The  panels at CEPIC, especially at the day long New Media Day organized by Microstock Diaries’ Lee Torrens, were thought provoking and for the most part, interesting.  I especially enjoyed the dialog between Sarah Fix from Blend Images and Taylor Davidson on my panel on the future: Taylor posed the question, “What core value does an agency create and deliver?” Sarah came back with some smart answers. I’ll interview her soon for a run down of her remarks. Unfortunately time ran out but we hope to continue the dialog  around the subject of disruption in the stock photo business at PhotoPlus Expo in the fall.

Ellen Boughn from Stock Photography Strategies, USA at the Rotunda in Dublin City Hall for a VIP Reception ©ctk photobank

Here are the best places to learn about what went on at CEPIC:

Tweek’s Daily newspaper

Videos posted to Vimeo: (Excellent selection of well made videos from the panels)

Selected (curated to use a popular word at CEPIC) vids on YouTube:

VIP Reception

Pavel’s interview with me

Beatte interview with CEPIC’s Klaus Plauman

FastMediaMagazine interview with Maria Kessler at Image Rights

StockPhotoPress Interview mit Norbert Weber von Polylooks auf der CEPIC 2010 in German

Flavors of CEPIC by Pavel

Interview with Pond5 video by Pavel

Flickr photo stream by Taylor Davidson

Complete photo coverage by ctkphotobank and previous years too

I have attended CEPIC almost every year since I held the position of Executive Editor at Corbis in 1997. (At least I believe an event in London was an early precursor to CEPIC as I recall being on a boat on the Thames with some Germans and Roger Ressmeyer taking a photo of me that he magically sent to my husband by the miracle of digital photography and email. AMAZING it was then.)

Once the delegates to the Congress are home , the content of the panels and discussions meld into the over all business view of those attending but the connections grow into good business.  We are daily connected in ways that dwarf our previous means of communication with business colleagues via the post, fax or even email. Even so there is nothing that compares to the many business relationships forged with international colleagues over a drink, serendipitously at a lunch table or during an impromptu or scheduled meeting. These can only happen in person and for stock businesses and archives, only at CEPIC.

Ellen Boughn in the stands at the new Aviva Stadium in Dublin for CEPIC interview with Pavel Losevsky

I have thought that CEPIC might be losing its relevance. But what was demonstrated by this year’s invigorated CEPIC is an industry strengthened and changed by outside forces that is smarter, quicker and, though smaller, stronger. Plan on coming to CEPIC in 2011 to keep up with the changes.

*Thanks to Russian photographer/videographer Pavel Losevsky who tirelessly documented CEPIC and the offical photographers from ctk photobank

Next week I will be joining colleagues Cathy Yeulet (MonkeyBusinessImages), Shannon Fagan (photographer), Taylor Davidson (business strategies), and Kelly Thompson (iStockphoto) in Dublin, Ireland as I host a panel entitled, The Future, at the New Media Conference. This crystal ball event (not of the disco type but more the fortune teller type of thing) will examine a central issue in the working lives of professional, stock photographers now in mid-2010: What’s next?

New Media Conference June 9, Dublin Ireland

Stock photographers worldwide are ringing their hands. They are seemingly in the midst of a perfect storm of events: relatively cheap digital cameras with decent resolution; a thundering crowd rushing toward microstock and helping turn the best of them into serious pros; established microstock photographers seeing declines in revenue as traditional stock photographers jump on that bandwagon; an Internet that sucks up photos by the billions; advertising budgets in the tank and magazines dropping dead. Some say revenues are falling like birds from the sky but overheads are still flying high.

Assigning blame for shifts in the industry is as silly as blaming the Internet for the fact that our way of life has been fundamentally changed forever. We are living through a period of unprecedented change and you as a photographer may get flattened as it rolls through the industry. What will you do to adapt; to stay on your feet?

Join us at the New Media Conference for ideas. You as a photographer are going to have to think your way out of the present into a productive future and here is a chance to bounce your thoughts off others who have been spending a great deal of time pondering the issues. Will Google Image search become monetized? Will Flicker, Creative Commons and Plus get together to organize another third party to issue image licenses…bypassing the Getty gatekeepers?  What’s next?

