Advance Notes: Microstock sites, where a person can purchase photos for just one or a few dollars, invaded the stock photo industry back a decade ago. These sites have increased in number and improved in quality. But the predominantly "general" type of photos at these sites don't fit the bill for most book and magazine publishers.
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If you check out the magazines on the rack at Wal-mart or the airport, or the books at Barnes & Noble, or your teen's high school textbook, you'll find they include very few "generic" pictures. (Generic, meaning general, non-specific images that can be used as layout fillers, general illustrations, or ad backgrounds.)
It's not that editorial photo editors don't like microstock generic photos (if they had a job at an ad agency they'd love them), but rather that an editor's job is to match the targeted content of the text in the magazine or book with specific photographs. Simple as that.
A customer who buys a book or magazine expects on-target information in the special-interest periodical, book, or publication -and that includes not only the text, but also the photo illustrations.
Putting a generic $1 photo in their layout opens up the possibility of a catastrophe for the photo researcher or editor. Like what? Well, the same microstock photo might appear elsewhere, in a public brochure, newspaper or magazine advertisement, or worst-case scenario, in a competitor's publication.
Persons who invest in a publication, book, magazine, textbook, coffee table book, etc. expect exclusivity. They don't expect to see the same photo used elsewhere.
Many a fledgling photo editor has been burned in the early days of microstock photography, when they jumped on this source of inexpensive photos and used a picture that a month later (or the same month!) was used elsewhere in the publishing world. There's a saying in the photo research arena, "If the photo costs a dollar, it could also cost your job." Publishers want to give their readers distinctive, relevant, well-researched text and photos. That's how they stay in business.
FALSE ALARM
The perceived threat of competition from $1 pictures available on the Internet lessens even more when you look at what's happening when it comes to the selling of your editorial stock images.
On the photographer's side, editorial stock photographers have learned to personally keyword their photos with targeted words that guide the photo researcher to their site or a site like the PhotoSourceBANK, which has guaranteed high buyer traffic.
=Photobuyers have discovered they can use the Internet to find the best, exact, exclusive photo for their publishing project. Using a text description and a popular search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN, they type a "long tail search" (using several words to describe what they need) into the search bar*. This connects the buyers to photographers' websites or sites that make the work of many photographers available.
This system, of course, is in its infancy, but is the way of the future. The time is now to carry a notepad along with you in your photographic forays - overseas, or your local region, or your backyard. Every time you snap a picture, jot down several descriptive keywords you could use to identify it. Just the word 'camel,' 'weed,' or 'airplane' is no longer viable in your descriptive database. Expect to describe each image in four or five words, because that's what the photobuyer will be using in their Google search.
Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of "Sell & ReSell Your Photos" and "sellphotos.com," has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: "8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer," to answer, "How do I sell my photos?"
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to Pre-OwnedPhoto.com. Here's where you'll
find information about photography, digital cameras, social photography, photobuyers, photography marketing and business, stock photo agencies, and selling pictures.
Give Your Business A Jump Start…
The Do-It-Yourself Grant
Artists, songwriters, poets, photographers are able to apply for various grants available for creative entrepreneurs. These grants, of $1,000, $5,000, even $10,000, are usually available through non-profit foundations and the government. The artist utilizes the grant funds to further their career.
If you have faith in your talent and your business sense, you’ve probably considered applying for a grant to get you started, or to expand your stock photography career.
DO IT YOURSELF
“Why spend all that time filling out papers, when the law of probability says you no doubt won’t win the grant? There are too many applicants,” said my friend, when I asked him how he got his start in stock photography.
I’ll refer to him as Keith.
“I knew I had talent,” said Keith. “I compared my own work with the images that are being published. That’s the real test. So, I gave myself my own grant.”
“How so?"
Keith smiled, “I said to my wife, ‘Look honey, -it says on this envelope that they’ll advance me $5,000. And it’ll take 5 minutes to fill out.’ It was one of those offers you get from a financial institution every five minutes if you have good credit.
“My wife grimaced,” Keith said.
“This was one of those situations where it really was ‘too good to be true.’ I put the elements together: I had good credit; my credit reports said I was in the 650’s, which is excellent. I’m business-minded. I know how to budget. I have the courage of my convictions. I’m talented.
