In working to license rights to your photography, you need to recognize that there is a tremendous oversupply of images. So while your images are certainly much better on a quality and artistic level than most of the images out there, unfortunately that isn’t all it takes to make sales. As I said in my most recent post, getting the images seen by potential customers is the big problem.

Here’s a list of the number of images in a few categories at 4 of the major distributors.

Statistics show that the vast majority of customers choose an image from those found in the first 300 reviewed in a web search. Very few look at more than a few hundred images in any category before making a decision either to buy, or go somewhere else. So the question is how do you get your images shown in that first 300.

Customers can’t buy what they don’t see. At most sites the newest images uploaded play a major role in the sequence images are shown. This means that newly uploaded images have a chance of being seen in the first weeks or months after being uploaded. But it won’t be long until they are pushed down below that 300 level.

Using additional keywords to define specific aspects of an image may keep your image high in the search returns for a longer period of time – assuming some customers actually use the words you’ve inputted to search for images. Specifics don’t always help because many customers are looking for more generic images.

Algorithms Have Replaced Editing

Twenty years ago customers would call a picture agency for research, describe what they were looking for and the agency’s researchers would go through the files and pick a selection of images that they thought would fit the customer’s needs. The researchers got to know the best images in their collections and developed a sense of what their customers wanted. New images weren’t sent out just because they were new.

Now, all that personal visual judgment is gone. At the rights-managed and traditional royalty-free agencies the personal judgment of image quality and appropriateness of the subject matter has been replaced by computer algorithms that are heavily dependent on words.

Buyers Often Follow the Herd

The microstock sellers (iStockphoto, Shutterstock, et al) do offer a variety of ways for the customers to organize search returns. One is usually the number of times an image has been downloaded or purchased. There aren’t any good public figures on how frequently customers use any of the sort options, but it is believed that a significant percentage of customers sort on Number of Downloads when it is an option. This gives the customer the benefit of quickly seeing the images that a huge number of other customers found useful and purchased.

In one sense the picture research principle is still working. But, it is now much harder for that new image that has just arrived to ever get seen unless the customer is smart enough to do a search for newest images as well as a separate search for most downloads.

Take iStockphoto for example. The top-selling waterfall image has been licensed more than 2,000 times; mountains, 1,500 times; domestic cats, 1,500 times; and tigers, 1400 times. I encourage you to go to iStockphoto, search for the subject matter in your collection, sort by downloads, see how many times some of the images have been downloaded and how long they have been on that site.

Look at some on the first page, but also look at the 100th and 300th image to see how quickly the number of downloads falls off. This will give you a good idea of the demand for that subject matter.

Traditional Sites’ Methods Mysterious

Traditional sites (RM and RF) don’t offer a variety of search options like the microstock sites do. With traditional sites the search order is pre-determined by the distributor and the customer must take-it-or-leave-it.

Traditionals do use complex computer algorithms that attempt to bring certain images to the top, but often they are based on which images will generate the most revenue for the distributor (lowest royalty percentage for the creator) rather than a visual judgment of image quality and appropriateness that a good editor might make. In some cases weight is given to the number of times an image has been viewed, put in a lightbox, or licensed. Part of the problem is that the information about how the algorithms work is considered proprietary and not shared with the image suppliers.

Some Good News About Microstock

More and more customers are going to the microstock sites to find most of the images they need. Microstock prices, while still low, are going up. Prices for RM images are going down as the sellers of these products try to compete with microstock. Many RM images are now being licensed for prices lower than microstock The proportional share of images licensed as RM relative to the share licensed as microstock is declining steadily.

Most of the RM companies (Alamy excepted) will want exclusive rights to the images (and similars) they accept. To maximize earnings it is important to have your images in as many different places as possible so they can be seen by the broadest possible cross-section of customers. You can put the same images with multiple microstock sites plus Alamy on a non-exclusive basis.

For more information check out: Getting Images Seen, 2011 Stock Photo Market Size and Average Return from iStockphoto.

I’m regularly contacted by photographers wanting to know how they can license rights to their images in today’s market. Recently I was contacted by a nature and wildlife photographer whose work was excellent. This photographer regularly conducts photo workshops where he teaches others how to take great scenic and wildlife pictures. Here’s what I told him.

The challenge is getting your images where customers can see them. Two good specialist wildlife agencies in the U.S. are Animals Animals/Earth Scenes and Minden Pictures. However, today most customers are going to large online databases to find the images they need.

Among the agencies that license images at rights-managed or traditional royalty-free prices are: Getty Images, Corbis, Alamy, Veer, Masterfile, Superstock, AGE (Spain), Marutius (Germany), Picturemaxx (Germany), and FotoSearch in the U.S. (FotoSearch doesn’t accept images from individual photographers, only agents and production companies.) In addition there are four microstock sites – iStockphoto.com, Shutterstock.com, Dreamstime.com and Fotolia.com – that you may want to consider.

Ask Questions Before Signing a Contract

Most of these major RM and RF marketers not only accept images from individual photographers but also from many smaller agencies. If you put your images with a smaller agency with a good reputation chances are that some of the images will end up in one or more of these major databases.

Before signing with an agency that licenses work as RM or RF, ask for the names of the distributors that represent their work. Also try to determine the percentage of the agency’s gross revenue that comes from direct sales to customers as opposed to sales made through distributors. The problem with distributor sales is that the photographer has to give up a double cut of the fee paid.

One of the first things to decide is whether you are committed to licensing your images as RM or traditional RF, or whether you are willing to accept the microstock philosophy of volume sales at much lower prices. If you license your images as RM there is a possibility of getting multi-thousand-dollar sales, but such sales are very rare.

Both Approaches Can Pay Off

The odds of making a big advertising sale in today’s market are about the same as winning the lottery. It’s not that your images aren’t good enough to compete at that level. It’s that they will be competing against so many other reasonably good images. If you put your images in traditional RF the top price you can get is less than $1,000, but the odds of making a sale at all are about twice as good as having an image on an RM site.

Today, very few photographers are earning enough from stock sales alone to support themselves. On the other hand I think there are about the same number of microstock photographers earning in excess of $75,000 a year as there are traditional RF or RM photographers earning at that level.

Making Your Choice

I estimate that worldwide in 2010 there were about 1.5 million RM and about 3 million RF images licensed at traditional prices. During the same period more than 100 million uses were licensed at microstock prices. Chances are if you go the microstock route your images will get used 75 to 100 times more frequently than would be the case if they are licensed as RM.

But while the odds of a microstock image being licensed are much better, the price per license often will be very low. You need to decide if you will be upset when some company uses one of your snow-covered mountain scenes for a website promoting a ski resort or selling camping equipment, and pays less than $10 for the use.

Which approach will work best for you? Before you decide, read more about rights licensing in my next post.

Better and cheaper digital cameras. More amateur photographers. Web-based agencies willing to sell an image for under a dollar. It’s no wonder there is so much stock photography available these days.

So what are committed pros to do about this spreading competition?

Specialize and survive.

For more than 40 years, I’ve watched hundreds of photographers enter the profession, stay a while, and get out.  Those who survive seem to have a common trait: They love what they’re doing. Wild horses couldn’t pull them away. They adapt. They adjust. They assess and move forward.

Survivors Change as Industry Does

Outsiders may say, “Too bad for stock photographers. They’ve lost their market in the enormous flood of available photos today.” But the survivors haven’t noticed. They’ve already adapted to new ways of selling themselves and their talent to the public and the photo buyers. They know pictures will never go out of style.

Many stock photographers have wisely moved toward targeting their photography focus to a segment of the market, where they feel comfortable and speak the language of their clients. They have narrowed their personal expertise down to a point where they are no longer generalists; they have planted a flag as a specialist.

They concentrate on building a massive photo collection and knowledge in a specific field, such as health sciences, motor sports, education, deep-sea fishing, and so on. They get so good at their brands that assignments build in a vertical direction for them, all in their area of expertise.

Buyers Prefer Specialists

Art directors, photo researchers, and photo editors prefer working with such specialist photographers. Why? To cover their own tails. They know if a photographer is well-grounded in the subject area they work in, it comes through in the veracity of their work. Editors and buyers now choose photographers based on what knowledge and expertise they possess in the target subject area.

The Digital Age has made all this happen. Clients now have the capability to swiftly find the right photographer for the job through a keyword search. This has resulted in a new opportunity for photographers, veterans and newcomers, to step forward and move forward.

I, for one, see great things ahead for our picture-taking profession.

Stock photographers are up in arms. They’re angry — and understandably so.

But they’re not right about everything, and rage only gets you so far. As the photography industry continues to struggle with heightened competition, reduced demand and lower prices, photographers must learn to take action, both for themselves and for their industry, with the same energy with which they voice their complaints.

The latest round of fury has been triggered by Getty’s decision to change its contributor agreement. Most notably, these changes allow Getty the right to include all royalty-free content in its subscription package. They also remove the right for contributors to block Getty selling any of their images on a royalty-free basis.

If you’ve submitted your images to Getty, agreeing to the new terms will mean that Getty will be able to sell your images to buyers who can do with them almost anything they want for as long as they want at a low price fixed by the company.

Photographers Lose Control

For many photographers, these changes represent a slap in the face — and the wallet.

Images bought through a subscription pay significantly lower fees than those bought off the shelf. And royalty-free licenses tend to be cheaper than rights-managed licenses. So there’s a good chance that Getty’s stock contributors will see a drop in income as their images are moved into the royalty-free inventory and sold to subscribers.

And after an image has been sold once on a royalty-free basis, it’s just about impossible to sell usage rights to it again.

The change also makes tracking usage harder. When a buyer is paying for a specific use, any other appearance of the image is a breach of copyright and a start of a legal complaint. Because royalty-free images can be used in multiple ways, contributors have to assume that those uses have been paid for.

But the biggest concern isn’t reduced income or the increased difficulty of identifying illicit use.

It’s the loss of control.

As the APA put it after hiring law firm Nelson & McCulloch to discuss the changes with Getty — and after the stock company had refused to respond:

As the creator and owner of the intellectual property, the photographer has the inherent right to determine how an image is to be licensed, including whether an image should be maintained as an RM or RF image. Getty Images’ effort to leverage its position in the industry to undermine that fundamental right and force its contributors to relinquish control over the manner in which their creative works are licensed is completely improper.

This is the heart of the struggle between stock photographers and the sellers who represent them (in return for a large share of the sales price.) It’s certainly a better point than the APA’s original assertion that the changes were “unnecessary” and that “rights-managed licensing has been in existence for decades and is the preferred method of licensing high-value content,” which just made the APA seem tone-deaf to market realities.

The battle now is over how much control photographers must grant those who would sell their images. And frankly, both sides have reasons to feel indignant in their positions — and reasons to feel embarrassed about them, too.

Getty Knows Best

For Getty, forcing photographers to take or leave the new arrangement does little to encourage a relationship of trust with the stock company. It’s an expression of arrogance, a statement that Getty knows best and that photographers should stop worrying and focus on taking pictures.

Getty could have handled this better. The company might have provided financial incentives to contributors to make their images available to royalty-free subscribers. Persuasion generally makes for a better relationship than coercion. Getty’s iStockphoto, for example, uses all sorts of incentives to encourage contributors to be exclusive without ever forcing it as a condition.

But even if Getty bungled this change, the truth is that many photographers are completely unrealistic about what it takes to sell images today. Commenting on APhotoEditor.com, stock photographer William Huber said that he was launching his own site because:

Unique images deserve the moon and the stars.

Great images might well deserve astronomical prices in photographers’ minds, but stock companies like Getty know better than to demand them. That clearly isn’t true of every photographer. Getty exists to sell pictures, and it wants the freedom to do it in the way that it thinks is best.

And it’s hard for photographers to complain too much when the stock giant drops its considerable weight on them. One of the main benefits of using Getty is that its size has made the company the default choice for many photo buyers. Photographers contributing images to the company has given it that heft, and they’ve benefited from it. They can hardly be surprised when the giant turns on them.

Difficult Choices

So where does that leave today’s stock photographers?

Ultimately, it leaves them with some difficult choices to make. Contributors can accept that Getty understands buyers and their demands better than they do, agree to the changes and make up for the lower fees by contributing more images.

They can emulate William Huber by cutting out the middle man, selling directly themselves and swapping time behind the camera for time marketing.

