The Biggest Challenge For Stock Photographers
I believe the biggest challenge for stock photographers is in getting your work seen. No one sees it; no one licenses it no matter how good the images are. Jim Pickerell recently wrote an article about the challenge of having your photos found on Getty Images. He explains that each brand on the Getty site has a certain allotment of “slots” in the search results. Jim has been kind enough to provide a chart of those slot allocations that can be seen at the bottom of this post. You can also see his full article “Getting Your Images Seen” here. BTW, Jim has a great site for stock photographers "Selling Stock".
Stock Income From Getty
In his article Jim reports that 96% of those licensing images from Getty do so after looking at a maximum of 300 images. That means that if you want to make any kind of appreciable income from Getty you have to get your images into that top 300 level. Not only are we faced with getting our images into that first 300, but those results are further filtered by the slots granted the various brands. If the brand your images are in has 26 slots out of that first 300, then you have to have your work be among the top 26 of that brand.
Search Results For Getty Images
When I think about the challenge of getting images through that gauntlet, well, it seems a wonder that I ever make any sales at all! After reading the article I went to Getty and started searching various searches to see how I would fare. I was actually pleasantly surprised in a few cases. One search in particular stood out for me. I did a search that returned over 6000 results. Image number eight was one of my Stone images. It was the first Stone image in the results…and was an image I created in the mid-1990s! The image came up before other images of mine, also on Stone, on the same subject that had been submitted much more recently. I repeated the search with the same results on different days and different computers. The only explanation I can think of is that the fact that this image is a best seller is somehow taken into consideration in Getty’s algorithm. Other similar searches have convinced me that this is the case…and yet there are inconsistencies as well. I do need to point out that I am not all that scientific and thorough in my research, and that there does exist the possibility that I am wrong.
The Most Important Question For Stock Shooters
This brings me to one of the most important questions for any stock shooter: How can we photographers improve our chances of being found on agency sites (In this case the Getty Portal)? Well, the obvious answer is to have lots of best selling images…gee, that seems easy (not). I would say that more and more it is important to do everything you can to make sure your images have that extra something that makes them stand out from their competition, that pushes them past the ordinary so that they do sell multiple times and can rise up in the search rankings. This is no time to be a lazy photographer!
Your Images On Your Site
The second thing we can do to get our images seen requires even more work, and yet seems to me to be more of a sure thing. That is to get our images up on our own sites and direct interested buyers to the images at the agencies. I know that in the past twenty-four hours (of writing this blog post) that nine people have found images on my site through Internet searches and then have clicked on through to Getty (additional searches have sent visitors to Blend Images, Corbis and SuperStock). I don’t know how many, if any, then went on to license the images. I do know that some do because over the past two years I occasionally have heard from art directors, designers, and even lay people that have done so. It works. And in each case that my work on getting my images in front of people has resulted in a successful sale, then that image has just a little bit better chance of moving up on the stock agencies internal search.
Addition Image Revenue
Of course, there are other benefits that I have reported on in past blog posts. There is revenue from on-site advertising (Adwords in my case). There are those occasional instances when I license images directly, and there are a smattering of print sales, photo imprinted gift sales, and even a few assignment offers. In addition you never know what interesting opportunities will arise from being visible!
Long Term Strategies, Perseverance and Elbow Grease
Don’t get me wrong. The process of succeeding in this online supplemental marketing effort is slow and painful. But just like the ten years it took me to reach a level of stock photo income that allowed me to quit the assignment world, someday I will wake up and be very, very glad that I undertook the effort to get my pictures online and do the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) work needed to build traffic. Success in stock photography requires long-term strategies, perseverance and huge amounts of elbow grease!
