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We're just relaunching in January 2012 with a new angle. DSLR Blog will be about images and their stories (we also write about other topics on Photography too). We welcome submissions from any type of photographer - from baby portraits to gut-wrentching humanitarian photography to pure art. Read our submission guidelines.
Tag Archives: stock
How to Choose a Stock Agency
First article in a series on how to choose, submit to, and work with stock photography agencies.
I’m assuming that most readers of this blog are familiar with the basics of how stock agencies work. You take photos, you send them to the agency, they sell them, and you split the sales proceeds. That’s the basic model. That said, that said, the stock photography world is a universe unto itself. Various articles in this series will deal with some of the bigger differences you should be aware of, as well as more detailed thoughts on how to pick and work with any given agency.
For now, let’s say you’ve decided to sell through a stock agency…how do you decide which one to sell through? I’d say the answer depends on where you are in your photographic journey.
Part One: If you are just starting out
If you are completely new to stock photography and / or if you do not have at least 500+ high quality images in a singe niche area, then I would recommend that you take two steps.
Posted in Stock Photography Agencies
Also tagged selling photos, Stock Photography Agencies, submission guidelines
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What kind of photographer are you?
What kind of photographer are you? There are several different ways to categorize the work photographers do—what we might call business models. When finding your niche, keep in mind these models can produce dramatically different lifestyles and daily work routines.
Stock versus Assignments (Selling Photos versus Services)
The first and most common division is between those who sell images (“stock” shooters) and those who sell their services (assignment photographers). Stock photographers take photos on their own time and resources, accumulate large libraries of images, and sell the rights to use those images. Assignment photographers, by contrast, are paid to take the specific images that clients need. After the assignment, they may or may not retain rights to those images. Continue reading
Posted in Photography Business
Also tagged assignment, business models, commerical, editorial, photography, types of photography
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More Flickr Stock Photography Move Rumblings
Recall my musings about if Flickr will move towards stock photography features? Looks like they are definitely at least considering it …
Making Money For The Flickr Flock?
He called subscriptions one of the “core ways” Flickr will make money in the future.
He also said that there were other opportunities, such as brand advertising, contextual ads, search ads and, well, then he stopped short.
“We don’t talk about upcoming initiatives,” he said. “But I will say that even today, a lot of people buy photos from Flickr users. But people have to know the person, and send them a Flickr mail and they have to negotiate a price.
“It’s a very high-friction process. Taking the friction out of that would be one of things Flickr could do to monetize,” he said. “But we haven’t made any announcements.”
But he went into details.
First off, Butterfield said, Flickr photos wouldn’t be the same product that photo buyers find on a stock photo site like Jupiterimages or even iStockphoto, which is a kind of Flickr for professionals known for its “crowd-sourcing.”
Butterfield said those sites typically trade in typical business brochure-friendly photos. For instance, he added, they would sell an image of a group of ethnically diverse 40- and 30-somethings using computers or maybe of two men shaking hands.
Flickr photos would find a different niche on the marketplace, but still a viable one, he added. And then it begins to make sense. Flickr photos are typically more, personal, more artistic.
When I gave Butterfield my card, he saw that I worked for JupiterWeb, which shares a parent company with Jupiterimages.
“Ah,” he said, “Jupiter, No. 3 in the business.”
Before the interview ended, I pointed out that iStockphoto already has a good 23,000 contributing photographers.
That’s when Butterfield reminded me of Flickr’s 4 million.
Not everyone is happy about it, there are several pro and anti conversations taking place on Flickr groups right now. I for one welcome the move if it keeps Flickr running, they can’t survive on subscriptions alone can they?
Technorati Tags: flickr, stock, photography, news
Zooomr To Take On Stock Photography Giants?
For quite a while I have thought that Flickr should allow sales of photographs by its users. Flickr as a stock photography library is something I have discussed here before and it seems that since Thomas Hawk joined Zooomr they have been looking at it as a business model…
Here is a titbit from Thomas Hawk’s blog
One of the things we want to do at Zooomr is to help the pro/am photographer monetize their photostream within the photosharing space
Out of everything else going for Zooomr that could be one reason to switch. Zooomr doesn’t offer me anything to set my world alight so I would much prefer Flickr to offer this but if they don’t then Zooomr might be worth a try.
flickr, zooomr, stock, photography, news
Posted in News and Commentary, Online Photography Community, Photography Business, Pricing, Stock Photography
Also tagged flickr, news, Zooomr
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Royalty Free Stock Photography Doesn’t Seem That Great A Deal Now?
This from StockPhotoTalk is both an inspiring and at the same time woeful tale of all that is good and bad with royalty free stock photography …
Carl Purcell is a travel photographer whose art has graced publications ranging from National Geographic and U.S. News and World Report to travel sections in The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Still, an online archive at corbis.com is home to 12,800 of his more than 300,000 photos and is a primary source of income for him. One popular photo alone — of palms blowing in a typhoon in the South Pacific — has netted more than $25,000, Purcell says. But this 77-year-old retiree’s most famous image — a billowing American flag merged with the Statue of Liberty — appears on a 39-cent stamp. [..] Unfortunately for Purcell, the 8-year-old image credited to him and his former wife, Ann, was one of a handful of royalty-free photos available from an Internet archive. “The only payment I got for it was a check for $150,” he says ruefully.
So his art has found success, he has even made a bunch of cash ($25k is not to be sniffed at unless you just happen to be the hobby digital photographer called Bill Gates), and his picture even graced a stamp for goodness sake, success! Wouldn’t you feel you had been kicked in the nuts every time you received some mail stamped with your now bargain-basement image?
Thing is they probably wouldn’t have seen let alone used his image had it not been in there and how many people can claim to have had their photographs seen by as many people?
royalty, free, stock, photography, news
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My good news is Strobists Dilemma
What a coincidence. On the same day I give away a photograph for free to be used by British Airways inflight magazine I read this from Strobist
On the one hand I can totally get your point David, I really do. And you know, I do feel a little guilt for giving my photograph away (thanks for ruining a great moment in my photography career! heh).
Having pondered on it for a little while though here are my thoughts
My last point needs some clarification. Consider web sites. A company comes to me and says “I want a web site to sell my widgets”. I say “That will be $£xx,xxx.99″. They say “Whoah, my neighbour’s nephew’s friend’s sister can do it for $£x”. I say “Go get them to do it then and come back to me when they make a hash of it”.
If an industry gets commoditised it is because that industry is doing a poor job of selling itself. What is the difference between me building a website and the 12 year old kid with a copy of Dreamweaver? Oh, probably more than a million pounds in profit on the clients bottom line, and I can prove it, but I am not going to do it at the kids rates. You have to decide what the difference is between your photograph and some kids $1 stock photo. If there is no difference who’s fault is that? Not the kid and not the customer, that’s for sure.
Technorati Tags: strobist, stock, photography, news