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Author Topic: RF: self-killing?  (Read 10155 times)

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ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« on: May 14, 2011, 05:42 »
0
I just had one of my bizarre thoughts regarding falling sales, which most people who've been in the game for a couple of years or more are reporting.

Isn't the RF model part of the problem? Buyers who have been buying RF for years have built up their own personal stock library, which they can use again and again. If they're smart, they'll have keyworded and catalogued them according to their own needs and workflow. In many cases, they don't really have need to buy new images, they can repurpose old ones, swapping details around between photos etc.

Against this thought: time is money, it might be worth looking for a new image that more exactly fits the purpose, especially where there's a backlog of work building up. On the other hand, many uses of stock images are heavily altered and combined anyway.
For the thought: if work is quiet and there isn't a queue of clients beating down the door, the staff have to be paid anyway, and at least 'some' money could be saved by repurposing existing images.

Obviously there will be new concepts/topics coming out all the time, which will sell; and trends (clothes, specs, technolgoy, hairstyles) will change, dating some older photos in the more popular categories, like business; but in general, I think my depressing argument holds.

Thoughts?


microstockphoto.co.uk

« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2011, 05:51 »
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My thoughts:

large corporations needing a lot of pictures are better off buying a subscription and downloading new pictures - or even redownloading the same image again and again - than organising their own catalogue

smaller buyers may well do what you are saying

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2011, 06:18 »
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Ah, I wasn't thinking of subs as I'm exclusive to iStock and get very few subs sales there - most subs buyers go to TS or SS etc. Interesting point.

« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2011, 06:22 »
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Far more significant, than designers hoarding a few images, is the sheer number of new images continually flooding the market. There is an ever-growing disparity between supply and demand and ultimately that is what will devalue our portfolios. Microstock is most likely to become a '10-year bubble' for most contributors. Enjoy it whilst you can.

« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2011, 06:47 »
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Isn't the RF model part of the problem? Buyers who have been buying RF for years have built up their own personal stock library, which they can use again and again. If they're smart, they'll have keyworded and catalogued them according to their own needs and workflow. In many cases, they don't really have need to buy new images, they can repurpose old ones, swapping details around between photos etc.

I don't think many buyers, especially large companies, are this organized.

« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2011, 07:29 »
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Isn't the RF model part of the problem? Buyers who have been buying RF for years have built up their own personal stock library, which they can use again and again. If they're smart, they'll have keyworded and catalogued them according to their own needs and workflow. In many cases, they don't really have need to buy new images, they can repurpose old ones, swapping details around between photos etc.

I don't think many buyers, especially large companies, are this organized.

For my company, I'd say that organization is somewhere n the middle.  However, we are a heavily driven "branding through graphics" company and spend a crap load on pictures.  Their philosophy is "fresh and new trending" and they don't regurgitate images.  If they can't find the "specificity" of an image that meets their needs from RF or RM they hire a photo agency.  I've done work for them too, albeit last minute, 'bail me out' situations where ad deadlines are 3-days away.  But overall they look for new content all of the time, meaning every month or more often.  We conduct advertising and are heavy into brochures that are aligned with current color trends and architectural design. Thus, for us, we are in an ever evolving market and, generally speaking, old images (usually >12 months) are obsolete.

« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2011, 09:21 »
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I would have to disagree. There is only a very small percentage of my library that I recycle - mostly textures and abstracts - but not every photo works for every client. And I certainly wouldn't use the same recognizable photos for multiple clients. Sometimes clients chose the same photos, but usually they are buying the photos themselves. I don't think it would look good to prospective clients if they see the same image used over and over for different clients in a designer's portfolio.

« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2011, 10:20 »
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I can certainly see an organization with a subscription buying extras to meet quotas, then using them as needed; but I do not see them using older images multiple times

« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2011, 11:33 »
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I think as time goes on, subscriptions are going to kill it.  These agencies would like to bill for 'services' rather than sell 'products' on which they have to pay commissions.   The subscription model breaks the commission model.  Subscriptions will evolve into ever more complex (from our point of view) plans where the buyer is paying a fee to the stock agency for ongoing use of a very large number of images.  Part of what they'll be payinf for will be indexing and searching of images to which they already have the rights. In other words, stock imagery becomes a fee-based service in the "cloud".   How do you calculate a commission to a photographer when the buyer never actually buys an image at a single point in time? The answer is, you don't; agencies will just pay photographers whatever they think is the absolute minimum necessary to keep new images coming in - to the extent they even need or want new images.  They can make those payments look like commissions on sales, but that's just a retro fiction that will probably be replaced with something new - like a monthly payment supposedly based on the revenue your images generated.

The situation for image creators is similar to that of musicians.  Amazon and Google don't want to sell recordings, they want pay-to-play subscriptions to their cloud-based services.

Is this all bad?  Can't say. But the future has a way of arriving whether we want it or not.

« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2011, 12:30 »
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Well, agencies will always want new images simply because our life and technology and issues are changing, and changing fast. So I don't think there will be ever a point when agencies will say "we don't need new images at this time", this would be a suicide. As to buyers reusing images - I've seen it happening a few times, but I don't think it's happening on a large scale. Trends are changing, what clients want is changing, even if you have a few thousands images on your hard drive you'd want something new for a new client and new project.

"Stock on a cloud" - interesting thought, but I don't think for photographers it will be much difference from existing sub model - we're already paid monthly proportionality to the revenue our portfolios are generating.

« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2011, 12:32 »
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...we're already paid monthly proportionality to the revenue our portfolios are generating.
So they say.  We really have no way of verifying it. 

« Reply #11 on: May 14, 2011, 12:58 »
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I think as time goes on, subscriptions are going to kill it.  These agencies would like to bill for 'services' rather than sell 'products' on which they have to pay commissions.   The subscription model breaks the commission model.  Subscriptions will evolve into ever more complex (from our point of view) plans where the buyer is paying a fee to the stock agency for ongoing use of a very large number of images.  Part of what they'll be payinf for will be indexing and searching of images to which they already have the rights. In other words, stock imagery becomes a fee-based service in the "cloud".   How do you calculate a commission to a photographer when the buyer never actually buys an image at a single point in time? The answer is, you don't; agencies will just pay photographers whatever they think is the absolute minimum necessary to keep new images coming in - to the extent they even need or want new images.  They can make those payments look like commissions on sales, but that's just a retro fiction that will probably be replaced with something new - like a monthly payment supposedly based on the revenue your images generated.

The situation for image creators is similar to that of musicians.  Amazon and Google don't want to sell recordings, they want pay-to-play subscriptions to their cloud-based services.

Is this all bad?  Can't say. But the future has a way of arriving whether we want it or not.

Interesting thoughts....

« Reply #12 on: May 14, 2011, 13:23 »
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Perhaps the agencies should add a time limit to the license. So the license expires after one year or something. That way, the image still earns us some money. Or the agencies could make it so the license is good for only one project or something.

« Reply #13 on: May 14, 2011, 13:34 »
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Issues like these are already keeping the music companies from cutting deals with Amazon and Google.  They can't agree on what's fair, who gets paid how much and when.   The music companies lke the old model: a customer buys a block of music and is responsible for storing it;  the legality of transferring it to mulitple players is perpetually in dispute.  Amazon and Google want to store all the music in the world and stream it to you on demand, anywhere, for a price. That's what consumers want, too.  But what should that price be and how wil the revenue be divided? Do customers still 'buy copies' or just pay by the second for whatever is streamed?  How would a musician audit Google's books to see if he's been paid fairly? Nobody knows yet.  

Is the image industry really so different? 

I shouldn't have said that subscriptions will 'kill' stock, that's an overstatement, but the business model is going to change in major ways.  
« Last Edit: May 14, 2011, 13:39 by stockastic »

« Reply #14 on: May 14, 2011, 13:37 »
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Perhaps the agencies should add a time limit to the license. So the license expires after one year or something. That way, the image still earns us some money. Or the agencies could make it so the license is good for only one project or something.

