iStock, Logos, And Deja Vu All Over Again

iStockphoto has announced their intention to sell logos and it is causing quite a stir in the design community. I guess a lot of designers think that the low price of logos on iStock demeans their profession and threatens their livelihood. There are warnings of infringement issues, calls for a boycott of iStockphoto and dire predictions of the demise of the design profession. While many iStock contributors are excited about the prospect, others are citing the necessity of the design community to band together to stop offering their work so cheaply, and of educating the young designers on the necessity of stopping the race to the bottom.

Commodification And Access To Cool Logos

Deja Vu...it all sounds pretty familiar to any of us photographers who have been around for at least the last dozen years. Should designers be so concerned? Of course they should be. Their profession is starting to undergo the same thing ours has…commodification. They won’t be able to stop it anymore than we did. Some designers will be hurt, some will prosper, and a whole lot of small business owners will have access to cool logos, for far less money than before.

The Reality Has Changed

Just like for us photographers, the reality has changed. The photography profession is more difficult than ever before to make a living at, while making some money from photography is far easier than ever before. It isn’t good or bad, it just is. Mom and pop grocery stories now have to compete with Costco. Everyone has to compete with Walmart. If you think we have it bad, remember typesetters? Many of you may not. Typesetting was big business until the Macintosh changed everything practically overnight. Do they still even have typesetters? The question we photographers need to ask ourselves is whether we want to continue to pursue photography as a profession, and if so what is the best way for each of us to thrive.

Stock Agencies, The Web, And Thriving

I still make very good money through stock agencies. Sure, I make less per image. No, I don’t like the change. Yes, I will find ways to continue to thrive. I am making more images more efficiently and paying much more attention to whether an image is relevant to the market before I make it. I am focusing on timeless images that are, at least in my opinion, aimed at the high end of the market. I am working on both branding myself and building up my web traffic. I am keeping an eye out for expanding the ways in which my photography can earn me money. I am trying out motion footage, keeping a close eye on micro, and experimenting with retail products (i.e. coffee mugs, calendars, greeting cards etc. at CafePress.com). I am even starting to make some print sales through Imagekind.com.

Direct Sales, Micro and Traditional Agencies

I believe that some photographers will do great with direct sales, some with micro, and some through traditional agencies. There will be fewer photographers who make great money in stock imagery, and many more photographers than ever before who will make some money. For all of us it will be more challenging in the future than it is now. But hey, it could be a lot worse…I could have been a typesetter!

The One Man Band And A Network Of Thousands

One Man Band: To Be, Or Not To Be?
At various times in my photography career I have had up to five people working for me. A small number of employees compared to the number of staff members of many other photographers, but certainly a handful for me! I remain firmly convinced that having the right employees can make your business way more efficient and profitable, and having the wrong employees can really drag you down. One question you need to answer before you grow your business staff is whether it will suit the life you want to lead.

Large Staffs, Part Time Employees, and Pressure
I know of several photographers who have large staffs, produce wonderful work in vast quantities, haul in huge dollars and feel like they are slaves to their operations.  One such stock shooter, who has over a dozen staff members, remarked to me how much he envied my trips abroad to shoot stock.  I suggested he embark on such a trip.  He said he couldn’t, his huge studio expenses would continue whether he was there or not, so he had to be there to keep producing. I'm sure not everyone feels that way, but it is a feeling I certainly understand. Whenever I have had full-time, or heck, even part time employees, I have felt pressure to keep them busy and productive.

Routine Tasks And Freedom
Right now I have no one working for me. It feels great! The downside is that I have to do things I don't necessarily want to, like entering metadata, running to the store to buy printer ink (I just got back), and taking care of all the routine tasks that I consider myself too important to do. Oh well…. It also means that I won't make quite as much money. Sure, there is no salary to pay, but I have always found that employees have earned me more than they have cost me…at least in terms of dollars. But at this point in my life I value my freedom more than I do those extra dollars.

