My stock journey began with an applicate to supply Getty Images - probably about 20 years ago now. I believe that I received a letter of rejection that mentioned something about not bothering to attempt submission again

I did not give up though and searched for other agencies that may be interested in representing my work. That first agency was Shutterstock. Like others, I went to contribute to other agencies too. Now there are three of us contributing in my business - one more or less full time working on stock video. This work has made a lot of money for the various agencies over the years. Us less so.

I started in microstock because Getty did not give me a chance. So obviously, I shed no tears when my "team" of stock contributors obliterated the industry and we got paid a bit for our efforts.

Unfortunately, some of our agencies have not been able to establish a competitive advantage on anything other than price and availability. Reading the comments and listening to the many YouTube videos, it's pretty obvious that if any of us are going to extract any value from our creative work going forwards, we have to change who we entrust to market our works.

Some agencies are just going to continue to erode price and cut commissions indefinitely and it's obvious to most that it's time to only work with agencies that are committed to providing competitive advantage based on something other than price - like exclusivity and limited availability of core content.

But what are the solutions going forwards for us as contributors?

For photos, I've applied for representation at Stocksy. My thought process was to pull the best-selling top 20% my image portfolio from all agencies and send it exclusively to Stocksy. I have no idea if Stocksy wants my work yet though. All new photo work would go to Stocksy too. Over time I'd then move all reasonable work across to Stocksy and either cull the rest or just sell it from my own site.

One thing this is very compelling for me about Stocksy is that it's a collective. They are not going to be listed on a stock market or bought by some dickhead corporate fund. In other words, as a collective, their primary concern is to keep their buyers and sellers reasonably satisfied. There can be (structurally at least) no other weird and wonderful motives at play.

If Stocksy does not accept my application though, I'm really not sure at this point how to handle the photos.

For video, I'm leaning strongly in favour of going exclusive at Pond5 and removing videos from all other agencies. But I've not been paying attention to the market enough and have a lot of questions like:

- Pond5 exclusivity is for video only, right? If I sent my photos to Stocksy, there would be no conflict between the two agreements?

- Pond5 has an agreement to market though other agencies like Adobe and Vimeo stock. So by pulling my files from Adobe and marketing them all through Pond5, I'd still get the price that I allocate for the videos and I'm not hurting Adobe unnecessarily? Adobe have been a good agency to deal with so far for us and I assume many others too.

- What you lose by not selling at cent commission sites, presumably you can recover somewhat by increasing your clip prices and by obtaining better commissions. I guess that's the thinking, but is that what others have experienced?

- I've spent some time and money building up our own website to represent our work - it seems that Pond5 is comfortable that we continue to market our own work ourselves too?

Anyone else have any questions and comments about this and our options as contributors in the market going forwards?

Perhaps it would be helpful to identify some pathways to best representation for most contributors. We really are pretty much in the same boat with all of this and sharing our options may be good for all.

The best way forward is out of stock and into commission works if one has the equipments and expertise to do it.

This is like moving to another curve instead of still languishing on the same stock photos curve.

Go and read "Shooting for stock is overrated? A way out?" thread.

I started at iStock.  When that went bad a bunch of years ago I moved my pix to Shutterstock.  Now this went bad so I'm looking for another place to drop my stock pictures.  I moved my 6 videos(lol) to Pond5.

I'm thinking of moving my images to either Adobe stock or Alamy.
Anyone can tell me the difference between them?

Alamy is a platform, not an agency like SS or AS.
Once you got accepted you will hardly ever have any rejections - they accept everything.
They were just sold a few months ago to a british media group and my sales went up a little bit.
They pay 40 % share, went down from 50 % last year.
You won´t have many sales on alamy (it took months for me before I had the first sale), but if you get a sale they can be hugh like 150 Euro or even more. ( I sold a pic for 200 Euro two months ago).
They don´t have cheap abonnement sales. Only fair priced sales.
I like them. They´re easy with no rejections and sales are fair priced.
They accept editorial but never check if your pics need a release. Their policy says the client needs to check himself if a release is necessary or not.

Adobe is like SS and the rest a stock agency with abonnement clients. But they pay better than SS. I think the minimum is 33 cent, but I often get on demand sales for much more. My RPD on AS ist 1.05 Dollar.
As a bonus you get a free PS/LR abonnement for one year if you sell more than 150 pics a year. That´s a nice gesture of Adobe I think.
Adobe accepts only some editorial stuff (I think it´s product editorial) and only if you are above a lifetime threshold (I think it´s 1000 sold pics).

Something very strange is going on with Adobe Stock.
Since Shutterstock's change my sales at AS have almost tanked while it should be the other way round.
It's all too much of a coincidence to me. Anyone else? I know lots of people seeing improved sales.

Are there stalkers in stock trying to screw us wherever we go or am I getting (too) paranoid?

I used applicable images from shooting corporate events and business events photography to start my initial stock photography portfolio a couple months ago. I'm an advertising/ commercial/ event photographer for 20 years. Just trying to diversify.

Maybe everyone else should use your gear and expertise to get commercial work. The event space isn't super difficult to get into. Then while someone is paying you to shoot their function you can be piggy backing images for stock.

In other words, maybe try doing both stock and corporate/ event/ portrait?

Maybe everyone else should use your gear and expertise to get commercial work. The event space isn't super difficult to get into. Then while someone is paying you to shoot their function you can be piggy backing images for stock.

Not really. Event coverage is payed work and it is completely unprofessional uploading and side selling wherever you want without clearance from the client. Except it is at the contract as term to use images for resale, acknowledged and side signed by the client. Half knowledge is how to shoot and other half how to protect interests and reputation.

Quote

Maybe everyone else should use your gear and expertise to get commercial work. The event space isn't super difficult to get into. Then while someone is paying you to shoot their function you can be piggy backing images for stock.

Not really. Event coverage is payed work and it is completely unprofessional uploading and side selling wherever you want without clearance from the client. Except it is at the contract as term to use images for resale, acknowledged and side signed by the client. Half knowledge is how to shoot and other half how to protect interests and reputation.

In absence of a contract I retain copyright to any image I take at an event. The client is essentially licensing the imagery from me for use. I would not shoot an event, corporate or otherwise for a client that wanted me to sign off on rights, or they would pay for that privilege. I've shot major conventions in Vegas, Orlando... corporate incentives retreats in Barcelona... and in general there is no "contract". I shoot and deliver. And I've been doing this for 20 years.

Now, obviously any photos that show executives or any individual, guests, etc... would not be appropriate to sell for stock. Nor would privileged or proprietary content... logos, design elements etc... But there is a lot of content that I shoot for conventions and events... food, scenery, hands picking up cocktails, tight shot of someones dog looking cute and being pet, sunset from a particular location... that is completely professional to resubmit for stock as I have done and will continue to do. So you are correct that discretion is required, but it is both possible and professional done properly.