A video production has soooo much more involved than a still shoot. It’s a really interesting way to sell yourself: stills and video of _______.  But it takes a lot of work and it’s a lot harder than just throwing a 5D on a tripod and shooting. You can’t fix some things in post, but not the kinds of things we photographer’s fix in photoshop on a still image (or, I’m sure you could fix them with a HUGE Hollywood budget, but not on most clients’ budgets.)

I’m actually not sure who can afford to shoot generic stock photography now. Getty itself is not shooting now and every good photographer I talk to who ever made decent money shooting stock part-time has _already_ abandoned shooting stock altogether. Why bother investing time/money/energy in stock productions if your bread and butter is in assignments and you could get more of those if you devoted whatever time you spent on stock to building your assignment work? So what remains is the crowdsourcing – generic stock will come from user-generated sources like the way iStockphoto originally worked (a place for people who work in the industry, but aren’t necessarily f/t photographers, to put the outtakes of their generic projects), and more unique, quirky and “real” imagery (though generally not slick or produced) will be found in collections like Flickr-at-Getty. I’m not really sure where the competent but not very original photographer (hundreds of whom made a great deal of money in the 90s and early 00’s) fits into this stock paradigm, even as a supplemental part of their business.

Read the entire post, click here.

So much of what he writes rights true. It’s a fact that generic stock imagery will be produced by camera enthusiasts and photographers may not be able to put loads of money into stock shoots any longer.

For myself, usually a stock image now has another purpose or was produced for another reason. OR, I have to get the model’s participation for free or for tfp.

Still, some stock images will still bring in good money, just not the kind of money that most photographers got used to in 2005.

See my article on stock in the July/August issue of American Photo. It’s on page 76 and there is no online link to it that I know of…. so I guess you’ll have to buy the issue.

He wrote back and said that it was an amazing coincidence, but he had never seen the image before, and in fact, Flickr (where we had assumed the image had been taken from) is banned in Media City where the agency is located in Dubai. There are, of course, a few different workarounds to bypassing the censorship of Flickr. However, once the AD presented us with the image he actually did use as inspiration, an image from the Guinness Book of World Records featuring the ‘most cigarettes smoked at once,’ it better matches the arrangement of toothbrushes in their model’s mouth than does my student’s. I also emailed the photographer to ask him if my student’s photo was used as a comp and the photographer confirmed that it had not been used.

A complete coincidence.

Student's Photograph

Agency's Photograph

Snapshot of my income by percentages and genre.

1999: mid 5 figure gross
30% editorial photography
70% weddings

2002: I probably grossed 6 figures for the first time in my life and for each year after 2002
10% editioral
20% advertising
30% stock image royalities
40% weddings

2005: definitely grossed low 6 figures
60% stock
40% national advertising campaigns and relicensing of campaign images.

2007:
50% stock
20% national advertising campaigns
30% teaching income

2009:
25% stock
20% weddings
5% writing for photography publications
5% national advertising campaigns
15% local advertising and editorial photography jobs
30% teaching

The author wanted a lifestyle photographer to take images of customers dining, waitstaff pouring wine at tables, close-ups of pots and pans in the kitchen, etc.  He also wanted several images of Hilton Head: lighthouses, dunes, and other local scenes. In addition, he wanted pictures of a cooking class which is held in a classroom on the second floor of the restaurant, and shots of a wine and cheese gathering on a sailboat. In total there were 5 separate shoots (many of them involving people) totaling 75 selected images and I would have to do all of the production work, styling and retouching as well.

Initially, I thought this would be a fun project that would bring me some recognition, but after I met with the author and did a little more research, I realized that it was way too much work for the $3000.  There would need to be at least 30 hours spent on the production work alone, and the potential for problems and re-shoots was high. I also realized, on a personal level, that my working relationship with the author would not be a happy one. It’s one thing to be demanding if you are paying me $20,000 for a two day advertising shoot, but I will walk away from a smaller project if you do not treat me well from the beginning.

Admittedly, if the author had been a famous chef I would have done the project, as I am working on my food and resort portfolio and wouldn’t mind that feather in my cap. However, this author had no real name recognition.

