Artist du Jour

September 3, 2010 by pmelcher.

So while most people are getting ready to take a long 3 day weekend to bid a last farewell to summer ( at least in North America) and others are frolicking among the cafe table of Perpignan, mighty Getty images doesn’t miss a beat.

What now ?  Called the “Artist Digital Toolkit” , it is basically a plain and dirty affiliate program with a Starbucks inspired name.  You know, like when you put a link to Amazon on your website and if someone clicks on it and ends up bying something you get a cut? Well, this is the same. Except, it uses contributors to do so.

How so crowdsourcing of them.

Here is the deal : You put one of their specially branded web banners, or e mail signature, or Facebook app, or whatever they give you and if someone clicks on it and purchases an image, you get a % of the sale: 16% if it is new customer, only 7 % if it’s a returning customer, whether it’s your image or not.

Help Getty sale images and get paid to do it.

Not only you give them content to sale, but you actually help them sale it too. What else, clean the offices after hours ?

You could even increase your 30% commission on certain sales to a whopping 37%. How cool is that? I smell riches here..

You will also contribute to Getty SEO campaign by creating new links for them. But you get no penny for that. Don’t push it, ok ?

So, if you are a Getty Contributor, get your free “Artist Digital Toolkit” and watch your bank account grow…

Posted in web 2.0, prosumer, license, commercial stock, Corpocrates, flickr, photojournalism, getty, editorial, transaction, finance, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Buy a Book

August 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

I don’t know, but it seems to me that the advice in this book are good for any stock shooter, not just Microstock

If you don’t take this opportunity to find out a little bit of what Ellen Boughn knows about this industry, you are making a HUGE mistake.

Posted in license, commercial stock, Midstock, Search, Royalty free, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Crowdtaste this !

July 26, 2010 by pmelcher.

So.. No idea what to shoot next ? well, why don’t you get your camera to choose?

This company has launched a prototype that can tell you if the image if the image you are about to shoot is aesthetically nice or not . The camera , in itself, is not much. It is actually a camera phone ( Nokia). However, it is linked to a website, Acquine, that permits users to rank images based on their taste. The result is a database of images ranked by “crowd taste”.

Nadia from Andrew Kupresanin on Vimeo.If you look at the result on Acquine, the “Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine” , you will not be surprised. The highest ranking images are  very predictable and …mmm.. boring.. Boats floating in front a Mediterranean looking scene, Landscapes, dull portraits, it’s like a catalog of dull images. But that is what you get when a crowd votes, isn’t it ? You will not see a World press in there.

This camera, and even just the site, is a great tool for microstocker or commercial stocker that would like to fill in the blanks of common taste . It is perfect for those who perpertuate the idea that an image has to be composed properly and well lit in order to fullfilits requirement.

However, it is a better tool for those who are to create. What to avoid. How to stay away from banality. What not to shoot. What to avoid.

Technology can sometimes bring us horrible, horrible tools : This is one of them.

Article on Wired here

Posted in Search, technology, commercial stock, No sense, web 2.0, filter, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

In search of Goodenough

July 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, it seems that most people would consider that we have reach a turning point in our industry. Which one, no one is really sure. Let’s see if we can fix that.

What happens when people are asked to perform the same task for less  compensation they are used to receiving ? Well, they use the same skills they have always used but in less time, as they try to augment the number of jobs they can perform, in order to increase their revenue ( or at least keep them flat). Thus, they come out with more or less the same product or service, but just less worked upon. It caries less quality, less commitment, less attention to details.

When amateurs entered the  commercial stock market via microstock, they where very lucky. No one was looking for high end quality images, just images that did the trick. Art Directors and Graphic designers, using microstock, were looking for images that fit their needs, but no more. And that was fine because their was no masterpiece in there. As the market grew, contributors quickly realized that this was number games. The more images you could upload in the least amount of time could render selling via microstock a profitable proposition. And so they did.

Today the market, both from  amateur and pro offering , is filled with these images. They are ok; they are Good Enough. Because the image buyers are also under the same budget/time constrain, they are quite satisfied with that offering since they also will not spend the time to research more.

And so, here we are, in 2010 in the “Good Enough” market.  This middle place between perfect and not so good. It’s a comfort zone that satisfies all the available element : Time, Budget and Expectation. Those who handle the budget, those God-like figure that stand omnipotent behind any photography job , have unleashed a new powerful attribute to our everyday lives. And we all have  followed. Photo agencies have also lowered their standards and have accepted images they would have never accepted 10 years ago. There is nothing wrong with that : 10 years ago, there was no market for “goodenough” images. Today, there is.