Or they can look for one of the many alternative services that offer stock with more control but to a much smaller customer base.

Making that decision won’t be easy. But it will be a lot more constructive than just getting angry.

Last week in a post on Black Star Rising, Paul Melcher asked, “Are You Carving a Photography Niche – or Digging Your Career in a Hole?” He argued that instead of trying to find an undiscovered niche, photographers should “shoot what they love” and make their niche “talent” — something “no one can copy.”

I agree with Paul that finding an undiscovered niche is not the answer, but I’m afraid shooting what you love — with or without talent — is not the answer, either.

An Oversupply Issue

There is a huge oversupply of high-quality stock imagery on every conceivable subject that photographers “love to shoot.” Even if a photographer were to manage to produce something that is great and somewhat unique (within a high-demand category), that image likely would be buried among hundreds of other similar images.

The problems are twofold. First, customers will never agree that a particular image is the best of its genre. There will be differences of opinion, with different customers spending their money on different images. Second, oversupply is already great, and there is no way to limit additional images entering the market.

When I raised these issues in a comment on Paul’s post, his response was as follows:

If shooting what you love with talent is not the answer, then I wonder what is. Your analysis of the stock photo market presupposes that it is similar to making widgets. In other words, that photography fills an existing demand. If that was true, you would be 100% correct. However, photographs can create their own demand. That is what I am writing about here.

Paying Customers Create Demand

Can photographs really create their own demand?

Possibly. But I would argue that it is very rare for an image to create its own demand — for someone to say, “I have to find a way to use that photograph simply because it exists.”

Photographers may not like to think of making images as similar to “making widgets,” as Paul puts it, but there are similarities.

To make money today, the photographer must first find a paying customer who has a need, and then find a way to fulfill that need. You can’t just shoot pictures and hope someone will buy them.

Photographers could make good money shooting stock on speculation in the 1990s, when there was more demand than supply. Now, supply far exceeds demand, and shooting on speculation no longer works anywhere near as well as it once did.

To provide some perspective on what photographers are up against, consider that PhotoShelter hosts the archives of more than 65,000 contributors, totaling over 50 million images — and this number is growing by more than 100,000 images per month.

When Shooting What You Love Pays Off

Last month, I attended an interesting seminar by Paula Lerner at PhotoPlus Expo. Lerner earned an Emmy for her six-part multimedia series “Behind The Veil” about women in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The work is excellent — and a labor of love.

But she was paid almost nothing for its use.

However, the project did help Lerner earn a series of well-paying multimedia production shoots for Boston University, as well as a number of other projects.

Sometimes, photographers can shoot what they love with an eye to earning future work. In such cases, what is invested in time, energy and money is, in essence, part of their promotional budget. Generally, though, it is unrealistic to expect to sell such work for enough to realize a profit.

You can’t expect your work — however good it is — to create its own demand. You’ve got to find customers, learn what they need, and then deliver it.

From stock photography old-timers to newly minted microstock experts, all the gurus will tell you the same thing: the key to succeeding in today’s market is to carve out a niche for yourself.

Shoot stuff no one else shoots. Bark at others upon approach. Defend your turf so no one else can take pictures of your subject.

It’s a bourgeois mentality, like that of a fearful suburb-dweller guarding his patch of lawn. In the face of adversity, retreat and protect.

Only problem is, it’s a doomed strategy.

Nothing to Protect

What is there for you to protect, exactly? You do not own your subject. You do not own your clients. You do not own anything except your equipment.

In microstock, clients belong to the platforms, not the photographers. Contributors have no clue who they are selling to or why. In traditional stock photography, sales report still include some licensing information, but the trend is to provide less, not more.

So tell me, if you do not know who your customers are, if you do not have your own data, how can you niche yourself?

You can look at the sales trends at iStockphoto to see what’s working in general. But all the other microstockers see that data, too.

Once everyone is in the same niches, they’re no longer niches, right?

Shooting What You Love

The commercial stock photography market has decided to walk on its head. It used to be that photographers would shoot what they loved and sell that. Some, very, very well.

That was back when photographers had no clue what others were shooting, except for what was published. Now, everybody can see everybody else’s body of work — the vast majority of which never gets sold.

So, based on seeing what other people are shooting (but not necessarily selling), they cross subjects — including very interesting subjects — off their list.

They look for something that hasn’t been found yet. They search for a niche, like miners search for a vein.

Instead of shooting what they love.

The “Field of Dreams” Strategy

Let’s say you find a niche. Then what?

Since you are the only one taking photos of your subject matter, I guess we can just assume the clients will find you, right? The “Field of Dreams” marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, images don’t market themselves, niche or no niche.

There are billions of images online. Do you really believe yours will find buyers simply because the subject matter is rare? Did it ever occur to you that it’s rare because no one cares?

It’s true that once you leave the crowded center of the marketplace for an isolated corner, you will find less competition. But you will also find fewer clients.

And if you don’t know who those clients are, or how to find them and sell to them, you have no chance.

The Talent “Niche”

Here’s a “niche” you might try instead: talent. No one can copy talent.

Shoot everything that everyone else shoots — with talent. With your own eye, your own style and personality. Make your specialty how you approach your subjects, not the subjects themselves.

And leave the niches to those who like living in caves.

Increasingly, rights-managed and traditional royalty-free stock companies are having trouble finding photographers willing to shoot for them. Many of the star photographers from five or 10 years ago have given up shooting stock — or at the very least, dramatically cut the number of images they produce and the amount they are willing to spend on production.

Why the decline? Monthly royalty checks have plummeted to the point where many photographers feel it no longer makes economic sense to risk the upfront investment required to produce marketable images.

Very few photographers will produce as many images for rights-managed and traditional royalty-free licensing in 2010 as they did in 2007 or 2008.

If they can find a subject that has no cost in terms of props or models, they might shoot it — but even that requires an investment of time. And is this investment worth it anymore?

Looking for a Better Return

Photographers today are looking for a better, surer and quicker return on investment than the traditional stock companies are providing.

Here’s an example to help explain why:

A photographer — who most would consider to be among the most successful in the industry today — spent between $7,000 and $8,000, not counting his time, producing several shoots in June 2009. Over 300 images were accepted by his agency.

Earlier this month, he received his first quarterly check for the use of those images. It was less than $1,000.

At that rate, perhaps in another year or so, if prices don’t drop further, he’ll make his investment back and maybe earn a little for his time.

We cannot call this “profit,” because that will really be just paying himself a minimal salary for the time invested and the use of his capital; profit should be over and above a basic living wage.

Getty’s Failed Experiment

Three or four years ago, Getty Images began doing lots of wholly owned production shoots, because its contributors were not supplying imagery its data showed was in high demand.

The company’s art directors planned and organized shoots and hired the most experienced and successful stock shooters to do the work. The photographers were paid a flat fee, with no royalties, for unlimited exclusive rights to their work.

After about a year, Getty abandoned the project. Rumor has it, the imagery produced did not generate enough of a return, in a reasonable time period, to offset production costs.

Getty went back to encouraging photographers to produce more and shoulder all the production expenses themselves. That did not work very well, either.

And all this occurred before the recession hit and Getty lowered its prices by an average of 30 to 40 percent to maintain previous sales volume. This, of course, did not improve photographer royalties.

The Flickr Option

With those who had been Getty’s main source of imagery no longer contributing the volume of material the company wanted, Getty went looking for other sources. Voila, there was Flickr.

The nice thing about Flickr images for Getty is that most of the photographers are not taking pictures to earn a living. They are happy with a little money for their work, even if it does not cover cost of production. They weren’t expecting to get anything anyway.

And yet, the Flickr option proved problematic, too. Initially, Getty had to edit the work and make sure the keywording was satisfactory, which appears to have been too costly given the return from sales.

The next step was to eliminate the costs of editing and keywording and let Flickr host the images. All a photographer has to do now is put a notice alongside his or her Flickr images that basically says, “if you are interested in buying this image, call Getty.”

Time for a New Strategy

I wish I could find more positive things to say about the industry, but stock photography is not the business it was in the ’90s, and it never will be again. Change happens. Sometimes, it is very disruptive.

Twenty years ago, there were relatively few images available on any subject, so photographers had a chance to make multiple sales at relatively high prices. Since then, the number of rights-managed images licensed annually hasn’t grown, but thanks to digital technology, customers now have many more choices.

Even for the best photographers, this dramatically reduces the odds that any one of their images, no matter how good or how creative, will be licensed.

Of course, there also has been a decline in the number of printed products, as well as the number of pages in most publications. The new and growing ways to get information are digital. These new customers need pictures, but the prices they are willing to pay for the images they need for these uses are a tenth (or less) of what they used to pay to reach the same number of consumers.

Some like to place the blame for the industry’s problems on the recession and argue that everything will get better once the economy improves. They’re kidding themselves.

A Narrow Path to Success

I am not saying all photographers should give up on stock photography. I do not believe in no-win scenarios. But when you’re facing a brick wall, rather than banging your head against it in continual frustration, it may be better to look for a way around it that will allow you to achieve most of what you want and be happy.

The key to success now is to

1. design shoots that cost no money to produce, but which
2. generate unique images that aren’t similar to those already done in abundance by someone else, and the images must also
3. be in high demand by customers so when they are licensed individually for low prices the combined total sales will generate enough revenue to make the effort worth the trouble.

Obviously, meeting all three of these requirements is not easy. Going forward, however, the photographer who wants to earn enough from producing stock images alone to support himself and his family will have to be able to do this on a consistent basis.

Stock as an Income Supplement

Microstock sellers have discovered a market for imagery that annually buys about 100 times as many images as are licensed as rights-managed. Granted, these customers are usually licensing the uses for very low prices, but this is where the market is headed.

We’re not going to change that trend by wishing it would go away. We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift. We’re not going to reverse it.

That leaves us with a conundrum. In this new environment, is it possible to focus exclusively on producing stock images and have a successful career? If not, then the photographer must find some other revenue source for the bulk of his income needs and look at stock photography as a part-time, supplementary source of income.

Many photographers are quite happy operating in that manner. They might not get to spend as much time taking pictures as they would like, but they are not living on the edge or starving.

Back to the Future

Back in 1975, everyone in the stock industry was saying, “Don’t shoot on speculation.” Re-sell outtakes from assignments where the production costs have been paid for by someone else, but don’t make an upfront investment of time and money without being sure of receiving adequate compensation for your efforts.

Of course, at that time demand was much greater than supply, and speculative shooting worked very well for many photographers. But that’s not the world today.

We do a great disservice to photographers when we encourage those just getting into the business to think they can build a career around shooting stock images exclusively if they will only license them at rights-managed prices. Earning a good income from stock photography simply won’t happen that way.

If they want a career in photography, they are going to have to do something else in photography in addition to producing stock images. They had better develop a strategy from the beginning that includes some other kinds of income-producing work.

Stock image producers often have two misconceptions about subscription licensing services: They believe (1) that subscription licensing is simple, and (2) that for a very low monthly fee customers are allowed to use any image for any purpose. Neither statement is true.

There are major variations among the subscription offerings of various companies. This can be demonstrated by comparing, for example, Shutterstock to the new Britannica Image Explorer.

Unquestionably, more images are currently downloaded from Shutterstock than any other subscription service. The company recently reported that its customers had downloaded over 125 million images since 2003; between 30 and 35 million of those were likely downloaded in 2009.

Shutterstock: Not So Simple

At first glance, Shutterstock pricing seems simple. For the right to download 25 images per day, the customer is given the options of paying $249 for one month, $709 for three months, $1,349 for six months or $2,559 for a year. If customers really downloaded 750 images a month, they would get the images for pennies, but almost no one consistently downloads the maximum number.

If a customer only wants a few images per year, there is an option of five downloads for $49 or 25 downloads for $229. Small file sizes for use on the Web are available through another set of subscription packages; 12 downloads during the span of a year for $49 or 60 downloads for $229.

Yet these are not the prices for everyone. The customer has to make some decisions about image uses, reminiscent of rights-managed licensing.

Wait — aren’t these royalty-free images, meaning buyers can use them any way they want? Not exactly.

Customers who purchase traditionally priced royalty-free images online or on CDs have much more flexibility in how they can legally use them than is the case with single or subscription-based microstock images.

