A Blog About Stock Photography. John specializes in shooting stock photos including a mix of funny animal pictures with anthropomorphized pets (including dogs, cats, cows, elephants, monkeys and more), and concept stock photos for business and consumer communications. John's site includes interviews with photographers and leaders in the stock photo community as well as numerous articles on photography, digital imaging, and the stock photo business.
This beautiful water image has been created as an exclusive reward for $1.00 backers of our HydraQuik Kickstarter campaign.
Wow, it has been a busy couple of months gearing up for our HydraQuik Kickstarter campaign, which goes live in just a few minutes, at 1:00 PST. For
those of you who aren’t familiar with this project, my brother invented a
device that we call the HydraQuik that gets your hot water to you fast (up to
80% faster) without wasting water down the drain. When he asked me
to become involved I saw it as a chance to make a positive difference in the
world (the HydraQuik, if used extensively, could save BILLIONS of gallons of
water a year).
My thinking is that a product that makes life easier and
more convenient (not waiting for hot water) might actually catch on with the public...far more likely than a form of conservation that requires sacrifice! It the HydraQuik is widely adopted it can truly impact our planet in a positive way!
I am asking for your support in backing us. If you back us
to the tune of $1.00 you will be helping the environment as well as helping us!
That $1.00 of support will also get you a digital file I have made exclusively
for our Kickstarter backers that is, at least in my opinion, a stunning photo
suitable for fine art printing. All $1.00 backers will get this digital file as
part of their rewards.
By clicking on our HydraQuik link you can share our project,
watch a very brief video starring yours truly, and give your support. I really appreciate your support!
And don’t worry, when the campaign ends in a month I promise
to get back into blogging about stock photography!
This high-speed (slow motion) stock video of a towel snapping a woman's buttocks has generated over 42,000 views...but no revenue.
Youtube, A Snapping Towel, and 42,000 Views
Just checked in on my videos at youtube. I don't do that very often so I was surprised to see that one of my videos has had over 42,000 views. Considering the next highest is just over 6,000, (slow motion video of a dove released into flight) that little statistic caught my attention. It figures that video clip garnering all of the hits is of a woman's buttocks being snapped by a towel. All the videos I have posted are slow motion ones shot with a Phantom HD camera at 1,000 frames per second. When the towel smacks into her derriere and is captured in super slow motion it is kind of interesting to see the woman's flesh ripple. Ouch! BTW, this idea, and the buttocks, belong to my partner Stephanie Roeser. Can you imagine your girl friend asking you to snap her in the bottom with a towel, and videotape it? Ah, the life of a photographer!
The World of Motion, Exploration and Who Knows
I have also ventured a step further into the motion world with this video of an exploding light bulb, again in slow motion, that transforms into one of those CFL "twisty" eco florescent bulbs. I envision this as a environmental message indicating that you can make a powerful difference with small steps…such as replacing your old bulbs with energy efficient bulbs…but in a dramatic fashion. The twisty bulb is actually a still shot, the same one I used for my "brain bulb" image. You can import still images right into Final Cut Pro. Hey, another way for me to spend hours and hours glued to a computer! I have no idea if there is a market for this video or not, but it did prove a useful vehicle for me to explore just a bit more deeply into the motion world, and who knows, maybe it will sell (license). I am going to submit this one to BlendImages as part of their new and growing motion offering.
Time, Effort and Pathetic Returns
My video offerings at Getty (I have just under 200 clips) have been bringing in a very approximate $750.00 a month. While that might at first glance seem pretty good, if you look at the time, effort and money invested, it is actually kind of pathetic. At that rate I will have the expenses covered in only the next five years. On top of that, I am sharing the revenue with several others who were involved in the projects with me. So if any of the videos are still earning money five years from now I may start getting $250.00 a month in profit, but by then I can't imagine the revenue will still be that high. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the slow-motion project (most of the online clips) and learned a lot. But you can see why I might not be diving head-first into the motion game! If something changes and the revenue stream really takes off I will report that here. Doubtless there are those out there with a much better experience than my own, but for me the still stock image remains the more viable option at this time.
