Microstock Calendar

The microstock landscape was permanently changed again this month with the closure of StockXpert and opening of ThinkStock dominating industry news. Here’s a summary.

StockXpert Closed and ThinkStock Opened

StockXpert, widely considered the fifth largest microstock agency, has closed to both customers and contributors.  StockXpert was 90% owned by Jupiterimages, which was sold to Getty Images in 2008. Getty Images purchased the remaining 10% in December. This month, they’ve redirected StockXpert customers to iStockphoto, honoring outstanding credits with iStockphoto credits one to one. StockXpert contributors will receive their ThinkStock royalties through the StockXpert website. Vivozoom took advantage of the StockXpert closure offering StockXpert clients a 50% discount.

At the same time, Getty Images launched a new subscription stock site using the ThinkStock brand also acquired with Jupiterimages.  ThinkStock was the agency created by Ron Chapple and sold to Jupiterimages in 2004. The new incarnation now combines content from StockXpert branded as Hemera collection, iStockphoto content that’s opted in to the partner program, and various other Getty Images owned / represented content.

Shutterstock Passed 10 Million Files

Shutterstock became the first microstock agency to amass 10 million files – photos, illustrations and video.  Included in the announcement was the statistic of 125 million downloads in the history of the company. They also launched a new Facebook application during the month which does the same as their Twitter connection.  That is, automatically broadcast daily stats about a users’ Shutterstock acceptance and sales.

Fotolia and AudioMicro Launch Flixtime

Flixtime allows user to create free 60-second video slideshows using their own photos or photos from Fotolia and music from AudioMicro.

LookStat’s Microstock Guide for Traditional Stock Photographers

Helping to demystify much of the misunderstandings of microstock in the traditional market, LookStat released a beautifully designed and free 35-page downloadable PDF guide to microstock for RM and RF Stock Photographers.

Cool Changes at iSyndica

This month iSyndica switched from monthly to annual subscriptions with prices discounted by 60%. They also added a Moneybookers payment option, a very cool chart to compare earnings per agency to all other iSyndica users, distribution to Alamy, and improvements to their content management interface.

Microstock Group – a meeting place for microstock photographers

Production company "Runner Runner" has been named the first winner in Canon and Vimeo's seven-chapter "The Story Beyond the Still" video contest.

Runner Runner, a Minneapolis-based collaborative duo comprised of Josh Thacker (Director/Creative) and Brian Slater (Editor/Creative), produced a short movie entitled "Job Security" that won the second chapter segment of the contest. With the victory, Runner Runner will get a choice of a Canon 7D or 5D Mark II; a Canon lens; and a chance to work with photographer Vincent Laforet on a film later this year.

Runner Runner's film is actually a continuation of the movie Laforet created to launch the contest last month. As part of the contest rules, the duo used the final image in Laforet's film -- a locked trunk -- to start its movie.

To be honest, when we first heard about this contest, it sounded a little gimmicky but we're really impressed with Runner Runner's entry (below) and the work of all the finalists.

Submissions for Chapter 3 of "The Story Beyond the Still Video" contest are now being accepted through March 22, 2010. For rules and submission instructions, click here.

Job Security from Runner Runner on Vimeo.

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore has just published Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species. The result of Sartore’s multi-year study of America’s vanishing biodiversity, it’s a beautiful book on a serious topic. His behind-the-scenes video about the making of the animal portraits, however, is a giggle-inducing romp.

Set to a rollicking banjo soundtrack by Steve Hanson, the video shows Sartore and his crew coping with uncooperative subjects, including a bald eagle, a black-footed ferret, a hedgehog, a frisky armadillo, and a venomous snake who shows intense curiosity about Sartore’s lens. Of course, a couple of the animals relieve themselves on the seamless.

The video also shows what gear Sartore’s team had to pack and unpack at each zoo and nature preserve. But it's the video's clever editing and deadpan style that makes this, in a word, a hoot. 

You can view the video here on Sartore's web site:

RARE: Behind the Scenes from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

Photographer William Eggleston has been selected to judge the 2010 CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition. 

  

The competition, sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and The Honickman Foundation, is open to American photographers who have never published a book-length work and “who use their cameras for creative exploration.”  Submissions are reviewed by a panel of editors and photographers, then one judge selects the prize winner from among 12 to 25 finalists. Since its inauguration five years ago, the prize has been judged by photographers Robert Adams, Mary Ellen Mark, Robert Frank and curator Maria Morris Hamburg.  

  

Eggleston, a pioneer in color photography and a colorful character in his own right, has published several award-winning books, including William Eggleston’s Guide (1976), The Democratic Forest (1989; co-authored with Eudora Welty) and Los Alamos (2003).

  

 Submissions for the 2010 competition will be accepted from June 15 to September 8.  The winner will be announced in January 2011. 

