dear community,

i do have an experience that I am sure most of us occasionally have:

* it becomes increasingly difficult to produce original content
* in my research I find a good number of images that share my topics, that have often enough a similar or lesser quality than my products, images that have sold hundreds and thousands of copies
* I earn a living as a professional photographer so I know not to glorify my own work
* I have the feeling that a majority of existing stock images wouldn't pass review nowadays
* I am aware that superior content always finds its way

so my question is:

given these (perceived) facts

* are stock sites just protecting their old and loyal clientele?
* do newcomers still have chances to earn a living with a reasonable portfolio and reasonable effort?
* whats your experience? do your rely more on your back catalog or new productions?
* are there discussions with the agencies to purge material that has a certain age and is not top seller?

thanks for your shared experiences

marc

www.fischka.com

It's certainly possible but a lot more difficult than it was when I started 8 years ago.  Those of us that have been uploading for a long while have already earnt our position in the ranks, are bookmarked by a lot of buyers etc but newcomers have to work their way up. Saying that, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for those of us that have been doing this for a long while.  It isn't the gold mine that it used to be  unless you are willing to put in a LOT of work.

it appears to me as such a weird market. I am sure that the demand of stock photography is rising all the time. It's weird that supply obviously outweighs demand so much. In traditional photo business (at least in my home country Austria) the demand is sinking every year (more stock, lesser budgets, economic crisis) and there are more people running around with a camera and dumping prices. Therefor my newly found interest in stock.

The chance to earn is that if the demand don't change so much in term of subject, it change a lot, and periodically, in term of style.

Example: today you will not take a picture of a same subject in a same situation as you did 5 years ago (because the trend changes).

But yes, personally (I am new on stocks too) I think that it is harder and harder.
But I don't think that it is a bad thing.

* do newcomers still have chances to earn a living with a reasonable portfolio and reasonable effort?

Define "reasonable" - twice. What I've read from stock photographers from the 90's it was quite common for them to have 10,000+ images in their stock portfolios. And many of them did that on the side of their regular business.

For some time during the microstock growth phase, there was a potential to make a living with a few thousand images. This might not be the case anymore. So I guess if your question is like "upload 1,000 images and make a living from it within 6 months" the answer is most likely no. If you have a back catalog of thousands and keep shooting thousands per year, you might still have a good chance to make a full time income but it will take you a year, maybe two or three. That's my guess.

* in my research I find a good number of images that share my topics, that have often enough a similar or lesser quality than my products, images that have sold hundreds and thousands of copies

There is a difference between "perceived quality" and "usability". Maybe many photographers would agree with your judgement seeing two images side by side. Customers might not, they are not looking for the technical brillant image with perfect composition, they are looking for an image at a reasonable price as quickly as possible that will serve their purpose. So any image with mediocre quality on page 1 will be sold easier than an excellent image on page 3 of a given search.

Which leads to...

* are stock sites just protecting their old and loyal clientele?
* are there discussions with the agencies to purge material that has a certain age and is not top seller?

It's not about loyalty, it's about business sense. Once reviewed, an image doesn't cause much cost. Why would an agency put up effort to clean up which would cause at least some manual work. And there might still be a chance that an image gets bought by a client.

The same goes for proven bestsellers: For the agency it's not about "who" produced the image, it's about images having a proven sales record. Those images are more likely to attract new clients, so they will be placed on top of new images without a record. It's a challenge for each agency to come up with a good mix of "fresh" and "proven" stuff but in case of doubt I guess they will always tend to "proven".

It's not about loyalty, it's about business sense. Once reviewed, an image doesn't cause much cost. Why would an agency put up effort to clean up which would cause at least some manual work. And there might still be a chance that an image gets bought by a client.

The same goes for proven bestsellers: For the agency it's not about "who" produced the image, it's about images having a proven sales record. Those images are more likely to attract new clients, so they will be placed on top of new images without a record. It's a challenge for each agency to come up with a good mix of "fresh" and "proven" stuff but in case of doubt I guess they will always tend to "proven".

i can think of a reason why to purge older not-so-high sellers. you don't want to browse through 1000 children blowing their dandelions . 100 is enough. purging what failed in the past increases the quality more than just restricting new stuff to come in.

