A better question might be, “What’s NOT up with stock photography?”  Answer? Royalties, number of paid productions, royalty free and rights managed revenues and photographer satisfaction.

A few points on the graph are on the upswing: number of people submitting photos, number of photos being used, number of photos submitted, growth of the microstock agencies’ revenue and the quality of images available to buyers from microstock.

The scales are overloaded with bad news for professional photographers that have depended on stock sales as their major source of revenue over the past few decades. Hand wringing, doomsday predictions and misplaced insults only create the illusion that one is doing something about the situation.

It's not the end of the world, photographers! © Liliya Abdullina | Dreamstime.com

The industry has radically changed.  It is not likely to ever return to its glory days. What to do about the current state of affairs?

1.   If stock makes up your sole income and your work is so specialized that only a few could fill your niche; congratulations, you are safe for now.

2.   If not, develop alternative income and soon.  What can you do with your skill set outside of stock? The hard fact is that some of you will choose to leave the industry. You will trade places with the amateurs that left their day jobs to become serious about stock.  Those of you who make that decision are not failing but growing.

3.   Create innovative images that will satisfy the most discriminating art buyer and place them in rights managed collections. (The revenues may be in decline but millions are still generated with these licenses)

The recession has contributed something to the decline in stock photo reviews.© Stephen Vanhorn | Dreamstime.com

4.   Shrink your overheads to match your declining stock revenues. You can do it; most of America has figured out how in the last two years. Start with reviewing renegotiating charges for insurance, products and services.

5.   Develop as many revenue streams as possible. That will include participating in microstock for some.

6.   Revitalize your assignment business. Only a few have the talent, equipment, business skills and eye to consistently bring back the money shot. Make certain that that person is you by constantly improving and updating your skills and business sense.  You may be an artist but you must be a savvy business person to succeed.

Part II What’s up with microstock?  To follow

This post first appeared in slightly different form on the ASMP Strictly Business Blog

A question that is inevitably asked when I’m speaking to photographers, whether they are inexperienced or long time professionals, is, “When do my photos need a model release?”  My answer is always the same, “It’s not the photo that determines whether or not a release is required but how the image is used.”  One of the topics I cover in Chapter 12-”Legalese” in my book, Microstock Money Shots, concerns model releases.

Here are the key facts:

Even though the model's face isn't recognizable, some agencies might want a release since the dress, necklace and ring taken together are--at least by the person wearing them. © Shevelev Vladimir | Dreamstime.com

• Each distributor has rules about accepting images  with people. These include whether a person is recognizable. The standard for recognizable goes from rejecting photos where no one but the individual themselves could know who it was to some companies that won’t accept an image of a hand holding a glass without a release. I had an image of a pair of feet in non-descript black shoes rejected by a rights managed stock agency’s legal department because the ankle attached to the foot was wearing an ankle bracelet. OK, so the jewelry may have been recognizable.  We photoshopped the ankle. Still a no-go as the policy of that company was that even isolated body parts had to have releases.

• A photo that can seems that it can be used with impunity within the context of an editorial piece can turn around and bite the photographer. Example: you take a photo of a recognizable person sitting on a bench as they watch their child at a public playground. The photo is downloaded online for editorial use with either a micro or a macro license. The end user is a parenting magazine. All sounds on the up and up until the article comes out and is about predators that hang out around playgrounds. Even if the photographer had obtained a model release, it is possible that the model could sue if the photo didn’t carry a notice such as ‘posed by professional model”.  I leave it to the lawyers and the courts to come down with definitive opinions about whether such a suit has validity and that will have something to do with the wording in the model release. But I would think htat the outcome will generally be in the photographer/agency’s favor because of the EULA (end user licensing agreement) that prohibits using photos that imply that the subject is engaged in something illegal.

