{"id":167,"date":"2008-10-28T10:33:46","date_gmt":"2008-10-28T15:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/28\/153-stock-photography-a-tougher-market\/"},"modified":"2022-05-29T08:21:09","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T13:21:09","slug":"153-stock-photography-a-tougher-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/28\/153-stock-photography-a-tougher-market\/","title":{"rendered":"#153 Stock photography a tough(er) market"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

When I started work as a photographer (~1994) I had one goal in mind – shoot stock, period. And that hurt my young business.<\/p>\n

The Golden Years<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the time, established and successful stock photographers were making a very good living<\/strong> shooting exciting (and less exciting) imagery. The mantra was “shoot, shoot, shoot<\/em>.” It was a numbers game – the more photos you could get in front of buying customers the better the odds of sales.<\/p>\n

\"Stock Stock photography<\/p>\n

The Bubble Bursting<\/strong><\/p>\n

But everyone else noticed the gold. The market started filling with imagery and sales agencies started undercutting each other in the feeding frenzy<\/em><\/strong>. The bubble slowly started bursting to the point that you can now sell imagery for $1 on iStockPhoto<\/a> and actually earn 20 cents in royalty fees for that sale. Wow. That’s rough.<\/p>\n

Current News<\/strong><\/p>\n

I just saw a Photo District News article<\/a> about Bill Gates’ large Corbis stock agency<\/a> – they are predicting lower stock sales and reduced royalties for Rights Managed<\/a> stock shooters – making a tough market tougher.<\/p>\n

Stock is still a fun and viable industry but you need to be very savvy on the business front. There are no longer stock streets paved with gold – you have to work much harder to find your jackpots.<\/p>\n

Diversify<\/strong><\/p>\n

At “Harry, Inc.<\/a>“<\/em><\/strong> we still shoot stock, love it, and earn profits. But we are more careful about our business choices and have started seeking out under-saturated stock and photo niches related to stock and photography. I shoot directly for clients and consult on projects. My expertise has diversified. The business has grown well since I took the blinkers off.<\/p>\n

This weekend I will be collaborating with the Entrepreneurship Centre<\/a> to facilitate the Creative Business Seminar<\/a> where we explore viable creative business practices, evaluate stock agencies and test ideas.<\/p>\n

Take photos, work smart!<\/p>\n

Harry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tweet When I started work as a photographer (~1994) I had one goal in mind – shoot stock, period. And that hurt my young business. The Golden Years At the time, established and successful stock photographers were making a very Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6730,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/6730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.harrynowell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}