Stock Motion, Challenges, and Microstock Competition
There is little doubt in my mind that video can be a real plus for assignment photographers to have as part of their offering. But when I look at stock video, or perhaps I should say motion stock, I see some real challenges. Video is much more difficult to capture well, more time consuming to deal with in editing, almost impossible to "save" in post (we once shot a beautiful video of a woman jogging up a hill and passing in front of the setting sun, back at the studio we realized that just as she passed in front of the sun a camera bag was visible in the frame, oh well) and is already being flooded with microstock competition. I personally think that most videos will be short, custom produced ones with a minimal reliance on existing footage. I will continue to "visit" that world from time-to-time just in case that market turns out to be far more robust than I envision, but for the vast majority of my own efforts I will stick to still images.
I was recently privy to an Internet conversation among a number of accomplished stock shooters about stock video. These photographers range from some who have barely tested the waters to veterans with solid backgrounds in shooting motion stock footage. In that conversation one photographer mentioned that he had sold his RED (The Red One is a high end digital camera that can shoot both feature film quality video and still images as well) and is no longer producing video. He feels that the return on his investment just isn’t worth it when compared to both the satisfaction and the return on investment he gets from shooting stills. Still another shooter was lamenting the disappointing results he is seeing from the sales of his initial efforts in the realm of motion stock.
Those two aren’t the only ones who are backing away from motion. From what I am seeing it seems there is about a 50/50 split, among those who are speaking up, between the shooters feeling negative about motion stock and those who are bullish on it.
Some very respected people are saying there is money to be made in Micro stock footage. The demand for video is growing and there is still “low hanging fruit” in the micro video world. Some are advising jumping into that market using the new crop of DSLRs that shoot HD video…and keeping the shoots at the lowest end of the cost spectrum. To me it seems that may well be true, for a while.
When I look at my own admittedly small experience I see some of my clips doing very well, and some not selling at all, similar to stills. But here is what I am thinking. The right video can pay well. But video is harder to shoot. Everything has to be perfect. You can’t solve problems with Photoshop. I was watching video with one of my compatriots. It was a beautiful shot panning with a woman jogging over a hilltop at sunset. As the woman jogged she came between the lens and the sun creating a beautiful flare. It was perfect except for the just noticeable camera bag in the background. If it had been a still image the fix would be simple. As a video, it’s a no go.
The scary thing for me about shooting for Micro is how much competition there will soon be. If there is opportunity there, at least in the long term, I think it will be by producing footage that rises above what the majority of shooters will be doing. It seems logical that most shooters will be “grabbing” footage, so the opportunity will be for “produced” footage that is targeted and has reasonably high production value.
As for me, I plan to compete in the RR/RM categories where the potential returns are much greater and the competition will be less. I am also going slowly. I am being very careful about shooting footage. I am also keeping my eyes out for unusual opportunities. My recent three-week shoot with the Phantom HD camera is a good example. The ultra slow motion HD footage that we could capture with that camera made it a no-brainer when the chance to shoot with it came up. It was worth the investment in time, models, supplies and so forth. But for the most part I will confine my video to just those situations where I already have made the investments for a still shoot and it is a relatively easy situation to add in some video, or there is a unique opportunity in terms of the content we can capture and/or virtually no costs involved in the shoot. A couple of examples of video that has done well for us: A pan across Buenos Aires from the top of the second highest building in the city, footage of a rock concert we staged for a still shoot, young children running and tumbling by the camera.
One possible reason to get into motion is the increasing likelihood that advertisers will want to have cohesive material in both motion and stills for their campaigns. That could become an important selling point and increase the price point of the material as well. Another reason might be if you have a burning desire to shoot motion. I don’t, and that might be another reason for my caution. I do enjoy my brief forays into motion, but my true joy comes from making still images.
For me, the most important reason to “dip my toe” in the video waters is to keep on top of my profession of stock imagery and to continue to learn and grow. If there is a sea change towards motion I want to be at the helm and not in the lifeboat!
