The economy is fraying at the edges having been battered by multiple storms and the outllook still looks gloomy. So what are the prospects for the jobbing photographer and stock image producer?

With austerity, recession and credit crunches on every page it is easy to feel pretty gloomy about business prospects at the moment. However they do say this is often the perfect sort of time to start a business and whatever the economic climate there should still be demand for images. In fact if plenty of new enterprises do spring from the ashes of redundancies each is a potential new image user. The thinking photographer will need to be on their toes to find and grab these opportunities! I think the same can be said for stock photography; there will still be demand but it may well change to reflect the times and require a fresh approach from image suppliers.

Stock photography comes in all forms and shades obviously but it is traditionally accepted that images with a positive feel are usually the way to go for sales, especially for shots looking to appeal to more commercial users. Blue skies are better than grey, healthy smiling attractive people outgun  the gloomy and prosperity oozes from each perfect picture.  There will always be a market for these often unimaginative but simply effective images; they sell an ideal that in itself encourages us all to continue to consume in one form or another.

However with it seeming increasingly likely we’re in for at least a sustained period, if not an age, of austerity with the odd recessionary dip thrown in to deepen the gloom I wonder how the demand for images may change. I’m not suggesting we’ll be in for a visually impoverished period; publications and advertisers will still want and need to use images, but that the style of images that may be in demand could shift considerably to reflect the reality of current economic times. Perenially ‘sunny’ images will just start to seem less and less relevant in many contexts and could even be counterproductive for some users by alienating their audiences. If you’re struggling to balance budgets, are out of work, facing cuts etc endless images of easy prosperity are going to start to grate. I think cute smiley girls with colourful shopping bags may have had their day for the moment. This will be true particularly for editorial stock where there is obviously a more immediate need to portray reality but I think even in advertising image buyers will increasingly be looking for images that while remaining positive and aspirational still reflect a reality that people struggling with a tougher economic times can connect with.

Alamy austerity stock photos lightbox.

The transition from one year to the next is for many a rare time when we pause for thought, taking some time to reflect on what has passed and looking forward to the coming year. In most endeavours consciously stopping to reflect and plan can be a valuable activity in improving performance and achieving better outcomes. However it is also one of those things that is easily put to one side in the midst of doing more pressing tasks and often sits in the mind’s ‘to do’ tray for an indefinite period.

Stock photography is certainly an activity that can benefit from serious reflection on the success of past actvities and deliberate planning for the future. This is true at whatever level of involvement in the industry a photographer is currently engaged, from the full time stock shooter to the casual contributor. Pausing to reflect on what your goals and objectives are and how successfully your current activity is moving you towards achieving these can help up the odds of success. Given the current pace of change in the stock photography industry even successful stock photographers need to consider if their current strategies and plans will continue to work in an evolving marketplace.

Success should obviously be defined. This is up to each individual photographer; but if you’re actively contributing stock it is presumably in the pursuit of some monetary reward. However, this shouldn’t necessarily dictate your whole outlook and planning. Indeed, while being mindful of what works and is likely to sell, freeing yourself to shoot more personal / out there / interesting stuff could well be productive in both creative and financial terms.

Personally I’m thinking shooting more varied / experimental stuff could be beneficial in potentially developing a style / niche that can help set the individual photographer apart from the masses of generalist photographers. This recent post at Photofocus is well worth a read for photographers and makes me think a less is more approach to stock photography with a distinct style that finds favour in the market could well be a good approach for 2010. So I may start off shooting more with a view to focusing down on a tighter style and/or subject once its ‘revealed’ itself. Then again I’m not making any resolutions to break!

Happy New Year.

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. The now departed Albumo tried this with some success in building a decent collection. It didn’t help them sell enough to survive though. Now along comes DepositPhotos, a site offering the potential to make $100 simply by uploading your images. Their Photographer Promotion Program is paying 20c per image uploaded and approved, up to 500 images. Crucially their payout minimum is $50, so there is potential to make a little bit of cash here simply by uploading your existing non-exclusive microstock images. Whether that return is worth the time and effort involved is up to individual contributors. I would suggest it is only worth the effort if the submission process is fairly painless and automatic as I suspect they may struggle to generate decent sales.

The problem with this approach is it will again create a collection that struggles to stand out from the established players. DepositPhotos pricing model is on the low side but with microstock prices there really isn’t any room to win market share with aggressive pricing, especially as the current trend is for higher prices and more ‘premium’ imagery like istockphotos vetta collection.

So can a new startup microstock agency succeed now? I don’t think it is going to be easy; we’re going to see consolidation in the next few years in my opinion and there will be fewer viable agencies. There are, however, still some areas of potential though where a new agency could grab enough of the market to be worthwhile both to its owners and contributors. What is needed is some sort of unique selling point that will attract buyers, it could be a niche focus, or a superior level of service of some kind. Vivozoom had the right idea with their image warranties which offered buyers something of real value that would have stopped some using other microstock sites. However it didn’t take long for the big boys to swipe the competition away with istock and shutterstock now also guaranteeing their images. Vivozoom now has to brand itself as the ‘first’ microstock site to guarantee its images as legally safe, which doesn’t quite have the marketing clout they enjoyed when they were the ‘only’ microstock site offering this. You can bet the same thing will happen as soon as another upstart comes up with a good usp!

Starting up a new microstock agency is still relatively easy. Building it into a viable business is going to become increasingly hard. To my mind the opportunity is only really now in building a relatively small specialised collection with content that isn’t available everywhere and that is tightly focused on a specific segment of buyers. That doesn’t sound like microstock at all does it? Welcome to the resurgence of traditional stock photography agencies!

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?

Following on from my previous post on the current opportunities to make money selling photos through microstock agencies here are a couple of observations that I think are worth both new and exisitng contributors pondering.

A few years ago early adopters of the microstock model could pretty much throw their shovel in the air, dig where it landed and make some money. You could shoot anything and everything, upload and see some downloads. That approach will not work now with photography, the market is saturated with enough general imagery that anything new that isn’t different and/or exceptional in some way will have, at best, only modest success. A more targeted approach is required, to use an internet business buzz word, you need a niche.

A niche may be subject matter, a particular style of photography, a unique take you have on your subject, or a combination of these things. For many photographers this is not necessarily an easy thing to find or develop; I know I haven’t developed one and I probably need to if I’m going to improve my microstock returns. The first step I have at least taken; realisation that it would be a good idea to think about this and work a bit smarter! If you’re thinking along these lines too take a look at picniche and see if any areas you might be able to shoot jump out!

Of course there are always exceptions and new opportunities. Many of the microstock agencies now accept video footage in addition to photos and vectors. Where any given subject or category will have many many thousands of images there will be far fewer footage clips currently available. Video could well be the new frontier and there is still time to get in early! With the release of the D90 Nikon opened up the possibility of creating high quality footage without needing too much extra gear so many microstockers already have the tools to shoot video. There is no doubt extra work, time, bandwith etc etc when working with video but to balance this licence fees are significantly higher and the competition is currently much less formidable!

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.

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?

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.

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.