That's nice in principle but how is anybody going to police it? Making rules that you don't intend to try to enforce is a bit pointless.

The main subscription agencies have a clause saying that usage rights depend on having an active subscription. I don't know if they warn people who let subscriptions lapse that they must destroy any copies they have stored.

« Reply #15 on: May 14, 2011, 14:46 »
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Perhaps the agencies should add a time limit to the license. So the license expires after one year or something. That way, the image still earns us some money. Or the agencies could make it so the license is good for only one project or something.

That's nice in principle but how is anybody going to police it? Making rules that you don't intend to try to enforce is a bit pointless.
Exactly what I was going to say. Microstock in fact should have been about a one-time use only, that is the only way low prices would not destroy the market, but again, how to police it?

RacePhoto

« Reply #16 on: May 15, 2011, 20:57 »
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Far more significant, than designers hoarding a few images, is the sheer number of new images continually flooding the market. There is an ever-growing disparity between supply and demand and ultimately that is what will devalue our portfolios. Microstock is most likely to become a '10-year bubble' for most contributors. Enjoy it whilst you can.

AND

Quote
I don't think many buyers, especially large companies, are this organized.

Both right and explains why people used to sell more when agencies only had 1 million competing images, now have 15 million. Dilution of sales. 15 times more of the same shots, with bigger, better cameras, better lighting and better production. (models, make-up artists, editors, production departments...) The competition is stronger as well as greater in number. Sell anything from your old P&S lately when the top competition is now running a studio and using 5D full frame cameras?

And the second one. (sjlocke) Also true, Big organizations don't need to stockpile or invest time and effort, saving things, they just buy a subscription and get what they need, when they need it. Stockpiling for big buyers, is a waste of their resources. Even if they did try, they wouldn't be organized enough to classify and be able to find things again. Why waste the resources for a dollar? 


« Reply #17 on: May 15, 2011, 21:13 »
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Far more significant, than designers hoarding a few images, is the sheer number of new images continually flooding the market. There is an ever-growing disparity between supply and demand and ultimately that is what will devalue our portfolios. Microstock is most likely to become a '10-year bubble' for most contributors. Enjoy it whilst you can.

AND

Quote
I don't think many buyers, especially large companies, are this organized.

Both right and explains why people used to sell more when agencies only had 1 million competing images, now have 15 million. Dilution of sales. 15 times more of the same shots, with bigger, better cameras, better lighting and better production. (models, make-up artists, editors, production departments...) The competition is stronger as well as greater in number. Sell anything from your old P&S lately when the top competition is now running a studio and using 5D full frame cameras?

And the second one. (sjlocke) Also true, Big organizations don't need to stockpile or invest time and effort, saving things, they just buy a subscription and get what they need, when they need it. Stockpiling for big buyers, is a waste of their resources. Even if they did try, they wouldn't be organized enough to classify and be able to find things again. Why waste the resources for a dollar? 

actually about 40% of my sales today were from my old point and shoot - (old images though, not recently uploaded). But I do think the massive # of images is one of the main factors in reduced income per microstock submitter.

helix7

« Reply #18 on: May 15, 2011, 21:15 »
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I don't think people reuse images as often as you might expect. I occasionally reuse an image for the same client, taking a photo I used in a brochure and using it on their website design, for example. But I'd never reuse an image I bought for use in one client project in a new project for a different client. Aside from it feeling a bit unprofessional to do so, I think it would look strange in my portfolio to see the same images used in projects for different clients.

That and the fact that rarely does a particular image fit well with multiple projects for different clients.

Does it happen? I'm sure. But does it happen often enough to make a dent in overall earnings over a prolonged period of time? I doubt it.

« Reply #19 on: May 15, 2011, 22:00 »
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Sell anything from your old P&S lately when the top competition is now running a studio and using 5D full frame cameras?