If the location was truly special I might have taken the job to gain access and images in my portfolio that I did not have. (But I have access to fine dining restaurants, so this is not the case.) For example, if I was just starting out as an architectural photographer and for some reason I.M. Pei called me to ask if I would shoot his building for free, I probably would. I’d even do it twice, or maybe even three times. After that, I could probably get business from other architects who saw that I had worked with Pei (as long as the images looked professional.) Note that this happens all the time in our business: if you are a wedding photographer and you shoot Angelina Jolie’s wedding, and she allows you to use it for your own self promotion of your wedding photography, instantly you can probably double or triple your prices and get lots and lots of hits on your website.

So I’m not happy about the loss of the $3000, but I think I’ll be a much happier person without this project.

Now comes the tough part: dealing with your rep and Art Buyers and AD’s while teaching. I kept my rep for the first two years of teaching. Often, in the middle of class time, my rep would call and I was told I had a conference call with an Art Buyer and three creatives in 1 hour. If I was lucky, class ended in 1/2 hour and I could make the call work and be in contention for the job. At the same time, I should be on the phone with my producer working on the estimate, so I could sound like I knew what I was talking about when I was on the call.

The other big issue is: if you get the job, when is the shoot date? Anyone who has worked at the highest levels of advertising photography knows that shoot dates are usually NEVER set in stone and in many cases, you make more money if the job is postponed. However, teaching make-up classes and never knowing if you are coming or going or being able to give students a schedule of make-up classes until you are on the plane is not fun.

There are many other things to contend with trying to juggle teaching and shooting commercially. It’s not easy to do but I think it is essential for a photographer to keep up their skills and give photography students current information in the commercial photography field.

One final note: There are many fine artists who shoot commercial jobs, and some are even photography department chairs at Universities. Steven Shore is one that comes to mind. He is department chair at Bard College. Larry Fink also teaches there and shoots commercial jobs. There are many, many other photographers who juggle teaching and shooting commercially.

(c) Shannon Fagan

The following is an interview I conducted with Shannon over e-mail about the industry.
Tell me a little bit about how you got into the field of photography in general, and then into stock photography?

Believe it or not, it was in Second Grade.  That’s when my first interest in visual pictures began.  We had reading time at the end of each school day and in the back of the classroom there was a stack of magazines, shelf of books, and a row of beanbag chairs.  I would race to be the first to grab National Geographic’s World magazine off the rack.  And, I wouldn’t read it…I would flip through the pictures. It was my introduction to color, light, gesture, and place.

Years later, my photography interests aligned with art courses in high school.  I studied figure drawing, painting, and did printmaking in professional classes, while maintaining photography and experimental darkroom work outside of class on my own.  I entered college with a variety of interests at the University of Memphis and I was able to explore all of them via my academic degree.  Business and art history meshed themselves with languages and writing.  I majored in Art with a concentration in Photography, but the bulk of my professional training took place during regular summer internships each year in New York.  I worked as a photography assistant upon graduating in 1999, and soon found my place as a professional photographer in New York City.

Stock photography was a perfect fit for all of my interests in production, creativity, business, and travel.  I was good at managing my own time and taking the initiative.  I enjoyed taking risks.   Contracts to shoot for a variety of agencies were thus initiated and I found a support network of photographers to aid me as my business grew.  I found that busy stock photographers were intelligent business owners, self-motivators, and very keen to share their experiences.  I had a natural draw to them as mentors to learn more, and thus, my career took off.

Can you describe the changes in the stock photography industry over the last 5 years and how these changes have affected your peers?

I could discuss the changes in stock photography or I could discuss the changes in anything being sold as intellectual property content over the internet; ie. music, writing, news, and art.  All of these have seen significant evolutions since around 2004.  I point to that year specifically as it was when, in professional commercial photography, the Canon 1DS Mark II camera was first introduced.  iTunes was made available one year prior.  (I, however, was still enjoying my cassette tapes and kept my contacts on a Palm Pilot, believe it or not!)