Define "reasonable" - twice. What I've read from stock photographers from the 90's it was quite common for them to have 10,000+ images in their stock portfolios. And many of them did that on the side of their regular business.

Haven't been around that long but I get the impression that agencies are getting tighter and tighter with copyrights and property.

 When I weeded  my 120.000 archived images, I took out the bad ones, the private ones, the copyrighted ones, the ones for clients only, most of the analog ones, ones with property issues, with model issues, I had roughly 400 left. But then again, I never thought of going into Stock.

Quote from: marcnim on April 26, 2013, 09:06

i can think of a reason why to purge older not-so-high sellers. you don't want to browse through 1000 children blowing their dandelions . 100 is enough. purging what failed in the past increases the quality more than just restricting new stuff to come in.

If all you want is a 100 then you just need to look at the first 100 but for those who don't find what they want then the others are there for them to look at.  I've never seen the point of deleting images.  The bad images that nobody wants soon sink into the back of the search so they aren't causing any problem.

Also some buyers might prefer an older file without much sales as a choice, as then they're not so likely to find a rival firm using the same image (as gets recorded many times, notably with book covers). I've noted here a few times that I get ELs for older files with few/no dls, and I'm sure that's the reason.

[snip]

the solution isn't to make collections smaller but to make searches smarter

Exactly

Da vinci with all of his ingenuity and talent would be hard pressed to make a living in this biz these days.

To me the effort has seemed like blowing up a baloon with a hole in it. And the hole is slowly getting bigger.

I expect to be slapped for my honesty but that has been what it seems like.

sooner or later it will become impossible to live with stock alone.
it's already the same for music and much more, and it was already the norm for book writers since decades.

i mean there's nothing stopping agencies from pushing prices and royalties even lower, and they will as they've nothing to lose as long as they can still make a decent profit.

we're just "collateral damage", they will never see us in person, they will never even know we pay the bills with stock, we don't exist, we're just numbers on a monitor.

you can stay afloat if you've 30,000 RM images or 10,000 RF images but the agency can quickly change the rules of the game, maybe because of domino effect or maybe because buyers have smaller budgets and we're the last wheel of the chain, the voiceless ones who can either accept being enslaved even more or forced to leave the industry to the crowd of young happy snappers willing to upload for free or for a credit line.

agencies owe us nothing and if you think stock images are a masterpiece of art that cannot be easily replaced by Flickrs and newbies think again !

on a different note, but similar subject. I am amazed by the technical quality of the average professional stock photographer. Way higher than in my original field (events, people, design). competition drives quality. But since it was mentioned before, I sense a lack of humanity and authenticity. (compared with the level of technical quality). Images that really grab the viewer emotionally. Is that just my perception or a result of business logic?

[speaking as a newbie, only 1 year in]

I think this is due in part to the high technical standards of places like iStock, which force us all into 'safe' territory with regard to exposure, composition and so forth. It's very like my days at college, where creativity came second to technical perfection. A brilliant shot that captured the moment and made you smile came second place to something that had better technical skill or - worse - was "arty". ugh! Out in the real world of magazines, newspapers and other publications the reverse is true. They really don't care/can't tell if you shoot at ISO640 and the colour cast if off a touch, so long as the moment is good. Anyone noticed the pics of celebs that DT has been featuring lately? Hardly brilliant photos are they? But if it's Kate and Wills, who cares if your focus is in the right spot and you use an on camera flash?

Having said that there are plenty of different sites that have different standards, and places like Stocksy are certainly veering away from "bland blonde perfection" that has been so popular at other agencies. SS is launching Offset which will probably be similar, and iS have their own version (but we shant talk about them too much, they're still in our bad books).

edit: sp and grammar

A little note: I have got a -1 to one of my previous post.

I completely accept when somebody put a negative vote to my comments.
As we are different and we can have different or opposite points of view I think that is is normal, but I would be very more happy if these people will give the reasons why, and don't hide as cowards behind anonymity.

Thank you for understanding

(Now put all the minus that you want here )

I can't see anything wrong with that post. Maybe they meant to put a + and pressed the wrong button.