Microstock: Pounds Not Peanuts
April 24th, 2008
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
I had a rant about microstock agencies a while back in my previous blog. You should still be able to read the post here.
18 months on and my feelings haven’t changed. They’ve hardened a bit, though. What has grown is my feeling of bafflement.
Like a car, a company has four wheels to keep it on the road:
1. Its shareholders
2. Its staff
3. Its customers
4. Its suppliers
Virtually all companies share these elements. Lose one element, and it’s less stable. Lose two, and to my mind it’s distinctly wobbly.
Microstock agencies sell bulk quantities of cheap pictures. The business model is typically this: the customer pays a subscription to download a number of pictures over a period of time. A typical example is $999 to download 1,000 pictures — a dollar an image. You can then do what you will with them.
This is fine for travel companies, advertising and design agencies who just need generic shots of smiling people and sandy beaches.
What baffles me firstly is where do these agencies get their images? What intelligent photographer will upload pictures to a site where, if they get a return at all, it would be in the region of 20 cents a picture? And then they’d have to wait until they’d sold enough pictures to trigger a payment.
So that’s one wheel off the wagon. The thinking is clear: “Let’s ignore the photographers. They’re just the suppliers. We’ll make big promises and pay them peanuts.”
Yet the photographers keep on coming. They keep on sending pictures to these sites. Why do they do it? Why? Nobody likes to admit making mistakes, but why do lemmings spring irresistibly to mind?
Now the next wheel, the customers. When you sell any old picture to any old client, either you or the client can run into trouble, as this famous article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out when Met Life and Pfizer (promoting their best known product) ran ads featuring the same photograph of a happy middle aged man. Here’s the Met Life ad; the Viagra one has long been withdrawn:
That was the funniest microstock cock-up — you’d think that companies the size of those two would be prepared to spend more than a dollar a picture to get exclusivity.
Before the gent with the tiger in his tank and the life insurance policy turned up, we enjoyed Everywhere Girl, a heartwarming story of a one-off payment.
This of course is the advertising world. In book publishing, the area I know best, there are small publishers and book packagers fighting to compete with the Pearsons, Random Houses and John Wileys of this world. They don’t pay royalties, so they can’t compete through their authors. But they can buy images, and they can produce lavish, nicely designed picture books to sell to wholesalers at cripplingly low prices — typically 15% of the cover price.
The big market for these is America, and over there the prices are exactly the same as they are here, except they put a dollar sign in front of the US price and a pound sign in front of the UK price.
Because they can. Never mind that the pound is worth 2 dollars.
So a $20 book in the US, which would look like a £20 book in the UK, has to be supplied for £1.50. Out of that £1.50 has to come the cost of the images. So what do the packagers do? They go to microstock agencies.
It’s great as a temporary solution at the bottom end of the market. But the awful time has already arrived when the book buyer at Jovanovich, Scribner & Borzoi Inc. looks up, shakes his great shaggy head and points at a rival publication using exactly the same pictures from the same picture library. The market can stand only so many picture books on China and Ireland, and if the public finds the same images in different books those goddam purses are gonna slam shut.
I know of one small book packaging company sinking back exhausted onto the ropes. We tried to sell them pictures, but the director looked at me hollow-eyed and told me
“We have one member of staff doing nothing but downloading images from microstock subscription agencies, 10 hours a day, five days a week. We have a deal that allows us to download as many as we can in a month.”
Well, that was a business plan, of a sort. But I’m not sure that it worked. I didn’t see her or her company at the London Book Fair.
The only answer is exclusivity. That doesn’t come so cheap. It’s not an option in the microstock world.
Like Dutch Elm Disease, the virus is slowly killing its host. So that’s the second wheel off the wagon.
Only the staff and shareholders will be left. What will they have to share? Especially as their wheels only handle steering and direction, rather than propulsion.
Perhaps we’re seeing a tectonic shift opening up in the picture library world as decisive as the division between TV and radio, hardback and paperback, cinema and DVD, microstock and rights-managed.
Because it is now possible to buy a picture for a dollar (albeit that the small print says you only get that price if you buy $1000 worth of images to begin with) the market begins to think that that is what a picture is worth. Even publishers accustomed to paying fair prices for rights-managed imagery are coming under pressure from their bosses who have received ‘dollar a picture’ junk mails from these organisations. They realise that microstock is not the way to go if the business needs to be taken seriously, but the picture buying budgets have been cut, and cut again. One major new buyer told me:
“I am always keen to know about any new (to me) picture sources, but I must also say that we work on very tight budgets here. We tend to need to find sources where can pay £30–£40 ($60-$80) per picture whatever the size it is used at… (inside the book). For some bulk deals where we use many pictures we negotiate to pay even less – for example on the raft of big encyclopedias that we are doing at the moment, we have deals with picture sources to pay £15 ($30) per picture when we use over 600… Perhaps we could make it work in the future, but I thought I’d make you aware of just how restricted we are on budgets.”
I believe if the labourer is worthy of his toil, then he should be rewarded. I believe in royalties for intellectual creation. I don’t believe that everything created after 1923 should be in perpetual copyright. I believe that 70 years after the creator’s death is too long a protective period. I believe our photographers should earn more than $15 for a picture sale.
