Alamy stock photo income on slide...

Earlier posts this year will have suggested that Alamy is not working as it once was, but this month has hit a low in that I will be getting no cheque for the first time in years - while there were only 3 sales totalling $292 gross (yes that's before the 35% commission) from 2786 images online.

Downloading sales information from the site and evaluating it in a spreadsheet shows some interesting statistics. I look at rolling six month periods to smooth things out statistically and get the following results - all are gross sales:

December 2004 - $2.44 per image per year
June 2005 - $2.99 per image per year
December 2005 - $4.87 per image per year
June 2006 - $5.81 per image per year
December 2006 - $5.40 per image per year
June 2007 - $5.20 per image per year
December 2007 - $3.75 per image per year

For the last quarter sales are in fact $1.67 per image per year....

So what's going on?

For Alamy, if the growth in images online is not matched by increased sales then the income per photo will fall. And Alamy's sales growth shows every sign of flattening out - you can see that in the graph on their site. With the number of images online more or less doubling since the peak in my sales it is not surprising that my return per image is falling.

For individual photographers, directing more images at Alamy is not the solution. As the per image return falls it becomes a nonsense to throw more images at them. Let's suppose all photographers did that then with the doubling in numbers online the return would halve yet again!

As for the economics, let's say a day's stock photo shooting gets 50 good images, there's about another day to process and keyword and submit all those. At $3 per image per year gross, that's £1 per image per year net or £50 per year in future income for two day's work. Over 5 years discounted, that's a value of about £100 per day. That's before I think of any costs associated with the shoot.

At £200 per day the economics are quite different!

But the interesting thing I have noticed is how RF income in particular has fallen off.

In the 6 months to March 2007 I pulled in 17 sales for $3233 gross. In the 6 months to January 2008 8 sales for $1413. Whereas RF outnumbered L in the halcyon days, L now makes up 75% of sales. This is in particular hitting the sales of some of the shoots that I have done with models with the more commercial market in mind. Here one has to think of microstock as being the major cause.

If one streamlines one's workflow and submits to multiple stock photo agencies then the economics become better. Perhaps then £200 per day is achievable again. But unless Photoshelter takes off, there is no obvious supplement out there in terms of non-exclusive agencies.

Thursday is my timetabled two weekly stock shooting day. This week the weather may be fine. I'm not out of the stock market yet because it can be such a pleasant way of spending the day that even if one earns nothing then it seems OK. In the worst case it's an enjoyable day off and that's the way one must approach it, but don't forget, the processing is hard work and has to be fitted in somewhere.....

Dancing with the devil (part 2)

If part 1 was Getty (yesterday's post) then part 2 is Getty on the cheap, iStockPhoto.com.

I do some web development and some of my clients ask me to buy stock photos from iStockPhoto. When it comes to business you have to leave some morals behind so I go ahead and do it. Yesterday I received a notification that I had 4 credits remaining to use within 3 days so I have gone off and used them.

Pic 1 was on the latest pics added section of the home page. If you think the shirt and tie combination is lurid then it's also available in pale green. No doubt also available in photoshopped lilac and mauve but I did not bother to look. To find this image searchers can use such keywords as "fashion model" "sex symbol" "modern" and "male beauty". But probably not pink. Somehow, I can't see the model in a pink shirt.

Pic 2 is a 'Sexy Russian Girl" and had just appeared on the home page after I refreshed it. My lucky day.

Just to be a little more serious about things I went off to find a couple of t-shirt stock photos for my client Pier 32 who prints ethical tshirts to use in his website or on his blog which I write. Contrary to what many pro photographers would have you believe, there are good images to be found on iStockPhoto and I'm looking for something a little classy and ethically sound. The sexy Russian girl will never make it although I'm sure the printing presses are up to dealing with skimpies. Or bear hats.

Anyway the last two images were the best I found in a search on "tshirt woman nature". They will have to do.

I have just earned the photographers 20 cents per image. I feel better now. If not exactly ethical.

Getty for Easter

This week I have been doing a fair bit of work around the house. If I've not mentioned it before, in order to live the way I want as a photographer (my wife too, doing her thing) we are looking to sell up and more or less pay up the mortgage. So with the competition to find a buyer ever escalating, I've sorted the bedroom and am now dealing with the bathroom.