Given that basically every photo I have in the micros was taken with a P&S, does it explain the reducing sales? :D

Given that most of what I sell is S and XS, apart from subs that get the largest size, the P&S vs DSLR factor doesn't count much, I think. It may count for acceptance, not sales.

« Reply #20 on: May 15, 2011, 23:13 »
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I don't think people reuse images as often as you might expect. I occasionally reuse an image for the same client, taking a photo I used in a brochure and using it on their website design, for example. But I'd never reuse an image I bought for use in one client project in a new project for a different client. Aside from it feeling a bit unprofessional to do so, I think it would look strange in my portfolio to see the same images used in projects for different clients.

That and the fact that rarely does a particular image fit well with multiple projects for different clients.

Does it happen? I'm sure. But does it happen often enough to make a dent in overall earnings over a prolonged period of time? I doubt it.

Yup.

lthn

    This user is banned.
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2011, 03:09 »
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I don't think people reuse images as often as you might expect. I occasionally reuse an image for the same client, taking a photo I used in a brochure and using it on their website design, for example. But I'd never reuse an image I bought for use in one client project in a new project for a different client. Aside from it feeling a bit unprofessional to do so, I think it would look strange in my portfolio to see the same images used in projects for different clients.

That and the fact that rarely does a particular image fit well with multiple projects for different clients.

Does it happen? I'm sure. But does it happen often enough to make a dent in overall earnings over a prolonged period of time? I doubt it.

I worked at decent sized graphic design studios (or the graphic design part of ad agencies) andwe did store a lot of pictures, organized. We usually hada rather large stock of all kinds of backgrounds downloaded for expample, we had so many that we almost never went back to the sites for those, simply loaded something from our own servers, becasue it was a lot faster.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #22 on: May 16, 2011, 03:25 »
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Sell anything from your old P&S lately when the top competition is now running a studio and using 5D full frame cameras?
Yup, my G9 pic is still my BS, and several of my higher sellers are scans from slides on 'inferior' materials that would never be accepted nowadays.
Buyers don't seem overly impressed by my efforts with the 5D2.

« Reply #23 on: May 16, 2011, 10:46 »
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I imagine the reuse of photos is a factor in decreasing sales, but a relatively small one.  I feel "gostwyk" has it exactly right in his post.  The large and growing disparity between sales numbers and available photos is the issue.  I don't think microstock is a 10 year bubble however.  Demand will likely continue to increase, we simply each get a smaller piece of the pie than we are used to.  I cannot help but wonder if the day will come when nearly every public photo that does not violate copyright or privacy issues on Flickr, Google, and similar sites will become available for sale at a very low price (sound familiar?).  We are talking multiple billions of additional images.  I have posted elsewhere, that, sorry, but I feel many buyers buy for the subjects only, not quality.  They don't care or know about artifacting, noise,purple fringing, etc.  They simply want a small image for a website.  My sales bear this hypothesis out.  There is obviously a good market for high quality, high end work, but I think the average buyer is not needing that type of work.

WarrenPrice

« Reply #24 on: May 16, 2011, 12:40 »
0
I don't think people reuse images as often as you might expect. I occasionally reuse an image for the same client, taking a photo I used in a brochure and using it on their website design, for example. But I'd never reuse an image I bought for use in one client project in a new project for a different client. Aside from it feeling a bit unprofessional to do so, I think it would look strange in my portfolio to see the same images used in projects for different clients.

That and the fact that rarely does a particular image fit well with multiple projects for different clients.

Does it happen? I'm sure. But does it happen often enough to make a dent in overall earnings over a prolonged period of time? I doubt it.

I worked at decent sized graphic design studios (or the graphic design part of ad agencies) andwe did store a lot of pictures, organized. We usually hada rather large stock of all kinds of backgrounds downloaded for expample, we had so many that we almost never went back to the sites for those, simply loaded something from our own servers, becasue it was a lot faster.

Don't they get hard to find?  Did the company have to hire a database technician to maintain the files?


 

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