I think the present style stock photography will always be there, it is the cheap mass market and crudely we photographers have a choice of calling it by its real name and sell next to nothing or kneel down, tough the floor with out forehead and KTFA [self censored expression] so we still make little money.
The solution I believe is to create a competition, photo on order where skills and experience make the difference, and a boutique stock photography where each photographer has a theme. We have not done that very well yet.
I am thinking of how the Chinese warehouses work. You go into a building, inside are maybe ten to fifteen floors, and many thousands of small shops, each with a different owner and each with a different theme of products. Each warehouse has also a theme, one may sell electronics, another may sell decoration, a third one clothing.
This could be replicated on the web, one website with a theme, and photographers "shops" inside, each again with different themes, it is just that nobody has done it yet, in photography least. Throwing virtual rotten tomatoes on the competition will not help, but creating something better will.
With skilled photographer supplying quality work to the present microstock system, it only cements the present untenable situation for us.
On 01-Sep-2010 2:04 AM, Peter Forsberg wrote:
--- In selling_stock_photography@yahoogroups.com, "Fred" <freddyv@...> wrote:
>
>I prefer to keep licensing images at prices that keep our photographers happy as long as we can.
I think that's a good plan. Keeps the photographers' work morale high and chances of getting better photographs from them are higher than from demoralized, disillusioned photographers
>Of course I also won't invest much in the stock photography licensing end of my business because it just doesn't look very bright.
That's also a pretty reasonable way to go. I haven't invested a red cent really in stock photography, it all comes as a side kick but despite that it's the most important part of my work. Had I not been involved in the kind of stuff (travel guide commissions etc) I do, I wouldn't have had a chance. That's why I am pessimistic for most people who try to get into or make it in stock photography.
Peter Forsberg
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