This, and the weather, has played a little havoc with my work schedule this week. The shooting stock photos day has become 'a laying the bathroom floor day' and I've also fitted in painting and other stuff....

So, not going away at Easter, I have turned to the little job that I have been putting off, getting in a submission to Getty Images 'Lifesize' collection. "Paying to play" will cost me $250 (half price for the first ten images!) so, with Getty's 70% grab on the proceeds I have to sell $833 of images to get my money back.

Can it be done? The images are sold as 'rights ready', an allegedly easy to understand for the photo buyer rights managed concept. $833 will require about 4-6 editorial uses or one commercial use. Money back in year one is what I want - anything more is a failure because I have to make money.

To test things I'm submitting ten images which cover a broad range of subjects - nothing special about them, ultra low budget productions in and around this house and a few shots of London. I suppose the common feature is that I took them on the Canon EOS5D because Getty turn their nose up at Pentax.

Getty sell lots of images. Many images sell many times each year. While some organisations have buyers who take hours to find a cheap image, many send their buyers to Getty because they know that they will find something quickly. It may be lazy but it is also cost effective.

And I am lazy too. I'd much rather prepare a few images than hundreds to see a return. The shear time effort of making money elsewhere in stock is now not justifiable other than as a sideshow or hobby. Getty does make money despite recent turmoil. Lots of it. Can I get a slice of it? We'll find out.

If they have me.

Alamy crunch

The re-ranking of stock photo search image order at Alamy was just over a week ago now. Just peaking at the ordering of a few random searches was not encouraging for me - now I can look at the 'Alamy Measures' statistics for the last week to find that the number of images viewed in that week are 37% of what they were for a random week pulled up from a month ago. Photos 'zoomed' (inspected at a larger size by potential buyers) are down by a similar amount.

At Alamy one has to generate $250 in commission in a month to receive a cheque. That commission is traceable back to sales first reported a few months ago. So when I look this month and see that I might not be receiving a monthly cheque for the first time in perhaps 18 months and couple this with the new image ordering I get more a little concerned about how things are going.

Right now I have more pressing things to get on with than to worry about Alamy. But I do keep rudimentary statistics to give me an idea of results and whether they make it all worth the effort and I will update these soon.

Photography and the credit crunch

In my new disciplined time management regime, Thursday is due to be my "stock shooting" day or "awayday" as I sometimes put it. A day to get out and do some stock photo shooting - but it's going to be cold, wet and windy, surely a day to stay indoors?

No, hang on, after years of an artificial smile all over the face of businesses pretending that all is well, bonus induced smiles on the face of those who just happen to to have been in the right place at the right time (while there, just following the herd), and a smile on the face of all those dollar stock photos being sold for identical uses on the websites and brochures of businesses pretending to full of 'nice' people, we suddenly face a crunch. A reality check. Thursday should surely be the day to get out into the City of London and take photos of miserable people on a miserable day....

Except it's not like that. It's Joe Ordinary who suffers when the people who run the City fantasy world get things wrong. Joe Ordinary sold a loan by the commission led salesman, who got a bonus on his commission because he sold Joe an insurance policy that won't pay out, a salesman who worked for a company with a huge call centre and a $1 photo of a girl with an artificial smile on its website, a company that got the money it lends through a multiplicity of clever deals all organised by clever people at another bank to stay (just) within the letter of the law in terms of the policing of a marketplace where all is geared up to give overpaid and under-talented people big bonuses for making more clever deals.

When it all this cleverness goes pear shaped, Clever Jim won't suffer. At least not in a way that normal people use the word. He'll just get a reduced bonus, or perhaps none at all, but he still earns 10 time what Joe Ordinary earns. Sure, some Clever Jims will lose their jobs, the unlucky ones, but not many. The system will have a quiet year or two, a few more years of relative conservatism before swinging into action again in mutual cleverness because if you are not inclined to be clever (or lucky, or of course arse lick) you are left behind. The surest way of all in this environment to lose your job.

