Hell no. It is a lot easier and much faster to take a good series of pictures and videos with a camera than to do stuff with ai.

At least for me.

It depends on what you do.

I only take photographs of real landscapes in the field, but I don't know what future I can have.

In my case (landscape and travel), creating images with AI is incredibly cheaper and faster than buying quality photography equipment, traveling to the most profitable locations, and hoping that the weather conditions are good. And then, often, you have to do double exposures and a lot of post-production work for sunrises and sunsets, if you want your images to be sold (On average I spend 30 minutes to an hour of post-production to create a photograph that sells well).

Snapshots don't sell.

A professional buyer still buys real landscapes because he knows how to recognize them, but what AI does for many is good enough and will lead to a future of mediocrity and falsity for commercial landscape and travel photography.

The biggest problem is that, if agencies do not give privileged space to real images, these will be lost in the noise of those made with, AI because the latter will be produced at much higher rates. Sitting at a desk, in one afternoon, I can create 50 AI images of the most beautiful locations in the world without leaving home.

It is a total game over for all stock producer. This will no longer exist in 5 years at most.

Unfortunately I think you are right. But I believe stock agencies will continue to do good business by cutting costs on us.

Total revenue are increasing



And the revenue per download increased to $4.76 in Q3 2023 (my RPD in Q3 2023 was $0.68 ... so 15% of revenue is for me and 85% for Shutterstock ... the "fair subscrition model" ... ...)

Now it's a win-lose-win game.

Win (stock agencies)-Lose (us, stock producer)-Win (customers, who with new subscriptions spend less money on images and videos compared to years ago)

I have about 1000 files in the various PODs, but sales are poor everywhere.

I noticed that almost all agencies (but especially FAA and Society6) always sell the same images, the ones that have been at the top of searches for 10 years.

And now there is also a lot of competition (I think due to videos on YouTube about passive income).

I think the best choice is to sell through your website (perhaps by printing in dropshipping) but it takes years and excellent marketing made up of quality content through blogs, social media, and paid ads.

40% of my port is seasonal content that only wakes up end of the year. I usually make more than half my income in the last 2-3 months.

What was unusual this time is that September, October only had a slow rise, then November went up a lot and I landed on the Adobe bestsellerlist. That seems to have boosted the port again and December I just kept on having sales until new year. Usually it all falls off middle of December. Also had a lot of additional sales of non seasonal content in December.

It was very unusual. Now I am down to a weekly rank of 3800.

Thanks so much cobalt for the explanation. In fact it is truly incredible to have these differences!

 

Better to laugh about it ...

I've been a full-time stock travel photographer for 13 years, and 2024 could be my last year to do this job (full-time). Maybe it's time to find other opportunities ...

Yes, I confirm.

I have about 5000 files on Shutterstock, and I started in 2012. I sent 400 images this year, and the "2023 file earnings" are 1.4% of the total.

When I sent 400-500 images in 2012-2015, they sold $5000 in the first year and $7000 in the second year ($12000 in the first two years). Today, I can't earn $300 in the first year... and my quality level has grown significantly recently.

Now I'm wondering if it's still worth sending new images. 

I have no doubt that at the rate artificial intelligence is advancing, stock photography has a maximum of two years left to live. Right now the smart thing to do is to sell all the lenses, equipment and cameras on ebay before it is too late and they become worthless junk.

I haven't sent any AI images, and don't think I ever will.

I get help from AI for my post-production, but I'm not interested in generative AI.

It's boring, and the images are all the same, all with the same style.

Producing 100 images with AI takes just two or three hours, so photography and illustration categories will soon be saturated with millions of images uploaded in no time.

I think eventually, people will get bored, and the majority of AI users will create their own images.

I hope in the future, there will always be a niche of customers who prefer real images captured with authentic landscapes, models, and objects. And I continue to work for that niche.

We'll see in a few years.

I don't think Adobe cares for real photos anymore. All that matters to them is AI.

I'm afraid you're right. The future holds a world of fake images for us.

How sad!

So far this month, Shutterstock sales are very slow. I'm at about 50% of the volume I would normally expect.

1.2 stars

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.shutterstock.com

  I�m seeing my model stock photo sales going down and seeing a few AI generated model photos sold.

I think that the sales of AI with models cannot compensate for those lost with photographs with real models.

Because the production of images with AI is much faster (there are contributors with 3000 images in the queue) and because the images are all the same, same Midjourney's or Dall-E's style, and the earnings are divided equally. Whoever produces the most wins.

Read my post about this: https://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/9-million-ai-generated-photos-stock-photography-coming-to-end/msg593430/#msg593430

Quote from: Mir on October 03, 2023, 01:47

Quote from: Bauman on October 03, 2023, 01:10

I don't know if we must do it with generic stock agencies or niche agencies, but earning a full salary with AI will be very difficult. There are too many contributors and too many images for the same pie to share.

There will be no earning any �salary� from AI images for contributors, clients will type what they want and pay to the big companies. At least that�s how I see it.

If you try to generate what you exactly want you'll see how difficult that is, so for the clients is much more easy and less time consuming to use a good AI search engine and find the best of AI generated content from image data base. To me the future is in the best search engine.

I agree with you Mir. I didn't write it in my post, but what you say is true. Many customers will create their own custom images.

When I talked about salary, I was referring to those who do photography or illustration in a traditional way, without AI. The key is to differentiate yourself and communicate well with a blog, a YouTube channel, or a podcast. Often, those who buy images fall in love with the author's story or the process of creating the images.

I don't see a great future in uploading images to the big stock agencies. As for photography and illustration authors, only the best will survive. Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe we need to invest time in improving the quality of our work, not in producing millions of useless AI images. Agencies will profit and build their own AI engine. But we contributors don't, the slices to be shared are too small.

Only people who have produced quality images, at the cost of effort, time, renunciation of mediocrity, self-challenge, and perhaps ultimately talent can understand this turning point. And they see absolutely no benefit in what AI produces.
AI enthusiasts can only be delighted to finally be able to produce what they have never been able to produce.

I agree with you 100%, great post!

buyers dont care about how the artist traveled to get a picture or the cost of their equipment - they want an image for their needs & dont care whether AI or not.

AI isnt there yet for most actual locations and model-type images need improvement, as  Jo Ann & others have documented. but as AI evolves it will be to the buyers' benefit to use AI generated people rather than the model release hassles for editorial usage.

I think you are right for very low-quality work, but you are wrong for those who want to differentiate themselves from others.

And today, in marketing, it matters a lot to do different things to stand out from the crowd. Even for those who buy images.

Maybe you need to read some Seth Godin books to understand where the world is going. Seth says: �People do not buy goods & services. They buy relations, stories & magic�. Today a good photograph is not enough; there is too much competition, but we also need the stories and emotions of those who take it.

Stock photography and especially AI images will serve to fill low-quality blogs and websites at a price close to zero. It will probably no longer be a lucrative market for creators.

We need to do as RedBubble did which divided the contributors between Premium and Standard, giving more visibility to the Premium ones.