Maybe these are too many beliefs and not enough realism. But I realistically know the market will not carry on paying for the same old microstock stuff again and again. There’s been a huge shake up in the picture business in this century — fotoLibra was the first all digital picture library, so we were at the heart of it — and what we wanted to do was to democratise the stock agency world so everyone had the chance to sell their images.
I now want to know what drives a photographer to accept 20 cents for the sale of a picture.
We want our members to get paid pounds, not peanuts.
An answer as to why photographers provide images to microstock agencies could be the fact that they dont know any better. With no experience as to what the should be getting, they perhaps see the sale of a 1 dollar image as a step up the ladder.
Stepping up the ladder further with more sales probably blinds them further, they cant realise that these steps up the laddder are in fact more examples of shooting themselves in the foot with each sale they make or with each step they take. It’s obvious that once they fall into the trap of the pix for a buck game, they will be ensnared for ever more by agencies only too aware that “Dumb and Dumber” will be quite willing to supply images in order to get regular payments.
Payments for piffling amounts because of this ignorance insults photographers who know and get what they are entitled to from genuine customers willing to pay the correct price. It also cheapens photography when the 1 dollar cowboys try to compare themselves to seasoned pros and take pride in the fact that they might be selling more pics, all be it for a dollar a shot.
What angers me the most however is when these dollar cowboys try to recruit others by quoting their image sales. I read something from some American twit who was ecstatic because one of his images had been sold 365 times. Work it out, with a two dollar pound this happy chappie had earned around £180-00 for 365 pictures.
The digital age has made everyone an expert it seems. So an ever growing number of wannabe pro snappers are honing their skills. Eager to start to make money from selling pictures. Like flies to horse manure, many will be drawn to the microstock agencies, hoping to make their fortunes. As I indicated earlier though, “Dumb and Dumber” will fail to see the light and take every opportunity to peddle pics for anything they can get.
I agree with with everything Dave says. Since the advent of digital cameras the advances in technology, and falling prices has meant that the market has been flooded with budding David Baileys, vast numbers of whom have been seduced by the chance of a quick buck or two by the microstock libraries. Understandable I suppose, but there has to be a saturation point eventually. Like mobile phones, which all of us managed quite well without(I still do) until a few years ago. The mobile was must-have. Then we had to have a spare one, then one for Sundays ad infinitum, until we couldn’t in all honesty justify buying another. Believe me, I know people who did end up with about six or seven mobiles. The mobile phone market boom will collapse in the near future, as will the one in the camera market.
A decade ago, photographers had to fork out a couple of grand for a 2MP digital camera. Now you can buy a 12MP DSLR for under £400. The saturation will continue a while yet, both in the number of DSLRs and microstock images. Sooner or later though, the wannabe buck-chasers will dwindle as the appeal wears off. The images being uploaded to microstock sites will also dwindle. The market will still need images, but no matter how large the cache of images held by the microstock sites, the buyer will always want fresh images. The number of images in these sites may be vast, but much of the content is dross, though I have to say that some very fine photographers are, very disappointingly uploading to these abominable sites. I am very dismayed at these individuals especially. One can excuse those who know no better, but when a skilled photographer undervalues his own work, he at the same time devalues the work of other fine photographers.
In my experience, both as an artist and photographer, there is a mutual understanding, appreciation and respect among fellow creative types. I have received so much help and friendship over the years, all warmly and freely given by other artists and photographers. There may be competition between us for the same market, but with the exception of making sure our offerings are better than theirs, we compete fairly with each other. We should not be trying to pull the rug from under the feet of fellow artists.
To sum up, I detest the microstock libraries. I would like to see their demise. Wishful thinking I believe, but I think they will lose their grip eventually. In the meantime it is going to be difficult for the ethical stock libraries and photographers. One thing is for sure though, I will not under any circumstances go down the microstock road. I would sooner give up all uploading altogether and concentrate on selling privately, both images and prints plus exhibition work. Hard work admittedly, but rewarding. I also have my paintings.
One possible saviour could come in the form of film. Far from being dead, it appears to be fighting back. The quality from a medium or large format camera is hard to beat. Some buyers will always want large, high quality images. Digital for all it’s attractions does not hold all of the trump cards.
I guess budding photographers and some established ones too, do not realise just how valuable their work is. Also they feel they are getting something in return, but I’m sure they are being ripped off. Could this be compared to the “vanity” press?
Sorry about this: I find it hard to read the blue on grey!!!
You want to know what drives photographers to accept 20 cents for a picture sale? I tell you:
1. The 20 cents comes 10,000 times every month. Do you have calculator??
2. Most times its MUCH more than 20 cents. Average is over $1. You choose to be ignorant of this, is not a secret.
2. They accept photos that are good, not photographers that are good. They are inclusive but you are exclusive.
3. They help photographers learn and improve, but all you say is “you are not good enough for fotolibra”
4. They make it easy for anyone earn money with photos, not just the elitist
Technology changed the value of photo, but not the value of a photographer. If you are not good photographer, you need to be scared of microstock because there is now nothing between you and a 19 years old girl with DSLR for christmas and a list of how-to photography video on YouTube.
But if you are good photographer, you don’t need to worry. Most big companies still buy RM license so they don’t get caught like you describe in your article. Good stock shooters are not complain about microstock.
@Dave Tait – your happy chappie friend got £180 SO FAR with only ONE PHOTO, and is probably not a professional, and probably didn’t spend any money creating the photo, and will probably waste the £180 on beer and hamburgers BECAUSE HE CAN! Who is “twit” now?
