MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: JerryL5 on September 26, 2009, 17:43
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I noticed this Macworld article because photographers are tweeting that it be voted against.
Notice what the buyer (leicaman) has to say in replies after the article.
http://www.macworld.com/article/142986/2009/09/microstock_tips.html (http://www.macworld.com/article/142986/2009/09/microstock_tips.html)
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Interesting. Thanks for that. Leicaman is correct to some extent in that the obscure stuff hardly exists on microstock but that because it is less easy to get accepted (as in 'Not stock oriented') and if it is then it won't sell in the volumes necessary to make it worthwhile.
If you want to buy a popular new book/CD for example then you'll probably find it cheapest at your local supermarket but if you want something older or more obscure then you'll need to find a specialist shop with more stock but much higher prices to reflect the slower turnover.
I'd imagine the microstock libraries cater extremely well and cost-effectively for 90%+ of all stock image needs.
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Both the article and the comments were fun. I liked "cheesy office scenes of men in suits, happy families, seasonal still-lifes, technology concepts, and anything "green."
I agree with most of what was said. I'm doing this basically as a hobby, just to see if I could produce things that people would buy. After a few months, I've pretty much concluded that "25 cents" says it all and the microstocks have created a pathological market system where each new round of contributors tries to out-flood the last round with thousands of new images just like the old ones.
The buyer's comments are spot on - those archives of millions images now contain so much repetitious cr@p that buyers are turned off. What we need are next-generation stock companies with new, more effective and efficient reviewing procedures that filter out the junk, don't reward "flooding" or keyword spamming and somehow reward originaliity instead of burying it. With flexible pricing, so niche images can make money off of just a few sales. A real challenge, for some people smarter than me.
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"Not only is it almost impossible for even the best, most established photographers to make even a basic living now, but I hear from young, talented, aspiring photography graduates who just can't get into an industry that has been so badly damaged by the over-use of amateur material at rock bottom prices."
Waaaaahhhhhh....
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Waaaaahhhhhh....
Good point. I hadn't thought of it quite that way __ but it works nonetheless!
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Very interesting discussion that raises pretty serious questions. I agree on some points and not on others, but as a whole it is a recommended reading.
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Most professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants) work to individual client briefs to deliver the services they need. I don't see microstock eating into real professional photography any time soon - weddings, product shots, advertising, etc.
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Most professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants) work to individual client briefs to deliver the services they need. I don't see microstock eating into real professional photography any time soon - weddings, product shots, advertising, etc.
But microstock has skewed the view clients have on prices. "Why does your image cost $500 when I a similar is $5 on a microstock site?".
And yes, microstock has eaten into real professional photography too. In the good ol' Rights-Managed days it was often cheaper to hire a photographer to shoot something that is going to be used over and over than pay royalties for every use. Those shoots are now totally gone.
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And yes, microstock has eaten into real professional photography too. In the good ol' Rights-Managed days it was often cheaper to hire a photographer to shoot something that is going to be used over and over than pay royalties for every use. Those shoots are now totally gone.
Not true in my experience. Corporate client companies still pay well for commissioned work as well as also using IS and Getty.
Annual reports are still good business. Same as ever. And the clients understand why commissioning work costs more than RF stock.
Educated clients are the most fun to deal with. If they didn't know about RF stock I would tell them.
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Those pros who moan about MS obviously had it too easy before - if they were prepared to get off their fat arses then there's heaps of pro work outside of stock photography. On the other hand I'm glad that MS is a magnet for all the wannabe pro's and keeps them away from where the real money is ;D
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A decent portfolio of credible stock images can be a great thing to show a potential client.
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Technology has always influenced the evolution (and sometimes revolution) of many industries. Some historians believe that the reason why slavery in the Caribbean stopped was not because the Bristish felt like being good people, but more because it was more economical and easier to manage their productions with new technologies being created at the time. Maybe its a bad idea to use that as a parallel situation, but new technologies have essentially made it cheaper to generate photographs. Those old farts who haven't been able to keep up should have taken to new technologies and distribution methods earlier and adapted with the industry. I have grown up with digital but I'm sure it was horribly expensive and cost prohibitive to use film, hence the need to charge $400 for a photograph to keep up with costs. In the end, industries change all the time, the main point is to always try to teach is to adapt to change.
That being said, I'm sure that the evolution of the micropayment industry will carve some fantastic new niches for photographers to expand into that weren't available before.
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"One of my friends now has 5000 images on line. He stopped doing it. Said he never made more than a couple hundred a month from the best paying of hte microstock sites and as more people got into it his income started actually dropping despite uploading 400 new photos each month. He told me if he had spent that time marketing his work to commercial clients he would probably be doing quite well. Another had a large portfolio and when he lost his day job he thought he could make up the difference shooting microstock. That bet cost him his house."
These guys really need to try less
oops, I got edited, didn't realise that the filter would think that s followed by uc and king was a swear word (?). Anyhow, what I said was that they need to try being better at what they do
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5000 images of garden gnomes and rusty cars won't pay any bills. Otoh, 1000 good, well planned images can do pretty well. Not everyone can do it.