This was a bellwether year for photography.  The Imacon virtual drum scanner was replacing more expensive traditional drum scans.  High resolution professional grade digital capture could now be obtained on a 35mm camera system at nearly half the price as a medium format digital back.  Led by stock agencies, the commercial industry for photography was moving away from a reliance on film and moving towards digital exclusivity.  Licensing agencies began to only accept digital files on DVD.  Online portals for digital submission were soon to follow a couple years later.  We saw the first layoffs of the larger agencies’ staff as workloads were reduced.  For smaller agencies, there was a massive buying spree of their collections by larger umbrella distributors.  There was one dirty word in the industry, and it was called Wholly Owned content.

Jump forward to five years later, and we’re now full of new buzz words: 5D, Red, micropayment, and crowd-source.  The next five years will see the latter word as the most significant measure of future forecasting.  And the effect it has had upon my professional aspiring peers?  Pain.  Justifiably.  It has been a wound disseminated through the stock and assignment sectors of commercial photography businesses alike.  The future of content sourcing for the next five years is no longer about being a standout due to a piece of equipment that makes creativity better, a portfolio glossier, or a lighting technique shinier.  It is about rising to the top of the crowd-source through service, trust, and stratification of offering.

Are Professionals leaving the ranks of stock photographers and saying no to stock shoots?

Yes.  It’s systemic and will continue for the foreseeable future.  When the supply of images exceeds the demand for them, the price of the images naturally declines.  When the cost to produce these same images stays flat or rises for production quality concerns; profitability decreases.  It reached a tipping point in 2009.  The expense outlay on a per image average basis has exceeded normal average returns in a time frame to allow for reasonable reinvestment of the earnings back into more images.  Professionals are intelligently re-diversifying out of stock photography and into other less risky ventures.  For some, these new ventures are not even in the realm of commercial photography. Some are of retirement age, others have assessed that a career change at this time is ideal.  Because of obligations to other newly found opportunities, once gone from the profession, these full-time professionals in stock photography are not likely to easily return.  Currently the profession is finding it possible for a crowd-sourced replacement of their skill set.  Should that shift later, we may see a new round of history repeating itself for content sourcing.

What changes do you expect over the next 3 years?  Will more boutique agencies get bought by Getty or Corbis or will they close their doors?

The next three years will see two divergent paths collide.  On the one hand, agencies will see a pattern of a decline in interest from their professional photographer contributors.  These photographers will greatly slow, or perhaps stop altogether, their submissions to stock photography on a regular basis.  Many of these former core contributors will go on a hiatus.  It is already occurring now, but it will take more time to assess whether this process is a mere blip on the sourcing map, or more permanent.  Looking at all of the causes on a macro scale economically, I suggest that it will be a permanent decline.

By next year we should see more changes with dramatic effect upon agency overheads.  It will become naturally more difficult to supply the buying clientele with diverse imagery whose production costs are by necessity above one hundred US dollars per final selected photograph. It will also become more difficult to supply the buying clientele with diverse imagery whose production costs are above just fifty US dollars per photograph, and so on.  These numbers for managing shoot costs seemed barely achievable two years ago, and yet, here we are today negotiating production budgets that are half what they were twelve months ago.

Agencies will start to aggressively recruit new talented photographers.  The vast majority of this new talent, perhaps over 90%, will be part-time photographers.  They will have another full time stable professional career that pays well enough to protect them from the volatility that active professional photographers will see for the foreseeable future.  The remainder of this newly recruited talent will be involved in faster cash-generating areas of commercial photography such as weddings, portrait studios, or catalog work.  Their time to take on stock productions will be naturally limited.  It is likely that they will produce a few shoots for stock, perhaps more than several for some of them, and then retire their interests into another area of photography or elsewhere over time.

The time to recruit new talent vs. the actual returns on investment in number of shoots will become a central agency conundrum.  What is saved in more highly targeted imagery per photographer will be lost by the overhead salaried time it takes to see these new recruits off to perform independently on their own.  Our industry is not in a time of budgetary allowance for agencies to initiate, produce, art direct, edit, and manage many photographers at once.  The photographers must be self-starters.  Going back to the above, those educating themselves about entering commercial photography are likely better off at this time to hone their craft around service and initiation, rather than around what they take pictures of.  This is the value added that the industry will need.