A One Man Band And A Network Of Thousands
The trade-off? I have to be that proverbial One Man Band. Of course, I do avail myself of independent contractors. I have a bookkeeper that comes in every couple of months to untangle my latest Quickbooks mess, my web master (actually my twin brother) who handles the heaviest SEO load, and the occasional assistant as needed. But more importantly, I have a network of thousands (OK, maybe hundreds…but whose counting?) I can turn to when I need help, pretty much anywhere in the world.  I have this network of friends and from photographer forums, from helping others and sharing information whenever I can. One of the most amazing things about this new fangled Internet is all of the help that is out their waiting for all of us.  I guess none of us really has to be a one man band anymore.

Wrestling With A Stock Photo Strategy

Sumo Wrestlers and Trapeze Artists
A good example of the approach I am currently taking to my stock photography can be seen in a recent shoot based around a Sumo wrestler. The idea originated from a shoot I did a few years ago. I had photographed flying trapeze artists to illustrate concepts such as teamwork, risk and skill. During the process of digitally compositing the trapeze picture it occurred to me that one trapeze artist about to catch another very heavy, overweight trapeze artist could be both humorous and effective in illustrating “the impossible”, risk, and the need for assistance.

Large and Proud, Funny and Compelling
Thing was, I was too embarrassed to ask an extremely overweight person to model for the shot. I even wondered if such a photograph would be insensitive or demeaning to people with weight problems. I don’t remember exactly what triggered the idea of using a Sumo wrestler, but as soon as the idea hit me I knew I had to do it. Sumo wrestlers are both the epitome of large, and are proud of their size. That solved all of my above concerns. Using a sumo wrestler would also emphasize the size difference and make the image all that much more funny and compelling.

An Imposing Force and A Kitten
My producer contacted a sumo wrestling association and we secured the services of a three hundred pound plus Sumo Wrestler named Americus. A very imposing fellow, but also very nice and enthusiastic about our photo shoot, though we did have to clear our shot list with the director of the association. The principle image was the trapeze one, but we filled out the list with ideas such as the wrestler as an imposing force, about to wrestle a small business man, holding up a small kitten, walking a tightrope and a number of other conceptual ideas.

A Day To Shoot, Ten Days To Image
The photography took a day to shoot and I spent the next ten days or so putting the digital composites together. Eventually I got bored and moved onto other projects. I still have more scenarios to complete with the sumo wrestler but they involve additional location photography. Someday I’ll get around to them.

Blend Images And A Rights Managed Collection
In the mean time I placed the images with Blend Images, a stock photo agency (in the interest of full disclosure…I am one of the founders of Blend) specializing in the celebration of ethnically diverse business, lifestyle and conceptual images. The sumo stock images are part of Blend’s new Non-exclusive Rights Managed stock photo collection, though a couple of images were deemed more appropriate the royalty free collections.

This shoot embodies a lot of my stock strategies. The images are primarily for Rights Managed collections, I base a shoot around a strong concept and add to the shot list as many related concept images as I reasonably can, and I try and find the best possible distribution for the images.

Stock Photography And the Timeless Image

I came up with what I thought was a great idea, a kind of positive spin on the old half-full, half empty glass theme. My idea was for a photograph of a hand holding up a glass with a rainbow in the background creating the illusion that the rainbow was pouring into the glass. A timeless concept stock photo illustrating success, optimism, positive thinking, and the way forward.

The image went up on Getty. They accepted it into their Stone collection. Good start. I waited for the checks to start rolling in. Nothing. I waited six months and finally a sale!
My share came out to $80.00. Then, a short nine months later, another sale, this one for $63.00.

In the nineteen years that I have been seriously producing stock I have learned, if nothing else, that I can’t really predict what images will be best sellers. I do know that of my concept images only a handful have failed to sell to at least some extent. Another thing I have learned is that images can be very cyclical. I have had a number of images fail to sell, literally for years, then suddenly take off. I have images that take off right out of the gate earning royalties like crazy, only to tail off and even stop all together. Then, sometimes they will come on again. You just never know.

With this particular image of the rainbow/glass things did bump up a bit in 2007. The total royalties for that year came to $374.60. Then in 2008 the royalties came to $1,818.18. Half way through 2009 the image has earned $871.29. The total to date is now $3,207.07. This is getting awfully close to being a decent selling stock image. It certainly means the afternoon I spent making the image was well spent. The image may never be a best selling stock photo, but there really isn’t anything to date the image, so it should continue earning, perhaps sporadically and maybe not in huge quantities, but earning nonetheless.

