Anybody who's been attempting to sell photos online for any time will know that stock photographers have been getting the short straw lately. A super-competitive market means that most photographers are getting considerably less sales volume than in years gone by and those sales they do pick up are usually at significantly lower dollar values.
To add insult to injury, with digital submissions the photographers are frequently doing more of the work the photo libraries used to do. Where before they used to just post off a submission a few times every year and leave it to the library to do everything else, now they finish up formatting & cleaning images, adding captions and keywords, and all of the management chores ...
And the big stock libraries are still taking their hefty commissions out of any stock image sales, although online catalogs and eCommerce checkouts mean their participation is virtually hands-free.
It isn't surprising that many freelance photographers are wondering what they're actually paying for?
Well a new type of stock picture library has appeared that deals with these concerns and tries to put the photographers back in the driver's seat. They're the direct contact stock libraries and many photographers and stock photo buyers see them as the way of the future.
Most operate as photography marketing co-ops, where their photographers work together to promote their work and generate sales while sharing their costs and expenses. The library provides the marketing platform and the photographers take responsibility for their own sales. The photographer is liberated from limiting contracts, agency deductions and they're free to set their own pricing and license conditions.
An additional bonus for the photographers is that, for the first time ever, stock photographers can develop their own client list -- clients proved to publish the subjects they shoot -- and they can sell stock photos to them on their terms and their schedule. Instead of waiting around for new photo users to find them or hoping their existing clients might come back for more, they can take new stock photography and concepts straight to the photo buyers, effectively creating photo sales on demand.
In today's super-competitive stock photography industry many are convinced this is the only way for photographers to take control and build a viable and sustainable business selling photos online.
To add insult to injury, with digital submissions the photographers are frequently doing more of the work the photo libraries used to do. Where before they used to just post off a submission a few times every year and leave it to the library to do everything else, now they finish up formatting & cleaning images, adding captions and keywords, and all of the management chores ...
And the big stock libraries are still taking their hefty commissions out of any stock image sales, although online catalogs and eCommerce checkouts mean their participation is virtually hands-free.
It isn't surprising that many freelance photographers are wondering what they're actually paying for?
Well a new type of stock picture library has appeared that deals with these concerns and tries to put the photographers back in the driver's seat. They're the direct contact stock libraries and many photographers and stock photo buyers see them as the way of the future.
Most operate as photography marketing co-ops, where their photographers work together to promote their work and generate sales while sharing their costs and expenses. The library provides the marketing platform and the photographers take responsibility for their own sales. The photographer is liberated from limiting contracts, agency deductions and they're free to set their own pricing and license conditions.
An additional bonus for the photographers is that, for the first time ever, stock photographers can develop their own client list -- clients proved to publish the subjects they shoot -- and they can sell stock photos to them on their terms and their schedule. Instead of waiting around for new photo users to find them or hoping their existing clients might come back for more, they can take new stock photography and concepts straight to the photo buyers, effectively creating photo sales on demand.
In today's super-competitive stock photography industry many are convinced this is the only way for photographers to take control and build a viable and sustainable business selling photos online.
About the Author:
Matt Brading is a freelance photographer and writer who chooses to sell stock photos with the OzImages Stock Photo Library.
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