It would not be surprising if large agencies begin to focus their internal efforts to restructure themselves.  Those on the micropayment side are likely to be the new content aggregators.  They will find the content for sale and be the front door for artists.  The large macro distributors, however, will need to adjust their services to areas of online distribution and selling that have higher barriers to entry.  Over the next couple years, it would seem entirely possible that major agencies drop their reliance on money generated from licensing images, music, motion, and type/design alone.  I expect to see them enter into newly found technology for search engines, advertising, distribution, or retrieval. Making money from selling pictures as a middle class income is closing its door as a business model globally.  The service of the selling, that’s where I’d be looking to for future growth.

As to what this means for the artists creating the content, one can research and read many listings of articles in regards to that decision process on any major news network.  To write it here would be seemingly outwardly pessimistic.  I prefer to be pessoptimistic.  Take the forecast and plan accordingly.  This industry is focusing itself more than ever upon newcomers and transitory participants.  They are a crucial component of the new licensing community for low price and near-free mechanisms for sales.  Flickr alone has proven that.

In the near future, do you think Google will take a major position in the stock photography business?

Like stock motion, we’ve been predicting it for years.  And like stock motion, we’re still waiting for it to initiate.  Note that Google focuses itself, on the search engine side, as a direction pointer to find some type of information or content.  They aren’t focused on making money for that actual content that they point to – at least not directly.  Google may, in turn, be telling the world that financially they don’t need to sell it, they just need to point to it.  The New York Times is doing the same.  They don’t sell us the health care insurance mentioned in the wellness article, nor the hotel stay noted in the vacation story about Honolulu.  They inform us about it and point us in a direction from their standpoint of expertise.  Look at Google, as with any search engine, to bridge itself in-between.  There’s already too much competition for being an actual sales force.  Google would be better positioned to give it away for free, which is in line with the general public’s perception that the content should be free anyway to start with.

Is it possible to make a living as a stock photographer these days?  Does a photographer need to be signed with Getty or Corbis or both to make a go of it?

This is such a complicated answer because it really depends on the individual makeup of the photographer, first and foremost being their personality and skill attributes.  I’ll answer it by touching upon all of the arrows that point to the theoretical circle of making money at something you’re passionate about.  You need to be interested in your craft, which is to say, you first need to have a skill which you have crafted in order to be competitive.  You need to have startup money in some shape or form.  You need to anticipate what you’ll do financially while you are waiting for your investment to break even, and then later, ideally turn a profit so that you can reinvest.  You need to consider creating a stable peer group of experts that you can seek advice from.  You need to not take yourself too seriously; have fun with it, enjoy it, and remember that your crafted skill is your passion first, your job second.  You need a backup plan.  I suggest two or three of them and pay close attention to the ways in which they interlace with each other.  You’re going to need to be flexible.  What you want to be and who you are, are two completely separate concepts.  Use your skills to speak to an industry’s needs.

You will need to have multiple contracts in stock if you want to have any remote possibility of doing it profitably.  You will need to consider diversifying yourself into different licensing types of Micro, RF, and RM.  You will absolutely have to be a self-starter.

Are any of the smaller agencies worth a look for photographers to try to sign with?

Any and all are worth looking at.  Go with trusted support structures, proof of service, proof of sales, and who responds the best to recruit you.  Recruitment doesn’t mean who chases you the most.  It means that you should pay careful attention to the agencies who offer to give you the needed information that you require to initiate a contract.  In this way you can situate yourself as a consummate creative contributor. Nearly all agencies have a crisscross form of global distribution now.  Talk to the photographers signed to the agencies that you are interested in.  Do your homework first, and then attend the class.

What should a photographer spend to make a stock image and expect to make a profit?

Ask ten different photographers and you’ll get ten different answers.  Shoot at the lowest cost you can, including for free.  When starting out, shoot everything that you can at no cost or low cost.

Once an image is in a major collection such as Getty or Corbis, how much do you think the average image makes in a year?