It is not possible to summarize all of the typical microstock use restrictions. It takes Shutterstock more than 4,100 words in its license agreement to explain to customers what they are, and are not, allowed to do with the images licensed through the Web site.

The 250,000 Impression Limit

In general, customers can use the images in most of the ways people use images, so long as there are fewer than 250,000 impressions. But that varies depending on the type of use, so it is important to check the language for each specific use.

Easily understandable are 250,000 brochures, pamphlets or catalogs, but images cannot be used on a package if the manufacturing run is likely to be more than 250,000. It cannot be incorporated into a film, video or multimedia presentation if the audience is ever likely to exceed 250,000 — does anyone know when they are producing such a product?

Images can only be used in eBooks, “including multi-seat license electronic textbooks, provided that the number of potential seat licenses or end users is fewer than two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) in the aggregate.” Every category of use has different limitations.

There is, however, a way to get around the 250,000 restriction, and many of the other limitations. The customer can purchase an enhanced subscription (some companies call it an extended license).

If you only need two images per year where the use would not be covered under a standard license, you can get those for $199; five images will cost $499 and 25 images — $1,699. These prices are quite close to what is being charged for many rights-managed uses today.

It also important to remember the image creator’s percentage through Shutterstock is based on the gross fee paid by the buyer rather than a much lower “net” fee after several sub-agent percentages are removed as is the case with many rights-managed and traditional royalty-free sales today.

Not too long ago the limitation level for many microstock companies was 500,000 impressions. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future this standard license limit will come down to 100,000 impressions. The whole idea is to find some way to charge larger, more commercial and professional users more money than consumers to use images.

Brittanica Image Explorer: A Different Model

In contrast, Britannica Image Explorer is a very different type of subscription offering. One of the most important distinctions is that it is focused on a very narrow and specific market segment — education — rather than trying to service all types of users.

By narrowly defining its market, Britannica can offer a product that is better tailored to that market’s needs. A key distinction is that the only file size they offer is low-resolution (150 dpi), because that’s all the market needs. This eliminates the risk of the photos being used for commercial purposes, which require a larger file.

The images offered through Britannica Image Explorer are normally licensed at rights-managed or traditional royalty-free prices. But since the only file size offered is so small, and only educational consumers are allowed to access the database, very low prices for each individual use are reasonable.

Educational organizations will make one large payment to Britannica for the rights to access the database. This price is based on the number of students or members who will have download rights, and Britannica will track the number of downloads for each image, so the creator can be paid a portion of the gross fee based on the actual number of downloads of his or her images.

The license is also clear. If anyone wants to make any use of an image not specifically allowed in the license, or any type of commercial use, they must go to the image owner and obtain a separate license.

Unlike the situation with Shutterstock, there are two middlemen — Universal Image Group and Britannica — between the creator and the consumer. But even with this extra layer, given the percentages each middleman is taking, it seems likely the creator will earn more per download from a Britannica sale than from a standard Shutterstock license.

In addition, it seems unlikely that these educational consumers will even consider a Shutterstock image given the design of the offering: Shutterstock would be much too pricey.

In sum, the important thing to note is that subscription offerings can be designed in many different ways for different customer groups. Photographers should examine the specifics of each offering and not treat all subscriptions as equal. It also seems likely that other subscription products will be designed for specific market segments and niches in the near future.

In May 2009, I began following the sales of 198 of iStockphoto’s top contributors. According to iStockcharts data, these 198 ranked in the top 250 image sellers among the microstock site’s more than 100,000 total contributors.

The term “contributor” is more accurate than “photographer,” because a significant number of iStock’s top sellers are illustrators and graphic designers selling illustration, not photography. In any case, over the past 14 months, some of the 198 have risen to higher positions in the top 250; others have declined as more aggressive producers have moved up.

Some Hot, Others Not

The lowest person on my list, Skashkin, had more than 47,000 total downloads and between 5,033 and 6,033 total downloads from May 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010; he now ranks 347th. Yuri Arcurs, the No. 1 producer, had between 357,574 and 367,574 total downloads in the last 14 months.

Some contributors really climbed the rankings. For example, Monkey Business Images went from 254 to 37, despite its relatively late arrival to iStock in March 2008.  Today, Monkey Business-produced images have been downloaded over 180,000 times, with a total of more than 128,000 downloads in the past 12 months.

The 29,475 contributors whose information was listed on iStockcharts as of July 1, 2010, had more than 23,570,469 downloads in the last 14 months. This group represents 6,279,767 images — 89 percent of iStock’s overall total of 7,063,000.

The remaining 11 percent of the images on the site are spread over more than 70,000 contributors that iStockcharts does not identify. Though this group makes up some 70 percent of the iStock contributor pool, portfolio size (an average of 11 total images) and download statistics suggest that most of them are largely inactive. In contrast, the portfolio sizes and downloads of the top 198 contributors likely provide an accurate picture of iStock sales trends.

Flat Results

Some of the numbers available for iStock are very precise, while others are ranges. Until May 2009, iStock visitors were able, at any moment, to determine the exact number of images licensed in each contributor’s career.

That June, iStock changed its reporting to supply only the nearest lower rounded number of downloads, with the actual number varying by as much as 10,000. For example, a number listed as “greater than 100,000” could mean anything between 100,001 and 110,000. If the contributor’s total downloads are fewer than 100,000, the range is 1,000 downloads.

Estimates presented here were calculated by determining the minimum and maximum number of downloads each contributor could have had for the entire period. We subtracted the May 1, 2009, number from the July 1, 2010, number. Then we divided by 14 to determine the average monthly low for the 14-month period through June 30, 2010.

We did a separate calculation for the average high based on the highest possible number that could have been licensed during the period. Then we totaled the results for 198 contributors and compared them with the actual May totals. We are aware of a few contributors who have just recently passed the low number, but some could also be very near the top of the range and about to move to the next level.

This method revealed that, compared to May 2009:

• 55 of the 198 contributors have, on average, licensed more images per month;
• 69 have, on average, licensed fewer images per month; and
• 74 were midway in their range —more than the average low, but less than the average high.

Rising Prices

The 198 iStock contributors currently have a combined total of 567,324 images, or about 5.2 percent of the total collection. In the past six months, members of this group have enlarged their collections by an average of more than 10 percent, adding 52,449 images.

Overall, the number of images downloaded for these 198 contributors was 450,593 in May 2009. For the 14 months the average low per month was 417,686 and the average high per month was 491,174. The median is 454,430.

Since this represents 29 percent of total images downloaded, it suggests that sales — in terms of number of units — have been flat for iStockphoto over the last 14 months. Since iStock is unquestionably the largest microstock image seller in the industry, it is reasonable to assume that its numbers represent a best-case industry trend.

It is important to note that, despite flat unit sales, iStock’s revenues have still risen because of price increases. Also notable is the fact that adding more images does not appear to increase unit sales, but may be necessary in order to maintain sales volume.

Hard to Break Through

If I had tracked all the sales of the top 350 (out of 100,000), I estimate that over 50 percent of all the images licensed by iStock during the period belonged to these individuals, who represent less than 0.4 percent of all contributors. While it is certainly possible for a few to earn significant revenue licensing images as microstock, this points out how extremely difficult it can be to achieve that goal.

The reason why 5.2 percent of the images in the iStock collection generate 29 percent of total downloads is the same as it is across other microstock sites: since customers are able to sort results by downloads, previously sold images have a huge advantage. Yuri Arcurs estimates that 80 to 90 percent of customers sort results by downloads.

Consequently, new images are at an extreme disadvantage, irrespective of quality, because they tend to appear at the bottom of the search return order and are never seen.

Some will want to know how much these downloads represent in dollars. Based on information from some photographers, I believe the average gross sale for an image in the standard collection (not Vetta or video) is $6.50 to $7.50. A significant number of these top photographers are exclusive with iStock and thus earn 40 percent of this gross.

Non-exclusives earn 20 percent, but they can and do submit the same images to many other microstock sites. It is important to note that Yuri Arcurs, Andres Rodriguez and Monkey Business Images are among a group of shooters who say they earn much more by being non-exclusive than they could earn with iStock alone.

Lessons Learned

Here are the takeaways based on my research:

• Sales over the past year have been flat.
• Images produced by a very small percentage of contributors represent the majority of sales.
• Despite the widespread belief in the growing use of images online and predictions that such growth will never end, we may have reached a level where all those individuals who are willing to pay money to purchase images at microstock prices are already doing so. They need a fixed number of images per year. They already go to the lowest priced source and are unlikely to buy more simply because more are available.
• Once a business model has reached maturity — which microstock has — it will no longer grow simply by producing more. The only way to grow is to sell more units or raise prices.
• It is important not to judge success by revenue increases alone, but to also look at the underlying unit sales growth. Price increases may boost revenues in the short term but drive away customers in the long term. Some will find cheaper or free sources, particularly if Google and Flickr are able to deliver better search results.

What does the competition look like in terms of the number of images available online?

Among photo-sharing sites, ImageShack had 20 billion images and Facebook had about 15 billion as of last year. In February 2010, Facebook was reportedly adding more than 2.5 billion photos each month. News Corp.’s Photobucket currently has more than 8.2 billion photos, and Yahoo!-owned Flickr is in fourth place with over 3.4 billion.

Photo-Sharing Sites Still Little Threat to Pros

About 135 million Flickr-hosted images are available for free use under Creative Commons licenses. Of this number, use of approximately 35 million is restricted to non-commercial uses, leaving only 100 million that are available for unlimited free uses.

Despite these numbers, most professional photographers are not overly concerned about these image sources, because most of the images available on photo-sharing sites have been shot by amateurs and are, for the most part, of only personal interest to a given user’s family and friends. In addition, the lack of targeted keywords makes it very difficult for a potential buyer to find anything useful.

In fact, the very volume tends to work against trying to find images on photo-sharing sites, because it takes so much sifting to locate ones that might be of use.

Microstock Continues Growth

On the other hand, the millions of images on professionally oriented sites are an area of concern. These images have been keyworded, model-released and mostly edited for duplicates and substandard technical quality.

The four major microstock agencies reported these inventories in May 2010:

• Dreamstime – 8,556,710;
• Fotolia – 9,056,403;
• iStockphoto – 6,837,000; and
• Shutterstock – 11,332,581.

In many cases, the same images are on all four microstock sites, so a total of these numbers is not an accurate indicator of the overall image quantity, but 20 million unique images is a reasonable estimate.

Also interesting is that there are 230,299 photographers and graphic artists contributing to Shutterstock alone. There are likely more than 300,000 photographers constantly adding images to these four sites.

In the case of iStock, about 8 percent of the images in the collection belong to the top 200 producers of more than 80,000. The images from these 200 generated more than 27 percent of total revenue in the first quarter of 2010.

The Rest of the Market

What about the rest of the market? The inventories — some reported and some estimated — of the larger collections total more than 130 million images, including:

• Alamy – 18,960,000;
• AP – 6,000,000;
• Bloomberg – 290,000;
• Corbis – 4,000,000 (est. 1,000,000 creative and 3,000,000 editorial);
• DPA – 7,500,000;
• Getty Images – 8,500,000 (est. 2,500,000 creative and 6,000,000 editorial);
• Microstock – 20,000,000;
• Newscom – 40,000,000+; and
• Reuters – 25,000,000.

All the smaller collections not distributed by one or more of these large distributors must also be considered. That number is hard to estimate, but an additional 30 million to 50 million unique images is probably in the ballpark.

Then and Now

An interesting historical sidelight is that back in the early 2000s, after Getty and Corbis had made a series of major acquisitions, both companies claimed to have 70 million images in their respective collections.

The major difference is that at that time these were mostly film-based images, not scanned, and in many cases, not very tightly edited. The only way to locate an image among these 140 million images was through laborious manual research. The vast majority of these images were never scanned, and it would be impossible to find most of them today — only a very small percentage are available digitally.

In contrast, the 130+ million images itemized above are digital files available in online databases for immediate research, download and use by potential customers.

A Russian photographer recently asked me what subjects he should shoot for microstock in order to maximize his earnings. He said: “I’m thinking cosmetics, photos of girls putting on makeup, girls and guys on the beach, girls in business suits with laptops, glamour club shots of girls in glam clothes, sometimes near crystal disco balls, modern dancers…”

And he asked: “Will I make any money with stock pics like these, if they are the best?”