The model in this image appears to be unrecognizable but Tracy from the3dstudio.com noticed that lightening the image renders the model more recognizable. See the comments sections for more on this. The3dStudio.com. © Petesaloutos | Dreamstime.com

• Editorial vs Promotional. Both Dreamstime and Shutterstock accept images of non-released people for editorial use only. (Dreamstime carries it a bit far into property release land by requiring that all city skylines that show business signage go  into the editorial only slot. Most companies agree that a skyline with bank logos and other business ID’s on many buildings are not problematic and they accept them for use in popular travel ads and brochures.)

• What is the best release? That would be the one that you can get signed but, again, I say that the lawyers can best weight in. I recommend the Getty release as they have the most to lose. Thus I’m betting that they have all the bases covered. They have made all their releases in multiple languages freely available for download to all.

• Do you have to compensate the model? I recommend you do. Read the ASMP Strictly Business tutorial on the subject for the low-down on this and all things dealing with both model and property releases. Also read a current ASMP blog post: Q & A about releases. And another entitled: “I don’t need a release because I would win in court” (Consistently ASMP’s Strictly Business Blog posts comprise one of the best blogs for photographers, if not THE best).

It's important that you explain what stock photos are to your models, especially to friends and family that pose for you © Galina Barskaya | Dreamstime.com

• What are your other responsibilities to the model? You need to make it clear that you will have little control over the end use of the photo. If an amateur model sees their photo on a big billboard, they might come dialing for dollars on your line even though you don’t owe them anything. You can give them a copy of a site’s EULA to help with fears.

As promised: Here are the photo credits for Chapter 12 of Microstock Money Shots:

Aleskey Oleynikov/Shutterstock-Young couple on stone wall at sunset. Chapter Opener

Vling/Shutterstock-Woman in hammock on tropical beach.

Pete Saloutos-Rowing at sunset.

Wojciech Gajda/Dreamstime-Girl in yellow bathing cap at side of pool

Over the next few months, I will give you a glimpse of a few of the chapters in my new book-Microstock Money Shots, including tips from that chapter.

Since photo credits tend to be in tiny type in all books, I’ll give credit where credit is due by listing the photographers whose work appears in that chapter.

(Of course, I’m trying to entice you to buy the book! As we were advised in class, “always end a book report with…to learn more, read the book!”)

In the book introduction, Andres Rodrigues writes about his evolution into a top microstock success story. Much to learn from Andres about the learning curve in microstock.

Chapter one is titled “A Snapshot of the Microstock Industry” but it includes the key points in the history of stock photography that might effect the future of stock–if you don’t pay attention to history, you may repeat it and not with the best results!

Other topics include understanding the types of stock licenses including a solid explanation of the various creative commons licenses and what they mean. A quote sums it up: “No matter what licensing model they use, all serious amateurs and professional photographers want to know what to shoot to maximize downloads of their photographs. This book shares my more than thirty years’ experience working with companies that specialize in stock and microstock business models to answer that very question. This book suggest(s) which types of images the marketplace demands year after year.”

A section in Chapter One called “Understanding Your Rights” lays out the different kinds of businesses in stock photography: rights managed, royalty free and microstock with details on how they differ so that you can better judge where some or all of your photos will perform best. Copyright is highlighted with an explanation of the creative commons copyright and what it means to you.

I suggest that the motivation for someone to seek a stock photo is often because they believe that it already exists. Thus, like it or not, stock photography is a business of cliches. Highly unusual or artistic images may get used for marketing purposes now and then but are rarely licensed repeatedly. Speaking generally, the best stock photo is a photo that already exists. It’s up to you to create something new; combining commerce with art to produce a marketable and desirable image.

Photocredits in Chapter one: Chapter Opener: Pete Saloutos.  Interior shots: James Steidl, Chippix, Teng Wie, Yuri Arcurs, Alexander Raths, Beata Becla, Andresis Pidjass

Read more… or

This is our summer of discontent. The never ending recession combined with falling day rates, cheap stock, overwhelming heat, high water and the lack of funds to escape to a cooler spot has many photographers in the doldrums. Work is slow and a hoped for turnaround in the fall is still too far away to hang a camera strap on. So have a cool drink…forget lemons to lemonade…how about a bloody-hell Mary? Or a Hail, Mary for that matter and a chuckle.