How will this affect the assignment photographer? At least in my line the number of assignments should not fall too far. But art budgets for brochures and annual reports may be slashed. I see this as an opportunity for me to compete in new markets; I don't want to present myself as being cheap, undercutting, but if I can get across that the way I work allows people to generate the images they want in less time and less cost because of my methods and lower cost base.....

If there is a move towards using more 'real' people (rather than the artificial smile) then I stand to gain. The 'real' message is one I intend to push. Will the photography market reject artificiality? There's a section of the market that will always do out and buy the $1 pretty girl but I think there will be many out there who see that it's time for a mood change. We will see.

Photoshelter makeover shock!

Many photographers will have received today's email on the Photoshelter redesign - with a big push on their new blog written by Rachel Hulin. Does her background at Nerve.com ("Original Essays and Photography on Sex, Arts and Culture") promise a new sexed up Photoshelter, I wonder? Indeed going into the current article on the blog "I Heart Event Listings" reveals naked flesh right up front and another (restrained) article on Nerve favourites Kate and Camilla. I wonder if Rachel chose my image that one graced the home page of Nerve? :-)

My own submission of naked flesh to Photoshelter has met with mixed results. This, in the same spirit as the pic on Rachel's blog got thrown out:

While this got in:


There's no accounting for taste.

Well there you are, the first sexed up Photoconnect blog posting! Don't hold your breath for the next one....

Photoshelter videos (and how to impress a commissioning editor...)

Via the AlamyPro Yahoo group I today found a link to a whole slew of videos from various promotional talks set up by Photoshelter.

I have just 'listened' to this one (I have it on in the background while doing other work) and it gives a nice insight into selling into a commissioning editor...




More videos here:

http://www.brightcove.tv/channel.jsp?channel=307708987

Long time, no post - Getty $49

It's the final nail. With price expectations at a new low it's simply not time efficient to sell images for this sort of use; with web use being one of the main markets I have to wonder whether its time efficient for me to put images on my own website!

Translating into £25, it just about justifies the time taken to prepare the image, deliver it and invoice it. A personal service. It does not pay for the time taken to take the image, keyword, get on the site. It does not pay for the time taken to get the many other images put onto the site that have not sold. And it pays nothing for the little element of art and expertise put into getting the image.

So when I quoted £30 for web recently and was told "That's rather more than we have previously page for a stock image" I did not bother to reply. I should have said "Well, go to Getty and spoil yourselves". But that would have been helping 2 companies that did not deserve it.

A guide to RM pricing

RM price calculators are, I have no doubt, a reason that photographers and buyers gravitate towards RF. These devices that once propped up the wallets of a few photographers ought to be consigned to dustbins, at least for most of us. I for one have had enough of the complexities of RM pricing. The sort of buyer that comes to photoconnect simply does not understand it.

This is what I do when I get an enquiry on photoconnect:

When I get a call for a photo I listen to the buyer and try and work out what their background is. Do they have big money to spend or not? I look at the image - is it special? I ask them how they want to use it, and how big. I then pluck what I think is the best price that I will get for that photo from that buyer out of the air and ask them to pay up front by paypal. I do not mention the word license. On the invoice I stipulate the use they mentioned.

It's traditional licensing without the agony - except the occasional haggle!

Disintermediation - please one day soon!

"Removing the middleman. The term is a popular buzzword used to describe many Internet -based businesses that use the World Wide Web to sell products directly to customers rather than going through traditional retail channels. By eliminating the middlemen, companies can sell their products cheaper and faster. Many people believe that the Internet will revolutionize the way products are bought and sold, and disintermediation is the driving force behind this revolution." (Definition from http://isp.webopedia.com/TERM/D/disintermediation.html)

It may be a buzz word but it's not one that the stock photography industry has heard of. Instead it seems that the number of intermediaries is growing and photographers compete to place their image at cheaper prices with more and more of them. At the same time commission percentages go up and the only men making real money it seems are the middlemen.

The ability of a photographer to deal directly with buyers is there right now. But it's messy compared with a nice clean sanitised one click credit card or bean processed download from an agency.

Unfortunately many photographers have great difficulties in dealing with buyers. There's arriving at a price (today there is not such a thing as a correct price anyway!!) and there's preparing invoices (or do I mean receipts) and collecting the cash (before or after delivery?) and the license (what should it say?) and delivery (.jpg, .tiff?) - so much to worry about.