Like Yuri — But Cheaper

He pointed out that Yuri Arcurs makes $1.5 million a year shooting in Denmark, while he can hire good Russian photographers and models for 20 percent of what it costs in Denmark.

He said he has made millions shooting “cheesecake images for Maxim, FHM, Playboy, but those magazine revenues have dried up to some degree.”

He wants to expand.

He had read that the average lifetime return of an accepted microstock image is about $14 for Arcurs, but more like $2 for the average photographer.

Evidently, that is an acceptable level of income for a Russian photographer.

He feels that, with hard work, he can duplicate what Arcurs has done.

Wishful Thinking

There are two flaws to this gentleman’s logic.

I doubt anyone else will ever come close to generating Arcurs’ microstock revenue. This has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of either photographer’s work. Arcurs has two major advantages that no other photographer will be able to overcome, unless microstock companies dramatically change the way they do business, Yuri quits producing or both.

The first is that Arcurs has been producing microstock since October 2005. He has grown up with the business. He was building his sales totals when there was much less choice and relatively little quality. And that points to the second advantage.

According to Arcurs, 80 to 90 percent of the time, microstock customers organize their search returns by download. This means that the images downloaded most frequently are always at the top of search results. That’s a big reason they get chosen again and again.

It’s very difficult for new images to get high enough in the search results to be seen. Most sites offer search by “best match” and “newest.” In theory, these options would improve the chances of new images being seen. But if customers never use these options, the chances of them seeing images that have never been downloaded is slim.

The only way photographers that have been around for a long time will stop having a huge advantage over those just starting out is if the microstock sites stop allowing customers to search based on the number of times an image has been licensed. This is unlikely to ever happen, because it benefits the customers and the site operators.

What to Shoot?

Now, to the Russian photographer’s primary question: “How do you identify the subjects in strong demand where there is limited supply?”

There is no simple way to develop such a shot list. As far as I know, no such lists exist. In fact, there is such an oversupply of every conceivable subject that I doubt it is possible to find anything to shoot where there is not already a huge oversupply relative to demand.

If I were going to try to develop such a shot list, I would hire computer database experts, not photographers, and have them develop an algorithm that searches iStockphoto, Fotolia and Dreamstime for every conceivable combination of words that relate to the kinds of pictures I am prepared to produce.

Broad, generic terms like “women in business” are worthless. Such general categories must be narrowed into much smaller groups — for instance, by using multi-word searches that return 500 or fewer images.

One example might be “woman, glasses, computer, outside,” which returns 76 results on Shutterstock. Chances are anyone looking for that combination will review all the images available, so even if mine were the last one it would probably get seen.

But take “glasses” out of the list of words, and there are 2,388 images returned. Chances are no one will look through that many images. Should I put glasses on every woman I photograph? How many customers will care whether the woman is wearing glasses or not and insert that word in their queries?

Once I find a niche with few returns, I have to determine how frequently customers are looking for and buying images that meet that criteria. This can be accomplished by going to iStockphoto, Fotolia or Dreamstime and checking the number of downloads of a significant number of images in the group.

On iStock, for example, there are 202 photos of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Two of them have sold more than 100 times, but the 40th image has only sold 10 times. Is that enough to make it worth my time to go to the Hermitage and shoot?

No Shortcuts

There are no shortcuts to finding an answer to this question. You either guess or do the research.

Nearly all photographers are guessing what will sell, and when they are lucky enough to hit on something that works, they shoot a lot more variations of the same subject. Almost no one does any research, because it is so time-consuming.

Even if you find a subject that is in high demand and short supply, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way for long, or that the images you produce will be the ones that customers want.

There is one other thing to keep in mind when trying to analyze such information. If you find an image that has sold a lot, all those sales may not be the result of the image being found using the keywords you used to find it.

A good example is the shot of a young woman taken by Anouchka that is number 3,781,332 on iStock. It has been downloaded more than 16,000 times. It has 60 keywords and if anyone uses any one of those keywords, or a combination, 3,781,332 will be the first image shown, because it has more downloads than anything else.

Those images that are well keyworded and have achieved a significant number of downloads will keep rising to the top of every search.

Finally, it is important to remember that the image you judge to be the best and most unique will not necessarily be the one the customer will buy. Stock photo customers (the ones spending the money) often have different ideas about what is best for their purposes than the photographers who take the pictures.

Time Inc., the biggest publisher of magazines in the world, recently made an agreement with the AP, Reuters and Getty Images to license any and all non-exclusive images at a flat rate of $50, regardless of size or placement. This means that magazines like Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated — which used to pay $200 or more for a 1/4 page — will now have the same images for $50.

What does this mean for the media business, and for photographers?

Slash and Burn

Obviously, big publishers are trying to cut costs as drastically as they can. After laying off staffers, they are now squeezing suppliers. This is somewhat predictable, considering the hit they have taken on the advertising side. For magazines like Time, it is now only a matter of time before the print edition vanishes altogether. The same is true for celebrity weeklies, which are suffering heavily at the hands of free celebrity Web sites.

So why would the AP, Reuters and Getty agree to such prices? For the AP and Reuters, born and bred on the subscription model and hardly paying commissions to photographers anyway, it is not much of a stretch. Each one probably thought the other would take the deal and were afraid of being shut out. Dividing to conquer isn’t just the province of Julius Caesar, after all.

And what about Getty?

For them, it’s part of an overall change in strategy. They are moving away from wholly owned content in favor of becoming a mega-distributor.

They no longer care if they pay commissions or not. They no longer care where get their content from, either. They are just looking for a way to become indispensable — so there is no way to avoid them.

They are trying to become a monopoly without appearing to be one. That’s why they are willing to sell images for pennies as long as they are the sole distributor.

In a way, they are applying the iStockphoto model to editorial: “If it costs me nothing to get content, then I can sell it for nothing.”

Devaluing Photography — and Photographers

This approach is extremely damaging to photographers and to the world of photography. It will force thousands more out of this business, including some very talented people. It will further reduce the need for good photo editors, as choices will be dictated by price.

Together with the apostles of the free Internet, the Creative Commons barbarians and others who are accomplice to this devaluing of photography, sellers like Getty are, quite simply, destroying the photographic landscape.

And that means destroying careers in photography.

Sure, you will always be able to find “push buttons,” ready to execute for a few dollars while they search for another job, but soon you may no longer be able to see great passionate photography done by amazing eyes.

If photography’s future is left up to its dark forces, it’s going to become a battle of the crabs, pushing and shoving each other for pieces of crumbs in an ocean of boring banality.

For those photographers contributing with a smile to these “agencies,” thinking you bet on the right horse, you will realize soon that they are no better than slime sticking to a rotten ship. Your photos will all be free — the exact value that these companies have for your miserable little lives.

If you think you are in control of your destiny now, let’s talk in five years and see who’s right.

Reasons for Hope

For the others — those among you who continue to stand against these increasingly polluted waves — there is still hope.

The hope is that mediocracy will destroy itself in a vast, self-sucking black hole. The hope is that those nose-in-the-sky corpocrats who destroy the very land they build upon will finally go the way of the dinosaur.

There is hope in the knowledge that soon readers will be fed up with seeing the same images everywhere, regurgitated through the same dull pipeline.

There is hope in knowing that soon, not every Web site or magazine will accept the exact same images that their competitors have, even if they’re cheap.

There is hope in knowing that the word “exclusive” will someday regain its value, that talent attracts eyeballs and that eyeballs bring revenues.

For those photographers who stand for quality, for passion, and for maintaining a trade made by individuals with a soul, there is always hope.

Is it time to institute a system of floor prices for the use of rights-managed images for editorial purposes? Is there any price so low — $50, $30 or $20 — that the image creator would prefer not to make the sale?

Given where pricing based on usage seems to be headed — particularly for editorial usages — it is time to start asking these questions. It is time to consider whether there is any possible solution to the problem.

Making It Up in Volume

When I started in the stock photo business, the theory was that stock agencies always acted in the best interest of their photographers, because it was in the agency’s best interest to get the maximum they could for any given sale.

The idea that they would make it up on volume, by selling huge quantities at much lower prices, was not a major factor driving prices.

At that time, the road to increasing volume was to have better quality images. Agencies would sometimes negotiate lower prices, but at a 50/50 split if they cut the price, they were cutting their fee by the same amount.

Today, as a result of buyer consolidation, there are fewer customers and many purchase a significant number of images on an annual basis. In addition, there is competition from microstock. These pressures have driven agencies to reduce prices for editorial use to microstock levels in the hopes of capturing sales.

Photographers who want to license their image based on how the image will be used need to ask themselves if they want to make a sale at any cost — even at microstock price levels. Is there some minimum price below which they would rather not make the sale?

Some photographers may say, “Sell my images for whatever you can get. I want to maximize the number of times my images are licensed.” Others may counter: “I do not want to allow my images to be used, unless the customer is willing to pay a certain minimum amount for such rights.”

Giving Photographers a Say

Either way, photographers ought to have more say with regard to the fees charged for using their images. With current advances in technology, that is not as difficult as it sounds.

Many photographers are currently receiving so little for magazine, newspaper and book uses that many would be willing to risk losing some sales for the chance to guarantee that they would receive a more reasonable payment if and when their images were used.

How could such a system work?

The biggest problem areas today are magazine, newspaper and book uses. Therefore, I would recommend continuing to allow agents total flexibility to negotiate rights for commercial uses. The floor prices I am recommending would be limited to editorial uses, at least in the beginning.

To illustrate what I have in mind, the table below presents a sample schedule of floor prices for the use of an image in a consumer magazine based on the circulation of that magazine (assuming the photographer receives a 40 percent royalty). Newspapers and book uses would have different numbers.

Thus, if the magazine publisher wants rights to print 250,000 copies of the magazine, then the photographer would be guaranteed to receive at least $136 for the usage of his image. The agent might negotiate for a higher fee if the image were used larger than a quarter page, or if it happened to be very unique in one way or another — but the photographer would never be paid less than the $136 for that usage.

If the buyer were one of the agent’s very good customers, the agent would have the freedom to license the image for less to that customer, but the agent would still pay the photographer his $136 floor price for the usage.

Let’s say that the agent decides to sell the image to the customer for $250. The agent pays the photographer $136 for the usage, and he keeps $114. If the agent charges more than $340, the photographer gets 40 percent of whatever fee is paid. Obviously, the agent has a huge incentive to hold the line on pricing.

Floor prices should be published so photographers represented by the agency know the minimum they will receive if one of their images is licensed for use in a magazine. Each agency can have a different set of numbers, but if the numbers are published, the agency’s photographers can make rational decisions as to whether they want to submit more work to the agency.

Photographers should also be able to compare the floor prices of various agencies to determine who offers the best deal. It should be recognized that going with the agency with the lowest floor price does not necessarily mean the photographer will make more sales. Having the right image to fulfill a customer’s needs is still important, and the agent may price the image higher than the base price depending on other factors (size of use, uniqueness, etc.) related to the use of the image.

Each agency would probably have a single set of floor prices. But they could easily offer additional options to photographers and image suppliers. Photographers might be allowed to price their images at 1.2 times the floor price, or 0.8 times if they think they will make more sales by offering a lower price. But it would be the photographer’s decision.

Photographers should also have the choice of giving the agency full freedom to negotiate any price they want for use of their images or to opt out entirely from editorial and book sales and to only make their images available for commercial uses.

Would Agencies Go for It?

Making such a system reality is not as complex as it sounds. Most agencies already have different price schedules for various image partners. Giving image partners a little more choice in how their images are priced could make many of those who are increasingly dissatisfied with their relationships with primary selling agencies much happier.

The work of individual photographers could be coded to fall into one of several groups, which might include: (1) unavailable for editorial use; (2) standard floor pricing; (3) floor pricing times 1.2; (4) floor pricing times 1.4; (5) floor price times 0.9 and (6) floor price times 0.8.

I’m sure most of you who have read this far are thinking that agencies will never go for this. That may be true at the moment– but agencies are not gaining customers by lowering prices. At best they are holding even on the number of units licensed, and because they are charging less their gross revenue continues to decline.

Maybe — if they charged the people who really need the images a more reasonable price based on value received — they could earn the same amount of money they have been earning while licensing rights to fewer units.