Taylor wrote about one of the events that will happen around CEPIC and the New Media Conference:

“Before the Future”, June 8th
Ellen, Shannon, Lee Torrens and I will be hosting an invite-only social mixer called “Before the Future” on the night of June 8th before the New Media Conference kicks off the next day. Our goal is to bring together a diverse set of thinkers in the photography industry and create thoughtful and valuable conversations and connections between people driving the future of the photography industry. And, well, have a good time.

Thank you to Jonathan Ross and Space Images for sponsoring the mixer.

A sad but true fact is that many photographers will leave professional photography behind and seek new challenges over the next months and years. Some will go completely broke while they wait for the business to return to previous levels. But others, and I hope you are one of them, will discover how they can use their skill and expertise in a related field. (I don’t think salvation for most lies in transitioning to video.)

What new ventures will appear? Will the time come that finally buries the stock photographer for good or will this be a time of energized regrouping and give us new businesses where the skills and talents of photographers/photoeditors/producers/stylists/etc are again valued?  I hope for the latter but know that the rewards of recovery will be going to a much smaller set of photographers.

Join us at the New Media Conference next week to listen and learn while adding your voice to the discussion about what’s next. Want even more information…illustrated? Lee Torrens has it all mapped out for you.

And if you are there, stop by and say Hello and thanks to the New Media Conference sponsor JaincoTech.

Deadly bored by business news? Toss the envelopes from the broker…if you still have enough money to have one…in the back of a drawer? Couldn’t read a financial statement if your life depended upon it? (Guess what? It does).

If so, listen up. Accept: stock photography and photography in general is in a downward spiral. You can’t move ahead without facing the brink:

In the early part of the decade that NY Times Op/Ed writer and economist, Paul Krugman, calls the Big Zero perhaps as many as fifteen  percent of the photographers who had work with Getty Images were making from $12,000 up to $100,000 annually and a few were pulling in that much quarterly.

Photographers said with confidence, “This is going to be my retirement income.” Ooops.

Dial ahead to now: the comment now is how much  income from licensing stock photographs has decreased. A year ago, the percentage was around 15-20%. Today  the average decrease can be over 50%.

The most important thing you can do in the coming year is to accept that your life is changed for good. Krugman has sobering stats : http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/age-of-diminished-expectations/

Economic recovery doesn’t mean recovering what was lost but a re-casting of the lives that we used to have. This means if you are in it for a six figure income, your chances of getting there quickly or at all could be the same as the odds of me dancing with the Joffrey Ballet.

©Andres Rodriguez/dreamstime.com

To succeed in the next decade determine to work hard with razor sharp focus on goals, put your ego in your back pocket and a rabbit’s foot on your keychain.  Adjust your expectations, cut your expenses and expand your repertoire. AND if you don’t already know: learn the fundamentals of running a small business.

RPI (return per image per shoot) doesn’t mean much if you are smothered by overhead. Take a look at your professional and personal costs. Do you shop as a leisure activity? Do you have to have the latest gear not because it is that much better but because it is a symbol of your ‘success’ whether you can afford it or not? All that is so 2005. Only buy what you need and you’ll be surprised at how much more you’ll have.

TIPS:

• Review your financial statement monthly
• Review your end of month financials every month. Even if you have an accountant, it’s your business to be able to analyze financials and budgets.
• Review your insurance policies annually. Are you paying to ensure equipment that you no longer own? Do you have a current equipment inventory in case of theft and to use in depreciation schedules on your taxes? If you don’t have health insurance, get it. If you can’t afford it, buy a policy with a very large deductable. Photography is a business that involves physical risk.
• Renegotiate fees with all the services that you use: start with the accountant. I did a little comparision shopping and will save at least $600 this year by switching.

You won’t be the only one with changed attitudes toward money/life. There is no shame in the fact that your stock income has tanked…anyone who says theirs hasn’t, is probably mistaken. Don’t wallow in thoughts of the way life used to be: You can even use these fresh attitudes to inform your photos by studying how consumer attitudes have changed. Use this information as you plan lifestyle shoots:

Finally notes on building a skating rink…err not really…by master marketer Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/you-dont-have-the-power.html

• Join ASMP to learn/refresh about how to run a photography business
• Twittering and FB may seem like work but watch your ROI in time in social networks
• Comparision shop and bargain for all services
• Photo of storming skies is by Moonwire from Flickr under There is a lesson here too.

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