Of course, the snake eats its own tail. This widening of the market allows more contributors to enter their offering, because that is the only thing they can do : Good enough images.

Who suffers ? Well quality suffers, obviously. Since it is not rewarding anymore to spend a lot of time on images, no one really does. If someone is happy with a half done job then that is great. Perfectionist suffer as their market is diminishing.

Who else ? Well, image consumers, obviously. They don’t get to see great images anymore. Just illustrations that didn’t cost too much to purchase and fit the need. No more, no less.

And don’t think for a second that this is a microstock only issue. Photojournalism, celebrity, sports, portraits,  wedding, every aspect of the photography world has been affected by the “Good Enough” mentality. Publications are quite satisfied in publishing good enough images and nothing more. Look at Time and Newsweek, for example. They are now full of wire service images which are the supreme masters in providing good enough images.

Even websites, supposedly on the cutting edge of  media publishing, use images by the pound, regardless of their quality. They are not looking to secure rights to superb images : Just those that fit the need. Who cares if their are not great, they didn’t cost much.

It seems to be fine with everyone : They pay less, they expect less.  Readers, especially online since it’s free, also know they cannot be demanding.

Maybe at the tail end of this recession we will see the resurgence of the exceptional, the high quality, the amazing.  For now, however,  it seems  we will  continue to fill our lives with good enough and dream of a better future.

Posted in license, web 2.0, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, prosumer, flickr, editorial, transaction, finance, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

A genius talks

July 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

Man I love what this guy has to say :

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, TIME, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, commercial stock, technology, web 2.0, prosumer, news, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, flickr, photojournalism, finance, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

Blowing a Candle

June 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

I don’t get it. It’s Monday, I don’t get it. People in this industry used to be really upset with Flickr and Creative Commons. Mostly because creatives and editors worldwide could get free images in exchange of a credit, or an electronic pat in the back. Scores of ad campaigns or magazines started to use unbelievably cheap images instead of “professional” images from Stock houses.

At the end of last week, Flickr and Getty announced a joint tool that allows Flickr members to call upon Getty to license images for them. Isn’t that what we all wanted ? Well, maybe not via Getty ? But to give uneducated photographers a way to get a proper license fee for their images and for ignorance to stop devaluating our industry?

Weren’t some of us looking for a way to counter the useless and dangerous spread of Creative Commons in our trade ? Well, the “license via Getty” tool is allowing just that.But, from all the thread in the Blogsphere, no one seems happy. Sure, Getty Images is taking an unbelievable 70% commission on every sale. However, they made the initial investment to create the technology, they are the ones supplying the billing and knowledge network. Furthermore, according to the press release, they have no intention of selling those images at microstock levels, but rather at accepted Right Managed price.

This can only be good for the dying commercial stock industry : Less free or ultra cheap images on the market. Yet, everyone complains. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see any other company offering such a service to Flickr users.  Corbis, who had struck a deal with  Webshot in afailed attempt to provide content for their defunct microstock start up Snapvillage, has certainly not offer the same deal to its users. Maybe they should. Maybe all Commercial stock agencies should offer the same to any and all photo sharing site, instead of complaining.

Sure, this is a great deal for Getty who now, more than ever, doesn’t have to rely so  much on professional photographers to offer valuable commercial stock . Those who are solely shooting for stock are, once again, being blown a huge hit. But then again, they had their golden years and should have by now realized that their business model is obsolete. No one will miss them.

It is also a huge blow to the Creative Commons lovers and other “images should be free” prophets. It will only help the widening market to know and understand that usages of images should be compensated for, and for a reasonable price.

So, although we might not be huge fans of Getty on this blog, we reasonably give them a big Kudos for advancing the cause of our industry with this move.

Posted in license, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Search, web 2.0, getty, corbis, flickr, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Everyone is an expert

June 13, 2010 by pmelcher.

Posted in license, copyright, commercial stock, prosumer, transaction, corbis, law, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

The dictatorship of the wallet

May 28, 2010 by pmelcher.

Photography, like most industries affected by a center of gravity shift to digital, has experienced more than a migration from film to data packets. One of the most fundamental shift, however,  is how the decision process moved from quality of content to cost. Let me explain:

For a long time, the key decision in purchasing a license for any photograph had been it’s quality, it’s relevance to the intended usage. Sometimes, the photograph even outperformed its intended use, it was so good.  Cost, because it was perceived as a tool of value, was not an issue. Magazines had absolutely no problem in spending a lot of money to send photographers around the world and back in order to get the best images.

In fact, a lot of the magazines’ competition was done on newsstands with whom had the best cover. It was a badge of honor.

