The proliferation in recent years of online stock photography has seen opportunities for both business marketing departments and professional photographers. The business of being a stock clearance house hasn't done too badly either. All in all, it seems like a win-win situation, with photographers meeting the increased demands of contemporary business' visual media requirements.
Obviously there will come a time of market saturation, or product life end (the trend for photographic images shifts) but it would appear on the surface, at least, that anyone can have a go at making some cash from taking photos. Therein lies a problem, for both photographer and corporate client base.
There are 3 main ways to distribute photos in the hope of making an income on a regular basis. They are Royalty Free distribution (RF images may have small up front cost but few restrictions on use), Royalty Managed (RM usually fetch higher sale value and provide purchaser with greater exclusivity subject to more rigid usage terms) and commission (a client provides a brief with specific instructions and varying amounts of artistic interpretation on the part of the artist).
The last option above can include running a business with clients attending for specific purposes, eg. portraits, or working continuously for large clients, eg. fairfax. The middle option, RM is still mostly the realm of the professional photographers who are willing to accept about 50% of the nett sale of images. One trend amongst high end RM stock houses is to engage photographers for specific assignments, approaching commission basis work. Royalty Free businesses will accept nearly anything, if you agree to take as little as 20% earning from each image sold. However the artists rights are pretty much undermined as soon as the image has been submitted as RF. So what are the problems...
For businesses the problems include balancing budget vs the right product. It is cheap to get an image that may turn up in a competitors campaign next week. Also the marketing department can spend significant time sourcing an appropriate 'cheap' image from hundreds of RF distributors selling thousands of images. For the professional photographer, it is the mind set of potential customers that there is a preferred option to expensive commissions and also that their trade is being tarnished by hobbyists with post production tools, muddying the waters and making corporate access to true professional work more complicated.
How do you feel as an aspiring professional photographer? Is Royalty Free a chance to gain notoriety and a place to express art that is not entertained by mainstream Royalty Managed sites? Do you disagree entirely with the notion of stock libraries and want to avoid the contractual nightmares in favour of running your own business? Do you love the idea of Royalty Managed firms, with professional standards, and the chance to do what you love without having to deal directly with clients? P-Mphotography would like to get your opinion on business trends surrounding Photographic Stock Libraries. Owyn ;-]
Monday, March 23, 2009
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