A colleague (I can’t reveal his name in order to protect his lack of innocence) who speaks to photographers day and night has heard enough photographers’ complaints lately to write a book. Instead he kicked his funny bone and came up with the following as proposed issue themes for PhotoDistrict News beginning in Jan 2011.

January: Happy New Year Editorial Day-Rate issue
February: In the Black–that WAS Photo-History Month issue
March: Beware the Idle of March-The undercut issue
April: Ding Dong. Oh, #$%@&, is that the Tax Man at the door?
May: “Captain! May Day! May Day! issue
June: Graduation Special: Brooks Institute Owes me $100,000 issue
July: Happy Google Images Day!
August: Back to Trade-School Issue
Sept: Rights Managed Memorial Day issue
October: PPE Conference: Please Please Earn (something, anything) issue
November: Happy Thanks-For-Nothing: Disgruntled Photographers’ Issue
December: “Here Comes hidden Contract-Claus, Here Comes hidden Contract-Claus…”

Now that we’ve gotten you laughing…mosey over to Amazon and buy my book due out August 24 for a read about how we got here -that’s in the first chapter and some tips on all things photographic except the stuff that you already know about lenses, lights and tripods (the rest of the book).

I’ll recap each chapter as the month goes on and list the names of the photographers that appear in that chapter. Stay tuned!

The media often feature Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein as the founders of Getty Images, but were they truly the company founders like Mr Hewlett and Mr Packard, or Steve Jobs who started up their companies from scratch in their garages?

Mark Getty and work colleague Jonathan Klein cleverly identified the potential for huge growth in the stock photo industry, sought out Tony Stone Images as the market leader, acquired the company, and left their careers at London-based Hambro’s Bank to become Chairman and CEO of the company. It was Getty Holdings, representing a consortium of Getty family interests, which bought Tony Stone Images (Tony had previously purchased Click! Chicago and my company, After-Image).

The two re-branded the business as Getty Images, and worked with Tony and his existing management to carry the company forward. So you could say that Tony Stone (who founded his enterprise in the loft of his home decades earlier) was the true founder of Getty Images.

Tony Stone catalog from 1996 Vol 8

I was insulted by Klein’s remark in the recent NY Times article, “When we began, stock photography or licensed images, preshot images being licensed, was perceived as the armpit of the photo industry,” said Jonathan Klein, the chief executive of Getty Images who helped found the agency in 1995. “No self-respecting art director or creative director would use a preshot image, because it wasn’t original, it hadn’t been commissioned by them, it wasn’t their creativity.”

I know from  direct experience as the president of Tony Stone Images/LA that the top creatives regularly bought stock photography including for high visibility,  big campaigns for major advertisers prior to the invention of Getty Images.  I submit that neither Getty nor Klein were responsible for elevating the creative level of the stock photo business. Those laurels go to Tony and the photographer/founders of the Image Bank (Pete Turner, Jay Maisel, Larry Fried as well as businessman, James Garcia). There is no doubt of the immense achievement of Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein – they continued the acquisition of companies which Tony Stone had started, and accelerated the move into the digital world. But the very least they should do is refrain from continuously insulting those whose shoulders they  stood on.

It was Tony Stone’s vision that kickstarted Getty Images’ position at top of the creative market. When I sold my company, After-Image, to Tony and became part of Tony Stone Images, we had over 400,000 photographs in the files in Los Angeles. Tony took one look at the dozens of meticulously organized file cabinets and asked me, “Why do you need all these photos?” He had recognized the highly creative nature of some of the After-Image collection but correctly realized that much was just ‘filler’.