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5000 images of garden gnomes and rusty cars won't pay any bills. Otoh, 1000 good, well planned images can do pretty well. Not everyone can do it.
Yep, that's true but as one commenter in that article says
"The ONLY ones "successful" in the microstock industry are the agencies. I have to hand it to them though, it's a brilliant concept. Pay literally pennies on the dollar to thousands of hobbyists, advanced (and beyond) photographers willing to sell their work for nothing, sit back and rake in the profits.
Here's something for microstock contributors to ponder - that quarter some company paid you to use your photo in that magazine ad? That elation you feel because someone actually wants to use your creation? That's NOTHING compared to the elation the company feels for buying valuable artwork for pennies .... because they paid the magazine TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars just for the space."
and that's true too!
I've created two 1/4 page ads this morning for a client and both will cost over $4,000 each to publish. I didn't use any MS images in these ads but if I had then their cost as a percentage of the job would be something like 0.01% I expect.
But, that's the way it is for now - like it or not.
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It seems a bit different to me moving electrons around than buying paper, printing on it, binding it, addressing it an distributing it to various locations. Magazines are expensive to produce, where a single photo can be made much more cost-effectively.
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I'm not full time on microstock, nor do I think I have the ability to be full-time, but it makes me enough money. I think a lot of people make enough money to supplement other areas, but it would be difficult to penetrate now given the numbers game that its become.
I was reading the comments about some of those old fart pros who continue to harp that its ruining the business and changing their revenue streams and whatever else. It would appear that the internet has also allowed all those who will be left behind by Darwin to complain endlessly about it until it happens for good. Welcome to capitalism. They should bitch about Adam Smith too.
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It seems a bit different to me moving electrons around than buying paper, printing on it, binding it, addressing it an distributing it to various locations. Magazines are expensive to produce, where a single photo can be made much more cost-effectively.
A lot of publishing is now done in China and similar countries - huge cost saving. I don't have figures for magazines but, for example, I get posters and banners printed in Malaysia for about 20% cost of what they cost here and that includes shipping etc.
Somehow publishers have not only retained their profit levels they have increased them - okay, this may not be entirely true but they certainly do not sell advertising space cheaply!
I only wish or hope that MS will develop over time, eliminating the rubbish imagery they have accumulated from the early days and selling the higher quality imagery at a price that makes everyone happy. I think iStockphoto are heading in this direction already.
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lets face it 90% (probably more) of microstock photographers are amateurs like myself who don't expect to make a living out of this. In my case, photography is a hobby and microstock just pays for equipment. It accounts for about 3% of my total income.
I can understand that professional photographers are upset. They do have to feed their families. If you consider your time, expenses and equipment costs, what a pro charges for a photograph is not unreasonable. I've sold images on Alamy. I don't feel like I'm ripping off the buyer if an image sells for $400 (rare as it may be). Microstock to most pro photographers is analogous to China dumping cheap merchandise on the world markets. North American and EU producers can't compete on price due to labour costs. Although microstock isn't going away, we shouldn't be too quick in judging the pro photographers for trying to defend their business model.
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The micros destruction of the pro business is more complicated that arguing that "old farts" fell for a "darwinian" thing... The problem with micros is, as I've said before, that prices are too (way too) low. In fact, they started rock bottom. It should have been different, they should have started as mid-stock, it would have been wiser. Now, increasing prices some pennies at a time donīt give you any margin of anything but to feed the beast, as we are all are.
Two years ago a 20 images upload to SS brought a lot of sales on the next few days, today it doesnīt. Things have changed for the worst. Almost everybody that has been doing it for a while says that earnings are the same despite having bigger portfolios.
Another big change was in the mentality of the photographer: we are happily willing to take a 20% comission on some sites ("for the thrill of seeing our work used") and that devaluates our work as a whole, amateurs and pros. Do you think that buyers have any respect for stock photographers today?
I agree that we all should adapt to the new changes that have come our way in the last 5-8 years, but we have to acknowledge that micros started a "bad revolution" in which we photographers, pros and amateurs, lost a lot. We, amateurs, donīt realize it. The pros do.
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Two years ago a 20 images upload to SS brought a lot of sales on the next few days, today it doesnīt.
That certainly isn't true for me. I've recently had 2 of my best days ever back to back there after uploading a new batch.
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The micros destruction of the pro business is more complicated that arguing that "old farts" fell for a "darwinian" thing... The problem with micros is, as I've said before, that prices are too (way too) low. In fact, they started rock bottom. It should have been different, they should have started as mid-stock, it would have been wiser. Now, increasing prices some pennies at a time donīt give you any margin of anything but to feed the beast, as we are all are.
Prices are rising now as a result of having sites realize they have a collection worth more than they were charging (for the most part) - istock especially - would you rather that they all started in the middle and then kept price adjusting downwards instead until there was no room to move?
One possibility:
I think that the industry is where its at because they started so low, didn't get any respect from the big boys and now have the ability to move up given their customer base. The other way, the major companies selling RF and RM at the time would have lowered their prices, pissed off their photographers and then ate up microstock or resulted in a crazy price war. If that happened, I wouldn't be submitting right now and many of us wouldn't even know about this, because the entire dynamic would be different.
