The Image Buyer's Mindset

In May, an opinion on Val Gelineau's Blog is one we've heard bantering around for awhile: "Why pay $500.00 for an image when I can buy one for a few dollars?" Do editors believe that if image history isn’t that important, why pay for it? Are we at a point where we are going to just let this mindset become acceptable? Is this why PhotoShelter announced yesterday they will soon stop licensing stock photography on behalf of the shooters they serve?

A photographer friend just received her quarterly sales statement from a big agency. The amount was so much drastically lower than the previous quarter, she thought accounting had made a mistake! The agency's response was something like this: "We had good sales in this quarter, but the average price per image has dropped by even more than 25% because Getty and the like are dropping prices plus the new microstock sales are so low. We had some big deals but these are many images at a low fees. This is not necessarily why you have a low payment, but with the stock industry in such tough times, it would be partially the reason for a decline."

It often feels gloomy and doomy yet there are solutions. The demand for new photography is just as great if not greater than before. If you are willing to compromise a little in tough times and know how to provide clients with usage rights they find attractive, you will keep working. Meanwhile, I purchased this image from Fotolia for Blog use. The least I can do for the photographer is to provide a link to his/her/their website.