People who sell in microstock know about Getty and Corbis and the others, but there is no opportunity there. Is not that they don’t know better. They would like to get $500 for photo but Getty don’t want their photo, so $1 is good and maybe comes 500 times every month anyway.
iStock is growing at 40% but Fotolibra is still unknown. You were not at the heart of digitization of stock industry or people will know who you are like Alamy. You did not democrotize the stock industry as you don’t make photos available to buyers with a budget. There is something for you to find in why there is such a big gap in your “beliefs” and reality.
Also, minimum purchase at most microstocks is $10 not $1000. See, you are already a bit better connected with reality!
Tom Lehrer commented 50 years ago that the US Military was abolishing discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, sex — and ability.
I’d like to know where Massimo read the words “you are not good enough for fotolibra”. We are not remotely elitist — from the start anyone and everyone can join and upload pictures to be sold on fotoLibra. All they have to do is to apply our minimum quality guidelines to ensure their pictures are big enough (not necessarily ‘good’ enough — that’s purely a subjective opinion) to be sold professionally.
“They help photographers learn and improve, but all you say is “you are not good enough for fotolibra”.” It’s really not our job to teach people how to take photographs — we’re a picture library, not a school. But our Submission Guidelines, which help photographers prepare images for sale, have won plaudits from professionals and amateurs alike. And anyone can download them, even non-fotoLibra members like Massimo.
I’m sorry you have so completely misunderstood and misrepresented fotoLibra, Massimo. That’s probably because you have no experience of it. Why don’t you join? It’s free, completely democratic and open, and you could earn some money!
But your lack of knowledge leads me to question your first and most basic assertion — that “The 20 cents comes 10,000 times every month.” I find it very hard indeed to believe that one picture can sell 10,000 times a month. But I’ve often heard this figure — everyone who supports microstock agencies quotes the same sales figure. I’ve never seen one shred of supporting evidence. It’s always happened to “a friend of mine” or “someone I know in California.” Can you prove this to me, Massimo? Has a microstock agency really and truly sold one of your photographs 10,000 times a month? If that proves to be true, I shall be very impressed indeed, and I will say so.
I do have a calculator, and I’ve managed to figure out that Massimo’s photograph will have been sold 120,000 times in a year — that’s 120,000 transactions for the microstock agency (rather more than fotoLibra does in the course of a year) — and Massimo will have earned £12,000.
That’s truly fantastic. Let’s see the photograph which achieved these unprecedented sales!
I am reasonable person, so I take you points and maybe I join Fotolibra. You are right that I not know Fotolibra and think of you like Getty and Corbis who want photographer to have expensive shoot portfolio of 10,000 photos before being accepted. I apologise for misrepresentation.
My point about 10,000 sales is for all portfolio, not just one image. But it is possible in microstock. Here is photo that sold more of 10,000 times, but not mine and not in 1 year (1 year 8 month)
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=1921014
And that is just one agency. That photo is exclusive for istock, but others that are not can sell more than 10,000. Not all agency show sales so you can’t know how much.
You want proof that people earn well with microstock? Look how many photos Yuri sold here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=629407
and here:
http://www.dreamstime.com/Yuri_Arcurs_info
He says he earned $64,000 in month of January, and when I calculate his sales numbers there and other sites it is at least that much. I can give you others if you want. Or aks Ron Chapple who sell Getty, Corbis, Jupiter and all top microstock too. He tell you reality!
So I admit that I am mistaken on fotolibra being closed an not support for photographer. Now you admit you already know that microstock photographers earn average 5 times more than 20 cents per sale but not say it to make your point.
Of course there are always people who will make a stunning success out of every walk of life, though I can’t help laughing when I read about “Yuri Arcurs Keywroding software”. It really doesn’t fill me with confidence!
My point is that if you relate to stories like this, then you will also believe you will win the lottery. It does happen — Yuri is the proof — but look how hard the guy works at it. “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” The odds on the average punter achieving what Yuri has achieved (through HIS hard work, not the agency’s) is vanishingly small.
fotoLibra provides a platform for everyone to make reasonable amounts of money, certainly not 20 cents, from the sale of their photographs. We believe we act fairly both to photographers and to picture buyers. We don’t think microstock agencies are fair to the majority of photographers; they hold out the promise of a dream which is very rarely fulfilled. Do you know the average earnings per annum of all the microstock photographers? I don’t think it would be very high. Very thinly buttered bread comes to mind.
But Massimo, you are right. We should start publicising the success of our fotoLibra photographers. We have the Nikon Wildlife Photographer of the Year, $1,800 earned from just one picture sale — maybe it’s time we started blowing our own trumpets.
In defense to what Massimo Martello has posted above, I would like to say what is my own experience with micro-stock. Of course I am nowhere near Yuri Arcurs, I work alone and do not employ other people like Yuri does, but still, I think that the following data justifies my involvement in micro-stock. Please also note that my portfolio is mostly travel photography from Greece and France with very few people images (and of those, 99% are mostly portraits) which makes sales harder to get by.
I work with 14 micro-stock agencies ( although any real income is derived from six of them) and three “normal” agencies, i.e. Alamy, fotoLibra and ImageVortex.
BTW, I made attempts at Corbis and was not selected. I made an attempt at Inmagine and was rejected.