I'm all for price increases, but I don't agree with starting at midstcok prices and moving downward. Right now they are moving towards a more equitable equilibrium instead of two extremes. Potentially a better outcome, although its taken a while.
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Prices are rising now...
Please give us some examples of where this is actually happening. Note that raising commissions for OD sales doesn't mean much of buyers are simultaneiously being herded onto subscription plans.
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Prices are rising now...
Please give us some examples of where this is actually happening. Note that raising commissions for OD sales doesn't mean much of buyers are simultaneiously being herded onto subscription plans.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but iStock raised their prices in January 2007, January 2008. I don't believe they raised them this year because of the current state of the economy. I really only care about iStock because I'm exclusive, but didn't SS also raise their prices 3 straight years before 2009? I have not followed Fotolia or DT for a while with their prices, but I'm not 100% sure that photos are not as cheap as they used to be.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but iStock raised their prices in January 2007, January 2008. I don't believe they raised them this year because of the current state of the economy. I really only care about iStock because I'm exclusive, but didn't SS also raise their prices 3 straight years before 2009? I have not followed Fotolia or DT for a while with their prices, but I'm not 100% sure that photos are not as cheap as they used to be.
Sorry, but to me that's all ancient history - before my time. I started early this year and all I've seen is an increase in the percentage of sub sales.
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Thats okay, your experiences have led you to that conclusion. You should do some checking into that as there has been a precedent set to raising prices every so often. It should happen more and more now that small players are being bought up. Hopefully....
However, 1 year isn't a good timeperiod to gauge the industry, especially one thats continuously changing. As for subs, I'm not effected but I can see why you would be upset about it
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While there is quite a bit of talk about subs eating all of the downloads, there will ALWAYS be per-credit sales. There are thousands of developers just like myself that don't do the volume of business to need a sub plan. I buy credits as I need them and there are plenty of other that do the same.
While most of the big buyers use subs, I really think that they might not have purchased anything at all on a pay-per-credit site.
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As a whole prices have remained stable, with slight increases at IS and maybe a couple of other sites, but with subs becoming more common those increases become diluted. The problem is that if one site increases prices too much there will always be another undercutting it. The net result is stagnation of returns for photographers. IS can get away (to some degree) with price increases for various reasons, but don't expect it to be like that everywhere .
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"Not only is it almost impossible for even the best, most established photographers to make even a basic living now, but I hear from young, talented, aspiring photography graduates who just can't get into an industry that has been so badly damaged by the over-use of amateur material at rock bottom prices."
Waaaaahhhhhh....
what's the difference between young, talented, aspiring photography graduates and an amateur? why should one group feel entitled to success because they have a diploma? sunds lmuch like the complaints of IT pros when micros stasrted to replace mainframes at larger companies
in the end, the pc revolution exploded the possibilities for both jobs and apps as millons of people started using computers
similar in the photography biz - in the 90's the film pros vehemently protested digital stock at any price, but the $50-$100 per image model for digital downloads didnt destroy the industry - it opened it to a larger group of buyers. the buyers for MS are not the same as the ones 15-20 yrs ago -- images are becoming commodities, and photographers need to adjust their attitude and workflow. the chances for an indivdual to make a six figure career from images may be less, but the total income from photography has only increased with the emergence of digital photography.
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what's the difference between young, talented, aspiring photography graduates and an amateur?
If you need to ask then you are an amateur :D
Having a diploma (or at least some studies) takes a lot out of the trial and error amateurs run into, gives you (at least) basic if not advanced notions of sthetics and all the other things that we, amateurs, find out in the long run, but sometimes after lots of mistakes. Also they understand from the begining the concepts of photography that make amateurs that want to submit photos flood many forums with basic questions. So, I guess that there is a difference.
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what's the difference between young, talented, aspiring photography graduates and an amateur?
If you need to ask then you are an amateur :D
Having a diploma (or at least some studies) takes a lot out of the trial and error amateurs run into, gives you (at least) basic if not advanced notions of sthetics and all the other things that we, amateurs, find out in the long run, but sometimes after lots of mistakes. Also they understand from the begining the concepts of photography that make amateurs that want to submit photos flood many forums with basic questions. So, I guess that there is a difference.
but i'm sure these amateurs, after a lot of ' trial and error' become 'talented, aspiring photography graduates'. for, at the end of day, it's practice and the love of the art that makes it. all that schooling, for anyone, is only the start.
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Couldn't a period of trial and error pretty much equate to 4 (or however many) years of school without the price tag?
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isn't that how ansel adam started?...i mean photography really isn't rocket science, especially these days.
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With answers like these it becomes clear why photos sell for pennies, photography is devaluated as it is and so many consider themselves "professional photographers" ... :-\
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Its good to know that the 'professionals' are automatically amazing photographers and they too don't need to go through a trial and error period either. Schools today must be that good.
Please...
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With answers like these it becomes clear why photos sell for pennies, photography is devaluated as it is and so many consider themselves "professional photographers" ... :-\
Maybe you could help us by defining what you mean by "professional photographer"?