Just cutting prices does not seem to be increasing rights-managed sales, so maybe it is time for agencies to do what RM photographers want: offer a premium product at a premium price. The agencies also need to take into consideration the growing number of photographers that have stopped producing new images of the type needed by the editorial market.

Before rushing to adopt this strategy, photographers needs to think carefully about the kind of imagery they produce. If there are hundreds or thousands of similar images on microstock sites that can be purchased for a fraction of the photographer’s floor price, the agency will probably make few sales.

In such a case, the best strategy for the photographer may be to let the agency sell for whatever it can get, or maybe put the images on microstock sites and try to benefit from the volume rights-managed sellers seem unable to get.

On the other hand, if the subject matter is truly unique, when customers need that subject matter they will pay your price.

An advantage for agencies is that their sales people would be able to tell their customers, “I’d love to be able to sell that image to you for $50, but this particular photographer hasn’t given me the contractual right to do that. However, I’ve got this other image I can sell you for the price you want to pay.”

At this point the agency looks like the good guy who is on the buyer’s side; it is the photographer who expects too much. But if buyer really wants to use the photographer’s image, he or she will need to find enough money to pay for it.

Time for a Change

Historically, agencies have always been allowed to set prices at whatever point they need to make the sale. But we have reached a point where the amount the photographer earns for many newspaper, magazine and book uses simply isn’t worth the trouble.

Maybe the agencies will not accept images from photographers unless they can license them for all purposes. For many rights-managed sellers, that would not be the end of the world. They are earning so little now that it really doesn’t make much difference whether they sell or not.

It could end up that the agency is selling at the floor price most of the time, but that still would be a lot better than the low prices they are getting now.

Maybe photographers will find this idea unacceptable. If only a handful are willing to go along with such a strategy, then introducing it would not be worth the agency’s trouble.

Agencies could easily determine the number of photographers who favor the strategy by preparing floor price charts for the three types of use and surveying their photographers. The concept would not be implemented unless a large percentage of photographers agreed to risk losing some sales in order to hold the line on more reasonable prices.

It is certainly time to consider some adjustments.

I am tired of seeing rights-managed sellers refer to microstock as $1 images. That is not what most people are paying, particularly those personal users who buy very few pictures.

Actual prices are substantially higher, even for the smallest, Web-use only file sizes.

What Microstock Actually Costs

The iStockphoto home page says that the smallest file size, which is only large enough for Web use, can be purchased for $1, but that is not true. It can be purchased for 1 credit, and 1 credit is not $1; customers must buy a minimum of 12 credits at $1.52 each in order to buy one picture.

Some of the photos on iStock are available in that extra-small file size for 1 credit. Many of the most popular photos require 2 credits ($3.04) to purchase even the smallest file size. Of course, if a larger file size is needed for print use, even more credits are required.

On Fotolia, the minimum buy is 21 credits for a price of $1.14 each, and some images (again, that smallest, Web-use only file size) are available for 1 credit. But some Web size images require 2 credits and others 3 credits to purchase, bringing the cost up to $3.42. The price for the smallest file size of Infinite Collection images starts at 10 credits or $11.40.

Yes, customers can get the price-per-credit down when they purchase larger credit packages — but is the personal user who might need a few images per year going to buy such a package?

On Fotolia, a customer can get 3,200 credits for $2,400 for the lowest price-per-image, but how many personal users are going to spend that kind of money? That price is for professional, commercial, high-volume users.

Getting Our Numbers Straight

Current data from photographers who sell microstock suggests that the average price-per-image licensed at iStock is between $6.50 and $8. That may not be as high as most rights-managed sellers would like — but it’s not $1.

In fact, I wonder how many of the photographers complaining about microstock prices are allowing Corbis and Getty Images to license their work for less than microstock averages?

If we are going to be against something, let’s at least get our numbers straight.

If stock photography as a profession is going to survive, we’re going to have to find a way to develop a two-tier pricing system. One tier would be for commercial use of images and the other for personal and small use.

Microstock sellers have proved in the last few years that there is a huge group of customers out there who use images for personal and very small business uses. They will pay something to use images, just not very much. The problem with microstock sites is not that they sell images to these customers; it is that they sell image files to large commercial users for the same low prices they charge those with small budgets.

Small Use vs. Commercial Use

I don’t think professional photographers can ignore these small and personal users. Given the way the market is currently working, a huge percentage of the customers who formerly purchased their images from professional sources are now turning to the amateurs and the low-priced sources for the images they need.

It seems to me that the key to maximizing revenue from both the personal and commercial customers is to clearly define who qualifies as a small user and price for each group separately. That said, let me make a stab at defining small users:

• Personal blog
• Student reports
• Classroom presentations
• PowerPoint presentations
• Religious organizations
• Non-profit organizations
• Ezine
• Personal wall art

If we can define such uses precisely and in simple enough terms, I believe we have a chance to develop a sustainable business model that will allow professionals to profit from their efforts.

No matter how well we define “small use,” there will always be some stealing and unauthorized use — maybe a lot of it. But if you get paid for some use, isn’t it better than nothing?

Consider all the people who are paying to use microstock images when, if they worked a little harder, they could probably steal them. The trick is to find the price point where it makes more sense to acquire the image legally than to steal.

Even if we had a very strong copyright law (I’m not holding my breath), it is never going to make economic sense to try to collect from the small user for unauthorized use. Therefore, let’s try to find a price point where it makes more sense for the customers to pay rather than steal, and for photographers to get as much as possible from these users.

The iPod did it with music. It is possible with photography.

On the other hand, it will still be worthwhile to go after a commercial user who uses an image without properly licensing it. PicScout’s ImageTracker and ImageExchange system will make it very simple for customers to know if they need to license an image, no matter where they happen to find it.

On the commercial side of the business, at least, this will make it much more difficult for image users to claim they couldn’t find the owner or didn’t know they had to license rights.

Defining Small Use

Let me suggest possible definitions for the various small and personal uses.

Personal blog or Web site

Any blog or Web site created for personal use or to promote a small business with fewer than 10 employees. Larger corporations would fall under the “commercial” category and have to pay a higher price for such uses.

Student reports

Any student use for a report or personal use.

Classroom presentations

If the image is used in a classroom presentation that is prepared by a single instructor, it falls into this category. However, if the image is used as part of a presentation that is prepared by a large publishing company or school district, it should be licensed as at a commercial textbook/education price.

Religious organizations

One of the things to consider here is whether to limit the file size within this definition so the images are only satisfactory for Web, PowerPoint and very small brochure uses. Some religious organizations produce large posters and wall art for their classrooms and maybe it makes sense to charge more in such instances.

PowerPoint presentations

This can be a difficult one. Such presentations are used on and off the Web. They are used by large corporations and individuals giving a single presentation to a small group. It may be better to give the corporations a break on this one and say any PowerPoint presentation. It could also be limited to personal use and organizations with fewer then 10 employees. Then require larger organizations to pay a slightly higher fee for their use.

Non-profit organizations

The first instinct is to make images available for the lowest price to registered non-profit organizations. However, we should keep in mind that there are 1.4 million non-profits registered with the IRS. Only about 450,000 of them have enough revenue to require reporting to the IRS, but in 2005, these “reporting organizations” had $1.6 trillion in revenue and $3.4 trillion in assets. Should the big ones get images for the lowest price or should they be charged more?

Ezine

If such publications are earning revenue through either advertising or subscription, or if they are promoting a product that is sold, should they get images for the lowest price or should they be charged a corporate price?

A large portion of the uses described above can be satisfied by simply limiting the file size delivered. In effect, that is exactly what microstock is doing today.

The difference is that microstock pricing is letting commercial users have the images for the same low prices. Professional photographers would like to see these commercial users pay more, given the value they will receive from using the image.

Personal wall art

There is at least one personal use where a larger file is needed — wall art. The question is whether this kind of use should be encouraged and at what price a file sufficient to make a good quality print should be supplied. A huge number of people buy lithographic prints to decorate their homes and offices. They want one copy, not many. If it were easy for customers to choose from every high resolution image online rather than a limited, edited selection, a lot more images might be licensed. What is a reasonable price?

I’d like the input of Black Star Rising readers on these ideas — and your specific thoughts on what should and shouldn’t be included in the category of “small use.”

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.

Most photographers want to believe customers will pay more when the image is of “better quality” or more technically perfect. They believe that when they increase production values, build better sets, use better looking models, use people who look more “real” and when they generally spend more to produce an image, customers will pay more to use it.

Bright Backgrounds and Colorful Clothes

They believe that if an image is shot from a helicopter, or if they had to travel around the world to get it, it should command a higher price.

Some believe that customers will pay big bucks for images that are styled down and natural looking. Yuri Arcurs advises microstock photographers who want to shoot for the rights-managed and traditional royalty-free markets to “forget about bright backgrounds and colorful clothes, big budgets and super fancy locations.”

All these things may be necessary to produce an image customers will choose over the rest of the competition — but none of these things have anything to do with why customers will pay more.

There is only one thing that makes one customer pay more than another for a stock image. That is usage.

It’s All About Usage

Some RF producers might argue that customers will pay more for a larger file size. But the reason they need a larger file size is entirely dependent on how they intend to use the image.

Photographers need to recognize that there is no precise definition as to what makes one image better than another. Any individual may like one image better than another. Photographers may win awards from their peers for certain images, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the value of an image to any given customer.

Every day, customers prove that what they want for their particular purposes is different from what photographers, or other photo editors, would have chosen to use for that purpose.

When it comes to the matter of choosing a stock image, the customer is always right. However, that does not mean than when it comes to establishing a price to use a particular image the customer should be allowed to pay anything he wants regardless of the seller’s needs.

Every customer has a budget for the projects he is working on. Sometimes those budgets are unreasonable. Sometimes the customer will pay a little more than his original budget for an image that seems just right for his project, but usually he will not pay much more.

On the other hand, the customer will also happily pay much less than his budget allows, if that’s all the seller asks.

What’s “Best” Depends on the Customer — and the Day

Some customers have projects of varying values. For one project they may not be able to justify paying more than $10 per image, but on the next project, which will be used in a much broader way and is much more important to the company’s business, that customer may be willing to pay $1,000 for the right image.

Of course, if the seller only wants to charge $10 to use the image for that big project, the customer will gladly pay the smaller amount and pocket the rest for some future use.

On any given day, a customer may choose an image that he feels is “best” for the project he is working on at the moment. A week later, after the project has gone into production he may stumble onto something that would have been better, but it is too late to make the change.

On any two different days, a customer might choose different images for the same project. What’s “best” is entirely determined by the customer’s need at any given point in time.

If the customer finds two images that fulfill the same need, and the more expensive one is slightly better, he may choose to use the cheaper one in order to stay under budget. The customer may not always choose to use the best picture.

Fifteen or 20 years ago, Henry Scanlon, president of Comstock and an industry leader at the time, was asked during a seminar how he decides what to charge for the use of an image. He said, “I want to find out what the customer thinks the image is worth, and what he has in his budget for this project. Then I want to get all of it.”

(The following is excerpted from 99 Ways to Make Money from Your Photos, by the editors of Photopreneur.)

Photo Researchers is a highly specialized niche stock site that has been offering scientific photos for more than 50 years. In the past, most of the images it supplied came from doctors and scientists. Today, about 80 percent of contributors are photographers.

Photo Researchers currently has more than 500 contributors who send in images covering topics that range from astronomy to zoology. Many of those images end up in textbooks.

The average price for an image is around $450, although photographs can sell for as much $7,000. The photographer receives half the sales price.

Like traditional stock companies, breaking into Photo Researchers isn’t easy. The company turns down about 75 percent of the images it receives, usually because they already have enough similar photos on the same theme.

Nonetheless, the Photo Researchers’ inventory is still growing at an impressive rate of 4,000 new images a month.

Getting Started

Once you’ve spent some time examining the images at www.photoresearchers.com, you’ll probably have to spend even more time examining their contributors’ guidelines. These are pretty detailed and need to be followed closely before submitting your images for review.

It’s worth noting that for the more open categories of travel, wildlife and lifestyle, Photo Researchers demands 400 images to review. For science, medicine and astronomy, they only require 100 sample images. Either way, you’ll need to start with a pretty big portfolio.