I have come to the conclusion that you have to give an RM image, at least my favorite kind, timeless conceptual ones, five years before deciding whether or not the image is successful. Sure, some you know about right away, but my whole stock strategy is based around creating images that will provide income for a long period time, preferably forever. Despite all the changes that our industry is undergoing, I still see a comfortably long life-span with most of my older images. My best three selling images last month with Getty were all created over five years ago.

If you create great, timeless images, then I believe that the trick in the coming years is to make sure clients see those images. Not necessarily an easy task with the millions of images coming online each month. Do you leave that task to the agencies, or do you take control yourself?

Tango Dancing And Concept Stock Photos

Almost anything can trigger ideas for concept stock photography. While planning a recent stock trip to Buenos Aires, it seemed everyone kept asking me if I was going to shoot tango. Yet, for whatever reason, tango was not appealing to me. But because I was being asked so much I decided to see if there was something there that did appeal to me.

I started trying to think outside the box, so to speak, about how I could put my own spin on some Tango dancers. Cliché’s appeal to me, and one popped into mind. “It takes two to tango”. There might be something there. Plus, dancing can be a metaphor for teamwork, an essential and always needed business concept. I could have them holding a contract and pen to indicate sealing the deal, agreement and negotiation. Plus, tango also has that dramatic element to it.

I started picturing tango in an office. It could be dramatic and conceptual. Might be worth investigating further. The next step for me is to see if I can base a shoot around the tango concept. It occurred to me that tango dancers are, or at least probably are, athletic. Maybe I could add in some other “athletic” shots in. One technique I use for brainstorming is to think of opposite. One opposite of two people dancing is…fighting.

At this point I felt I had enough to base a shoot around. I had my Argentine producer (and fellow shooter), Paula Zacharias, check on models and an office we could shoot in. She found two tango dancers both of who also know some martial arts. One of them suggested another friend of theirs who was also a martial artist. We decided to go with the three of them. When the woman tango dancer asked if she could bring her young daughter to the shoot we decided to add some mother daughter shots as well.

It turned into a really fun shoot. We started in the office, which was actually limited to the reception area. We had the woman tango dancer, her young daughter, and a man tango dancer. The fourth model was to meet us later at the second location. This was a pretty low-key shoot. Just Paula and me, our models and one ProFoto 7b power pack with two heads. We were shooting with a Canon 5D. We spent an hour in the office shooting tango dancing, mother and daughter at work, and both the woman and the man karate-kicking the monitor (with the help of a little post-shoot Photoshop work).

Following the office portion of the shoot, we left for the nearby Puerto Madera section of Buenos Aires. This is a trendy waterfront area with lots of new shops, cafes and a cool suspension footbridge. We started with a little tango dancing on the bridge and then switched to a fight scene between the men, again using the ProFoto 7b. After a half hour of shooting a security guard ushered us off the bridge. We then shot various activities in the immediate surrounding area including working at a laptop at an outdoor café and strolling by the shops with mother, father and daughter. There was also a business park and we used the buildings as a background and had the models on each other’s shoulders with the top person scanning the horizon, some more fighting scenes, and, to finish up, shot the models sprinting towards and past the camera.

A simple half-day shoot with free locations and model fees amounting to $150.00. Not bad! I got 35 selects into Blend Images. The images recently went up so I don’t have any sales information yet but I am confident, from experience of two things. First, these images will sell. Second, you never know if an image is going to sell. Hmmmm….

The Continuing Challenge: RM, RF or Micro?

I am not cut out for producing large quantities of images. My love is for producing highly Photoshop-manipulated concept stock photos. I am guessing that eliminates me from Micro stock…so if anyone reading this has experience that would suggest otherwise, I’d love to hear from you!

I am in stock photography for the money, for the freedom and for the fulfillment of creating images that I want to create. Most of the stock photos that I make require a lot of work to think up, hours of Photoshop work to complete, and a fair amount of capital investment to produce. I know from experience that some of these images can earn just as much in RF as in RM.

I also know from research that some of the best selling Micro images can earn enough to justify putting images into that category. However, in RM I have often had the experience of having an image languish for up to three or four years before suddenly earning thousands of dollars. An image that is not a best seller can still bring in thousands of dollars. I also know that there is no way to predict whether a given image will be a best seller. It seems to me a much bigger risk to place the few images I create into a Micro market.