In the first four months of 2008, my revenue is as follows:
January 2008
Micro-stock $ 623.58
Normal agencies $0.00
February 2008
Micro-stock $ 769.56
Normala agencies $0.00
March 2008
Micro-stock $730.62
Normal agencies $ 0.00
April 2008
Microstock $ 785.65
Normal agencies $232.91
So, in the first four months of 2008, I have earned $ 2,918.41 from microstock and only $232.91 from the so called normal agencies. In the above, please add a total revenue of $2,936.00 in 2007 from microstock and nothing from the normal agencies.
In addition to the above, I have gained tons of experience from my microstock submissions and numerous subsequent rejections and have adapted my workflow so as to limit rejections as much as possible. In other words, I have become a better photographer since the day I made my first submission to iStock and have not regretted the fact that, on average, I make something like $0.97 per image sale.
This was a very interesting read.
I am a amateur photographer who dreamed to have one of his his photos published one day and maybe make some pocket money along the way. I found fotolibra by chance and joined about a year ago. It is true that it is for free but only for 12 images, which is really not much and your chances for a sale are very slim. So I signed up for 5 GB, which allows you to upload a decent portfolio, but that comes to a price of 18 pounds or $40 australian for 3 month. That doesn’t sound very much but it is actually almost half a days wage. Stock agency’s are really for free. I have now about 150 photos in my fotolibra portfolio and scored 2 sales so far that made 50 pounds together. That does not even cover my subscription fees. This reason for this bad return can be that the quality of my photos isn’t good enough or they don’t suit the publisher.
A few month ago I tried some of the stock agencys as well and uploaded some photos. Most were rejected as of poor quality or the subject wasn’t desired. So far I didn’t made a sale at all.
My problem might be that I love to photograph landscapes and old buildings, http://www.photo.net/photos/uwestiens ,and not sharp looking, well tanned people in business suits who smile into the camera. If you look at the most sold photos on stock sites you will see that a lot of them are made for advertising purposes. They might be good as a background for a magazine but for me they are quite boring.
So what options do I have? I can start making boring photos for stock agency’s, or I stick to my guns and do what I love.
I can tell you that I will keep shooting my landscapes and hope that someone will like them and buy it. But I also understand if people stick with the stock agency’s to make a sale. Andreas is making about $700 a month, which is a lot of money.
Everyone has different opinions about photography and should do what suits them. For some it is just a hobby, for others it is a job, and like in so many other things “money rules”.
gwyn, you just lose me. I ask you to admit you know 20 cents to be inaccurate, and you not admit it but instead you use that number another time. I am happy to discuss micro vs macro and learn, but not with you. Thanks to Uwe Stiens comment I now know that you charge your photographers to put photos on your site, and then you call microstock “unfair”! Sorry gwyn, but you are someone I not want to do business with. I think you are hypocrit and in denial about the state of photo market today. When you give $21 millions to your photographers like istock, call me. Until then, I feel bad for photographers who pay you real money but get nothing back. If you are serious about how good is you agency, you agree to take your hosting fees from first commissions of photographer sales. This way you don’t hurt photographers who just want to sell their photos and share risk. But no, you take money from people who love photography and call names of microstock. How you sleep at night?
I would just like to throw in a few thoughts here!
Uwe Stiens mentioned that Andreas is making a lot of money, about $700 a month. I was just wondering how much time and effort he has invested in supplying 17 stock agencies with pictures, and how many?
Also, I was wondering how much time are people prepared to invest in accurate keywording of images, which only have a minimal chance of being used, and if so only provide a return of a few dollars with microstock, if that!
OK, I have to admit that I have not sold anything through Fotolibra yet, but didn’t expect to as I have only been with them for 3 months, and it’ early day’s yet.
Also, I use Fotolibra as a safe storage system for many images and often find it is easier to download an image than find it in my somewhat chaotic system!
If I was a multimillionaire or I’d raised millions through venture capital funding, maybe we’d have followed Massimo’s route to business success. But all I had as a stake was my house. So I put that on the line because I was prepared to put my money — not other people’s money — where my mouth is.
Tomorrow we’re off to the BAPLA Picture Buyers’ Fair to sell more pictures to genuine picture buyers. There are 200 picture libraries exhibiting there. No microstock agencies, no Corbis, no Getty. Maybe Massimo’s right and I am in denial! But we have a lot of appointments booked with a lot of pro buyers. Why not talk to them?
David’s point about the keywording is bang on the button. It’s the one area I know fotoLibra is shaky on. We have some wonderful images that buyers won’t see because they’re inadequately keyworded. How do the microstock boys handle that, Massimo? What languages do they accept?
I have read with interest both sides of this argument on microstock agencies. I shoot a lot of photos for my own interest (i.e. nature, coastal scenes, boats, birds). But, every outing I make, what will sell is always on my mind. I also shoot for Fine Art, meaning that I display my photos in Galleries and sell at Art shows. I think the same can be said for stock photography as in Fine Art sales. If you do not value your work, no one else will. It takes a lot of effort to go on location, shoot various subjects in just the right light, or appealing circumstances, then hours on the computer to make sure the end product looks as close to what I envisioned when I pressed the shutter. I could not justify selling my photos for $1.00. Sure I love to sell a photo to be published, and have sold a few through fotoLibre. If I was willing to sell my work for $1.00 a picture, I might as well give it away. Microstock agencies cheapen all of our work, and convince the public that anyone can take a digital photo. I can not tell you how many weddings I have lost because a friend of the bride has a digital camera and thinks it takes no effort to make memorable photos. Just my two cents worth, about what I might make from a microstock agency.