Despite its specialization, Photo Researchers has a pretty broad range of images and not all of them are as difficult to shoot as close-ups of
osteoblasts and osteoclasts.

There are also plenty of animals on the site, making Photo Researchers a possible resource for wildlife photographers. At least one highlighted
photographer has a collection of classic car images, and the company offers scenic images of cities, sites and national parks, as well as people,
rocks and holidays.

Most contributors to Photo Researchers choose to specialize in one particular category, such as insects or astronomy. Few shoot across different specializations. The rarer the image, the greater the chances that Photo Researchers will accept it.

Selling with Information

For Photo Researchers, it’s not just the image that’s important but the information that comes with it. The company does offer scenes of sunsets, white water rafting and boats, for example, but the description that accompanies the image will explain where it was shot and what that viewer can see.

Because the images are more likely to be used in textbooks than advertising, it’s the ability of the images to inform rather than promote that’s vital. General stock sites sell images of flowers, for example. Photo Researchers might offer similar images, but they’ll be close-ups of dewdrop stamen or crabapple blossoms.

So the description is an important part of creating a sellable Photo Researchers image. Marketing the image, though, doesn’t require any more than the usual strategy of leaving it to the stock site to place your picture in the hands of its customers.

As always, it does help to have a Web site that shows off the best of your niche photos, and to let buyers know that they can license them from Photo Researchers.

That will help you to build your brand, give Photo Researchers a place to go to learn more about you and make yourself available for commissions.

Tips for Success

Think Like a Scientist

OK, that’s not so easy — but knowing about a particular scientific field is always going to be the best way to make sales on Photo Researchers.

Many of the photographers who contribute to the site are professionals who also happen to be interested in a science such as botany, biology or astronomy. They have the technical skills to shoot good photos and the knowledge to explain the science.

Ideally, you’ll have access to a lab. But it is possible to have your images accepted and sold simply by picking up a scientific hobby.

Study the Site Carefully

This is always a good idea, but it’s particularly important on Photo Researchers because the subject of the images ranges so broadly from the very specific science shots to the more general images that anyone can take (even if they do require some careful describing).

It is worth spending some time to see if there is a space for an image of your own scientific interest, or whether you can supply the more general photos.

Shoot Quantity, If You Can

The subjects of the images — especially the hard science ones with the most demand — are so specific that photographers are rarely able to shoot in bulk.

However, if you can find a way to shoot many images of your choice of scientific field, and to continue creating images within that field, you should find it easier to make sales.

(The following is excerpted from 99 Ways to Make Money from Your Photos, by the editors of Photopreneur.)

Stock companies serve newspapers and magazines, ad companies and Web sites. But they aren’t the only people who need images. The hospitality industry uses photography to decorate its walls, and interior designers can sometimes use photography, too.

Farmboy Fine Arts is a Canadian design company that provides artwork primarily to the hospitality industry, placing images in hotels around the world. Their clients include Sheraton, Westin, Marriott, Trump, Caesars and Hyatt, as well as many independent boutique hotels.

How It Works

For photographers, the firm operates in much the same way as a stock company. Photographers are free to send in their images, which are then made available to clients.

When a sale is made, the photographers are paid a royalty and a commission for each image licensed and for each time it’s used. One photograph used in multiple places in a hotel then would generate multiple payments.

Farmboy’s Stockyard Collection — its inventory of submitted images — is divided into six categories: abstract; architecture; landscape; lifestyle; organic; still life; and technology. The company tends not to accept images that are too “stocky.”

When you submit your work for review, Farmboy will tell you what sort of imagery works best for them so that you can narrow down future submissions. In general, Farmboy is looking for artistic works — the kind that are the most fun to produce and the hardest to sell.

Sometimes, Farmboy issues call-outs for specific types of images demanded by a client. For example, the company recently has been looking for city-specific images as well as works that are “edgy,” “conceptual” and “art-driven.” Photographs submitted as a result of a call-out and not used by the client are placed in the Stockyard collection.

Farmboy Fine Arts provides a rare opportunity for photographers looking to earn money from their artistic images. Their open submission policy means that anyone can submit images for review, and there’s certainly a sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing that your photos are hanging on a wall in a hotel somewhere.

Modest Commissions

But the rewards may be relatively low. Farmboy pays a commission based on its own gross profits. Photographers have reported incomes as low as $25 for each image and only $2 or $3 for each room in which the image is placed.

Farmboy might deal with art and sell to big clients, but the prices and bulk deals it strikes may make it the microstock version of commercial art photography, rather than a large commercial gallery.

And any images submitted also have to be exclusive. While you can sell an image submitted to Farmboy as a print, hang it in a gallery or exhibit it in a show, you can’t license the image in any other way. If an image doesn’t sell, though, you can remove it from Farmboy and try to license it elsewhere.

So while Farmboy Fine Arts is an opportunity to make money from your artistic images, it’s unlikely to make you rich — and it might tie up images that could be licensed to other buyers.

Getting Started

Farmboy Fine Arts asks that photographers submit a selection of 10 to 20 low resolution jpegs to stockyard@farmboyfinearts.com together with their contact information, or simply send them a link to their Web site/online portfolio.

As always, if you’re sending a link, make sure that the portfolio you’re showing them is geared towards the sorts of images that Farmboy Fine Arts is looking for. There’s little point in showing them your portfolio of senior portraits.

They will then let you know which of your styles works best for them and, assuming that your images are accepted, offer you an agreement. You will receive an artist code and can begin submitting high resolution images. After that, it’s just a matter of waiting for the sales to come in.

Tips for Success

1. Submit Often

According to Todd Towers, Farmboy Fine Arts’ president, photographers who license the most images through the company tend to be those who submit the most images and cover the largest number of subjects. Quality always counts, but like a stock company, with Farmboy Fine Arts, quantity counts too.

2. Do the Call-Outs

Whenever a company issues a call-out for images, it’s always worth paying attention. It’s a bit like entering a competition, but at least this is a competition which you know is going to award a prize. Best of all, even if you don’t win, the images stay on file and might net you a sale at some point in the future.

3. Try It Out and Pull the Pictures If It Doesn’t Work

There are no fees for submitting images to Farmboy Fine Arts, but if the images don’t sell, you won’t be able to license them anywhere else. On the other hand, if the images are just sitting on your hard drive, they’re not going to sell anywhere else anyway.

One strategy then is to submit your images to Farmboy Fine Arts and leave them there until you spot an opportunity elsewhere. At the very least, they’ll be in the running to earn you money.

I’ve read articles by a number of photography business gurus arguing that if you want to make decent money from stock photos or prints, you need to find a niche that isn’t already saturated with images. They advise photographers to shoot model-released lifestyle photos or still lifes, for example, and to stay away from travel and nature — because everyone shoots travel and nature.

That might sound logical enough, but is it true? In four years of marketing my work, I have sold pictures through stock agencies of heavily photographed locations such as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Gateway Arch, the Mall of America, and the San Francisco skyline. And I don’t even spend a lot of time shooting iconic locations like these.

You know what I think? I think you can still make money selling the photos you want to shoot — if you know how to market yourself.

Here are five tips for selling your photos in any niche:

1. Keyword your images thoroughly.

I have looked at a lot of images on many different sites, and the one thing that amazes me is how poorly most photographers keyword their images. Take the Golden Gate Bridge, for example. If you only include the most obvious keywords — like the name of the bridge and the city — how can you expect anyone to find your images among the thousands on sites like Alamy, Corbis or Getty? I include more than 30 keywords on my Golden Gate Bridge images — including words like “iconic,” “landmark,” “sunsets,” “mountains,” “landscapes” and “coast.” That puts me ahead of the majority of photographers adding images to these sites.

2. Provide detailed caption information.

I’ve found that nature photographers often like to keep their specific locations secret, so they might label an image in general terms such as “Zeus’ Lightning Rod, Colorado Plateau.” Unfortunately, this is a good way to keep your images a secret from the public — because photo editors want details. You need to provide location specifics, as well as any relevant scientific information, if you expect to sell your work to textbooks or guide books, for example.

3. Focus on a niche within your niche.

I live in Southern California and have spent a lot of time photographing scenic locations in my area as if they were the Yosemite Valley Overlook. As a result, I have generated a healthy revenue stream from shoots that have cost me little in the way of travel costs. A recent print sale of Southern California scenic locations, for example, has netted me several thousand dollars.

My original motivation for focusing locally was pragmatic: I was out of school with not much money in the bank. I knew that photographers generally ignore the region — even though there are more than 15 million people here. That’s a nice market for prints and stock.

4. Optimize your Web site and make your archive available to search.

The Internet has opened up the photography market to new buyers around the world. People who haven’t traditionally purchased through photo agencies are now searching online for pictures — and are often buying them directly from photographers’ Web sites.

Most of the direct sales I’ve made in the past two years have involved the use of PhotoShelter at some point in the process. Usually the buyer finds my Web site, then searches through my archive. Or I’ll send a lightbox after some consultation and complete the sale off-site, negotiating via e-mail or phone. Customer service is the key to selling direct.

5. Protect your rights.

While the Internet offers new opportunities to market your work, it’s also made it easier for people to steal your images — so you have to take steps to protect them. If your photos are floating around in cyberspace without watermarking, or downloaded off some subscription plan, then you have lost the ability to manage the use of your work.

Even if you take precautions and license your photos on a rights-managed basis, however, people will sometimes use your images without permission. And in those cases, you need to stand up for yourself.

For example, the other day, I walked into a grocery store near my house and saw a large painted mural of one of my images. It had been painted to match my photo to the smallest of details. Given that I had never licensed the image, and that it shows up on the first page of Google Images for that location, I am pretty certain that this is an unauthorized commercial use of my image. I am still exploring my options on this one — but let’s just say that I plan to do something about it.

In the belt-tightening world of editorial photography, many media outlets now offer a photo credit, rather than monetary compensation, for the use of your photo. “It will be great advertising for your work,” they tell you, “and getting published by us will help you professionally.”

Should you buy this argument?

Here’s what I can tell you from my experience:

1. The vast majority of readers never look at photo credits. They glance at the photo and then jump over to read the story. So much for “great advertising.”

2. Editors generally don’t look at where you’ve been published, unless the publication is very prestigious. Assigning photo editors are more interested in the quality and breadth of your portfolio. They want to know if you are consistent, if you are dependable, if you can overcome obstacles to pull off a shoot. These things all mean far more than whether you have been published in a particular outlet.

Ultimately, the best way to help yourself professionally is to do what professionals do — get paid for your work.

In standard stock uses, a quarter-page photo in a small, regional publication should bring in enough for you to buy a nice, new iPod touch. And that’s worth a lot more than a photo credit.

Thanks, But No Thanks

Recently, an editor of a local magazine called asking to use my photos of a popular country music singer. I inquired as to the publication’s usage rates.

“We don’t pay for photography,” the editor said in a snotty, entitled tone.

“That’s nice,” I replied. “And I don’t give away my work for free.”

End of conversation.

Guess what? Five minutes later, the singer’s publicist called to apologize for the magazine’s rudeness. The publicist had attended the original shoot (which I’d done on assignment for another publication) and had recommended the editor contact me for use of my photos.

The publicist asked my fee and paid it, and the photos appeared in the magazine. In the end, I got a photo credit — and a check.

Stand Firm and Set Your Own Price

The lesson here is to stand firm. Don’t let publications walk all over you and use your work for nothing.

If you’re not getting paid, how are you different from the millions of hobbyists uploading their photos on Flickr and all over the Web? How do you plan to put food on the table?

Set pricing on your photos that includes usage terms — one-time, English-only, no Internet, and circulation size are good places to start. FotoQuote software is an excellent tool for pricing your photography, as is Jim Pickerell’s book, Negotiating Stock Photo Prices.

Remember: if your photos are good enough to be published, they are good enough for you to be paid for them.

The future of photography is in original, exclusive content.

That’s harder to achieve today than it used to be. When photography was still film, print and slide, no one could really copy you, as they could not see what you had shot. As digital distribution has become the standard, more and more photographers see your work online and say, “Hey, I can shoot that.”

So we’ve gone from rights-managed stock photography to royalty-free stock photography to microstock photography. The pricing of images has become inversely proportional to the volume created. The more images are created to illustrate an idea, the cheaper they are.

