Today I received an e-mail from Getty basically saying that we should aim to get at least 50% of submitted images accepted, and that our acceptance rate will be taken into consideration when our submissions are edited. I guess they want us to edit our work a bit tighter…OK, a LOT tighter.
This helps validate my belief that tighter editing is better editing. It also seems, in effect, that we need to brand ourselves for and to the Getty editors. Part of what I used to find desirable about stock was that it was all about the image and not the photographer. But change just keeps happening and now branding for stock photographers has truly become important.
If you want to make a good living at stock, making great images simply may not be enough. Getting those images in front of their audience just keeps getting more difficult and more important. To do that, I believe, is going to require branding, marketing and a lot of strategic planning. Your body of work is going to have an impact on how many images you get into agencies and how quickly those images come up in searches.Your body of work is a key part of your branding. Your reputation, your branding, and your marketing (for me "marketing" means a solid web site with great SEO) will help you get your images seen, whether they are seen through agencies or your own site, or both.
Just for fun, above, I have included a couple recently rejected images: The “brain” image was rejected by Getty for being “too complex” and the stairway image for being “oversubscribed”. Oh well….
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