I, too, tried my hand with the regular or standard stock agencies and was shut out across the board. I don’t even meet the minimum camera requirements. The fact is this is, for me, a hobby.
I made about $1000 last year from selling at a microstock site, and that was $1000 more than I had before, and I was going to take the photos anyway, so it wasn’t just me being paid pennies on the hour.
At the end of the day, the ‘value’ of something is simply what the market is willing to pay for it. Suggesting that all photographers that can, should go the more expensive exlusivity route is like saying the gas companies should collude to increase profits. It’s a nice try, but we all hate it when someone who has services we need or want do it.
I meant to add this to my previous post:
If people are willing to buy photos and risk an ad screw-up where another company used the same photo in am embarassing way, or don’t care about absolute-quality, then that is simply where the market is at.
I read your newsletter today with sheer astonishment. You clearly have no idea!
I joined iStockphoto and fotoLibra the same day in November 2006.
Since then, my earnings with istockphoto have been over $3,100; my Fotolibra earnings have been zero. Fair enough, I have lots more images with iStock, but that’s because that’s where I was getting sales, so it seemed that’s where I should continue to invest my limited time and effort. Also, I’m happier with their strict acceptance policy, even though I get (plenty of) images rejected, rather than ‘just upload it’.
Now, while it is true that my first download with iStockphoto, within a couple of days of being approved (they have a very strict approval policy) was for a measly 20p, that was almost 18 months ago. Now my average (as an exclusive Silver) photographer is well over $1: last week I had 62 downloads and earned $103.54. I’ve also had extended licences which can be lucrative and, get this, the photos can still be sold and resold.
In the ‘old days’ I applied and was accepted to one of the Big Name Stock Agencies. They asked me to supply 100 particular images based on my locality. What with the day job and the weather, it tood me a few weeks to get the slides taken, developed, weeded, sorted, labelled and a description sheet written according to their specs. Sent them all in. They were returned unopened (i.e. the package of slides hadn’t been opened, but presumably they’d read the covering letter beginning “… 100 35mm slides…”, as the scribbled reply note said, “We are now only accepting MF and above. You can imagine how furious I was – I had used up loads more than 100 frames of film to make the selection.
So traditional stock was ‘elitist by equipment’, and the microstock revolution came along and realised that not everyone who wants to buy images wants to plaster them over billboards: some people just want relevant or pretty (or both) images on their website, at a small size and for a correspondingly little price. That’s a market, and demand has begotten a supply.
I have to admit I’m pretty shocked when big corporations buy microstock photos, and have to admit to some amusement where a conflict of photos, like the one in your example, happens. I sure hope the designer got an agreement in writing that they knew this could happen.
@Gwyn, I can only speak for iStock, but their Controlled Vocabulary, which isn’t without its faults, accepts submissions in, and translates into, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Russian and Japanese. Sadly, the real problem is contributers spamming their keywords, or jsut making honest mistakes: but I can’t see how this wouldn’t happen in Fotolibra. I’ve even Asian Elephants even on Corbis keyworded as ‘African’.
@Jacqui: the forums on iStock allow free speech. (Again, I can’t speak for others). The basic things we can’t mention are ‘rival’ sites, comparison with other images on the site “My spingleplonk photo was rejected, why was Joe Bloggs’s accepted?” and personal abuse.
Hi Everybody,
“I now want to know what drives a photographer to accept 20 cents for the sale of a picture”
Actually the lowest is 18 cents.
For me the answer is simple is bringing me $22000.00 a year and I hope will go up.
Luckily by next year the microstock will pay the school fees for my son.
“We want our members to get paid pounds, not peanuts”.
Actually I look on Fotolibra some time ago and when I saw is kind of subscription to put your photos on the site, I give up instantly.
If you do not mind please tell me how many”pounds” gets a middle contributor on your site???
“What intelligent photographer will upload pictures to a site where, if they get a return at all, it would be in the region of 20 cents a picture?”
I am asking also what intelligent photographer will upload his pictures to Photolibra and pay for it???
For example Alamy is traditional stock and they do not charge me a penny to keep my pictures on their site. And I am asking you again how much make’s an average photographer a month on Photolibra???
“It’s great as a temporary solution at the bottom end of the market”.
You really get your figures wrong, is not at all a temporary solution.
Always will be a market for the bottom end, flyers, websites, small business owners, even normal people what they want a picture for a presentation……. What was price prohibited to them now is available and they take advantage.
Yup I sold also me 150 pounds pictures, but how many ????
“fotoLibra was the first all digital picture library, so we were at the heart of it — and what we wanted to do was to democratise the stock agency world so everyone had the chance to sell their images.”
This is a big statement please can you explain. How do you want to do that?
Please come up with a solution and I am with you.
I love photography, for me is not a hobby is a passion, I grew up with it.
“Painting with light” is long dead, viva….correct levels, curves, right skin tone, accurate white balance….etc.
I hate microstock or whatever traditional stock, I am tired of doing kitsch, people with laptops, etc.
This is what the market is asking this is what I am doing, this is what’s put part of the bread on the table.