The image accompanying this blog, an image of the earth as a globe covered in freeways, has been up on the Corbis site for six months without a sale yet. I thought it would be a runaway best seller, or at least sell a couple of times a month. Oh well.... But I trust its time will come. The photo is an example of the kind of picture I love to create most. It’s not like a lot of other images out there. Given the right headline it can have a clear and strong message. It makes a striking visual (if I say so myself). Whether it ever sells or not, it is an image I am proud of.

A disadvantage of Rights Managed photography is that many buyers feel they cannot afford RM and limit themselves to RF or Micro. I think that is unfortunate as I can attest from my sales reports with Getty and Corbis that RM images can be had at VERY affordable prices. I have long said that with RM images you can always undercut RF! I have to admit that I also have an ego bias towards Rights Managed. I even have a hard time contributing to RF for that reason. It is about valuing my work. Of course, I have far more images in RF than RM and those images have done very well for me, particularly with Blend Images. For business reasons I think it prudent to be involved in both models.

When I hear from some of my friends about how well they are doing in Micro, it makes me anxious. With all of the buzz about micro, I keep feeling like I should be participating. And yet, every time I come close to submitting images to Micro I just can’t pull the trigger. I certainly don’t begrudge those who do choose to shoot Micro, and someday I may yet end up with images in Micro. But for now I am limiting my submissions to primarily RM with RF as a continuing hedge.

What Is The Best Thing I Can Be Doing For My Business Right Now?

Every once in a while I get the urge to go back over my files and “glean” some stock images from them. For example, I have hundreds, probably thousands of travel pictures, some of which are, even if I say so myself, spectacular. There are also a great many images that were rejected by one or two agencies and that, with a little “tweaking”, just might make the grade.

I bring this up because I just came across a folder of some travel photos that I think are really outstanding, but don’t have a stock agency home at this point. Yet, I am resisting that impulse to go through those files, find those gems, and get them out. I have to ask myself this important question, (Courtesy of motivational guru Brian Tracey…and I suppose a great many others), “What is the most important thing I can be doing for my business right now”. I can tell you from experience that going through old files and “gleaning” images isn’t that! For some, going through those travel images might make sense. But my travel images are largely unreleased, and as good as they may be (at least in my mind); there is no shortage of good or even great travel stock photos already out there.

Usually what happens is that I spend an entire day tracking down old model releases, trying to figure out caption material and/or dealing with imperfect files in Photoshop. Then the files get rejected, or at the end of the day with my enthusiasm waning, I begin to realize that my material really isn’t that great (or it probably would have been sent in and accepted long ago), or that the photos are not particularly unique or relevant to the market. Then I start feeling frustrated over having wasted my precious time in the first place.

In a slight variation of this theme, a few weeks ago the idea came to me of a businessman “riding a tiger”. I had once rented a tiger and shot a number of images of him with 35mm Ecktachrome. Now since I moved my studio a few years ago I haven’t even looked at a slide. I have about ten file boxes filled with those 35mm plastic sheets of what, 20 slides each (when I moved several years ago I threw away several garbage cans of old slides). I spent a very long day climbing up a ladder, struggling in not killing myself getting those heavy boxes, un-labeled in my moving haste, down and then scanning each slide sheet for Tigers.

I never did locate all my tiger images, but I did find one that looked like it would fill the bill. I had the image scanned as a hi res file. In years past I would have scanned the image myself, but last year I sold my fifteen-year-old $54,000.00 drum scanner for $2,000.00 and felt pretty lucky! I got the image back opened it in Photoshop and…yuck! It was soft and grainy. Marginal. I don’t want to do marginal work. I still want to create that image, but I think I am going to have to rent that tiger again.

Right now, with the glut of images, stock and otherwise, and the almost unfathomable daily increase in those pictures, my time is way better spent in either thinking up and creating fresh new photographs that are needed in the marketplace, or in getting my images in front of more potential users.

Getting back to the gleaning analogy, what would provide you with a better return, harvesting a crop of great new photos, or gleaning through those kernels that slip through the cracks and are left in the field?