The End of the Pro Photographer? The Classic Model that Is

<p>Selling Out and the Stock Photography Dilemma!<br /> <br /> Someone on another photography forum , stated that a photographer sold their image for a cover of TIME Magazine for $30. It was sold through a stock photography agency called iStockPhoto. That is sadly unfortunate. It also represents the present state of affairs for many photographers attempting to make a living by their craft. <br /> <br /> It is for this reason, that I am glad that I am a fashion photographer. It is impossible to sell stock of fashion shoots after more than three months as the next collections are already being prepared to be shot for the next season of fashion magazines.<br /> <br /> Every editor knows which designers have come out with which collection and images must always be current. There are instances where fashion photography is sold as stock. If there is a fashion retrospective or a special article on a specific designer. Several of my older images from a magazine in France called Madame Figaro were used in a book about the Italian Designer Emanuel Ungaro, but that was a book and not a magazine.<br /> <br /> Like in the music business, photographers outside of fashion are getting royally screwed in terms of fee's. However, they are still in a good position to negotiate royalties. Most image bank agencies take between 40-60 percent and that IS the norm. In my venue the standard across the board fee taken by a photographer agents is 25%.<br /> <br /> It is up to you to not sell your images at bargain based prices. It is up to you to set the precedent. Once the barometer goes too low, you will have to find a more creative means of generating an income from your images. <br /> <br /> Unfortunately, there is a line of photographers prepared to take your place for that $30, if you decide to say no to the proposition. A new business model must eventually surface for photographer's to be able to survive. Perhaps the new pro-photographers of the future will be all of you.<br /></p>

<p>is this a one off sale perhaps? i don't think that the very best artist would ever suffer but the ones who have not quite made it as yet.</p>

<p>Have any accurate market research based statistics to back up your claim that this is a trend? Otherwise this topic comes across as being just a means to build traffic for your blog from where this topic as been copied and pasted verbatim.</p>

<p>Excellent photography work, BTW. Your PN bio suggest you're very world traveled and experienced in how things operate in the business of photography so I'm surprised that you'ld rely on a statement from one photographer in another forum that would suggest this is a business trend.</p>

<p>At this moment I have no idea on how to fix it. It's too big and broad of an issue to solve in a forum thread.</p>

<p>However if you do figure how to solve this, you can then move on to resolving how a lot of internet driven sites stay afloat today with just nickel and dime ad revenue.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>To follow on Tim's last comment...</p>

<p>You say that $30 isn't much money, but you appear to think it is. You post a lot here yet haven't bothered to pay the $25 that keeps the site going. I can only assume that $25 is an astronomical amount and that's why you aren't paying, so I can't take what you say above seriously.</p>

<p>I'm not a pro photographer but I see a couple of things that could be going on here. One is that many magazines and newspapers are in bad financial condition and have to save money where they can. Obviously this is due to both the economy and competition from the internet. The second is that even though $30 is not much money, the cover of Time Magazine gives a photographer great exposure (pun intended). The photographer and the agency may be happy for the exposure alone.</p>

<p>I will accept your proposal Jeff and contribute my 25 dollars. It just never occured to me. Thanks for the heads up.</p>

<p>Well, there you have it...I am now a subscriber :-)</p><div></div>

<p>I think the pricing model is not an effective business plan for everything. I suspect that by the time a microstock place is in business for about a year or two, they probably, internally, hit on a point where inefficiency inside the operation becomes a big obstacle. And then, here come the growing pains for everybody.</p>

<p>The $2 plan for a photo can work well. If you need a small, generic photo, well made, that really only has brief utility in a layout, I can see that the $2 plan would be the answer. And, it would be an answer you can respect. That need for illustration is as legitimate as any other. If a photographer can do so well at that that he can earn his living $2 a time, well, that's quite an accomplishment. And, he should accept the money.</p>

