priced no differently than a still-life of a bowl of apples taken on my kitchen table. You note the problem that "all images are of equal value." Clearly we also need to find a way to factor into your proposal some way of recognizing the costs and time required to produce uncommon images.

I think you've made a great start toward a new pricing paradigm. I hope it gets a lot of discussion.

Chuck Cecil www.cecilimages.com

Charles Cecil Posted Jan 30, 2014
Jim: On reflection, I have this additional comment about the problem of pricing "unique" images, or images that incur significant costs to produce, and how to treat them differently from the "all images have equal value" rule that governs so many agency collections today. In fact, PhotoShelter's model already offers the photographer a way of dealing with this. PhotoShelter is not a stock agency of course, but its website offers participating photographers a price calculator (FotoQuote) so that it is possible for a customer to license an image directly from the photographer's website hosted by PhotoShelter. The PS solution to the "high-value image" problem is that every photographer can adjust the FotoQuote calculated price for any single image by any percentage the photographer wants. You can both discount from 100% or add to the 100% price if you think the image deserves to be licensed only for a higher price. If PS can offer this option to its 70,000+ photographers, why can any of the other agencies also make such a pricing mechanism available? Best wishes, Chuck

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