Most Searched For Images And A Favorite Sale

This image of Ganesha, the Hindu God who removes all obstacles, his risen to the top of my search engine results.

My most searched-for images:

Over the past several months one of my images has risen above my others in terms of popularity with the search engines. Approximately twenty people a day are searching for “Ganesha” and ending up on my image of the “Remover of all obstacles”, the Hindu God Ganesh. Second place currently goes to “dominatrix”, my image of a dominatrix with a computer for her head. I think the surprise is that “dominatrix” isn’t first!

After a painfully slow start this "Escher" businessman concept stock image has finally garnered a decent sale!

My favorite sale of the month:

I made this “Escher” business image a couple of years ago and it sold once for about $12.00, a big disappointment. So when I noticed this morning that the image made a second sale bringing me just under $500.00 (through Blend Images) it became my favorite sale of the month (though nowhere near the biggest sale). I am feeling confident that over the next five years the image will have proven well worth doing.

Observation:

Images in The Agency Collection (mine are submitted through Blend Images and are on both the Getty site and iStockphoto.com) are continuing to sell VERY well. Of course it is still too early to draw any real firm conclusions…but early results indicate to me that there is enormous potential for these higher-than micro priced images offered on micro sites.

That’s it for this time!

A New Door Opens For Traditional Stock Photographers

Getting great images in front of potential buyers is key to making money in stock photography.

The Conundrum Of Microstock

One of the fundamental problems in the stock photo industry, as it stands now, is the conundrum of microstock. I do not want to license my images at microstock prices, but I am missing out on the vast audience that turns to microstock for their photography needs. I have heard that half of all stock images licensed are licensed through iStockphoto! That is a rather large segment of the market to be missing out on.

The Agency Collection

So here I am, a long time stock shooter with contracts from numerous agencies, including Blend Images, Corbis, Getty Images and SuperStock. But even with the distribution through all of those agencies, I am missing a huge segment of the stock photography market…until now. Getty has recently put into place a new collection, The Agency Collection (TAC for short), a collection of images that are online on both Getty Images and iStockphoto.com. These aren’t microstock images. They are RF images priced at Photodisc levels, but are available through iStockphoto.com.  

Blend Images Opens The Door

These images are provided to Getty by third party agencies. To participate in this collection you need a contract with one of those agencies. Blend Images has opened the door for me to The Agency Collection. Think about it…now I can have images that are available through both Getty and iStockphoto…and all without having to license the images at microstock prices! Is that cool or what?

A Step In The Right Direction For Stock Photography

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t see this as a panacea for all the problems faced by stock shooters, but it is a step in the right direction. In the coming years the first problem facing stock photographers is getting their work seen, getting their photos in front of the people who need them. If your images aren’t seen they aren’t going to be licensed. If your images are seen, if they fill a need, and if they stand out from the images around them, then I think you have a future in stock photography.

The Right Image, The Right Model and The Right Price

For me TAC is a step in the right direction because it gets my stock images in front of a larger audience. Of course a big part of my own work includes Rights Managed work, and those RM images are still not viewable on the microstock sites. I think eventually all images, in all models, and at all prices, will be available on most stock agency sites. The challenge for us stock shooters will not only be to produce enough images that fill needs and stand out, but also to make wise choices as to whether a given image belongs in an RM collection, an RF collection or in microstock. That is a decision I struggle with almost every time I create an image and one that I don’t think is going to get any easier in the coming years. But for now, I am happy to have one more choice to deal with.