Here is Jim Pickerell's Getty Slot Chart:
Slot | 1st Pg. | 2nd Pg. | 3rd Pg. | Total in 300 | |
1 | Digital Vision | 6 | 4 | 1 | 11 |
2 | Lifesize | 3 | 2 | 5 | |
3 | Stone+ | 4 | 4 | 3 | 11 |
4 | PhotoDisc | 6 | 2 | 8 | |
5 | The Image Bank | 6 | 3 | 2 | 11 |
6 | Photographer's Choice | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
8 | Stone | 9 | 7 | 2 | 18 |
10 | Flickr | 12 | 5 | 3 | 20 |
13 | OJO Images | 5 | 2 | 7 | |
14 | Photonica | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
15 | Photographer's Choice RF | 3 | 3 | ||
17 | Riser | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
20 | Vetta | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
22 | Taxi | 6 | 5 | 11 | |
28 | Iconica | 4 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
32 | FoodPix | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
35 | Blend Images | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
37 | The Agency Collection | 2 | 2 | ||
38 | StockImage | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
42 | Stockbyte | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
46 | Blend X Pictures | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
49 | Comstock Images | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
52 | PhotoAlto Agency RF | 2 | 2 | ||
53 | Retrofile | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
67 | Botanica | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
72 | Image Source | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
73 | National Geographic | 2 | 3 | 8 | 13 |
76 | Cultura | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
82 | CSA Images | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
83 | iStock Vectors | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
86 | Flickr Select | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
89 | Reportage | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
95 | Altrendo | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
98 | Workbook Stock | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
107 | Taxi Japan | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
111 | Robert Harding | 1 | 1 | ||
122 | GAP Photos | 1 | 1 | ||
129 | LOOK | 1 | 1 | ||
131 | Johner Images | 1 | 1 | ||
137 | Visuals Unlimited | 1 | 1 | ||
139 | Gallo Images | 1 | 1 | ||
147 | iStock Exclusive | 1 | 1 | ||
148 | Fuse - Zefa/Corbis | 2 | 2 | ||
150 | momentimages | 1 | 1 | ||
152 | Stock 4B RF | 1 | 1 | ||
154 | Lonely Planet Images | 1 | 1 | ||
155 | Stock 4B | 1 | 1 | ||
160 | Retrofile RF | 1 | 1 | ||
161 | Time Life Pictures | 1 | 1 | ||
166 | Gulfimages | 2 | 2 | ||
168 | Image Bazaar | 1 | 1 | ||
171 | All Canada Photo | 1 | 1 | ||
173 | PhotoAlto Agency RM | 1 | 1 | ||
177 | Axion Photographic Agency | 1 | 1 | ||
178 | hemis.fr | 1 | 1 | ||
179 | Archive Photos | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
181 | Imagezoo | 1 | 1 | ||
183 | Art Box Images | 1 | 1 | ||
184 | Asia Images Group | 1 | 1 | ||
185 | Asia Images | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
188 | amanaimages RF | 1 | 1 | ||
190 | Science Photo Library | 1 | 1 | ||
191 | Photosindia | 1 | 1 | ||
193 | Rubberball | 1 | 1 | ||
194 | Indeed/Aflo | 1 | 1 | ||
195 | Imagemore | 1 | 1 | ||
196 | Cory Docken | 1 | 1 | ||
197 | Bloomimage | 1 | 1 | ||
198 | Dorling Kindersley | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
200 | amanaimages | 1 | 1 | ||
202 | Collection: Mix | 1 | 1 | ||
203 | Stock Food Creative | 1 | 1 | ||
205 | Glow Images | 1 | 1 | ||
206 | Discovery Channel | 1 | 1 | ||
207 | First Light | 1 | 1 | ||
208 | Westend61 | 1 | 1 | ||
209 | Popperfoto | 1 | 1 | ||
212 | Allsport Concepts | 2 | 2 | ||
214 | Hola Images | 1 | 1 | ||
215 | Latin Content | 1 | 1 | ||
221 | Antenna | 1 | 1 | ||
223 | Science Faction | 1 | 1 | ||
226 | Estnine Inc. | 1 | 1 | ||
227 | DeAgostini Picture Library | 1 | 1 | ||
229 | Radius Images | 1 | 1 | ||
230 | ABSODELS | 1 | 1 | ||
231 | Arabian Eye | 1 | 1 | ||
234 | PhotoLibrary | 1 | 1 | ||
235 | Design Pix/ Ron Nickel | 1 | 1 | ||
236 | Minden Pictures | 2 | 2 | ||
238 | Bridgeman Art Library | 1 | 1 | ||
240 | Onoky | 1 | 1 | ||
245 | Superstock | 1 | 1 | ||
246 | Panoramic Image | 1 | 1 | ||
247 | NordicPhotos | 1 | 1 | ||
248 | Dex Images | 1 | 1 | ||
249 | America 24-7 | 1 | 1 | ||
251 | BJI | 1 | 1 | ||
252 | Aurora | 1 | 1 | ||
253 | FoodCollection RF | 1 | 1 | ||
254 | imagenavi | 1 | 1 | ||
255 | Illustration Works | 1 | 1 | ||
256 | Tango Stock | 1 | 1 | ||
259 | Japan Images | 1 | 1 | ||
260 | Hulton Archive | 2 | 2 | ||
266 | Gorilla Creative | 1 | 1 | ||
269 | MedicalRF.com | 1 | 1 | ||
270 | Samba Photo | 1 | 1 | ||
273 | Purestock | 1 | 1 | ||
284 | Upper Cut | 2 | 2 | ||
291 | RedChopsticks | 1 | 1 | ||
292 | Gallo Images, ROOTS RF | 1 | 1 | ||
293 | imagewerks | 1 | 1 | ||
294 | WIN-Initative | 1 | 1 | ||
296 | MIXA | 1 | 1 | ||
Totals | 100 | 100 | 100 | 300 |
