360Photography

Preface:  There will be no images included in this entry. The point is to have the reader start reviewing the work of  great stock shooters. Stock photography is work and part of that work is research.  In this entry I have dropped names and agencies.  Now the research begins. Check out Part I of this series here. -DW

Stock photography has been going through an evolutionary process since the beginnings of photography as a popular hobby, and continues to be an industry in search of itself. The foundation is well established, but the end means is being continually in a state of flux by technology.

From its inception stock photography has been the process of making photographs on a speculative basis, for the most part, and despite the changes in the industry this notion has not changed.  Up until the early 1980’s, the collectives and libraries concentrated on global spot news, photo essays and photojournalism with a particular emphasis on editorial content.

One of the most respected of these original agencies, Black Star, who opened their doors in 1936, and remains a force in the editorial world to this day.  Many of the leading magazines, such as Time and Life, owe countless covers and visual content to Black Star, and its stable of noted photographers such as Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and other others.

Capa, Cartier-Bresson, and fellow photographers George Rodger and Chim Seymour would eventually move on and start the agency Magnum Photos. Magnum also attracted the best shooters of the day and concentrated on covering global wars and human interest photo essays.

Both Black Star and Magnum continue to be leading editorial content providers and are very selective of the photographers they will represent, ensuring editorial integrity as a cornerstone of their respective businesses.

Although there were stock houses concentrating their efforts on licensing commercial and advertising photography before the 1980’s, Miller Services and  Comstock were several of earliest libraries that blazed the way for photographers to have the possibility of earning a living shooting stock images exclusively.  As commercial image libraries matured, along came the likes of Tony Stone, Masterfile, Image Bank and many others. These agencies would license image rights, as opposed to selling a picture in what was known as a Rights Managed business model. Consequently an advertiser licensing the image could be assured of not having the image also licensed by a competitor, and this exclusivity came with a premium pricing formula.

Several of the early agencies accepted image out-takes from assignment shoots; however, they soon realized good stock photography had a unique look and feel and those agencies that didn’t maintain high content standards were eventually swallowed and spit out by the dedicated and exclusive stock houses.

During the so-called heydays of the 90’s and early into the new millennium, skilled stock photographers were experiencing annual sales figures in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more.  Many photographers would claim their average license fee was in the vicinity of $ 400 per license, and monthly revenue with the better agencies could be estimated to average around $ 17.50 to $ 20.00 per image on file, per month, and with some select artists that number was much higher. These were no longer the days where stock images were outtakes from an assignment, but highly executed imagery with very sophisticated and targeted approaches to visually portray the art directories anticipated copy writing.

In the early 1990’s Corel™, out of Ottawa, Canada, started buying images outright for inclusion in CD bundles that being sold to a relatively new player in the field – desktop publishing.  By the mid-90’s Adobe Photoshop™ was coming into the mainstream, and digital camera’s of some consequence were starting to appear by the year 2000.  Next was the digital revolution and the start of a whole new business model in the world of stock photography.

In 2000, based out of offices in Calgary, Canada, a new upstart called iStockphoto would turn the stock photo business into a period of uncertainly.  Based on a concept of primarily giving access to amateur photographers the opportunity to earn a few bucks from their pictures, microstock was born. No longer was stock photography the exclusive milieu of dedicated full time image makers.

Seasoned stock photographers had difficulty comprehending why anyone would want to give an agency their work for a royalty as low as 15%, especially when traditional stock was providing photographers, on average, 50% of the license fee. There was even further confusion when the micro agencies demanded the photographer ensure the image was categorized, captioned, keywords applied and a myriad of other backend metadata duties became the requirement of the photographer; this work that had previously been completed by the agency as part of their cost in the Rights Managed world.

Many cigar chomping photographers dismissed this new revolution that came crashing at their doors in the form of microstock. Within a very few years there was a deluge of microstock agencies available to photographers —mostly amateurs with no previous skill or training—but with the technology advances in both cameras and post production software it quickly became inevitable this tidal wave was here to stay and would be a storm that would inflict change in its evolutionary wake.

Many agencies today continue to offer Rights Managed content for their clients, clients who require the knowledge that they have the opportunity to license an image with some degree of exclusivity. These rights managed images continue the trend of being highly executed stock images with unique looks and feel. The same agencies also offer Royalty Free images for those clients who are not concerned if their business competition uses the same images in similar media.

While microstock initially featured the work of amateurs, there have been professional photographers who have learned how to make the model work for them, and, indeed, work very well. However, the majority of microstock contributors continue to be the part-time pro, or amateur, who are complacent with potentially earning a few bucks for pizza and beer.

It really is anyone’s guess at this juncture what the long term prospects for stock photography as a business will be, and whether the photographer will have the capacity to develop a successful business model. The one thing that is showing trends is the very fact that a phenomenal number of images are being loaded to stock photography portals every day. As with any business, stock photography also subscribes to the concept of supply and demand. With such an oversupply of certain categories the price for images has plummeted. In some cases agencies are giving away images for free in an effort to keep those potential clients who are browsing their site.

