Have Microstocks Hurt Stock Photography?

An interesting thread started to emerge on my last post, and I figured it had enough appeal that it was worth upgrading it to its own stand-alone entry. Russel Kord, a stock photographer who has been active in discussions involving crowdsourcing, stopped by to note that contrary to certain gloomy predictions, crowdsourcing has yet to adversely affect his business. Before we dive into this subject, which certainly deserves scrutiny, I should provide a bit of background for readers who haven't been following the crowdsourced photography debate. Writ brief, in the last several years companies like iStockPhoto and Shutterstock have been able to undercut the price charged for traditional stock images by more than 90 percent. How do they do it? By selling images submitted by (mostly) amateur photographers who are happy to see their work published at all. The conventional wisdom—as promulgated by many in the stock photo industry and journalists like myself—is that this would cause considerable disruption for stock photographers. Was this judgment precipitous? If you're a stock photographer, I'm anxious to hear your opinion in the comment thread. In the meantime, here's Russell, followed by my response:

Russell Kord:
"Its quite a while since I shared any thoughts about crowdsourcing with you. The rants of a year back have been tempered by the reality of dealing with the effects of crowdsourcing on a daily basis in my small stockphoto production business.

A year or more down the road the implosion of stock photo prices has not yet happened. The millions of potential stock shooters working for nothing haven't appeared. Photography created by crowdsourcers has been predictable and adequate at best. There is a low price market for it, and some money to be made by those doing the agglomeration. But it hasn't put me out of business. Chiefly because the quality just isn't there.

I wonder if it ever will be? What will the place of the enthusiastic amateur be in the stock photo business?
In the end will new talent migrate out of crowdsourcing for peanuts as soon as it is recognized, leaving the whole sector as a bargain basement of adequate images?

Maybe not enough time has passed to see the full extent of crowdsourcing and how deep are the long term effects of this process. For now the iStockers are still out there shooting images for a buck, but on the eve of the deepest recession the USA has seen in half a century or more, the sky has not fallen in on professional stock photographers.

A deep long lasting recession should see companies cut advertising and/or R&D budgets, thereby revealing further insights into crowdsourcing's likely place in our little planet's economy. Maybe then we'll see crowdsourcing take over the world."

Jeff Howe:
Great to hear from you Russel! It's good to hear that the microstocks haven't hurt your bottom line. I spent a week at iStock earlier this year and have looked closely at the industry this year. I think what we're seeing emerge is a more complex market for images than previously existed. In the days before microstock the demand for low-end images was underserved, or maybe even unserved. Consumers couldn't afford stock photography, so they made do by shooting their own photographs or taking them off the Web or some other ad hoc strategy. These image users can now pick up a selection of low-res images for under $20. Meanwhile, the high-end market probably hasn't changed all that much. As an art director at a big New York ad agency told me, "L'Oreal is never going to use microstock. They've got a million dollar budget and they're going to get the best possible image." Naturally, if someone is at the very top of their game, they aren't likely to sell their images on iStock.

That said, a few trends point to a very definite overlap between these two markets, to the detriment of traditional stock. First is the radical growth of iStock, by far the market leader in microstock firms. I'm not at liberty to divulge the exact dimension of that growth, but rest assured it's such that any new company would kill for. While it's possible this is simply an indication of the considerable demand for cheap images, I find that unlikely. And on an anecdotal level, I talked to several designers who stopped using trad stock and moved to microstock. More persuasive still is the fact that both Getty and Corbis have seen their core businesses (rights-managed stock photography) suffer declines, especially in the last few quarters. It's no accident that both are moving into microstock and otherwise diversifying their revenue sources. So that opens the question, if Russell isn't seeing diminishing demand for his work, or downward pressure on prices in the industry as a whole, how are these trends affecting the industry? Getty and Corbis have both made cuts to staff. Are their photographers getting out of the business? (If they are, you can bet their ranks are being filled by erstwhile amateurs who are more than anxious to be represented by the likes of Getty.) I know I have some photographers reading Crowdsourcing.com. Now's the time to make your voice heard!