One day soon all the intermediaries are going to get a rocket up their backsides when one of the big search engines enter the fray and construct something that will allow photo buyers direct and easy access (with payment facilities) to photo sellers who set their own prices. The new intermediaries (the search engines) will make their money, as they do now, by carrying advertising.

Prices are sure to rise at the bottom end of the market as photographers with 'micro agencies' learn that they can charge their buyers more. Rather than get 20 cents (after commission) they'll initially go for $5 (because buyers can afford this) and spurred on by stories in their discussion forums become truly courageous and then start charging $50 (because it's only crap photographers who would sell images for $5). Vices like greed and snobbery would drive prices of good images up - and that would be good for all photographers.

A price calculator to be binned is the micro stock calculator whose $1 per photo is as inflexible as the RM price calculator.

I sense that that agencies like Alamy and Getty with their special markets and client service needs would probably not be affected. They will still have their place but happily the micros will go down the can....

Running Adwords on Photoconnect

So it seems to be quite public now that the lay offs at Acclaim Images were not that amicable - unfortunate since it appears 'family' were involved.

One of the issues raised was that Fred Voetsch's decision to run Google Adwords on his site exploited the photographers - by effectively making money by advertising competitors.

Since it is easy for many to see some truth in this, I have to consider the situation here at Photoconnect where I do the same.

Photographers originally paid to be on photoconnect - but that was in different market conditions to those that exist now. Each photographer has paid for a year's exposure for their images, an alternative to their own website costing rather more. After the year matured I have not asked for more money, or for photographers to leave but recently I have started running Adwords on the pages on this site.

I am in a slightly different position to Acclaim. My only marketing is the search engines. Acclaim uses them but has also been raising its profile by other means, although that may change now.

Now say a photographer puts on this site images of the New York Financial District. That page will get found in a great number of Google searches. Some people will want to buy a photo of the New York Financial District. Others are looking for something else to do with New York or to consider their Financial affairs.

Those looking for a photo will either see what they want on the page in front of them or not. If yes, they will look to buy. If not then one in a hundred will click on a advert earning a few pennies to help keep Photoconnect running, subscription free. The ads MAY be for other stock agencies but are as likely to be selling Mutual Funds or travel to New York. So those looking for something else will find what they are looking for.

One thing I do is try and keep control of 'free photo' adverts or adverts for microstock sites. I can do this through a filter Google provide but inevitably some sites get through until they are spotted and I employ the filter.

So all in all I don't think the adverts affect sales. What they do is keep the site running with no subscription. The modern internet runs on the basis of advertising keeping many sites alive, and photoconnect is not an exception.

Acclaim Images

Acclaim was at one time one of Photoconnect's direct competitors in that it it took in images from other photographers and garnered business by doing well in Google searches. Now it too has put up the signs regarding not taking in new photos - or photographers presumably.

After I stopped taking in new photographers here and Photoconnect became essentially just me, I felt fine about trying to sell my own images through Acclaim and uploaded about 80 images. Of these I only fed about 30 through to go live on the site because although my images carried IPTC data, it was still an unexpected slog getting them onto the site proper.

Athough on the outside Acclaim seemed a slick operation, on the inside things were a little different and the clarity of purpose seen in Fred Voetsch's postings on the StockPhoto group etc was replaced by a variety of messages giving the impression of a folksy setup trying to mix it with the big boys. In particular the obscure and/or lengthy image requests were coming thick and fast, a little like MyLoupe (another failure for me) and I was getting the impression that I had signed up for OnRequest images, not a stock photo site.

I looked at the sales page (for the whole site - they are quite open with this information) a couple of days ago and while I would be very happy to see something similar at photoconnect in terms of the number of images sold, there was no way that I could see this level of sales supporting Acclaim and its staff. That has been borne out by today's news of 3 staff being laid off. Since 2 are family members it must all be a bit emotional right now.

So it seems that Acclaim, like photoconnect, will sit there high in the searches and continue running. It seems that there will be a purge of images (there was a pointed post on StockPhoto a couple of weeks ago re similars).

Now where for photoconnect?