As images became easier and cheaper to transport thanks to falling memory prices as well as more readily available and cheaper bandwidth, the prices also started to drop. The cameras, the lens, the post processing, the traveling certainly did not drop. Just the cost of getting an image form A to B. Somehow, however, the belief that digital was cheaper to produce took root and, like a bad venom, infected  the whole industry.

Getting the best photographer to the location suddenly did not become a necessity. Getting the images faster took over. The best images was replaced by the fastest. Let’s just pick a photographer that is there already and get those images in. Assignment no longer included transportation to and fro. That lasted for a while as the still high cost of technology paired with the difficult technological learning curve kept the competition to a select few. However, that did not last long. Cost of equipment as well as it’s ease of use quickly lowered, allowing more and more to enter the competition for the fastest image.

Since it is impossible to transmit an image before it is taken, the competition hit a wall where everyone found themselves at the same level, transmitting as fast. So what happened ? prices dropped. The competition, as well as the usage decision, shifted again, this time to the cheapest.

Today, this is where we are : Decisions are no longer made on the quality of content but on its cost. It really doesn’t matter if your the next Cartier-Bresson, if you are too expensive, you won’t get published. If the photo budget is already spend on two or three subscriptions to photo agencies and your images are not part of the “feed”, forget it. You might as well go fishing. They will like your images, they just won’t use them.

What magazine readership do not see, is that they are paying to read publications that do not show them the best pictures but rather the cheapest. It is a very deceptive procedure. Don’t magazine attract your attention by the promise of delivering what they consider the best ?  Yet, as far as photography is concerned, they don’t. The rule has become to fit the image purchasing process within a pre-established budget. No longer do editors beleive that great images can boost readership. Instead, they beleive cheaper images will save them from oblivion.

How long would you continue to go to your favorite restaurant once you knew that they didn’t even try to purchase better product but just the cheapest ? This reminds us of those houses build with cheap dry wall imported from China that eventually made everyone badly sick. Sure, they were cheaper, and yes, cheap photography is not bad for your health. At least, not that we know of.

Photographs have a better chance to be published these days if they are cheap, not if they are good.

It is sad. Sad because there a great images being shot everyday that will never, never be seen because of this dictatorship of the wallet. Sad, because readers are being lied to by this money censorship. Sad because it is helping no one.

As magazine or website publishers continue to think in terms of broadcasting (One to many), our world is changing to social (many to many). Consumers are quickly evolving from passive participants to active contributors. As this migration is deepening, more will search for their own sources of photography that they will in turn grab and share. They will start invading the publishing world with images that they like rather than those that are being force fed to them by penny-pincher corpocrates. They will deconstruct and break the barriers of the conglomerate publishing world in order to resubmit their own vision of the world. It is already going in the world of text journalism, it will not be long before photography gets swept in.

It is no longer a viable proposition to beleive that image consumers will continue to just passively absorb cheap content. The barriers  that kept the suppliers of images invisible to the readers  have fallen, permitting them, for the first time in the history of photography, an unprecedented access to the source. They can now see where publications get their content from and make their own decisions. Ironically, as publications divert more and more what they use to the cheapest, the rest of the production become more and more visible, making their money censorship more obvious.

Obviously,  this uncomfortable situation is not going to last long. Photographers and photo agencies will soon be forced into finding lucrative ways to supply their images directly to the readers, by-passing those publishers who have refused to use them for monetary reasons. Some already do.

There is another revolution lurking here and once again, the photography world will never be the same.

Posted in copyright, license, multimedia, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, technology, newspaper, web 2.0, transaction, editorial, news, finance, wire service, prosumer, photojournalism, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

Mad dash for the stash

May 6, 2010 by pmelcher.

There used to be a time when stock photographers used to submit images to a stock agency. Long wait. Images sold, commissions were paid and the cycle would start all over again.

Then came the arrogant Getty. With the creation of Photographer’s Choice, anyone with a little bit of talent and some extra cash could submit images. At $50.00 a pop. Pay to play. This program is still operating apparently, although it is unknown if it anyone still submits.

Today, things have change, again. Corbis-owned Veer Marketplace, the microstock arm of the Seattle based Stock Agency is paying people to submit to them. Not much. Up to $1.40 per image. In this economy, it might more than you will ever make. Since you have to submit more than 400 images to get in this higher bracket of payment, that’s a whooping $401.40 or more.

So, you are a pro RM photog, you have to pay to play. You’re a bored housewives , you get paid to submit. Make sense, right ?