Tony Stone catalog from the mid-1990's

Tony Stone has joined the executive team at Vivozoom

Tony’s theory then and now, reinterated on Microstock Diaries, is that there is no point in wasting time and resources on anything except the best photos in a genre. He once told me that all the world needed was a dozen of the best photos of Paris as those were the images that would run as covers, chapter openers or full page spreads. Why have photos of every little burg in Provence when those images will usually only run small. Of course this was before the Internet and the decline of print. And prior to microstock’s long tail circling the globe.

In addition to the big news last week that Tony Stone has joined  former colleague, Lawrence Gould, at Vivozoom, I noticed news about a new microstock company specializing in images from Israel, with what seems to be an emphasis on religion. Is there a new era in the lifecycle of the microstock business, signaled by these two unrelated events? What do you think? Stay tuned.

Is video going to save stock photographers’ income from collapse? (Not that I think collapse is eminent, keeping in mind that millions and millions of dollars are still being made in stock photography…it’s that so many more fingers are in the pie).

Last week I saw video presentations made using the Canon 5D MK II by Vicent LaForet and ASC Directory of Photography, Shane Hurlbut at the Blend Images creative meeting. LaForet, coming from still photography and Hurlbut from the most complex of cinematographic productions arrived at similar destinations in the use of the Canon. Both have easily and successfully translated their skills sets into making wonderful videos for advertising and even for a feature film.

Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, Vicent LaForet, is creating terrific videos with the Canon 5D MK II

The videos were stunning and exciting. Anyone who has ever been on the set of a motion picture will be amazed at the simplicity of the gear involved. Hurlbut has posted his camera configurations. He explained that a $160 million dollar budget for a feature film was reduced by 2/3s using the Canon instead of traditional equipment. LaForet is a natural film maker and produced his first short vid in two days of shooting the day after he first had a pre-production Canon MK II put into his hands at Canon Headquarters.

ASC Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut spoke at the Blend Images creative meeting 3/26/10

Many photographers in the Blend meeting, although deeply impressed by the presentations, later expressed doubt that they would go the route of these complex productions. One said to me, “I’m not about to go out and make a feature film just because my camera can!”  The question is then what do you want to do with your camera with video capabilities and why?

Some stock still libraries have offered motion for many years but the business was never more than 3 to 5 % of  total licensing fees. Today a stock photo buyer is able to purchase coordinated images from the same shoot to meet the needs for both print and web, still and motion. A good example of a company filling this need with an  innovative product is the Image Source Cross Media Pack .  Image Source Founder and CEO, Christina Vaughn, says, “Customers often aren’t satisfied with static images – they want flash, or video, or linear photography. We’ve done a lot of research into how our customers buy images, and we found increasingly that their campaigns needed to work across media – web, TV, and handheld devices as well as print.”

What vids to shoot? Generally the same subjects, concepts and themes  that work well in still stock photography with the exception of the very simple shot of a model isolated against white. All a single person in a video can do is talk…well ok they could jump up and down, dance, or other activities…and without sound talking heads don’t have anything to say. Keep it simple though…the video show above has short segments that would work as stock clips but a full blown story becomes too specific for stock motion.

My advice: unless you have a burning desire to make videos, don’t. But play around with the camera and you may discover that you like what you see.

Think about this too as you decide whether to jump into motion or not: Clay Shirky writes: “The most watched minute of video made in the last five years shows baby Charlie biting his brother’s finger. (Twice!) That minute has been watched by more people than the viewership of American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, and the Superbowl combined. (174 million views and counting.)” Read the entire post about how complexity harms business. The last few paragraphs are especially pertinent to the business of photography.

Finally congratulations to the founding photographer members of Blend with Sarah Fix and Rick Becker-Leckrone for treating photographers with respect and offering them the opportunity to gather together in a community of friends, supporters and colleagues.

