Microstock Calendar

In contrast to last month, December was full of action in the microstock market.

iStockphoto New Pricing and Exclusivity Changes

iStockphoto announced price rises for all exclusive content, an intermediate collection (called Exclusive-Plus, for now) where exclusive contributors can sell up to 20% of their portfolio at even higher prices, and changes to the quantity of sales required to reach higher canister levels. Prices for larger sizes of the main collection will be slightly reduced. All the details are in the iStockphoto discussion thread.

As usual, hot debate has ensued and the response is mixed. Many exclusive contributors are concerned sales volume will drop now that their prices are so much higher than non-exclusive content. Buyers will not be able to exclude higher priced content from the search results.

Many non-exclusive iStockphoto contributors see exclusivity as more appealing than before the changes, which is one of the explicit intentions of these announcements. Given their selling power and the search result boost given to exclusive files, iStockphoto exclusivity is indeed now a more appealing option.

Dreamstime New Pricing

Dreamstime announced new credit prices, raising the price and thus the commission for contributors. They’re also changing the quantity of downloads required for each file to reach the next pricing level, effectively raising prices and commissions even further. Contributor response has been understandably positive.

Fotolia New Pricing

Fotolia, persisting with their don’t-announce-negative-news strategy, quietly cut contributor commission rates for all but contributors on the highest level (of which there is only one). Prices for sizes above extra small will rise by 1 or 2 credits, making the net revenue per sale higher, despite the commission cuts, for sales of most sizes for most contributors. Fotolia still pays higher commission rates than many other top microstock agencies, but contributor response to the persistent cuts is consistently negative despite the agencies rapidly growing selling power.

Veer Guarantee

Following the trend set by Vivozoom and continued by iStockphoto and Shutterstock, Veer have this month added a guarantee to their Veer Marketplace microstock collection.

StockXpert Now 100% Getty Owned

Getty Images purchased the remaining 10% of Haap Media, the company that owns microstock agency StockXpert. They acquired 90% as part of the Jupterimages acquisition late last year. Previous owner and StockXpert creator, Peter Hamza, is melancholic about the end of the StockXpert era but already working on his next project.

Zymmetrical Closes

Announced on 30th, Zymmetrical, the “Fair Trade” microstock agency is closed for business. Contributors were all sent their outstanding balance as their final payout. CEO, Keith Tuomi, cited the hard situation of the stock industry and the economy in general as reasons for the venture’s failure.

Microstock Group – a meeting place for microstock photographers

Here's a nice way to end the year: still-life photographer James Worrell's revealing slideshow look at what a typical day is like for him.

Yes, it all begins at 6:30 am on a dreary morning in New Jersey but gets brighter as it goes along. He is, after all, working, which these days is an accomplishment in itself.

Check it out here.

Rivers are the original corridors of commerce. They spawned great cities and even nations long before highways and railroads came to be. They also have a way of firing the imagination. You can stand by a river, wondering from whence it came and where it’s going, and dream of adventure, possibility, renewal. But progress has gradually disconnected us geographically, economically, and culturally from rivers. They’ve lost much of their social presence.  And human activity has taken a toll in the form of drought, pollution, and resource mismanagement. All of that has lately inspired a number of photographers to re-examine our relationship with various rivers, devoting plenty of attention to what that relationship suggests about our estrangement from nature. In this installment of our "Variations On a Theme" series, we feature several river projects that have caught our eye. If you know of others, please provide a link in the comments section below.

Daniel Beltra´: "Amazon"

Brian L. Frank: "Death of the Mighty Colorado"

Jeff Rich: "Watershed" (French Broad River Basin, Tennessee and North Carolina)

Daniel Beltra

Brian L. Frank

Jeff Rich

Variations on a Theme: Body Image

Ok, maybe not quite ten years yet, but close enough. As 2009 comes to an end, rather than look back on just one year, let’s have a look at some of the major developments that have shaped the microstock industry over the past decade.