  

More information about the prize and submission guidelines can be found on the guidelines section of the CDS.aas.duke.edu web site.

Alamy's 2009 revenues were down 27 percent in 2009, compared to 2008 (measured in dollars), and revenues for the last quarter of the year were down 12 percent, compared to the same period in 2008, according to a financial report issued yesterday by the London-based stock agency.

Measured in British pounds sterling, the 2009 revenues were down a more modest 15 percent, while fourth quarter revenues were down 20 percent compared to the same period in 2008.

Alamy collects revenues in dollars, euros, and British pounds sterling. The company's revenue picture is significantly affected by the economy, which has caused a significant drop in revenues after the third quarter of 2008. But revenue trends are also affected by currency exchange rate fluctuations, which explains the disparities in revenue declines between the dollar and pound sterling measures.

These two charts, created by PDN from Alamy's data, reflect the combined effects of the economic downturn and currency rate fluctuations, and both charts indicate that revenue declines have slowed:

Alamy's numbers reflect anecdotal reports of declining revenues across the stock photography industry generally, although most other large stock distributors are not required to release their financial results. And Alamy's numbers aren't necessarily representative of the industry as a whole because it sells primarily to editorial customers.

Alamy CEO James West said in a prepared statement that Alamy's fourth quarter revenues, with all income converted to British pounds, were down 13 percent from a year ago, instead of 20 percent, as PDN has calculated. West said he had expected fourth quarter revenue declines of 15 to 20 percent. He also said that there is too much uncertainty in the marketplace "to make bold statements about returning to growth anytime soon." He added, however, that the company's financial position "remains strong, with a 6.5% operating profit last year - just a couple of percentage points below our 'business as usual' number."

Asked in a telephone interview what Alamy's "business as usual" operating profit number is, West said, "It's a secret."

Alamy's image prices, meanwhile, appear to have stabilized in 2009, after declining sharply in 2009. The average prices for the company's rights-managed images was $116, up slightly from earlier in the year and exactly where it was at the end of 2008. The average price for royalty-free images was which is down 13 percent from $193 at the end of 2008. But royalty-free prices remained relatively steady throughout 2009.

West said average RM prices are lower than average RF prices at Alamy because the agency's customers are primarily editorial rather than commercial image users, and downward pressure on RM prices has been particularly high in editorial markets.

This year’s Cramped But Cool Studio Showcase drew submissions from PDN readers all across North America, and we’ve been impressed by all these workspaces. PDN Pulse thanks all the photographers who shared photos and stories about how they make their not-so-roomy spaces work. Now the rest is up to you. Which of these space-challenged workspaces do you think deserves to win a $50 gift certificate to B&H Photo and Video? (Or to put it another way: Which photographer needs more stuff to cram into his or her little workspace?)

We hope you’ll take a moment to browse through all these studios, offices and workspaces and pick your choice of winner. To vote, click on the poll below. (Thanks to web master Danny Tsui for coming up with this poll.)

The poll closes on Friday March 5.  We’ll announce the results the following Monday via our Twitter feed and on PDN Pulse.

If you want to see more photos or read more about each Cramped But Cool submission, you can read through the previous posts:

Sunny Live/Work Space in SF

Converted Church in Connecticut

Cozy Garage in Hudson Valley

A Versatile Basement in Westchester, NY

Dining Room/Studio in Brooklyn, NY

Home/Office/Cottage in Halifax

9x9 New Hampshire Home Office

Underground Studio in Alberta

Tom Gralish, staff photographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has posted a convenient list to all the photo-heavy blogs he's been checking out regularly for coverage of the action at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. You can find his list here at Philly.com.

Our pal Gary Pageau from PMA gets interviewed by Chris Hardwick of G4's "Attack of the Show" at PMA 2010 this past week. Great job Gary! (And a pretty good job by Hardwick breaking down the pocket camera scene at PMA.)

Here's our last Cramped But Cool Studio before we let PDN Pulse readers start voting for their favorite.

Yesterday Photolucida announced Alejandro Cartagena and Birthe Piontek as the winners of the 2009 Critical Mass Book Award competition. Pointek’s winning series, “The Idea of North,” is the result of a three month trip to a small Yukon town in 2008. Cartagena’s “Fragmented Cities: Suburbia Mexicana” considers the complexities of suburban sprawl around the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico.

Photolucida will publish monographs for both Cartagena and Piontek in the coming year. The two projects were selected by a jury of more than 200 reviewers.

Photolucida also posted portfolios of the 2009 Top 50 photographers, whose work received the highest ratings by the reviewers. The Top 50 will show their work in an exhibition at the Photographic Center Northwest, which opens March 5th.

For more on this year’s Critical Mass winners visit the Photolucida Web site.