I’ve spent a lifetime making mistakes in the photography business…and, ok, had some wonderful successes. In the process I’ve learned a lot, probably more from the mistakes than from the winners.

Here’s your chance to pick my brain about anything and everything stock photowise for the cost of a nice dinner (with cheap wine and dessert). This one is all about YOU.

My newly announced ‘mini-consult’ for first time clients is $39.00

• I’ll spend time reviewing your responses to the questions on the Ask Ellen page
• We’ll talk via SKYPE or on the phone (US) for a full 30 minutes,
• I’ll review your portfolio, a submission, answer business questions. It’s your call

And to kick off this new introductory service:

The first FIVE new clients that sign up will get to Ask Ellen for nothing | zilch | nada. Contact me here requesting the free mini-consult and let’s get started.

Some advice bears repeating: The following was written as part of the ‘Inspiration” section of the Agency Access site and posted 3/16/2010. Slightly changed here.

The vote is in. Based on the many comments on Shannon Fagan’s guest post made by stock  industry leaders and photographers, the majority do not believe that the stock business is dead, perhaps sleeping but far from a vegetative state.  Millions of dollars are still being generated by the photography licensing business in all models even though to the individuals whose income has decreased by up to 50% it doesn’t seem so. The best time to review the tried and true is when you are searching for the new. Here’s a quick recap of some best practices in stock photography.

©billyphoto/Dreamstime.com

• Become known for a specialized style or subject.  Gain access to a unique location or group that is unattainable for others.  Work and work until your images are at the top of the list for your niche in technical quality, originality and marketability.

• Photography may seem to some to be a passive activity; photographers survive by being observers from behind the lens.  To succeed in today’s marketplace you must get out from behind the camera to build a following:

• Explore all the social networking opportunities available. Follow people outside of photography. Professional photography is about filling a need. Follow the Facebook and Tweets of those who might need you in addition to those photographers who are generous with their knowledge such as Chase Jarvis or Yuri Arcurs. (See more about the social web below)

• Get physically in front of your clients and potential clients. Step up your go-sees. As more and more people depend on electronic connections, those who take the time to visit their clients have a better chance of getting in to see the decision makers. This applies to those with specialty stock collections not only assignment photographers.
  

  Going it alone deprives you of connections, information and the opportunity to teach. ©Billyfoto@dreamstime.com

• Don’t depend exclusively upon a stock agency to distribute your work especially if you have a strong niche. Consider licensing your niche stock photography direct to buyers.

Fortunately now there are tools to enable photographers to build a unique stock photo collection and to license it directly.

• Explore services like PhotoShelter and License Stream to ease the responsibilities of building an independent stock site.

• Expand your marketing to cover every possible user of the photos within your niche.  Agency Access slices and dices stock buyers into lists of those with every imaginable subject/business need. Join the trade associations of your major client base not just photographer industry groups.

• Some say that direct mail for photographers is dead. Not according to art buyers that I’ve heard from.  Remember you are there to provide an answer to a visual question. Those who need your specialization want to hear from you if you can help them look better in their job.  Use the most creative designer you can afford to ensure that your DM pieces stand out.

Classic OPTE Project Map of the Internet 2005/©©(some rights reserved)attribution:www.opte.org/maps/

• Connect electronically.  Make your email blasts informative…. provide data, antidotes, statistics that will help your users in their work. Don’t simply sell yourself. That’s spam.

• Accept that twitter isn’t simply silly, that Facebook doesn’t just work for grandparents and that a blog is gossip or a place to vent. All these are communication tools. You are a communicator. Use them. And if you still haven’t. START NOW. You’ll be surprised how much you’ll learn and who you will connect with…(and how much time you’ll waste unless you set limits.)

• Know your audience. Who are the people most likely to license your work? What are their job challenges? You can’t provide answers unless you know the questions. Follow the activities online of the companies that are likely to use your type of photos. Pick up on what they are using and where.