One thing is certain, good stock images will always be in demand. The question is whether they can be created and marketed in such a manner that everyone can earn a living? With a royalty retention of 20%, or less for the photographer, it is highly unlikely the ROI (Return on Investment) will be sufficient to justify being a full-time, exclusive stock photographer.

Who knows, in 5 years everything will probably have changed again.

Postscript:  In Part III we will start discussing the process of how to learn what makes a stock photograph. 

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

So You Want to Be a Stock Photographer, Part II

Digital Photography School

The photographer has spent a fair amount of time creating this image both in shooting the elements and model, and compositing in post production. But as a stock image – what does it say? How will the end user use the image for their messaging? License cost was 3 credits or about $ 2.58; photographer will receive about 52 cents. How much is the photographers time worth?

A few weeks back there was an opinion piece posted on dPs that raised the ire of many, and garnered supporters from others.  The fact remains that while it was an interesting read from a single individual, there were several inaccuracies in that piece.

First,  iStock was not the first microstock agency to enter the marketplace; the most widely known perhaps, but it definitely was not the first.  That claim to fame can be laid on another Canadian upstart – Corel.  While I can’t recall the exact dates, in was around 1993-94 time frame when Corel started to purchase images outright for inclusion in CD bundles and incorporation in Corel Draw and Word Perfect. In those days it was pretty much called clip art.  Now it can be argued that Corel wasn’t a microstock agency. I would suggest they were as they purchased images from amateurs and professionals alike. The only difference between them and an iStock, for example, was that Corel purchased the rights and owned the image whereas the microstock agencies today simply work on a royalty basis with the contributor.

The other inaccuracy in the article was the implication that agencies only provide 20% royalty to the photographer.  In some cases this may be true; however, there are also agencies that provide 50% royalty to the contributor, and any percentage combination below that which you can think of.  Usually, the extreme low percentages are in microstock and traditional agencies marketing RF images.  However, in order to compete traditional rights managed agencies are also making package and bundle deals that can see rights managed license fees dramatically reduced to levels even below royalty free image fees.

But let’s not get hung up on the 20% royalty. Yes, the contract most likely states that the photographer will receive 20% royalty from “monies received.” Let’s put that in context.  Somewhere else in that contract you are most likely giving the agency the exclusive right to redistribute the image through their other supply networks.  What this means is that you will not get 20% of the purchase price, but 20% of your contracted agencies receipts.

Put in context it translates to this:  Photographer A makes an image available to his contracted agency – let’s call them Agency X.  Agency X then places that image in the redistribution circuit with Agency Y.  (Photographer A usually does not know who Agency Y is or what the financial arrangement between Agency X and Agency Y might be.)  Agency Y licenses the Royalty Free image to a client for $ 10.00 USD.  Agency Y then remits $ 5.00 to Agency X (assuming their split if 50%), and agency X then redistributes its 20% obligation amounting to $ 1.00USD to Photographer A.

This is a really nicely executed stock image. Are the two ladies friends, or lovers? Is this image about fashion, seasons, or simply looking toward the future? The image provides options for the copy writer, and the more options provided typically the better sales. However, this image has only been licensed twice in more than one year. The license for appearance here cost one credit or about 60 cents; the photographer will receive, unfortunately, about 12 cents… it is most definately worth more just in production value alone.

So as you can see, if you are signed with a small agency who more than likely is clamouring to get their material with the large image machines that have far reaching marketing clout, you are more than likely only going to receive 10%, or less, of the initial license price.

Let’s put this financial translation into further context.  I am going to assume you are a Canon user, and you need a new popular lens; let’s say the 70-200mm F4L which retails for about $ 700.  You offer that you can warrant purchasing the lens because of your stock sales and over time you will recover the purchase price.  But wait, when you receive the $ 1.00 from that sale, that is not a deposit in your bank account.  How much time did you take to edit and prep the image by sizing and ensuring the right colour space? How much time did you spend ensuring the correct metadata and keywords were applied. How much is your time worth?  Now that you have received your royalty I suspect you have the usual income tax deductions that can range anywhere from 15-40% depending upon where you live. And on it goes – the list of expenses is endless. However, a general rule of thumb is to endeavour that you would like to retain 30% of your gross income as profit … although many stock photographers today are suggesting they are in a negative profit position and are getting out of the business.

Therefore, and assuming we are going to keep good business practises and retain 30% of the gross sale, we would have 30 cents from each sale from which to purchase that lens. (I don’t want to get into the minutiae of whether or not your capital reserve is included in your business plan.)  Quick translation realizes that we would have to make 2,333 sales in order to purchase that lens!  I can tell you that in more than 20 years as a full time stock photographer I have not had one image be licensed for even half that many times.

So the point of this primer on the financial benefit of the microstock industry and part-time photographer is this: There probably isn’t any financial benefit and in all likelihood it will cost you money.

So yes, if you want to continue shooting for pizza and beer go for it; but at the same time you should calculate all your costs, including time, to see if you would be further ahead by spending that time and money with family.

In the next installment we’ll take a look at cost per image versus return per image.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

So You Want to be a Stock Photographer, Part I

Digital Photography School