2000 – Photo Sharing
As the famous story goes, bitter from rejection of traditional stock photo agencies, Bruce Livingstone puts thousands of his own photos online for free. Registering a domain name with the then-cool now-cliche leading ‘i’, iStockphoto is born. It quickly becomes popular with designers who contribute their own photos, turning it into a thriving community. 2001 – Microstock is Born As the famous story continues, a $10,000 hosting bill forces Bruce to change strategy. He consults the community and the decision is reached to attach a small fee for downloading files. The microstock business model is born. 2002 – 2003 – Business as Usual iStockphoto enjoys having the market to itself.
2004 – Dreamstime, Shutterstock and Andres
In March, Romanian designer, Serban Enache, converts his stock photo sharing utility (online since Feb 2001), Dreamstime, to the microstock business model and quickly joins the ranks of top microstock agencies. Late in the year in a somewhat familiar story, New York computer programmer Jon Oringer converts his website where he sells 30,000 of his own photos by subscription (online since Jan 2004) to the microstock model. Shutterstock is born and quickly dominates the microstock subscription business. London-based Colombian-born graphic designer Andres Rodriguez discovers microstock and registers as a contributor.
2005 – Fotolia and Yuri
On the back of several successful ventures, entrepreneur Oleg Tscheltzoff launches new microstock agency Fotolia in French. The new agency overcomes the microstock catch-22 by paying contributors 5 cents for every image accepted. They grow fast and quickly dominate the European microstock market. Danish psychology student and graduate photographer Yuri Arcurs discovers microstock and registers as a contributor.
2006 – Jupiterimages and Subscriptions
Jupiterimages enters microstock by purchasing controlling interest of StockXpert parent HAAP Media Ltd. Shutterstock narrowly beats iStockphoto as the first agency to offer microstock video. StockXpert and Fotolia follow in 2008. Chasing the subscription market, Dreamstime is the first to introduce subscriptions in addition to credit-based sales. StockXpert follow in 2007, Fotolia in 2008 and iStockphoto in 2009. Microstock agencies issue press releases about their portfolios passing the 1 million milestone.
2007 – Corbis and Editorial Microstock
Corbis launches SnapVillage, a “fresh” approach to microstock which fails to catch on and is supported for just two years. Shutterstock are first to add editorial licenses followed by Dreamstime in 2008 and BigStockPhoto in 2009.
2008 – Guarantees and Services
Vivozoom launched as the first agency with guaranteed microstock images. StockXpert parent Jupiterimages is sold to iStockphoto parent Getty Images for $96 million. LookStat arrives as the first serious third-party service provider in the microstock market.
2009 – Consolidation
Corbis folds SnapVillage content into their new acquisition creating Veer Marketplace. iStockphoto, Shutterstock and Veer Marketplace follow Vivozoom’s lead introducing their own image guarantees. iSyndica launches their microstock distribution service, later adding basic analytics and support for illustrations and video. Shutterstock buys BigStockPhoto.
Agency portfolio growth rises to 250,000 – 300,000 per month.
2010 – ???
What are your predictions for 2010?

Screenshots courtesy web.archive.org

PS: did you know that Crestock Stock Photos has the world’s fastest upload system?

Facebook has reinstated the ad created by LA-based photographer Scott Nathan, telling the photographer his ad was “mistakenly disapproved.”

Facebook declined to comment on why the ad had been pulled in the first place, and why they had decided to reinstate the ad. Nathan shot the photograph in question, which features singer Katy Perry posed on a bed in lingerie and heels, for his client Too Faced Cosmetics.

© Scott Nathan

In an email to Nathan, a Facebook ad sales representative wrote: “It appears your ad was mistakenly disapproved. However, it has now been re-reviewed and approved. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

After his ad was taken down, Nathan wrote to Facebook asking for an explanation and posted a message on his Facebook page equating the move with censorship.

The social media site took the ad down two weeks ago, sending Nathan a notice that said the ad violated their guidelines against irrelevant or inappropriate imagery.

Using keywords, Nathan targeted the ad for art buyers, creative directors, photo editors and fashion editors. The text for the ad read: “Scott Nathan Photography: New work up for clients like Katy Perry, Sephora, Lindsay Lohan, Too Faced & Urban Decay Cosmetics.”

