This photo created for Blend Images could well be a metaphor for the support and community offered by a new breed of stock agency.
In Appreciation Of Blend Images
Blend has just announced their spring creative meeting that
will take place in Miami this April. It will be a multi-day affair with an
emphasis on motion stock, but still plenty of information on stills and the
industry in general. The details are still being worked out. I can’t tell you
how much I look forward to these events. It is truly wonderful to get together with
my “Blend” family, catch up on everyone, and be informed and inspired about our
industry.
A Photographer-Centric Stock Agency
Blend is the brainchild of Rick Leckrone (Blend’s CEO) who
pulled together twenty-four top stock shooters to create a photographer-centric
stock agency (disclaimer here…as one of the founding members I am biased in
favor of Blend Images!). The agency began with a specialization in
ethnically-diverse content, but has evolved to offer an ever increasingly wide
range of material. While originally a content aggregator offering RF sales
through a wide group of distributors (including Getty and Corbis), Blend went
on to pioneer RM images available through numerous distributors and has also added
a direct sales component.
Maximum Image Visibility
While there is no denying the dominant (if slipping)
position in traditional stock of such agencies as Getty and Corbis, there is,
more than ever, a strong case to be made for the importance of gaining maximum
visibility for one’s images as well as the revenue potential of the countless
“non-traditional” (read microstock) stock photography audience. With Blend I
get far more eyeballs on my imagery than I would with just Getty or Corbis and
I get market penetration into the microstock audience as well. With Blend I can
upload my images once and have them seen virtually everywhere. If one of my
images gets buried on a Getty search, it still has a chance to be seen on other
sites and visa versa.
A Bigger Pie
Yes, the slice of the pie is smaller with a Blend/Getty,
Blend/Fotolia or Blend/Whomever sale, but the pie is much larger! In the case
of a Blend direct sale a Blend photographer stands to earn five times as much
as a sale through most other distributors. Plus, having images at Blend
provides the safety of diversity and the ability to benefit from a nimble agency
that is well positioned to take advantage of changes within the industry.
Photographer Support
Photographer support is much better as well. You can
actually have a relationship with your art director (I communicate with mine on
almost a daily basis), you can pick up the phone and talk to a human being, you
get educational webinars, creative meetings, and access to more research than I
have ever experienced with any of the traditional agencies. With Blend you
become part of that afore mentioned community.
The Blend Staff
I would be remiss if I did not point out that every member of the Blend staff has always been responsive, friendly and helpful to me. Hey, to be able to call Blend and have a human being on the other end alone is great...but to have a human being who is attentive and can get things done...well, that is just plain awesome!
Success In Stock Photography
After all that, do I still contribute images to Getty? Of
course I do. That is a door I am not anxious to close. But the vast majority of
my images go to Blend. My own personal recipe for success in stock photography
includes consistent production of high-value photos with Blend Images being the
cornerstone of my distribution. Whether you shoot traditional or microstock it
may well be worth your while to give Blend a closer look.
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