Be wary of following the urge to SHOOT only what sells.  Part of what has harmed the stock photo business over the last few years is in an overabundance of photos all of the same subjects/styles. Originality has diminished and frustration has grown.  As one photographer recently asked me, “How many pictures does the world need of happy people jumping on a trampoline?”

Most photographers began their career with a love both of photography and a certain subject. As their careers develop, many chase the market and lose sight of what gave them creative kicks in the first place. This is especially true for those that put their hat into the stock photography ring and followed the demands of stock companies requests to the exclusion of the vision that brought them to photography. Regain it.

I received several emails from discouraged photographers after they read Shannon Fagan’s guest post about the re-positioning of the stock photography business. One asked, “So why is it exactly that you (Ellen) are still telling me to spend time and money to upload stock photos?”  My reply was a recommendation that this photographer remain in all of the possible revenue streams.  A photographer should seek diversity in pursuit of multiple areas of income as, after all, stock photography is still a big business in terms of global distribution.

Plus photography continues to offer many of us a lifestyle rich with experiences.  It’s about travel and the people we meet along the way. It has given myself and my colleagues, editors and photographers, one of the best rewards that money can’t often buy: an interesting life.

Portrait of Peggy's granddaughter. ©ShannonFagan/Getty Images

Shannon’s experience described in an email to me last week underlines how photography connects us.  It highlights the value of those connections to our lives and the lives of others.

Shannon wrote: “Here is a story that is a  reminder of why I love shooting stock photography.  It has given me experiences like these, though bittersweet, that I doubt I would have had the time to develop had I focused on a career of strictly assignment work”.

“In the spring of 2005, I traveled to New Mexico to shoot an advertisement for Nikon cameras.  A few months later, I returned to photograph in and around Santa Fe as a self initiated shoot follow-up to that trip.  The resulting personal project photographs were accepted into Getty Images’ Rights Managed collections and one of them appeared on the walls of Getty’s Beijing sales office this past November.  The photograph was of a child with a magic wand situated upon the wallpaper background of a kitchen breakfast nook.  This was the granddaughter of Peggy, a wonderfully lively New Mexico actress and travel agent who had found her way into my casting folder by way of the New Mexico Film Board website.”

“Peggy had been taking acting classes in the Santa Fe area and it was natural that she might respond to my posting for lifestyle stock photography models.  Peggy called herself “grand-meow” and certainly there was a purrrr of harmony between her and her family, and amongst herself and her neighbors.  She was the perfect real life model; inviting, and resourceful.  When I approached her to participate in a series of images about senior lifestyles, she aptly recommended her friends next door.”

Shannon Fagan's photo of Peggy's granddaughter hanging in the Getty Images Beijing office

“Peggy had told me in Santa Fe that she’d be headed to New York in two months with her girlfriends.  And thus she did.  In early October 2005, I got an email.  Riding atop a Manhattan sightseeing bus down Broadway near the Brooklyn Bridge, Peggy saw a photographer gathered with his crew on the sidewalk.  She knew him from his knee pads.  They were the same knee pads that he wore at her house just a couple months prior.  She told me that she shouted my name and waved until the tour bus operator told her to sit down.”

“I sent her an email this week telling her about her granddaughter’s  photo hanging in the office in Beijing.  I was a little surprised when her email bounced back just a couple minutes later.  I  Googled her name and Albuquerque (where she moved in 2006).  I was shocked at what appeared at the top of the search field. (link below).”

“I have been lucky in this profession to touch people’s lives, and they in turn, have touched mine.  It is these connections that explain why I have enjoyed the profession of photography.  Had I not seen her granddaughter’s photo in China, I likely would not have thought to contact her, though Peggy certainly was a standout from my trip there to New Mexico.”

“These random things are not so random when you simply pay attention to all of the connectedness around us.  It is a reminder to live each day to the fullest and never give up.  Keep searching. Even when the truth hurts. I leave you with the news from Albuquerque, New Mexico on Aug 31, 2009. There is video coverage in the link.”