“Dave Tait ,April 24th, 2008
An answer as to why photographers provide images to microstock agencies could be the fact that they dont know any better. With no experience as to what the should be getting, they perhaps see the sale of a 1 dollar image as a step up the ladder.”
Looks to me like you are one of the traditional “pro” .
The $1 “step up the ladder” brings something at the end of the year.
Personally I am doing it for the money , I have pictures published in Men’s Health, Nickelodeon TV, AOL, Volkswagen, bla, bla, bla, I do not care crap about them, big names, and what happened they still bought it for $1.
If I “don’t know any better” tell me with what you are better???
Let’s chose a subject, and each of us make a concept, let the people vote, and see if the “microphotographers” are really useless.
I am tired of the “macrophotographers” claiming superiority, over what???? You are better? prove it!
I am a bit short tempered so I won’t read the rest of the post and reply because definitely I will say the wrong thing, so I am out.
Good light to everybody,
PS. Google around after poco_bw definitely you will find me, drop me a line if you want to take the challenge, I just want to see if you are just a big mouth or you are indeed good, If you will be so much better like you let everybody to understand, I will print your picture, and eat it in front of the webcam, so the whole community can see me. If you are not so good how you claim…….what do you put in the game????
Sorry, forgot to add: although my first sale was an x-small for 20c, the next day it sold again, this time as e medium-sized file for 60c. It has now sold 36 times, netting me $92.96. Of course, it might have sold for loads more RM, but, like the rest of my fotolibra portfolio, it might have sat there doing nothing.
My 2 cents worth…
Gwyn, I applaud you for publicly confronting this issue head-on, even though one or two of your arguments are a little skewed.
Unfortunately for photographers and photo libraries alike, the average street value of a photograph is somewhat lower than it was in the past. Not least among the reasons for this is that in the digital/internet age, the cost of physically producing and distributing photographs is considerably lower than ever before. No film, no processing, no postage costs… we hardly ever even have to buy a battery any more. I have probably taken 1,000 shots in the last month alone. I don’t know how much film, paper and chemicals cost these days but I guess I saved well over 1,000 quid (2,000 bucks) on materials, or at least I would have done had I had taken that many pictures on film …. which I wouldn’t have! …. Which raises the point that it is likely that there are more photographs being taken today than ever before… more subjects, more angles, more exposure bracketing, more photographers – doing more experimentation. Consequently there are bound to be more marketable photographs knocking around than ever before… especially when you add the number of new photographs in the world to the ever expanding universe of existing ones – the older ones of which which can now be scanned, enhanced and theoretically made to last indefinitely in digital form (instead of slowly decaying on paper or film). The laws of supply and demand dictate that the price is going to have to be lower. Of course an image that is exquisite, esoteric, elusive or exclusive is always going to be able to command a much higher price than a generic shot but that is the crunch. It’s horses for courses. Microstock RF photography is essentially generic. It seems that a lot of people submit, to these agencies, images to that are too specific, only to find that they are not wanted. Those pictures belong elsewhere and will probably fetch higher prices. Only pictures with volume sales potential are sought. Otherwise it really wouldn’t be fair on anyone.
Basically, it seems to me that microstock is a niche market, for a particular kind of image (broad though the spectrum might seem). It need not have a great effect on more traditional libraries as long as traditional libraries take on board the key issues that has arisen…
Unless it is something really special, the average value of a photograph is less than it used to be because:
a) it typically costs less to produce… and
b) somebody else, equally accesible probably has a similar one they will be willing to sell cheaper.
I don’t believe you can blame the microstock phenomenon for this directly, you have to blame technology as a whole, and without that where would photographers be? (A. Probably brushing egg whites onto bits of glass in a darkened room.)
There is no point in being bitter or trying to fight it. This is the status quo. If I want to sell a picture for a few cents or even give it away, that is up to me. I don’t believe I am hurting anyone by doing so. I don’t realistically have the option to sell the picture for grand unless someone actually offers me that much. OK, by selling the picture at all I am discarding any hope of retaining exclusivity value, but then exclusivity slams the door on the the possibility of multiple sales. Yes there is some garbage on the microsites and some of it will probably never sell, not even for a few cents but good images sell over and over for a few dollars a time and that adds up. The biggest ‘problem’ facing the industry as a whole is the number of newcomers with a good eye and a good camera. This is where the butter might begin to get spread a little thin. It just means that it is perhaps time for the experts to take a step up to the next rung of the ladder.
(more correct…)
My 2 cents worth…
Gwyn, I applaud you for publicly confronting this issue head-on, even though one or two of your arguments are a little skewed.
Unfortunately for photographers and photo libraries alike, the average street value of a photograph is somewhat lower than it was in the past. Not least among the reasons for this is that in the digital/internet age, the cost of physically producing and distributing photographs is considerably lower than ever before. No film, no processing, no postage costs… we hardly ever even have to buy a battery any more. I have probably taken 1,000 shots in the last month alone. I don’t know how much film, paper and chemicals cost these days but I guess I saved well over 1,000 quid (2,000 bucks) on materials, or at least that’s what I would have spent had I shot that many images on film … which I wouldn’t have! … This raises the point that it is likely that there are more photographs being taken today than ever before… more subjects, more angles, more exposure bracketing, more photographers – doing more experimentation. Consequently there are bound to be more marketable photographs knocking around than ever before… especially when you add the daily flood of new photographs to the ever expanding universe of existing ones – the older ones of which which can now be scanned, enhanced and theoretically made to last indefinitely in digital form (instead of slowly decaying on paper or film). The laws of supply and demand dictate that the price is going to have to be lower. Of course an image that is exquisite, esoteric, elusive or exclusive is always going to be able to command a much higher price than a generic shot but that is the crunch. It’s horses for courses. Microstock RF photography is essentially generic. It seems that a lot of people submit, to these agencies, images to that are too specific, only to find that they are not wanted. Those pictures belong elsewhere and will probably fetch higher prices. Only pictures with volume sales potential are sought. Otherwise it really wouldn’t be fair on anyone.
