The End of Stock Photography as a Career ...

[sue.t]

John Lund interviews Jim Pickerell about the future, or lack thereof, of stock photography.

http://www.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html

Once you get past the intro info, Mr. Pickerell makes some interesting comments about the status of stock photography and suggests alternatives for photographers trying to make a living.

[jra]

Unfortunately, stock seems to be on the way down. I sell stock and the prices seem to be falling for each sale I make. There is an over saturation in the market of good quality photos....many really good photographers sell themselves short by going the micro stock route. I still refuse to go over to micro stock because I feel it's a huge problem in devaluing good photography. I'll continue on in the game as long as it continues to generate some sales but it's tough with other photographers willing to depart with their work for mere pennies.
On the positive side, there are many other avenues in the photography field that are still generating good revenue....just gotta keep up with the times I guess :)

[Tom Reichner]

This is a sad trend. How else is a photographer supposed to make a living shooting entirely what they want to shoot? Other revenue streams come from shooting what someone else wants you to shoot. Shooting stock, you can simply shoot whatever you enjoy shooting, then try to sell/market the resultant images. It's sad that more and more photographers are gong to have to shoot events, weddings, products, etc just to make a living.

[ajayclicks]

Shooting stock, you can simply shoot whatever you enjoy shooting, then try to sell/market the resultant images.


Not sure I understand. For argument's sake: I enjoy shooting badly composed, poorly exposed, OOF flowers, where as buyers of stock images want images of happy smiling people. I doubt I will make a living out of stock photography if my portfolio doesn't have images that the buyers want. I would rather get commissioned as I know I will get paid $X by a certain date.

Cheers

[400dabuser]

Meh, tried stock photography, but they kept on being too fussy as to what they want, which was annoying, plus they always kept changing their position, another annoyance

[Tom Reichner]

Not sure I understand. For argument's sake: I enjoy shooting badly composed, poorly exposed, OOF flowers, where as buyers of stock images want images of happy smiling people. I doubt I will make a living out of stock photography if my portfolio doesn't have images that the buyers want. I would rather get commissioned as I know I will get paid $X by a certain date.

Cheers

Hey, Aajuman

I didn't mean that you can shoot bad images full of technical problems, submit them to stock, and make a living off of it (and I think you know I didn't mean that).

What I meant was the following:

Many of us have a passion for shooting certain subjects. Examples would be dogs, flowers, or scenic landscapes. Stock photography provides a way for a photographer to shoot the things he has a passion for, then actually be able to make a buck off of the images. Rather than specifically setting out to shoot what a client is paying you to shoot, you shoot what you like/enjoy most - then get a few bucks for it. I believe that the less lucrative situation in stock photography today forces most photographers to shoot what somebody else wants us to shoot, instead of shooting what we enjoy most, then hoping that the $ will follow.

[Kleppy]

Off topic but I laugh at his comment on the iPad being used for colleges instead of books and being cheaper. I guarantee it won't be any cheaper or if in fact it is cheaper it won't be by much. How many classes did you take where the book was required? Why would the Book publisher care if it's digital or print and reduce the digital rate? I also wonder how this would effect the local used book stores too?

[Mark1]

It is true that making a living as a Stock shooter is getting harder. But the level it requires to shoot Stock sucessfully had not changed. It is hard to stay in front of the trends and stay sucessfull. But it can be done. There are a few Stock shooters that make a nice living off of it. Such as Rich Legg has sold more than 75,000 images. But There are maybe 50 shooters in that class of stock shooters.