A couple of early looks at the 16-megapixel Canon EOS 1D Mark IV have appeared overseas (here and here) and now we have our first American perspective on this hotly anticipated sports digital SLR.

Fittingly, sports photographer Brad Mangin is the one to do the honors with a test of a prototype Mark IV at a recent Detroit Lions vs. San Francisco 49ers football game at Candlestick Park.

We won't give too much away but suffice it to say that Mangin was very pleased with the "sample" Mark IV he tested out, writing that the camera "performed flawlessly."

In contrast, he calls the Mark IV's predecessor, the much maligned Canon EOS 1D Mark III, "a complete disaster...(and)...the biggest lemon professional 35mm camera in modern photographic history."

Check out Mangin's review, which includes one downloadable RAW file from the camera and two revealing "motor drive" sequences, here.

(Above photo by Brad Mangin.)

In case you've been out of town for the holidays, a kerfuffle erupted last week over photographer Anthony Citrano's  audacity to call the world's attention to some ham-fisted Photoshop work on the recent W magazine cover photo of Demi Moore. In that photo (above, left), a large chunk appeared to be missing from her left hip. Demi's lawyers rattled their sabers, denying that their client's hip had been Photoshopped, and demanding a retraction and an apology from Citrano. He held his ground. In the meantime, it appears that Demi got a hip replacement in time for the release of the Korean edition of W (above, right), so equilibrium has been restored to the cosmos. Note: 'hip replacement' is used in this context as a generic term or figure of speech, without regard to the method of replacement, excluding any implication that the actress has undergone actual surgery in a hospital with hammering and sawing to her person, though we reserve the right to retract this exclusion if Demi Moore's lawyers contact us to insist once again that no digital alterations took place, and the actress has, in fact, undergone surgery in the technical, legal, and medical sense of that term. 

Photo: Richard Avedon. Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, dress by Dior, Place de la Concorde, Paris, August 1956, © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation

Viewing the retrospective of Richard  Avedon’s fashion work at the International Center of Photography this summer, I and other women-of-a-certain-age were struck by one thing: In the Forties and Fifties, fashion models were mature and cosmopolitan. In sharp contrast to the skinny teens and skin-bearing specimens in today’s fashion spreads, models like Suzy Parker, Dorian Leigh and Dovima strode through the streets of Paris or commanded attention at chic cafes. Dressed in New Look suits or evening gowns, they looked serenely confident in their worldly sophistication.

Actually, they weren’t so worldly. Dovima was only 20 when, wearing an evening dress, she took command of a herd of elephants in her most famous photo. Suzy Parker (born in San Antonio in 1932), wasn’t much older than today’s waifish models when she started playing the part of a Parisian sophisticate. Avedon’s fantasies weren’t achieved through Photoshop, just great styling, lighting and clothes that were elegant rather than overtly sexy.

These images in part reflected the urbanity of European-born art directors like Alexei Brodovitch and Alexander Lieberman. But then as now, fashion magazines were aspirational. To succeed, they had to channel their readers’ fantasies. And fantasies they were. Some white American women might have tasted independence during the war, but by the late Forties and Fifties, they were expected to be in the kitchen, not roller skating across the Place de la Concorde.

The swinging Sixties ushered in youth culture, and Avedon turned to models like skinny Penelope Tree. The change may have liberated Vogue readers from wearing girdles, but I blame Tree for every girl who burned herself trying to iron her hair into stick-straight perfection.  

Fashion photography has always sold unrealistic expectations. But the fantasies designers and magazines peddle are our fantasies. We can debate proposed legislation mandating minimum weights for runway models or labeling ads that have been Photoshopped. We can also ask ourselves if, at a time when women have achieved unprecedented power and financial independence, we are as much to blame as advertisers for fashion models who look like mall rats.

Photo: Richard Avedon. Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, dress by Dior, Place de la Concorde, Paris, August 1956, © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation

Viewing the retrospective of Richard  Avedon’s fashion work at the International Center of Photography this summer, I and other women-of-a-certain-age were struck by one thing: In the Forties and Fifties, fashion models were mature and cosmopolitan. In sharp contrast to the skinny teens and skin-bearing specimens in today’s fashion spreads, models like Suzy Parker, Dorian Leigh and Dovima strode through the streets of Paris or commanded attention at chic cafes. Dressed in New Look suits or evening gowns, they looked serenely confident in their worldly sophistication.