Basically, it seems to me that microstock is a niche market, for a particular kind of image (broad though the spectrum might seem). It need not have a great effect on more traditional stock libraries as long as traditional libraries take on board the key issue that has arisen… namely that the average value of a photograph is less than it used to be because:
a) it typically costs less to produce… and
b) somebody else, equally accesible (via the internet), probably has a similar one they will be willing to sell cheaper.
I don’t believe you can blame the microstock phenomenon for this directly, you have to blame technology as a whole, and without that where would photographers be? (Probably brushing egg whites onto bits of glass in a darkened room.)
There is no point in being bitter or trying to fight it. This is the status quo. If I want to sell a picture for a few cents or even give it away, that is up to me. I don’t believe that is unethical or that I am hurting anyone by doing so. I don’t realistically have the option to sell the picture for grand unless someone actually offers me that much. OK, by selling the picture at all I am discarding any hope of retaining exclusivity value, but then exclusivity slams the door on the the possibility of multiple sales. Yes there is some garbage on the microsites and some of it will probably never sell, not even for a few cents, but good images sell over and over for a few dollars a time and that adds up. The biggest ‘problem’ facing the industry as a whole is the number of newcomers with a good eye and a good camera. This is where the butter might begin to get spread a little thin. It just means that it is perhaps time for the experts to take a step up to the next rung of the ladder.
“I am asking also what intelligent photographer will upload his pictures to Photolibra and pay for it???
For example Alamy is traditional stock and they do not charge me a penny to keep my pictures on their site.”
lucian coman – alamy may not charge you to keep your pictures on their site, but they keep 30% of every shot they sell for you (sometimes more). and to all you micro supporters: if you still used film, you wouldn’t care about microstock, as the effort of producing a good slide, scanning and keywording it is worth far more than a couple of bucks. digital is “hit and run”… fill your 4GB flash card and upload everything on there to a microstock provider. photography is all about selecting the good from the bad, which is something most “photographers” seem to have forgotten about in these days where quantity stands before quality.
To me the people running fotolibra should bear in mind the adage ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’. From my experience it seems as if their business model is ‘charge members £6 a month to cover our expenses and it doesn’t matter that we don’t make sufficient efforts to sell their pictures’.
Harsh? No! To me it is reality. I have been a paying member for 2 years and have around 300 pictures on site for more than a year. It is not just the fact that they have not sold my pictures but their interpretation of their ‘gallery’ as a ‘random selection of recently uploaded images’ (or words to that effect). From my experience the same pictures return time and time again and most are 2 to 3 years old. And, for one of my pictures to turn up you will need to press the ‘gallery’ button 24 times. Now, if a picture researcher has a few minutes to merely browse the library, he/she is never going to see any of my work.
My pictures not good enough? No! Several of the images I have on fotolibra I have sold to magazines in the past year.
I also have pictures in a microstock agency. They are entirely different type of picture to the ones I submit to fotolibra. They take very little effort on my part. I can submit a hundred a week. The agency will even do the keywording for them. Sales? Of course! And one of the sales was for a picture of my own back gate. Am I making a living from my microstock images? No! But, I am doing even worse on fotolibra. I have paid them £144 for no return whatsoever.
So, in my view, the people at fotolibra should stop knocking microstock agencies and get on with putting their own house in order. I would find it interesting to see which brings fotolibra the most money; the fees they get from monthly subscriptions, or the commission they get from actually selling pictures.
Robin
“but they keep 30% of every shot they sell for you (sometimes more)“
…..and Fotolibra takes 50%, or 40% for Platinum membership!
I agree with you wholeheartidly on the other points though.
“alamy may not charge you to keep your pictures on their site, but they keep 30% of every shot they sell for you (sometimes more). and to all you micro supporters: if you still used film, you wouldn’t care about microstock, as the effort of producing a good slide, scanning and keywording it is worth far more than a couple of bucks. digital is “hit and run”… fill your 4GB flash card and upload everything on there to a microstock provider. photography is all about selecting the good from the bad, which is something most “photographers” seem to have forgotten about in these days where quantity stands before quality.”
Actually I think they give you 30% not keep for them (smiley face)
In the olden days I shoot film, times changed, technology changed, ……..I changed.
Definitely the pictures worth more, microstock is just a channel to sell them.
I do not “hit and run” and is a lot of work involved, is not just the cost of the film, what about the props, models, hardware, blown lights, software….you want me to keep on going.
I did not forget anything quality will remain quality, I invite you also to take a look at my work, few of the pictures stands for quality. Many stands for kitsch, but this is what sells.
Maybe one day I will be able to go back at what is called “photography” until then whatever puts bread on the table is “good enough” microstock or not.
