Stock Photography Under Fire from User Generated Media
Oct 26th, 2006 by Dan Blank
Other media businesses are coming under attack due to the proliferation of user generated content online: stock photography. Thomas Hawk has the scoop from an interview inside Getty with Jonathan Klein, Getty Images Co-Founder and CEO:
“I asked Klein if he saw room between the $1.85 iStockPhoto image and the high end Getty images and he said that he thought that Getty would continue to close in on this gap area in the future… The biggest change coming for the stock business according to Klein is the proliferation of great images that are increasingly being created due to lower barriers to entry for fine photography. As the digital cameras of the world get better and better and cheaper and cheaper, more and more people are able to create stunning images.”
Robert Scoble reflects on the nature of the threat:
“Thomas is an amateur. He gives his high-res images away for free, or for a low price if you want to use them commercially. He uses the same Canon 5D that other professionals are using. And, his images are often as good or better than the ones the pros are getting. And Thomas is HARDLY the only photographer out there who is putting pressure on the professionals. Nikon and Canon are selling hundreds of thousands of digital SLRs every year, most of which go to amateurs or semi-pros who aren’t able to get their images onto Getty right now.”
[UPDATE: iStockphoto pricing may be different from the $1.85 mentioned above.]
Millions of monkeys taking millions of shots with millions of digital SLRs…
I’m still waiting for Shakespeare’s manuscript…and now we’ll have photos to illustrate it too! I own a digital camera and some of my photos may be “iStockPhoto quality” but I’m in line behind better amateurs and more than a few monkeys.
I’m fascinated with the digital evolution on my business, publication design. Having bought professional photography for 25+ years I’ve witnessed great change. But the fundamental change in the business of selling stock photography remains; supply and demand. Let’s be honest; the stock photo houses have had a sweet deal over the past few years, digitizing photos, controlling the licensing and defining the prices. OK, props to Getty who has done the best job with aggregating collections and offering a user friendly website. Now along comes iStockPhoto and with it yet another paradigm shift. The generic low-end stock imagery will put pricing pressure on the high-end collections. The marketplace will benefit from choice and the growing competition will provide overall price correction.
Ultimately the best of those amateurs will join the ranks of the professionals. Don’t look for my stuff….a monkey stole my camera.
Thanks for the thoughts Norm! In my experience, some stock photography is very much worth the money. However, some of these $300 cd’s of 20 images of office supplies are not, in my opinion.
Content creation and distribution is no longer controlled by the few, and it is fascinating to watch this all unfold…
Hi, Dan–
This is a very cogent discussion of the issues. I just wanted to point out that the “$1.85″ figure mentioned here taken from an original post by Thomas Hawk was apparently a misunderstanding, and should not be taken as an accurate statement of average sales price on iStock. Hawk has since updated his post.
Best,
Kara
Thanks for the correction Kara, I have added a note to the entry.
En general realistisches online kasino grund Mitte Coup Karten einarmiger bandit spielen Sport Topf kansas Krieg kostenlose casinospiele Topf runder Monster hart Fluß!