It depends on how you shoot and what you shoot.  In general, for the audience that is starting out green and looking to learn from their mistakes, I’d stick with $25 per image per year.  Some readers might ask “why so low?”  My answer is because then, when it’s lower than that, you’ll have channeled your expectations elsewhere.  Put your sights aimed at $25.  There will be a lot of hidden costs that’ll make up for it being higher.  Remember, we’re saying per year here.  Not the life of the image.

How long will the average image sell well for in a major stock collection?

Two years.  The jury is admittedly out on this one.  No one industry wide can give an adequate measure for it.  No doubt, it’ll sell for years in a trickle fashion of generating revenue.  As to how many years it will sell robustly on a month to month basis is clearly declining industry wide.

Do you know any photographers who are selling stock images on their own websites and or using licensestream?

I do.  There are several technologies out there for direct marketing of imagery (or other forms of content such as music).  It’d be wise to investigate them all and talk to the photographers using them.  How will you find the photographers using these technologies?  Ask the companies who are selling the products.  They should have testimonials from the success storiess.

Do you think stock video will be the next boom for image makers?  Will it be worth it to start shooting video for stock agencies?

This is another really tough question to answer.  You’ve got fantastic questions here Greg!  The competition in video is low, but will become more and more saturated.  Sales have been sluggish and production costs are higher than stills.  This will remain an area of barrier to entry due to cost and time to initiate a production.  Motion is not as easy as setting up still shots.  No one knows if and when motion will truly take off.  Part of this has to do with internet wireless connection speeds and cell networks like 3G and now 4G.  The content is meaningless if it cannot be quickly accessed and used for advertising effectively as a result.  The last thing you want to do as an advertiser is use motion in a way that annoys the public.  Motion also takes longer to look at, and our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.

It’s safe to say that anyone heading into motion should tread with caution for any outlay of production expense.  Nearly everyone is suggesting it as a focal point for education and experimentation.  Interestingly, when compared to 2003 and 2004 when agencies were actively teaching their photographers about transitioning from film to digital, we are not seeing that same process take place for initiating movement from stills to motion.  This might give a bit of guidance as to the reality of what the agency needs are based on where the sales are forecast vs. what is being projected amongst the photographer crowd.

The gear should continue to get better and better; and like 2004, when the Canon 1DS Mark II became the game changer for shooting 50mb files for stock, it might be wise to wait on major investments until the path is clearly delineated.  The lead into motion right now reminds me of the 2001-2004 lead into digital.  Everyone then said, “are you shooting digitally?”  Everyone now says, “are you shooting motion?”  It took a few years for the dust to settle.

The difference between shooting digitally vs. analog film, and moving into motion vs. sticking with stills, is that motion advertising usage is entirely based on something which the stock agencies cannot control.  That being the expansion rate of fast wireless mobile connectivity.  The clear growth in our marketplace are devices like smartphones and tablet computers.  Laptops can be included in this too, but smaller devices that include phone/contacts/email/and web access are taking hold.  I will point out that if there is any prediction of a cash cow to be made in selling motion to mobile devices, one might heed what happened in stills.  Still imagery for mobile phones was projected to be a potential major growth segment; but it didn’t happen.  The dot com era ending in 2000 also projected a major leap in internet connectivity.  The timing was off.  If you’re creatively inclined, add motion to your repertoire because you’re passionate about it.  Don’t do it because you feel you have to, as otherwise you might be very disappointed.

Have you changed the way you run your shoots or do business in the last 2 years?

Definitely.  I’ve taken all of what I have said above and injected it into my present and future plans.  The one major difference between when I started out vs. working now, is that I’ve made a conscious decision to only work with people that I genuinely trust in work ethic, commitment to the project, and service to the team.  I know that it might seem obvious, but when I’m choosing a direction to move in, I seek assistance from individuals who can think on their own two feet and who have integrity.  I’m asking for it, the industry is asking for it, and customers are asking for it.  There are a lot of distractions now to our everyday lives thanks to the technological revolution that we crave.  Thus establishing integrity is critical.

Will you continue to aggressively shoot stock in the next year?

I have plans for several ventures for which the jury is still out.  I won’t say that I’m necessarily exiting stock or commercial photography, but I will say that I’m paying very careful attention to the “need” vs. the “want” of the entire marketplace; for price, for competition, for creativity, and for challenging invigoration.