Actually, they weren’t so worldly. Dovima was only 20 when, wearing an evening dress, she took command of a herd of elephants in her most famous photo. Suzy Parker (born in San Antonio in 1932), wasn’t much older than today’s waifish models when she started playing the part of a Parisian sophisticate. Avedon’s fantasies weren’t achieved through Photoshop, just great styling, lighting and clothes that were elegant rather than overtly sexy.

These images in part reflected the urbanity of European-born art directors like Alexei Brodovitch and Alexander Lieberman. But then as now, fashion magazines were aspirational. To succeed, they had to channel their readers’ fantasies. And fantasies they were. Some white American women might have tasted independence during the war, but by the late Forties and Fifties, they were expected to be in the kitchen, not roller skating across the Place de la Concorde.

The swinging Sixties ushered in youth culture, and Avedon turned to models like skinny Penelope Tree. The change may have liberated Vogue readers from wearing girdles, but I blame Tree for every girl who burned herself trying to iron her hair into stick-straight perfection.  

Fashion photography has always sold unrealistic expectations. But the fantasies designers and magazines peddle are our fantasies. We can debate proposed legislation mandating minimum weights for runway models or labeling ads that have been Photoshopped. We can also ask ourselves if, at a time when women have achieved unprecedented power and financial independence, we are as much to blame as advertisers for fashion models who look like mall rats.

Outraged by the social effects—perceived or real—of skinny female models in advertising, politicians in France, Britain and Israel are calling for varying degrees of regulation. In Israel, the Knesset is considering a proposed law that would ban the use of underweight models, as well as the practice of using Photoshop or other software to narrow the waists of models, according to a report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. French lawmakers are considering a law to require advertisers to label images that have been retouched, and in Britain, Liberal Democrats have called for a ban on airbrushing in advertising that creates “overly perfect and unrealistic images of women” in ads targeted to children, according to a Guardian report. Meanwhile, Britain’s Committee of Advertising Practice, which regulates advertising in the UK, is considering an academic report that recommends a ban on Photoshopped ads meant for girls under 16.

Coinciding with those proposals is an uproar over two grotesquely Photoshopped ads from a certain well-known fashion designer. And why don’t I name him? Because I wonder whether the ads were intentional—and released quietly in out-of-the-way places so the designer could convincingly say, “Oh, this was just a mistake” the second the ads went viral on a wave of feminist outrage. If so, I refuse to give the designer the free publicity he may be angling for.

That said, I can’t muster enthusiasm for any proposed advertising bans. They strike me as naïve, and as invitations to trouble. Ads that make women feel bad about themselves are like so many other ads that stir up our insecurities to make us crave whatever palliative the advertiser is selling. As a kid, I started exercising my biceps after seeing the 98-lb weakling ads (scrawny guy loses girlfriend to muscular guy who kicks sand in his face on the beach). Are modern versions of that message contributing to steroid abuse among teenage males? And what about all those ads that suggest I’d be a lot cooler (and by implication, more respected by other men and more likely to get laid by beautiful women) if I drank this liquor, had that smart phone, and drove a certain car? Advertising, I’m saying, is an equal-opportunity slef-esteem corroder. Once the banning starts, where should it stop?

My wife, who married me despite my scrawny biceps and awful car, and who doesn’t have a plastic surgeon and Photoshop artist on call, disagrees with me on this. She believes the hell that advertisers create for girls is an order or two of magnitude worse than that for boys. Maybe so, and as a father, I’d like to think we could ban our way to Utopia. There’s no denying that smoking is down because cigarette ads were banned. So who knows? Maybe we could reduce obesity by banning junk food ads. Maybe we could reduce highway deaths by banning car ads. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. We’ll just have to see how things go if Israel and Britain go ahead and step out onto the slippery slope. Meanwhile, caveat emptor.