Peggy and her granddaughter©ShannonFagan/Getty Images

-Shannon Fagan

writing from New York City, February 22, 2010

David Sanger-Travel (and more) photographer

It is too limiting a characterization to call David Sanger simply a travel photographer. Yes, he travels a great deal and the majority of his photos fall into that genre. Even though travel photography can be one of the most conservative genres within stock, his work often displays unique points of view and his ideas about the future are positive and innovative. Even in a brief conversation with David, it is clear that his creativity isn’t limited to photography. He expresses wide-ranging and imaginative ideas in response to questions about the changing stock photo marketplace, copyright issues and the future of the business.

He has said, “Old markets are drying up but new opportunities are emerging, communicating with communities of consumers, photo aficionados, travel readers, citizens. The economics are completely different, but the possibilities tremendous. The key is providing something of value”.

David recognizes that stock photography ‘doesn’t say anything’ in the same way that photojournalism or editorial photos do. He speaks of disintermediation (elimination of the stock distribution company) as a road to more personal communication between photographers and the audience for the work:

“When images are distributed via middlemen, it is usually someone else’s message that is communicated. Disintermediation opens up the possibility, the responsibility, for a more personal communication. The focus then shifts to the personality, trustworthiness, authority, point of view and voice of the photographer, whether fine artist or journalist. …Those who are successful will be those who are the most compelling, engaging or insightful.”

Statue of Maitreya Buddha, Bingling si Grottoes, Gansu Province, China/©David Sanger

Surprisingly, Sanger hasn’t found that eliminating the middleman from his own licensing model to be as successful as he first expected three or four years ago. In addition to his primary outlet at Getty Images, he licenses his images direct to buyers using the PhotoShelter platform. For now, though, Sanger suggests that the major buyers of rights managed still rely mainly on account people at the large stock agencies to provide images to them. Of course, buyers come directly to David Sanger because they like to work with him … and they do … or for unique destinations and images.

He has used the experience gained from direct licensing and his past life in corporate computer systems to analyze user behavior on his personal stock site. He found over 10,000 (mainly blogger) domains linking to his photos. These users weren’t likely to pay for Sanger’s rights managed images. In light of the fact that copyright is not reasonably enforceable against a blogger, Sanger takes the high road, “It is not how to stop them but how to turn them into revenue paying customers.  There is a huge appetite for images. Providing people with what they want has to be a good thing … but we have to find how to monetize it.”

“The Internet of people, social media, is a natural outlet for images. The sheer energy of Flickr conversations, the abundance of images that decorate MySpace and Tumblr pages, reveal people’s fascination with and devotion to images. Rather than fight the people who are interested in their images, photographers would do well to embrace them, engage them and discover how to transform that interest into viable economic support.”

Tajik shepherd and sheep by lakeside in Pamirs, China/©David Sanger

While the industry attempts to solve the revenue conundrum, David, is bullish about photographers creating value by ‘saying something.’ “Stock photography itself doesn’t really say anything on its own. We provide images to serve someone else’s message. No one is interested in my message [when I’m shooting stock].” Sanger suggests that photographers enter the creative conversation on a more personal level. “Find your voice,” is his closing advice.

A secret to David Sanger's travel photography is that he watches for the unexpected like this photo of woman off stage in variety show during Octoberfest in Munich/©David Sanger

About David Sanger: Sanger has traveled to over 100 countries. In addition to the travel work he shoots for corporate, shipping and non-profit clients including Bank of America, Exxon, the National Park Service, Clorox and Interorient. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Stock Artists Alliance and a former president of the organization. “I’m fascinated by technology, web design, data, communications and social media, especially how these offer photographers’ new opportunities for expression and for business”.

More about David and some of the best advice I’ve seen for travel photographers can be found at Photomedia Online.

David’s blog and website are at www.davidsanger.com