Good light to everybody
This blog has certainly created some interest. But to those who specifically commented on my thoughts I’ll just repeat a part of my final line which, in my opinion, appears to apply to many microstock suppliers. “take every opportunity to peddle pics for anything they can get”. That’s not me. Even if I was the worst photographer on the planet, and someone wanted to buy images from me, I would expect a price that shows respect for what I do.
I’ve been selling pictures for 30 years. All those years ago I was still getting much much more than the microstock prices. Thats what I was referring to with ” those who don’t know any better”
But, those of you supplying microstock libraries, why are you here? Why are you using Fotolibra. Or, are you running with the hare and the hounds? As I see see it, this is a with us or against us scenario. I’m with Fotolibra!
I have RM images in the fotolibra library; they haven’t sold, not even once.
I have RF images with iStock, I’ve made over £1500.
Isn’t that reason enough?
Yes I sell photos for whatever they can get, lowest ever$0.18 highest ever $303.00.
Of course also me I want to be respected for what I am doing and put pride in my work.
But if my kid will ask me why I did not pay his school fees , what can I say ????
I better loose all the respect from the world , put the pride in my bumb, and gain respect of those who really count for me.That’s just me.
As I said I register with fotolibra long ago, and when I saw are some fees to be paid just to keep the pics I give up, but by the looks of it not many people are doing money here.
I am not running with anybody, if I can walk and make some money that will be OK for me also.
I am not with you, I am not against you just trying to take care of my family.
If you come with a real solution how a photographer can make “real” money , I am with you all the way up.Everybody from micro to RM blow their own trumpets about the advantages of the business.
Personally I am really tired of all this marketing bullcrapp ….come up with a real solution and you will be a God among all this photographers, what do you say immortality tempt you ???
And by the way I still maintain my challenge .
Lucian, not sure about the immortality or god idea but I have a sort of solution – off the top of my head… Seems to me that there is a mixture of happiness and discontent on both sides of this fence. A real solution might be to have best of both worlds.
Every photographer has taken more than a few shots that aren’t worth a fig to anyone (by accidentally pressing the shutter release of course), some also have shots that are potentially worth a fortune. If the microstock agencies have a serious flaw it is the “one price fits all” policy that most of them operate. There are different prices for downloading different resolutions as well as different prices for different kinds of licensing but it doesn’t make a lot of sense that picture A costs the same as picture Z.
A better solution would be to allow the photographer to set the base price of each image. Alternatively, if the photographer agrees, pricing could be set by the agency review staff using their ‘expert’ judgement. What makes most sense is for agencies to allow photographers to not only set the prices but also the licensing terms for each image. Different licensing for different resolutions is probably a good idea too. If you have high res pictures you can feasibly do this today. At the moment you’ll probably have to use more than one agency to achieve it but as long as you don’t plan to grant exclusives you could make lower res versions available as RF and sell high resolution images on a different licence. Some might argue that there are ethical issues with this approach but ultimately – if you want to sell higher/lower resolution images to different market, it is your choice how you offer to licence them. Nobody says you have to put all your eggs in one basket – unless of course you have, or offer, an exclusive arrangement which dictates that you must.
Don’t forget that internet technology is still in its infancy. I believe there is room for a completely new and more efficient model for digital stock libraries.
Ian, one of the microstocks, I think it’s Fotalia, allows photogs to set their price per pic once they reach a certain level (of sales?) (I only know iStock, but I hear about the others FTTT.)
However, the word on the street is that any pic you price above the normal had better be unique, because like most people, buyers ‘satisfice’: e.g. if I see a dress that I love for £250 and one that I like for £60, I’ll take the £60 one 99.9% of the time.
With RM, they’re not buying a better image (iStock images are rigorously vetted, though some of the earlier ones may be below current standards), they’re paying for unique usage.
I don’t know of any microstocks that currently let the photographer set the price for RF licences. DreamsTime have a system where the base price goes up after a certain number of sales. This goes part way to charging more for better pics but it is inflexible, all pictures start equal. DT don’t offer a RM option but you can offer to sell the rights and set a price for that.
I am a lemming and I wish to point out that this mass suicidal cliff-jumping stuff is a myth. The only time we jump off cliffs is when we are doing tv commercials and stock photo shoots, and we always carry micro-parachutes.
Another point which hasn’t been mentioned above is that although it’s clear that big buyers do sometimes buy microstock, in general it’s a new market: people for whom the alternative isn’t buying a $2 image or a $200 image. It’s people who will buy a $2 or no image at all, for example very small businesses, students, people making up Powerpoint presentations, etc. In many cases, they don’t need big files, and they don’t need unique use. That was the original target market. Several buyers left iStock when the prices went up in early January!
Ian one of the models near of what are you talking is Featurepics, I tried before, didn’t work so I set all prices $5 and did few hundred bucks, but is slow, another one will be the snapvillage people, what are part of Corbis, and Corbis being part of Microsoft nothing works fine, have slow sales, non functional website etc,
Some time ago I get an invite to shoot for Jupiter Images, if I remember well there you can set the price in certain limits, I deny the offer because is the biggest rip off in the history of stock they give you only 15% from the sale, and from that 15% they tax you 30% for the US government, if you use paypal to transfer the money I think is another 3%, and I was wondering if I better not just give away the pics.
The big boys buy always big from microstock even if they do not want to admit, I can give you a long list what they bought my crap.
Originally what was designed for the bottom end of the market become a buying heaven also for the big boys.