It’s clear that you don’t want to be playing in that end of the pool. So, in today’s market, how can you position yourself as a photography original — and reclaim the value of your ideas?

Here are 18 do’s and don’ts:

1. DO shoot commission work, not stock. The market for stock shooters is not there anymore. Not for pros, anyway. Shoot commission work only, and then put that in stock. Commission work can give you access to people and places that are not available to the common mortal. It will give you a chance to create original images. Why? Because if the images were out there already, your client would have bought stock instead of hiring you.

2. DON’T sell yourself short. Once you have that original content, sell it well and hard. Do not drop it in the dollar bin. Those images will be your calling cards — both for stock and for more assignments.

3. DO show emotion. Too many photographers, in an attempt to be as generic as possible in order to be attractive to the biggest market, create bland, lifeless images. Instead, be as emotional as humanly possible. The more your images generate emotion in viewers, the better.

4. DON’T offend. Go for emotion, but not shock value. If your images are offensive in any way, they will never be used for commercial purposes, and rarely for editorial. If you want to shock people, do it with beauty, talent and art. Beautiful sells — sometimes much better than sex.

5. DO think scarcity, not volume. The scarcer your work, the more valuable. You are not a factory, after all. Don’t try to be one.

6. DON’T confuse “exclusive” with “niche.” Shooting difficult subjects is not the same as being original. There are limited markets for shots of exploding volcanoes, deep underwater fish and rainforest insects. You can be original without resorting to niche markets.

7. DON’T shoot stock video. Clearly, we will soon see the same trends in video as we’ve seen in still photography. In fact, microstock beat traditional stock agencies in offering video. So forget it.

8. DON’T copy the work of others. If you have an idea, look to see if it has been done. If it has, drop it. Move on.

9. DON’T look to your stock sales report for ideas. Sales reports tell you what you’ve sold, not what will sell. It’s a sure path to mediocrity.

10. DON’T go to workshops for ideas. Go to workshops to learn how and what not to shoot. Learn to be a loner.

11. DON’T share or post your techniques. You will only be popular with those who have no imaginations. Like leeches, they feed on others’ knowledge.

12. DON’T ask for the opinion of other photographers — ever. If your idea is good, they will copy you. If it’s bad, they won’t tell you.

13. DON’T focus on equipment. Talent is not measured by the number of lenses or gizmos you carry. The less you carry, the more you can concentrate on your images.

14. DO un-learn the rules. Forget all the rules, regulations, obligations, conditions, and other “…ions” that are stuffed in your head. Each one is another rope to your creativity.

15. DO disconnect your computer. It’s more of a distraction than anything else — and can easily lead to being influenced by “group think” and tired ideas. Get a smart phone to check your e-mail.

16. DO hide your best work. Only your clients should see it. No one else.

17. DO work on the process, not the result. If the process is perfect, the result will be, too.

18. DON’T look for the “secret.” There isn’t one. That’s the secret.

Recently, I visited the forum of a modeling Web site where a photographer boasted about his microstock image being used on the cover of Time Magazine. He was proud that Time had purchased the image — for $30.

Thirty bucks. Holy cow.

This topic has already been debated on a number of photography and journalism Web sites, but I wanted the dust to settle before I chimed in on this. I needed time to reflect.

I don’t want to pick on Robert Lam, the photographer. I hope that he is able to parlay the Time tear sheet to get other work and sell more stock.

But when I visited his Web site, it was a pretty bare-bones place. If Lam’s image had sold for $3,000 (as many Time cover images do) instead of $30, he’d be able to upgrade his site as a fitting reward for his achievement. I also saw that he was selling an 8×10 print of his cover image (before Time’s post-production work) for $7. Time, on the other hand, is selling prints of that cover for between $19.95 and $94.95.

Microstock is a great deal — for those who are buying. It’s not such a great deal for those of us who are giving away our photography. Time saved thousands of dollars. And if the photographer who shot the image decides to buy a print of that Time cover, to commemorate the occasion, the magazine has recouped all or most of its $30, just from that purchase.

Going Backwards

Call me crazy, but it seems to me the creation of photography is getting more expensive all the time — not less.  When I started taking pictures, a pricey Canon A-1 cost me $350.  My last camera cost 10 times that.  Will Seberger wrote recently about the rising cost of being a photographer:

Since about 2002, I have been stuck in an almost endless upgrade cycle. Where before I could do my job with some downright ancient hardware (by today’s standards, at least), today I have to move quickly to keep up with expectations.

Even if you are a hobbyist who only occasionally sells photography, you should understand your cost of doing business, shouldn’t you?

How long will your camera last? What about your computer?  When are you planning to upgrade your imaging software? These are hard costs that need to be taken into account.  Heck, your CF card costs more than what Time spent.

Oh, and don’t forget to factor in taxes. You are paying them, aren’t you?

The numbers don’t lie, and they all agree that selling microstock is a loser’s game.

I learned the other day that Twitter, which analysts value somewhere around $500 million, purchased its famous “birdie” graphic through a microstock site for less than $15.

I wonder where that artist took his family to celebrate the news.

Lens, the photojournalism blog of The New York Times, took a fresh look this week at the Chris Usher case. The case has garnered new attention because Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court nominee, was on the three-judge panel that affirmed the decision to award Usher the trifling sum of $7 per image for the loss of more than 12,600 images by Corbis.

The most remarkable part of the Times post is when a Corbis lawyer compares photography with nails:

Why would photographers be immune from the laws of economics? … If I had a 20-year-old business selling nails, and you were interested in buying my nail business, would you not look at how it performed? Would you not look at the gross revenue over 20 years and at the net and what the competition is, in order to fix a price? Why would photographers think they’re immune from these things? It’s a commodity.

No, Corbis, photography is not a commodity. But the sad fact is, you are attempting to turn it into one. To the detriment of photographers — and yourselves.

Is Photography a Commodity?

According to Wikipedia:

A commodity is something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk. In other words, copper is copper. The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand. Stereos, on the other hand, have many levels of quality. And, the better a stereo is [perceived to be], the more it will cost.

Does photography sound more like petroleum or a stereo to you?

Photography is rarely “supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.” Every photographer worthy of being called a professional works hard to differentiate his or her product from that of other photographers.

Nor is it “a product that is the same no matter who produces it.” Whether your image is good, bad or somewhere in between, I couldn’t reproduce it if I wanted to — because the moment captured in that photograph has passed forever.

Blurring the Lines

But there is another part of the definition of a commodity that is telling. As Wikipedia puts it:

One of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as iron ore, crude oil, coal, ethanol, salt, sugar, coffee beans, soybeans, aluminum, rice, wheat, gold and silver.

Is photography priced as a function of the market as a whole? Well, this is where the lines get blurry.

Now that companies like Getty Images are offering images on a subscription model, the perception of photography is changing. Bundling images from different photographers and pricing them as a service makes the individual images seem interchangeable, doesn’t it?

Not that photography is currently marketed like crude oil or corn, but it certainly is heading in that direction. From Newscom to PixPalace to GumGum to PicApp, there are more and more places trying to become de facto trade markets for photography.

But photography is not a commodity. So why is it being marketed as one?

The real culprits are the photo agencies that have intentionally dissociated value from pricing in an effort to keep photographers under their thumbs.

They want to convince buyers that the real value of their offering is in the service of supplying photography, rather than in selling amazing, one-of-a-kind photographs. Because conceding the latter would put more power in your hands as a photographer.

Ultimately, this strategy hurts everyone — including the agencies, which are slowly destroying themselves.

For photographers, the choice should be clear. If an agency offers subscriptions, or compares photography with nails, it is not your friend. Don’t let your precious jewels fall into their unending flow of rocks — and be priced accordingly.

As recently as 10 years ago, I thought making photos on assignment was like putting money in a retirement account. “My stock is my retirement,” I told people then. Times change. Stock photography, as operated by corporations bent on record profits every quarter, is in decline. That does not mean that photography is in decline — just one aspect of it. Assignment photography lives on.

Stock Photography in Freefall

Segments of markets decline over time. Consider that albums made way for cassettes, which made way for CDs and now iPods — yet music and musicians live on.

Getty and Jupiter are in freefall, and deserve to be. They devastated the industry rate structures (“Let’s sell 100 for $1 instead of one for $200″). Now they are getting a taste of what the photographic community experienced when they started selling “subscriptions,” and photographers were seeing “$0.48″ as the commission rate for a use of their photograph.

In a race to the bottom, stock licensing will continue to decline not just on a per-license basis, but also in revenue per image category, as categories continue to be flooded with imagery, watering down the marketplace even further.

Microstock will ultimately be in trouble, too. How many redundant servers can continue to run with a significant staff to take orders and collect $1 here, and $4 there?

As those companies who have damaged our industry fall, professional photographers will respond, “See, I told you so.”

Assignment Photography Will Endure

Fortunately, though the stock industry is in disarray, there will always be freelance assignment photography. As faces, styles, trends, and subjects age, and new products are announced, new images will be needed.

While my day-to-day operating budget has never been based upon revenues from my stock photography, I do re-license my images. Recently, an existing client extended a license from a PR rights package to a marketing use, generating $1,000 in additional revenue from the assignment. This is not unusual. But remember, it came from an assignment.

Yes, the stock industry is self-destructing. But professional photographers — those of us still standing in the aftermath — will be left to pick up the pieces. And we will.

Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, recently said something that was spot on in describing Google’s impact on photography.

“Google devalues everything it touches,” Thomson said. “Google is great for Google, but it’s terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.”

Quantity Over Quality

This quote is right on for two reasons. First, by virtue of its success, Google has become a standard that everyone follows and copies. Most photo agencies these days emphasize the size of their archives and the speed of their search results rather than the quality of their content.

It used to be that photo agencies only represented top talent, regardless of quantity. The content provided was never available elsewhere, and clients were guaranteed a certain level of quality.

These days, everyone is representing just about everyone else, and most content can be found elsewhere. A search on any of these mega-sites returns a hefty volume of images, hoping that the customer will find the right one somewhere in the pack. No effort is made to separate out the better images. Creativity is trumped by productivity. A photographer producing more has more chance of being sold than one who has great talent.

Rarity and Value

The second part of Thomson’s quote is even more revealing: “And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.”

The more content you have at your disposal, the more each and every unit of that content is worthless to you. If you have thousands of pairs of shoes, what do you care if the one you are wearing got scratched? You will probably throw them out, regardless of who the designer is.

It is part of human nature to associate rarity with quality. The same goes with photography. These mega-sites, offering millions if not tens of millions of images, are really just saying that their content is not that good, but they have a lot of it. Since their search results do not even offer a quality filter, every image is treated like the next one.

This approach is fine for microstock sites, which brand themselves as cheap discounters. No one expects to find a Cartier-Bresson in there. But the strategy is not so smart for the rest of the industry.

And yet, that is where everyone is headed — if they’re not already there.

If you want your customers to pay for quality, they have to feel that they are purchasing something special. The product has to be packaged and presented in a way that shows its value. Photography does not escape this rule.

It is not really the photo industry that is in danger of extinction, but rather a weird and strange animal that appeared about 50 to 60 years ago out of pure greed.

Let me explain: When photography became a job, the first photographers were troopers who would get up in the morning with the firm intention to get an assignment, or two, before the end of the day. They would look for both stories and clients and when they fit together, they would be rewarded with money.

Publication or ad agencies would never dream of licensing images that were not specifically shot for them — how plebeian! Photo agencies were then created mostly for photographers to share and organize resources. Since they became the repository of all images shot, they started to accumulate stock images made on past assignments. And thus, like any sound business, started to license those, too.

A Creepy, Greedy Animal

And then, with the success of bigger stock houses, like The Image Bank, a creepy, greedy little animal started to emerge. The stock photographer. Never talking to a client directly, they would get up in the morning with the sole purpose of taking images that could one day be licensed. Like movies that go direct to DVD, their images where exclusively shot for stock.

Armed with research analysis, spreadsheets, and a whole lot of corporate culture, they started multiplying. Mostly because their images were much cheaper than sending a photographer on assignment. There was no other cost involved than just the licensing rights. In a way, they murdered a large part of the assignment business and opened the door for more photographers, with doubtful talent, to enter the arena.