<p>But the thing is, I perceive that we're seeing market forces that are trying to arbitrarily push to use that type of business plan for everything. What do the microstock agencies want right now? People in business suits. They want models. In other words, they want the photo that would have gone for $500 before, but under the terms for the $2 photo.</p>

<p>Some photographers are going to be able to make those products and do really well. Hey, some guys apparently can get a museum exhibit after working a Holga.</p>

<p>What I'm getting at is that unless we see more advertising about the price point for a photo, it's going to be hard to compete with the big massive Internet corporate effort to push the microstock photo. Then, everyone will suffer. You can hit the drive thru to get a hamburger now, but you wouldn't want to eat there every day. And, you wouldn't want to make every cook and chef in the world work at the fast food joint. Microstock is a fast food business model for photographs.</p>

<p>We're seeing more and more people whose skills and products exceed the standards of the main function of that model getting crammed in there and forced to mill out some pay.</p>

<p>Somewhere in there, there's going to be some kind of massive market correction, and we'll see the rise of more, smaller, four-man band type agencies, like Magnum photos was when it began. And then people will go hunting their favorite "club" agencies.</p>

<p>Even though the Internet has been around for 15 years or so, in terms of being a marketplace, it's still a baby. And, a lot of times, we are still seeing people who seem to perceive that the initial successful business models are "how it's done." And, I think that may not be the case.</p>

<p>I don't know about you, but I think I would prefer to work with a small club agency rather than a big corporate organization. Key point, though, would be paying the bills. Who wouldn't want to be HCB or Capa back when Magnum photos was created? I think a lot of photographers would find that entrepreneurial independence attractive.</p>

<p>After a bunch of those, we'd probably see the rise of photo agencies that were actually directories. Pure directories. Strait referral services that weren't maintaining custody of a photo. But, who would make the referrals for pay. Much like the first two pages of regurgitating sites that come up on an internet search for common items.</p>

<p>I'm no expert, but that's how I perceive what's happening.</p>

<p>Your subject line is probably accurate. You cannot expect business models to remain intact in the face of market-disruptive technological advances. As the marginal costs trend toward zero, so will price.</p>

<p>To whom is this directed?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>It is up to you to not sell your images at bargain based prices. It is up to you to set the precedent.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Should the next crop of aspiring photographers (who are able to learn exponentially faster on cheaper and cheaper equipment) either 1) demand top market price or 2) refuse to sell at all, just to prop up the income of the Old Guard?</p>

<p>Finally, what is the "value" of a picture of a jar of coins on a seamless white background? Should that shot have commanded $10K? The photographer seems pretty thrilled that his work was used, and he's selling prints on his website. Don't we all win when a company operates in a financially responsible manner?</p>

<p>A few things come to mind.</p>

 

<p>First, stock photography is much different from news photography is much different from fashion

photography is much different from fine art photography is much different from…well, you get

the idea. A perfect business model for a wedding photographer will result in starvation for a

professional sports photographer, and vice-versa.</p>

 

<p>With one exception: the “work for hire” business model. Charge for your services

like any other trade or craft, whether that’s by the hour or a flat fee per job. Hand a finished

product over to your clients and walk away. The car salesman / manufacturer / <i>etc.</i>

doesn’t care if you use the car to chauffeur multimillionaires from their jets to their luxury

resorts at $100 / mile or if you use it to buy cheap whisky and cigarettes at the local stop-n-rob.</p>

 

<p>Stock photography is a peculiar sort of thing. The overwhelming majority of the time, the

designer is looking for, essentially, an icon: a young middle-class mixed-race family on the lawn of a

house with a “For Sale — SOLD!” sign in the foreground, for example, or a guy

on the side of a road, gas can in one hand and upraised thumb in the other.</p>

 

<p>And, you know what? The market for those kinds of images is super-saturated. Got any idea of

how many jars of coins on a seamless white background there are? I’d be surprised if

there’s a stock agency that has fewer than a dozen of them, and scores more pictures of

piggy banks (broken and intact, with and without coins spilling around), and of piles of cash, or gold

coins, or people doing jumping jacks with fistfuls of cash, or people in period costumes of all eras

with their pockets turned out and their palms turned up, and so on and so on and so on.</p>

