Great blog and images of a terrible situation. Thanks for posting and well done to the photographers who captured the events.

They are very brave, amazing images. I hope they all remain safe and healthy.

excellent work by those who put their lives at risk.

Thanks for posting Scott. I didn't realize SS was involved in this type of photojounalism.

Telling images.  Wow.  Unbelievable hardship on the people of Ukraine. How can a country leader turn machine guns on his own people?

Telling images.  Wow.  Unbelievable hardship on the people of Ukraine. How can a country leader turn machine guns on his own people?

Rules of engagement in case the protesters start killing policemen and burning police cars and government buildings, in America they would be all killed or sent to Guantanamo as "terrorist".

Russian foreign minister Lavrov openly accused the US and Nato of fomenting and backing the ukrainian rebels while Russia was busy with the Sochi Olympics, just as they did in 2008 with the Tibetan and Xinjiang clashes during the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

I spent a month living in the Ukraine as a young man - in Odessa. Great country and lovely people. Everyone should be able to live in peace and happiness.

I totally agree with Beppe Grillo and Hobostocker...




... but  - maybe this is not good think - to start political discussion here...

I agree.
it was only to invite who comments the events to try to see a little beyond the official version coming from countries having interests very different that the ones of the people directly affected.

No politics here, just common sense

Hello,

Thanks all.   In terms of editorial images - yes, there is a demand for news and we do sell editorial images and video.  As mentioned on the earnings call, we now have close to 1 million customers of all types, which includes large media and publishing companies.   While we're largely known for commercial images, illustrations, vectors, etc..., those customers are often excited to hear about our editorial coverage.   While we've often focused on credentialed events and our "On the Red Carpet" program -- with 55,000 contributors around the world -- there's fairly widespread coverage for documentary images of local and global interest.  We'd like to do a better job of highlighting the great work that's being done. 

This has always been true for photojournalism, but "evergreen" subjects tend to be most popular over time - for example, a portrait of President Obama might get downloaded over and over because customers are looking to illustrate editorial stories on that subject on a fairly routine basis. 

We also just launched "illustrative editorial" photos. 

The images to that category are already getting lots of downloads, because it's a content type that hasn't existed that fills an existing demand among a large customer audience.

One of the most misleading statements that I see in the forums and in the industry is that "it's all been done" or that "there's no opportunity anymore."   There's nothing that could be further from the truth.  We see millions of searches; our customer base is growing and expanding (nearly 1 million Shutterstock customers backed by relationships such as Facebook, which has 1 million active advertisers).  Customers needs change over time (for example - more customers are using video) and we're acquiring new customers in different areas of the world.

Any time we've seen contributors add content to the collection that fills a gap -- it doesn't matter if it's high-impact photojournalism, illustrative editorial, local families, a certain quality level, "authenticity" that you see in Offset, etc..., it will serve a need among a very large audience of nearly 1 million buyers.  The marketplace and demand is constantly evolving.   

Best,

Scott
VP of Content
Shutterstock

very unprofessional to keyword and to caption some of these images with the words "regime" and "dictatorship"

I do not know enough about the background to these events to have any sort of opinion about the politics.

But I agree that an editorial caption should be strictly accurate and impartial. I am surprised that captions including words like "regime" and "dictatorship" have got past the bureau chief or equivalent. Unless Shutterstock is taking sides.

Thanks very much Scott for the detailed answer to the many questions above however I have serious reservations how this can really work.

News is news and images of it are most valuable the instant they are available. That's why professional photojournalists will have the means to transmit their images almost immediately, if not in real-time. What facility does SS have to accept such images other than via the standard submit route where they can take several days to be reviewed. 'News' images that are 3 days old aren't going to make the front pages.

How can SS be confident that the 'news' images are as described by the contributor without some means of verifying the photographer and also the history of the image to ensure it has not been manipulated? SS and their customers could be placed in an embarrassing position if images sold were later found to be doctored or of a different event. It seems clear to me that there are many contributors who are so desperate to sell images that they spam their keywords all the time. Having "55K contributors all over the world" is a potentially useful resource but only if it can be trusted, both by SS and also their customers.

For 'editorial images' to work on SS there needs to be a totally different pricing architecture with much higher royalties paid to photographers. I'm amazed that some contributors are risking life and limb and damage to their equipment to send images to SS to be sold at current prices. I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't even drive 5 miles down the road to capture an event for SS as I'd be unlikely to recover my transport costs let alone actually earn some money.

I just don't understand this 'toe dipped in the water' attitude to editorial images at SS. Surely, if you are intending to offer this service to customers, you need to think it through properly and offer the appropriate facilities and decent compensation to your contributors.

But I agree that an editorial caption should be strictly accurate and impartial. I am surprised that captions including words like "regime" and "dictatorship" have got past the bureau chief or equivalent. Unless Shutterstock is taking sides.

Hi Bunhill,

From the images I saw, I believe "dictatorship" was put in the original captions in quotes to indicate that the protesters are protesting against what they (the protesters) were calling a "dictatorship."  It's a good catch and important for impartiality, but there's no editorial stance applied by Shutterstock.

Best,

Scott