For a while, a lot did well, as travel prices surged. They managed to live off the rights-managed tradition of exclusivity, even though they never shot those images for that client. And then came in the real experts. Marketing gurus with intense software licensing experience. They turned pricing around by licensing images as a service rather than a product: the RF guys (and girls).

The “stockers” got their first warning shot. Prices went down. Shields were raises, hundreds of thousands of e-mail sent out, forums, debates, heated conversation plagued the industry for a while until tales of high income started to surface. Some stockers where actually making more money than before. The second gold rush started. Everyone suddenly started shooting RF. Agencies followed, as RF was to be the wave of the future. And it was, for a while.

Trampled by the Masses

Until file sharing entered the photo scene. People started exchanging their photographs, for professional usage. As the cost of maintaining a server became too steep, these exchanges were tagged with a fee. A very low fee, but indeed a fee. And a flood of new stockers invaded the scene. Very smart ones, very talented ones, and very useful ones. If there were a market in stock photography, historically controlled by a few selected pompous “pro” photographers, then it should be for everyone.

You can still hear the stockers screaming as they are being trampled by the masses in a last effort to save their “territory.” But let’s face it, we all know it is a dying breed of irrelevant photographers. Beside exploiting an immature market, they had no talent. They were the refuseniks of the assignment world, incapable of being hired for a photo shoot. And now, even their private grounds is being destroyed by the hungry masses.

So now what? Well, besides microstockers who will, in the majority, not be able to sustain a living with their photo sales, there will be less and less “pros” making stock photos anymore. Not because they don’t want to, but because they will not be able to make a living out of it. Some might be capable of moving up to assignment works; others, the majority, will leave the profession altogether.

And that will be a good thing. Photoshelter’s Collection’s recent demise is a good example that these images are no longer welcomed on the market. The oversupply of images that we are currently experiencing will be drained from the middle, that disappearing breed of stockers. They will no longer exist and no longer produce.

And finally, the photo world will be repopulated by photographers that really enjoy taking pictures, rather than analyzing spreadsheets. From the part-time amateur to the full-time pro, the passion of great photography will reappear as being the leading reason for being in this industry, not greed. No more of these small business mentality photographers who thought of themselves as a superior breed. The playing field is leveled and the industry’s parasite, the pro stockers, are out.

I have a photographer friend who couldn’t get out of the habit of snapping pictures of anything and everything on her photo excursions — then, after all the work was done, trying to figure out which (if any) of her photos would sell. She finally placed a label on the back of her camera that read: “Is it marketable?”

In two weeks she broke her habit, and that label has long since been removed. How about you? Are you taking marketable stock photos?

Your best teachers are the markets themselves: magazines, textbooks, Web sites, books, posters, and so on. Let these markets show you what they want. Analyze their image content and style.

You’ll find they consistently feature images with four primary elements:

1. Background is uncluttered.

2. Reasonably close up.

3. Bold in design, poster-like.

4. When people are in the pictures, which is 90 percent of the time, they are shown involved in meaningful activities or dialogue.

Give yourself a quick course in how to take marketable pictures by selecting a published stock photo, and then going out and taking (within reason) the same photo. If it’s a summer picture, and today it’s November, you will need to compensate, of course.

You will be rewarded with new insight into lighting, composition, and the handling of models by replicating a successful photo. You will also notice consistencies in these pictures. For example, are they usually close-up or medium shots?

Use such observations as a blueprint in developing your own illustrative style. But don’t forget that, once mastered, the rules are made to be broken.

In the days when I shot only slide film, the number of photos I shot was limited by how much film I was willing to carry and how much money I was able to spend on film and processing. Even if a client was picking up the tab, there was still the issue of how much film I felt like carrying; 10 rolls a day for a 10-day trip meant 100 rolls of film. That’s a chore — especially when you’re going through airports and having to have the film inspected by hand. Today, though, you can fit thousands of photos on a stack of memory cards small enough to carry in your jeans pocket. This creates a lot of opportunity — if you take advantage of it.

Lost in the Shuffle

Unfortunately, what often happens when you come home from a trip with hundreds or thousands of images is that a lot of them get lost in the editing shuffle. There are great photos that get ignored simply because you don’t have time to look carefully at (let alone edit to a finished version) every single frame. Another assignment or vacation comes along or daily life gets in the way and the next thing you know you have a whole new group of photos to review and edit.

Sure, the same thing happens with film images, but the funny thing about looking at slides on a light table right after a shoot is that the photos are right there looking back at you. You turn on the light table and there they are. You’re just not as likely to miss any killer images; even at a quick glance the great shots pop out.

Digital images have a way of hiding in folders that you may not open regularly or that don’t make it to the “best shots” folders. For this reason, it’s important to take time occasionally to look back through older image folders and see if you might not have ignored some potentially great images. Recently, for instance, I decided to go through my folders of “outtake” images from a 2003 trip to Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park.

At first I thought I’d done a good job of editing those images back in 2003, because I wasn’t seeing any new “gold” in those folders. I decided to open up a few of the images anyway and take a closer look.

Finding a Hidden Gem

One of the problems with digital files (especially files from digital cameras manufactured prior to 2005 or so) is that they are often very flat in both color and contrast; they seem lifeless. In the years since I shot those images in 2003, however, my Photoshop skills have improved to the point where I now realize that with a little tweaking, an average-looking file can create a stunning image.

For example, If found a shot of a hillside near the White Mounds area of Valley of Fire. The original file looked less than inspiring, but with a few gentle tweaks in curves, suddenly the image popped off the page. I was stunned by how glorious that late-afternoon light looked on the hillside. How did I miss that shot the first time around? I couldn’t believe I had let this image languish in a forgotten folder for several years.

Take a night off from editing new images occasionally and go back and explore some of your older image folders, and I bet you’ll find the same thing. You might also find, as I did, that your editing skills have improved enough that with a little work you can give these images the life they deserve.

[tags]digital photography, photography tips[/tags]

In the “for every action there’s a reaction” department, the Internet is showing us how technology can backfire. And in the department of “it giveth and it taketh away,” unknowing copyright infringers are gobbling up “free” photos from the Internet for their personal and commercial use.

Photographers don’t need to fear that reputable editorial photo buyers, magazines and book publishers, will attempt to “pirate” their images and not pay properly for them. The ethics of the editorial industry, and the pressures of maintaining reputation and, indeed, one’s job, help keep everyone honest. However, once an image has appeared in a publication, calendar, or other print media or Web use, a different danger raises its head, and is becoming increasingly troublesome.

Let me make an analogy. Have you ever read the book, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations? It’s a collection of quotes by famous, and sometimes infamous, people. The collection was first compiled in 1855, is now in its 17th edition, and includes everyone from Shakespeare to Jerry Seinfeld.

Are the quotes accurate? In many cases, probably not. Scholars today, for one example, still argue over who really wrote sayings and phrases attributed to Shakespeare. And as for Seinfeld, he’ll be the first to say, “Did I say that…. . Really?”

Stock photos are like “quotes.” Once they leave home, and travel the Internet, they are fair game. All bets are off. After awhile we’re not sure who the author — the photographer — really is.

Feathers in the Wind

All information on the Internet is like feathers in the wind. And this includes stock photos. In more and more cases, just where the information originally came from is anybody’s guess. Whom it can be attributed to is in danger of being lost the moment it hits the road. Photographers currently are at the mercy of chance — they can only hope their credit line won’t be separated from the photo itself.

As stock photographers, we have all unknowingly been drawn into a new realm of “collected works”: The Internet. Today, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to trace the original author of creative works displayed on the Internet — just as difficult as tracing the real author of a quote in the next edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. Actually, maybe there won’t be a next (18th) edition of Bartlett’s, because the Internet has made us all wary of its imprecision.

The same holds true for our stock photos. This points to the real problem for us. We tend to apply last century legal remedies to new millennium Internet problems.

A photographer can prove, yes, that he or she owns the copyright of a picture, but if the alleged infringer can prove the image is readily available on the Internet with no copyright notice attached, attempting to collect damages would prove costly (attorney and court fees) to the photographer. And more than likely wouldn’t be successful. The infringer would be designated as an “innocent infringer” by the court.

And to complicate matters, would a copyright attorney take on a case if it weren’t airtight? Rarely. Sections 106A and 107 of the Copyright Law say that fair use of a copyrighted work is open to much interpretation — which means in most every case, the infringer is going to get off scot-free.

The Image Connection

The Internet not only expands the possibility of someone “stealing” your image but also promulgates the danger exponentially. A friend, Dwight Kuhn, describes his experience this way:

Someone in a government agency copied one of my images from its first publication in Smithsonian Magazine and used it on their government website. Another division of the same organization copied a different photo (calendar photo with copyright notice) and also published it on their website. Both images were placed in the public domain — free for anyone to use. Sometime after that, they got placed on Wikipedia … and from there, published in different websites around the world.

Same thing happened with a weasel photo first published as a double page spread in National Wildlife. Someone copied it and it too was listed as in the public domain on Wikipedia. So far I’ve gotten 75 groups to delete this image from their websites (some commercial uses). There are dozens more places using this photo that I know about, and I cannot get any response to my requests for them to delete the photos. And who knows how many other places the image has been used?

This whole issue is a big problem. I cannot tell you how much work has been involved trying to get these images under control, all because of one person starting the whole problem.

Does this mean we should cease licensing our images to editorial and commercial buyers? Should we cease placing our images on the Internet?

The Internet is the only game in town. Photographers are creative people. I’ve heard of interesting schemes to confront this dilemma. One photographer teams together with an attorney and splits the difference when they get a court judgment from an infringer (with deep pockets) for misuse of a picture.

Other photographers and stock agencies use commercial “seek and find, and sue” organizations such as PicScout, a visual content monitoring provider.

Another photographer promises impecunious infringers such as non-profit agencies a “no-reprisal” if the infringer places the photographer’s name and Web site address in prominent view along with the image.

The reality is that this problem is not going to go away. The ease now with which photos can be uploaded to the Internet, the advances in image-scanning technology, the ever increasing numbers of Internet users unschooled in the essentials of copyright law — all make stock photos vulnerable to being picked and used on one site, then another, then another, then mistakenly considered public domain when they appear so far down a chain of placements that they are hopelessly separated from any identification to the copyright holder.

What are some of your ideas for dealing with this issue?

[tags]photography law, copyright[/tags]

Jim Maxwell once wrote an essay on how to write a country song guaranteed to hit the Top 40: Include a done-me-wrong lady, a horse, a thief, a train, a jailhouse, a shotgun. Mix with emotion: jealousy, love, regrets. Add some action: a bank robbery, wreck at a railroad yard, a hard-driving rodeo. Deliver with a twang, weave in a refrain that can be repeated with five notes on the piano –and you can’t lose.

Would you like a similar recipe for moneymaking stock photos? How about: a financially happy family, watching a group of busy employees, silhouetted against a palm-fringed beach, at sunset, with dramatic clouds in a big sky featuring (in the upper left-hand corner) the NASA shot of the planet Earth.

Well, maybe separate shots of each of those elements would be more manageable.

Like popular songs manufactured from a formula, stock photo “hits” aren’t necessarily the photos you’d choose as the best representatives of your heart or talent — but they sure can pull in dollars for you while you are laboring to survive in the stock photo industry.

Financially successful commercial stock photographers manufacture the “hits” over and over again — and were doing so long before the days of the Web and microstock.

Photography Best Sellers

Twenty years ago, James Ong, the former president of the Four By Five Stock Photo Agency, compiled 100 top-selling stock photos and provided each photo’s sales history in the book Photography Best Sellers. Needless to say, Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith aren’t included among Ong’s top sellers.

So, what was the No. 1 moneymaker in Ong’s compilation? A subject that isn’t hard to get; just point your camera and shoot. It was an image of clouds. The photograph earned — back then — total sales of $75,131. The No. 2 picture? Also clouds — earning $66,174. Other pictures in the top 15: busy workers, happy families, sunsets, beaches, and the public domain NASA picture of Earth.

If you are into photography strictly for the money, the above could be a clue as to what you should be taking (or making) to send to the microstock sites that you work with.

Things really haven’t changed that much in the past 20 years. If you look at the current best-selling images on iStockPhoto and other stock sites, you’ll see lots and lots of clouds.

James Ong never made any value judgments on his book’s photographs, by the way — other than to say that money talks. And who can argue with that?

[tags]stock photography[/tags]