 

<p>Indeed, the most important service a stock agency can provide these days is <em>not</em>

their images; everybody’s got lots of images — too many, in fact. No designer wants

to spend hours poring through hundreds of different images of jars of coins. What sets a stock

agency apart is the search function primarily, along with the quality of the image masks (because

the designer doesn’t want to spend time masking out frizzy hair before compositing the

picture with the three other pictures she bought from two other stock agencies). Make it so that the

designer can find exactly the right image, quickly and easily, and make the image pre-digested.</p>

 

<p>Although the product is photography, the overwhelming glut of photographs has made the

pictures themselves the least important part of stock photography.</p>

 

<p>Sure, there’s some call for “fresh” and “new,” but not as

much as you’d hope for. Those who really care about such things will have a photographer

on staff — getting paid a salary — who will be given an assignment to photograph a

jar of coins. Except <em>this</em> jar should be a Ming vase, and the coins should be Spanish

Doubloons.</p>

 

<p>And what’re we left with? A work for hire….</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

<p>I see this market-disruptive technology (cool terminology, Mark) causing all of society to morph into some type of world commune where we all have a professional looking photo of ourselves on a web page while we hang around the computer in our underwear vying to be the lowest bidder making just enough money to keep everyone happy.</p>

<p>Ah, the freedom to scratch where ever you want without anyone watching. I can't wait.</p>

<p>Other than that we could just start a photography cabal where we come up with a code symbol signifying we sell nor do we buy from anyone who doesn't pay the price or follow business practices established by such a group. We could embed this symbol in the form of a numerical bug that appears in the lower left corner of each image's EXIF data signifying the creator of such image belongs and adheres to the edicts of this cabal. The number could be something like "666".</p>

<p>mwha-ha-ha-haaa!</p>

<p>Tim,</p>

 

<p>Just to reassure you, the EAC (which does’t exist, of course) will not be on its way momentarily in black helicopters. Please

remain where you are; there’s absolutely no need to panic whatsoever.</p>

 

<p>Oh — and don’t mind the rubber chickens, either.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

<p>John, are you sure about this: "Somewhere in there, there's going to be some kind of massive market correction, and we'll see the rise of more, smaller, four-man band type agencies"?</p>

<p>I think it would be great but it generally doesn't happen in markets except for some very small high-end niches. I believe there will be some four-man band agencies but I don't see a massive market correction taking place.</p>

<p>As microstock competition devalues your work, so does it devalue it's bottom line. How long will that model last?</p>

<p>Peter:</p>

<p>The microstock model will last because the cost of producing the images falls to photographers, not the agents themselves. It's been long-known in the stock photo business that the supply of photographers in infinite and nothing will slow it down.</p>

<p>For the life of me, I can't imagine what would trigger that "massive market correction." Let's face it, while stock photo agencies are important in aspriing pro fantasies, it's not that big a part of the business.</p>

<p>". . . John, are you sure about this:"<br>

I think "sure" would be a little too much emphasis on some of my predictions. But, I think it is plausible. People have a way of flocking to ideas over the internet that reminds me of <em>Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds</em>. We're already to the point that the whole world wants to upload 9,000 images of flowers that they think -ha!- can compete with my finest photographs. ;-) </p>

<p>Meanwhile, we see the rise of $2 an image, $1 an image, royalty free, and now the flat out, "It's free, and we expect you to give it to us anyway" agencies. What's next? The "you will pay us and receive another bill for your stuff" agency? </p>

<p>The madness can only go so far. </p>

<p>Then people will drop it and drop out. Supply and demand will both suffer. Someone will try a new tactic. Then, it'll be "pile on the four man band." Or, maybe, "pile on the four man bandwagon." </p>

<p>But, I wouldn't say I was sure. My guess, yeah. Plausible. </p>