“My wife, said, 'O.K. – Go for it.' My accountant said the same.
"It took more than five minutes, maybe ten, to contact the company representative. In one week I had a credit line of $5,000 and a credit card with low interest that I could use to make all my purchases for my burgeoning stock photography business."
NOT FOR THE LAZY
“This was the boost I needed to get over the financial hump. My good credit rating was lying dormant. I had a proven track record in photography. I was involved in something I loved doing. I quit saying, ‘Someday I’m going to get a grant.’ Instead I gave myself a grant!
“When you give yourself a grant like this, you commit yourself to getting the job done. You’ve got to pay back that loan. When you get a grant, that’s not always the case. You can be lazy and continue to procrastinate or indulge in your idle ways.
“Why other emerging stock photographers who have a good credit rating and a talent for the stock photo industry don’t look into going this route, 'giving themselves a grant,' I don’t understand.”
Keith: Now they may be more likely to check it out, thanks to your sharing this with us. -RE
What could you do with . . .
(Note: these estimates include costs such as postage, envelopes, telephone, mail list rental, temp workers, fulfillment expense, etc.)
$500
-Acquire a domain name. Build (with a computer-savvy high-schooler’s help) a web site that features an exhibit of your work.
-Join an Internet organization that will promote your work. (See URL’s below).
-Sign up for a listing in a photographer directory that will include your profile and specialties.
$1,000
- 1,500 Postcard campaign. A postcard with a “best” photo on it serves as a reminder to photobuyers. Postcards are effective because there is no envelope to open.
- 500 magnetic calendars. A handy (small) calendar, including you 800#, remains within a photobuyer's reach of a telephone 365 days a year.
- sign up for inclusion of your photos in a desktop illustrated directory of images.
- take out an ad(s) in a major photography magazine(s).
- buy software that will help you build a photo business database for photography.
$5,000
- 500 CD’s to a select group of targeted buyers. Packaging, burning, labeling, fullfillment all done by a professional organization.
- 1,000 posters to be distributed to photobuyers
- Hire a consultant who will demonstrate where you’re going wrong, where you could be going right. Once you are turned in the right direction, hire a rep who can make your accountant happy.
-produce an on-line vanity book featuring your photos
$10,000
- Produce a vanity photo book. If you have what it takes, others should see your images. Design, production, delivery, will be your main focus.
$15,000
Build a website. “You never get a second chance at a first impression.” Make the design and selection of images A+.
Still not convinced you should take the risk?
Here’s an E-book that will point out the How, Where, and Why of obtaining a grant.
http://daisy501.unscam.hop.clickbank.net
Business
Notepad
Search Engine Optimization for Flash
It used to be that if you used flash in the pogramming of your website, you wouldn’t get many visits from customers who were using a search engine to find you. . A major misconception has been that Flash-based applications are SEO-unfriendly and can't be indexed by search engines such as Google. That is the myth Flash expert Todd Perkins has dispelled in his new Adobe Developer Library book, Search ... Full
Story
Program maintains it's easy to earn extra
funds by establishing a photo business out of your home and
photographing local businesses, corporations, churches, schools,
sports teams, and families in your community.
“YOU’VE GOT MAIL, I THINK”
It’s no secret that communicating important messages through e-mail is not foolproof. The good delivery rate we have learned to expect from the U.S. Postal Service cannot be applied to e-mail messaging. Snail mail may not be 100% flawless; nevertheless our “paper” messages sent through the U.S. mail to clients and prospects do not undergo a filtering process like spam-filters and other toll-gates that sometimes throws them into an electronic trash bin or holding tank.
Until e-mail becomes the messaging method of choice, continue to use direct mail also as part of your promotion programs. Usually, a piece of paper with a postal stamp on it typically gets delivered. As yet, we can’t say the same about a digital message that somehow floats past our e-mail address box and disappears into cyberspace. -RE
The files your digital camera generates are not merely images, they’re assets—digital assets. And if you’re going to get a return on those assets, you can’t just dump them on your hard disk—you have to manage them. How? By using digital asset management (“DAM”) software, along with a well thought-out DAM strategy.
Cataloging programs have been around for some time, but today’s digital asset management goes way beyond mere cataloging. Photographer and author Peter Krogh describes DAM as “including downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, archiving, optimizing, maintaining, thinning, and exporting files.”
