Another banana in my ear

August 18, 2009 by pmelcher.

Some photo agencies want to play with the big boys with no understanding of the fundamentals of business. Take Miami based photo agency PR photos. Right on the heals of the Getty Images announcement that they would charge $5 per image for cell phone usage on images of a certain very low size, that “agency in the sun” decided to replicate:

Unlike Getty, PRphoto doesn’t have staff photographers. According to their photographer’s five years contract, its a 50% share. Thus, each photographer gets $2.50 per image sold. Ouch! The photographer also has the obligation to submit images regularly , edit them, caption them, allow the agency to crop them, use them for promotional use for 10 years, and not complain if they loose anything.(welcome back, slavery !!).

How cool is that ?

Wait, it gets better. They also have a subscription plan:

Yes, you read it right. It starts at $1 an image and goes as low as pennies ( $1000 a month / unlimited downloads). And people are worried about Microstock ? what about Megamadness? Who let these people out ?

The funny part of all this is that, besides them, everyone knows this model will fail. It would take a huge critical mass of regular clients to make this viable. Huge. And with the type of content  they offer, in celebrity, news and sport, they will never achieve it.

Hopefully everyone involve in this company has a side job to sustain them and this is just a hobby. Or a bad dream. or both. Why would any photographer submit themselves to such a treatment is beyond any understanding.

You can browse and see more of the work of PR Photos here:

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