Comments

[Jon Mitchell]

Hi,

I agree with Jeff, though I look at it a lot differently. I mostly still shoot Rights Managed stock and now contribute (when I have time) to Microstock sites.

I shoot images especially for both markets. Back when RF was new, I disliked the concept, though lost a lot of cahs because of my opinion. I don't think either it is just amateurs, some yes, but mostly pros. I saw a shot of an American suburban house on istockphoto which had sold something silly like 7,500 downloads!

It is clear, that if a pro can crack this market and get a few popular shots, there is a lot of money.

I also think the clients are 80% new clients and people who won't/can't pay Rights Managed or even pricey RF licenses.

Russel mentioned the word complex, though I would say super-complex.

For instance, I am shooting now in the Everest region of Nepal. There is a fair amount of this material posted as RF Micro, so I am shooting a special set for that market.

Also, worth remembering that Rights Managed stock is different in the sense that it is editorial and so faces, logos etc, are a no-no.

Hence those images which fit the Micro criteria go to those sites, ones that fit the RM criteria go to tradstock.

One pain of Micro sites is some of them editing is brainless and the people who manage the incoming files would win medals for their stupidity. One site says my image is "slightly grainy and best used at smaller sizes" - when it is shot on digital at 200 ISO!

Shutterstock, Crestock, Dreamstime and many of the mainstream ones are awful to work with. Geckostock and Snapvillage are better. Bigstockphoto is tolerable.

For that reason, I have only uploaded a few bits and bobs, though I think any stock pro needs to carefully study this market and will make good returns with a clever approach.

Some talented amateurs may well make good money from it, though in my opinion, supplying these sites needs almost as much professionalism as rights managed and the selection rate can be low.

Therefore, I would urge other professionals to embrace this new market, as it could well buy that new lens or lighting system!

[Dan Heller]

I've written extensively about this subject. My research is too exhaustive to summarize here, but you can read the results of my research on this page:

http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/myth-that-microstock-agencies-hurt.html

The source of the broader misconception about microstock's effects pricing is based on the erroneous misperception of the size of the total licensing market. You can read more about that here:

http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/total-size-of-licensing-market.html
And here:
http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/pdn-interview-complete-story.html

Anyone who is interested in the stock industry in general might find these links useful:
http://www.danheller.com/blogs

dan

[Mark Harmel]

News from PDN.

iStockphoto Goes After Corporate Buyers
Getty Images's iStockphoto has just introduced a program for corporate accounts – customers buying $600 or more worth of credits at once. This is significant because micropayment sites like iStock have never been serious about large corporate clients. They usually describe their customers as small office/home office folks who are only willing to spend a few of bucks at a time on imagery. But iStock's corporate accounts are apparently designed for companies with more than one person involved in buying art – think ad agencies, publishers, online services, and so on. It's another sign that very low cost imagery is appealing to customers who traditionally paid a lot more.

http://www.PDNPulse.com/2007/11/istockphoto-goe.html

[Thomas Pickard]

Other news too, is the increase in prices at iStockphoto for 2008.

Though many people might not agree, sometimes I think that when you look at the history of microstock, a lot of the big agencies have themselves to blame for microstock. Not only did they shun amateur photographers from submitting work, they also missed out on what at the time was probably an emerging market for images - small businesses that couldn't/didn't have the means to pay for RM and RF images.

[Alan]

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2008. Alan

[Alan]

Happy New Year everyone. CS in 08.Alan.

"Big Internet companies are beginning to learn what game developers have known for decades."
Amazon Gets Into MMO-Powered Crowdsourcing:

http://gigaom.com/2008/01/02/amazon-gets-into-mmo-powered-crowdsourcing/

[Janie]

This is great information as I use istock a lot.

[photo stock]

I found one photography search engine with all kind of search features.
Here you can quickly find many different kinds of images.
You can check it out at http://xcavator.net/