We tried several products and settled on iView MediaPro (http://www.iview-multimedia.com, $199, Windows and Mac) as doing the best DAM job. iView is relatively easy to learn and use, and provides good user support. It works well with both proprietary raw formats (CRW, NEF, etc.) and DNG, as well as with TIFF, JPG, etc. iView also interfaces well with Adobe Bridge. It even shares the same star ranking system, so ranking done in one can be viewed in the other. And the program sports an excellent light box feature for synchronized zooming and scrolling of up to four images simultaneously.
Two other programs with proven track records are Extensis Portfolio ($199.95, http://www.extensis.com) and StockView V ($395, http://www.hindsightltd.com). StockView is particularly useful if your collection includes a mixture of digital files and slides.
There are also two new kids on the block: Apple’s recently released Aperture ($495, http://www.apple.com /aperture), and Adobe’s Lightroom, currently available as a free public beta (http://labs.macromedia.com/ technologies/lightroom ). It’s too early to bet your business on either one, but keep an eye on them.
Whatever program you settle on, however, you’ll need a thorough, effective, and appropriate workflow built around it. What file number system should you use, how should you structure your catalogs, what’s the best process for backups and archiving, what sequence should you do things in, what’s the most effective method to edit and rank your images? And how should you handle that most critical of stock photo tasks, keywording? The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, by Peter Krogh (O’Reilly, 2005, 280 pages, $34.95), has well-thought-out answers to all these questions and more. You’ll find a chapter from Krogh’s book, along with his very active support forum, at http://www.thedambook.com. Although Krogh uses and recommends iView, most of what he says will be helpful with whatever software you use.
Another useful book is Digital Photography Boot Camp: A Step-by-Step Guide for Professionals, by Kevin Kubota (Amherst Media, 2005, 140 pages, $34.95). Like The Dam Book, this is a clearly written what-to-do-and-how-to-do-it book. Kubota is primarily a wedding photographer, which shows up in the illustrations and some of the content, and the range of topics is much broader (digital capture, creativity, color management, printing, and four chapters on Photoshop). However his coverage of digital asset management (keyed strictly to iView) is an excellent supplement to Krogh’s.
David Arnold and Gail Rutman are Oregon-based photographers who have been writing about photography and computers since 1980. You can contact them at www.arnoldrutman.com.
Of
Interest
Marketing Tips
DEADLINES are a necessary bind to photographers.
Here at PhotoSource International we request photo editors to send us their listings as far in advance as possible. However, photobuyers, because of the nature of the publishing world, often need pictures "now".
If you see an "immediate" deadline listed in the PHOTOLETTER or PHOTODAILY, and you can supply the specific picture(s), use a light box and send a selection to the photobuyer. He or she may be able to extend the deadline a few days to be able to consider your picture.
LISTINGS: Are they aimed to give you leads for self-assignment, -- to go out and TAKE the pictures needed? Yes, if the deadline allows and if you want to add that kind of picture to your stock files.
However, in this industry, photo editors share a common bond: a definite tendency to decide on the picture needed at the last moment.
Thus the short deadlines that are a hazard of the ... Full
Story
COST OF TRAVEL OVERSEAS is always prohibitive for the stock photographer
just starting out. One way to skirt around this problem is to become a
Travel Agent.
OLD-TYME FLIX -- National Geographic snaps up BBC Photography series, “Genius of Photography”. Outright Distribution has sold BBC2 documentary series to National Geographic Channels International (NGCI) as part of a raft of other post-MipTV sales. Produced by Wall to Wall, the series offered a comprehensive history of photography and was originally produced for BBC2 and BBC4.
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/2009/05/nat_geo_snaps_up_bbc_photography_series.html
SIGHT UNSEEN. -- Visually impaired photographers display mind-boggling shots. Twelve visually impaired artists, a few of whom are totally blind, recently showed some amazing images as part of an exhibit called Sight Unseen at the University of California at Riverside.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10238900-1.html?tag=mncol
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. -- "Free software for your Mac that helps you organize, share, and enjoy your photos based on the people who are in them." But the terms of service provide: In order for Blue Lava to make the Service available to you, you hereby grant Blue Lava a royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide right and license....
http://www.photoattorney.com/2009/05/sharing-love-and-your-photos.html