There is an explanation:

 

Veer is trailing behind its competition, badly. While they all navigate between 500,000 to  2 Million visitors a months, Veer has a hard time breaking the 100,000 barrier. Not good for a microstock offering. Unlike RM, microstock is a popularity contest and the more traffic , the more sales.

It is not unusual for a microstock to pay contributors to submit. However, up to now, it has been limited to start ups desperately trying to jump start their  offering. Up to now, all that have done so have failed and closed not long after. In an industry segment where the margins are so tight, it is not wise to squander them in content acquisition. Actually, it is because the content is free that microstock companies are able to make a profit.

Seems the super brilliant black turtleneck  Starbukcs Latte induced management of Corbis is going all out in a desperate effort to increase volume offering in a confused assumption that a cry of quantity will attract image hungry buyers. The results : at best, doubtful.

On another note on microstock, it seems that content offering is getting so diluted due to its popularity that income per  contributor is now falling. Some are reporting as much as 10% decrease year over year, careful, this doesn’t mean that microstock is doing badly, not at all. They are probably doing very well, at least for the top 4.  However, them cheering so loudly on how contributing to microstock can make you rich quick, it has reached a point where content increases faster by number of contributors than number of images submitted per contributor.

This is diluting the average income per contributor to a point that many have hit a ceiling  that seems to go down month after month . If this trend confirms, it will have the effect of making some contributors quit altogether. Will it affect the volume of content. probably not. Althought there is no public numbers, it is however very clear that new contributors joining highly exceeds those who interrupt their submissions.

Since microstock companies live on the Long Tail principle, it will not affect them. They do not care who submits, as long as many, many people submit. So, for those who can’t sustain their last year revenue, there is only one option : submit to Corbis Veer and get paid for doing so, even if they never sell your image.

The Veer Dash for Cash program here

The Getty Photographer’s Choice here.

Posted in No sense, license, technology, commercial stock, web 2.0, prosumer, getty, corbis, transaction, finance, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

Become who you are

April 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

You know what would be news ? Something different. No, not another microstock “save the world” launch. Nor another “look, we slashed our prices so low, it’s not funny anymore”. I am sure even image buyers must be fed up of receiving another flier, email, phone call, or goddamn tweet about another discount or super low pricing.

No. What would be news these days would be an archive, photo agency, even solo photographer announcing the launch of a premium collection of absolutely insanely beautiful images for a ridiculous expensive price. Hyper good images for Uber money. Now, that would grab everyone’s attention.

What this business has lost is the sense of luxury. In a world ( that sounds like a movie trailer, especially if you read it with a deep, deep voice), anyway, in a world where we are constantly reminded of recession, poverty, calamities, earthquakes, grounded air flights, bankruptcies, corporate greed, crooked multi-millionaire CEO’s, and price saving cuts and lay off, it would be a fresh breeze to see and enjoy luxury.

It would be nice to see and hear that this magazine or website has just published an insanely beautiful spread of amazing pictures that cost them a fortune to publish. No, not another blurry image of some celeb caught in some very common act ( like having a baby, or not wearing a ring). No, something as magnificent as Irving Penn, Lee Friedlander, Eugene Smith, Herb Ritts and so many others that have raise this profession so high. Something that you would look at and say “wow”. Not for what it depicts but how it depicts it. Something that would bring you bliss, joy, happiness, something that would inspire you, lift you, make you feel more than human.

In this cacophony of  discount merchants screaming helplessly on how cheap their images are, it would be such a relief to hear someone proudly announce how expensive his images are. It would be good to  see publishers stop taking their readers for idiots and uncultivated and start showing exquisite exclusive photographs. Stop taking the lowest common ( and priced) path by printing the same images over and over, not because they are good, but because they are cheap.

What has happen to brands that they have such a low esteem and associate their product and services with boring photogrpahy? What has happened to magazine, or website, that they do not mind anymore having the same images as their once dreaded competition. What has happened to readers that they do not seem to care what they pay for ?

There is a luxury market for almost every product and services out there. For every cheap car there are very expensive ones. For every cheap health club , there are luxurious ones. Why has the photography world given up on luxury content ? Especially at a time when everyone is a photographer. You would thing that the logical reaction would be to move away from the bottom feeders and start offering something of very high value.

So stop sending press release about how low your prices are, how you can have 3 images for the price of 2, how your company can out price any competition. Leave that to the Wal Mart’s ( Corbis and Getty)  and other discounters. Value your work. Value what you do for a living. Be proud, be expensive, be exclusive, be valuable.  Leave the crowd, become an individual.  Because at the end, you are how you present yourself.

Posted in license, newspaper, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, web 2.0, prosumer, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »