Current State of Microstock

It has been many years since I last wrote about the microstock 'industry', so today let's take a look at how it looks like today.

In the past decade, almost all the microstock agencies had seen a change of hands.  iStockPhoto had been acquired by Getty Images, 123RF as well?  Fotolia had been bought over by Adobe, while BigStockPhoto had been bought by rival ShutterStock.

For the only two great survivors, namely ShutterStock and Dreamstime, ShutterStock went public in 2012.  Its share price went from US$25 at IPO to over  US$100, and then it is back down to below US$30 now.  Even so, its Price to Earning ratio is still at 51, high by every standard.

Dreamstime is dying a slow death.  My sales there went down to almost 0.  Just when I thought it is because I don't have a good portfolio, I check the sales of another photographer, who has 2233 photos in his portfolio, and plenty of models.  He only manages to have 3 sales in a week!

Dreamstime used to have this practice of removing photos that don't sell in the past x number of years, but now they don't do that anymore.  I suspect many contributors removed their photos in large numbers in their portfolio at some particular time when Dreamstime was in some difficulty.

The competition in microstock is simply fierce.  I met one professional photographer the other day.  He told me that when he shot for stocks, he did 3200 photos in a day.  You see, 1) the pros are doing this as well, competing with hobbyists and amateurs; 2) they produce a huge volume in a very short time.  How can people like me compete with them?   At the same time, I feel sorry for the pros.  They have to come so low.

I think microstock had already seen its best time, and in the future, we will only see more and more fierce competition, and thinner and thinner profits for photographers.  It is ok to keep it as a hobby, but as a means for making a living?  I don't think so.  

Microstock: A Caste System

The Caste system in India is well known around the world, and the system is now being 'introduced' into the modern Microstock industry.

In the past, contributors can join almost as many sites as they wish, without any obvious disadvantage, only advantage as you can sell your images to much more people, with a much bigger client base.  That has changed in the past one or two years.  If you are not exclusive with them, your images may not even have a chance for the buyers to see.

In the past, once I had some new uploads, the new images will get their fair share of views from the buyers, although they might not buy eventually, but at least I had a chance.  Now, if you are not exclusive, your new images immediately go to a second class 'category'.  They will not show up on top of the search results.  I was scratching my head why my new images don't even have a single view, and that's the answer.

This is in particular with one of the most influential microstock agencies.  Luckily, there are still other agencies for you, but then they are also introducing new measures, such as putting you on different levels based on your past performance.

Microstock is getting tougher and tougher.  Anyway, it is my way of sharing my photos at least then they don't just sit in my harddisk drive doing nothing.   

Mobile Photography

It has been, again, long time since I last blog about microstock.  To say the least, not doing well.  We saw one of the major players Shutterstock's stock price went up from USD20.00 plus to USD60.00, making its founder Jon a billionaire, but as an ordinary contributor, I am not doing well.  Number of downloads has one direction to go, that's down.

Then I bumped into this announcement by one of microstock's best guy, Yuri' announcement of him pulling all his images out from all other microstock agencies and go exclusive with Istock.  In addition, he pointed to a new thread to microstock - mobile photography.

Almost every mobile phone in this world has a camera attached to it.  The image quality is getting better and better by each new generation of mobile phones.

Now there is even a microstock-like website - https://www.scoopshot.com/, where you can create a photo request, and people can respond to your photo request almost instantly.  Take a look at the website.  The photos are not picture perfect, but don't they look like the quality of images when microstock first started?

Shutterstock IPO

On 11 Oct 2012, Shutterstock is officially a public company traded at the New York stock exchange.

Here is its stock price performance on its debut.

Its share price jumped 27% on its debut, comparing with Facebook's dismal debut and the subsequent crash, Shutterstock did much better.

As a contributor to Shutterstock, I am not sure whether having Shutterstock traded at NYSE is a good thing or a bad thing.  Once it became a public company, then it has to show those quarterly financial reports, and must deliver returns to the investors, whoever they are.  They will have to care more for share holders interest, rather than the contributors' interest.  Does it also mean they will be more stingy when it comes to pay out to contributors as well?  I can't tell the future, but everything is possible.

And as a contributor, nobody is getting any benefit from this IPO, we are not getting any shares in return.

Anyway, let's hope Shutterstock can continue to do well in this industry, where we had seen many going down hill.  Hopefully as a contributor, we can gain something too.

Microstock: Photo in Use

When I was reading some financial blog today, I chanced upon an advertisement for male hair removal.  Somehow it looks a bit familiar to me.  At a close look, the photo was actually taken by me.  It is one of my microstock photos done many years ago.

This is the advertisement:

This is my original photo:

Now you know how 'true' those advertisements are.  The model didn't do any hair removal, just naturally hairless.  Anyway, it is interesting to your own photo in use, and you will just admire how creative some people are in this wonderful world :)

Microstock: A Significant Milestone

After 6 long years of working on microstock photography, the income has finally reached the most important milestone:  All my expenses on photography, including both hardware, such as cameras and lenses, and software, such as photography courses, have been recovered.

It is just like taking out a home loan, and now you have finally paid off your loan.  From next month onwards, any income from microstock photography will be return ON my investment.  The return is yet to be seen, but I am really happy that this day has finally come and I can enjoy the fruits of my hard work in the past 6 years.  In addition, the joy of photography is even more rewarding.  

Microstock: A Raise at Shutterstock

Well, after many long years, finally I received an email today from Shutterstock, saying that I have reached certain cumulative earnings, and now I have been promoted to a higher tier of the pay scale.  Congratulations to myself! :)  No matter what, it is still a milestone, and it is still something to celebrate :)  However, the problem is I seldom have the time, nor the once upon a time passion to photography anymore.  I still have photos from my Egypt and Jordan trip almost half a year ago, lying in the computer harddisk, waiting for me to bring them out for daylight.

Time to work harder, to get back my mojo?  Life is beautiful, and photography is one fantastic way of having the wonderful moments frozen in permanent memory.  It is great joy to see your work being appreciated by someone out there, putting your wonderful photograph to good use.  

Microstock: Be Aware of What the License Agreement Means

I mentioned in this blog post about the use of one of my photos as a book cover for a gay book.  I thought it was a direct violation from the particular agency's license restriction course, which states:

Use that depicts model in a sensitive way i.e. mental or physical health issues, substance
abuse, criminal behavior, sexual activity or preference without a disclaimer.

So I contacted the agency, and their compliance enforcement team came back to me with this:

We are of the belief that this usage is permitted within the terms of the Agreement. There are a number of reasons for this. First and most importantly, most novels clearly state in the forward of the book that it is a work of fiction and any similarities to persons real or fake are coincidence. This in itself would be considered a disclaimer. To be quite honest, the likelihood that anybody would reasonably believe that the cover image is not a model seems very far off.

I am quite disappointed with this answer, and in my opinion, they are siding with the publisher.  

Next time, when you upload something for sale, be aware of what the license agreement actually means.  When it comes to legal terms, they can be very different from common sense.  

Microstock: A Dark Day

I had mentioned before photos from microstock being used in some unglamorous situations and causing distress to both the photographer and the model.  Never had I thought it would happen to me, but it did yesterday.  My model informed me his photo being used as the cover photo for a book published in the USA.  I thought, that was nice.  Then he told me the book is about the growing up story of a gay boy in Singapore!  My gosh!

I emailed the publisher, requesting to remove that photo from their facebook and amazon.com, but the request was bluntly and rudely turned down.  Their reply was very much like telling you right into your face that you stupid idiot!

Looking at that publisher's other publications, obviously they specialize in gay-related publications, and I think they are just a small operation.

The book cover is nothing but my stock photo with some words on it.  There is no design to talk about.

This incident makes me think again about using models for microstock.  Both the photographer and the model were paid peanuts but have to endure undue stress.  What should I do?  I have removed all my stock photos with a human face.  You can't tell where your photos will end up.  The creative industry is really creative.

This is a reminder to myself:

Never submit photos with a human face to microstock, no matter what.  You have absolutely no control where the photo will end up with.

For a follow-up on this issue, please see this blog entry. 

Microstock: You'll Never Know...

Microstock is one interesting industry and you will never know what works well and what doesn't absolutely sure.  A photo being rejected by one reviewer may be accepted by another; a photo rejected by one site may be accepted by another site, etc.

This photo was rejected by Shutterstock for lighting problems, and limited commercial value, but someone bought this photo today from Dreamstime.com.  Well, not at a sky high price, but then this photo is actually doing better than some other cripsy clear, sunny, brightly lit photos.

This is microstock.  It gives you joy, it gives you pain.  This is life :)

Microstock: 1st EL in Many Months!

It has been quite a number of months since I last had one EL sales at http://www.shutterstock.com/, and today, guess what?  Voila, there is 1 EL!

Here is the EL photo.  It is the front view of Milan Duomo, together with the Victory statue in front.  This cathedral is one of the biggest Gothic cathedrals in the world. 

The cathedral just unwent a 10-year long renovation which completed only last year.  You can take a look of this cathedrals past and current in this blog entry of mine.  It shows the progress of the renovation process and the final glory unveiled last year. 

I am grateful to the buyer of photo, and may more ELs to come!

Microstock: Negligence

It has been quite a while since I last wrote about microstock.  It is negligence!  I have neglected my microstock business for some time.  I am too busy at my full-time job, and then my computer's hard disk crashed after 5 years of loyal services.  Now I have a new computer, but still don't have the necessary software tools to start editing my photos.  Uploads to all the sites have almost droped down to 0 for more than 2 months. 

This serves as a good example that you need to spend time and effort to maintain your business in microstock.  Some people may think that microstock is a TRUE passive income source.  Once you established a sizeable portfolio, then all you have to do is to sit back and wait for all the money to come in.  This is not entirely true.  Once you stop uploading photos, your existing photos will tend to drop down in buyers' searches, eventually they will be buried deep in the thousands and thousands of new photos being uploaded every week. 

Negligence is never a virtue in any form of business.  If you are serious about making some money, even just pocket money, from microstock, you should maintain a constant presence in the industry. 

Happy shooting :)

Microstock: A Milestone

Finally, finally, the income from microstock for all these years has come to an amount that is enough to cover the cost of ALL my photography gears.  It feels good.  It is like you take out a loan and that loan is fully paid off.  You are debt free. 

Good though it is, the income is still not big enough to cover some accessories such as my two expensive camera bags, and also the course fees for my photography courses, let alone the big sums I spent on traveling. 

Anyway, anything from microstock from now on is extra money.  Actually I didn't do well with microstock, as it took me 5 years to just get back on investment, it is just return OF my investment, not yet return ON my investment. 

Ok, a milestone reached, time to aim for the next one...

Microstock: Purging Starts at Dreamstime

Received an email from Dreamstime today, telling me I have one photo that has been on their database for more than 4 years without any download. 

I am given 3 options:

1. Donate the photo as a free photo
2. Re-keyword using Dreamstime's keyword service at 0.40/image
3. Disable the image, ie. get rid of it from the database

Long long time ago, some contributors from various microstock sites have been talking about purging the increasingly big database.  It gets more and more urgent as all the sites have gone by the million photos mark and getting closer and closer to the 10 million photos mark.

I decided to give out the image free.  4 years without any download means it is not really that great an image.  I am more willing to share it with people who might find it beautiful or useful. 

Dreamstime is the first microstock to purge their database, I am wondering whether this purging exercise will soon become an industry norm, which I think it will. 

Microstock: Quick Review at Shutterstock

Ever since the beginning of 2010, the review time at Shutterstock has been very short.  In general, a batch gets reviewed in about 48 hours, now it only takes a couple of hours. 

I submit a batch at around 7 o'clock in the morning, by noon, they have been reviewed and approved.  This does not just happen once or twice, but quite consistently ever since a new year began.  At first, I thought it was the holiday season and not many people were submitting, but I noticed the statistics still shows 80,000 to 100,000 photos are being added to the Shutterstock library. 

Kudos to the Shutterstock team.  They do a very good job for us.  One complaint though, I am not getting as many downloads as I usually get for January.  Maybe their sales team should step up their efforts too?  :P

Microstock: 123RF Gets Tough

My 2010 started with a slew of rejections from 123RF.  My rejection ratio there used to be very good, rarely any rejection.  The sudden surge made me wonder whether something special had happened. 

I went into their forum to take a look.  Oh, it looks like 123RF had decided to get a lot more strict on their acceptance criteria. 

It is nothing wrong to get more strict, but the problem is they didn't really communicate that well to the submitters.  My photos were mostly rejected for 'poor lighting/composition'.  At least they should take the trouble to separate 'poor lighting' with 'poor composition'.  If my photos have 'poor composition', really I have nothing to say.  Art is subjective.  Different people may have different opinions on what is good composition, what is bad composition.  We can't really argue there.  But how about poor lighting?  It is more technical and a more objective topic. 

Another point is what do they think are good compositions?  I did get some photos accepted this year, but I don't think they are better 'composite' than those that had been rejected. 

At least they should lay out some guidelines for everybody to follow.  For example, Shutterstock tells every submitter that they don't want to have flower shots, sunset/sunrise shots, etc unless they are exceptionally good.  It helps submitters to avoid wasting time uploading unneeded photos and it also helps 123RF to reduce the work load.  It will be a win-win situation.  However, as it is now, I think photographers will just have to try it out, upload everything then wait and see what gets accepted, what gets rejected and then slowly figure out the unwritten 'rules'.  It is gonna be time-wasting, for both submitters & reviewers.

ShutterStock: US Sources vs Non-US Sources

I just discovered today that ShutterStock had added a new 'feature' called 'payout history'. In the payout history, it lists down all your past records of payout, the date and amount.

What is interesting is it also distinguishes the sources of downloads. It shows you how many of your images are downloaded by people or entities from the US, and how many are from non-US sources. The reason is for revenues from US sources, you are subject to 30% tax withholding.

In my case, I don't know whether I shall say it is lucky or unlucky that only ~10% of my revenues are actually from the US, while the remaining 90% are from non-US sources. As a result, the 30% tax withholding rule has a much smaller impact on me than previously thought. What a relief!

Minimum Payout Amount Changed at BigStockPhoto

More and more changes are happening these days. BigStockPhoto just changed its minimum payout sum.

Previously, the minimum amount to get a payout is USD$30 for paypal/money booker, and USD$50 for a check. Now, it seems like everything has been increased. For paypal/money booker, you need to reach USD$50 before you can request for a payout. This is in addition to the already troublesome wait of a minimum of 7 working days after any download to avoid internet fraud.

This change is not going to affect the big players, as they most probably will have commissions way above USD$50, but for the hobbists and amateurs, or people with a small portfolio, this change means harder, longer to get anything at all from BSP. For BSP, it is a good thing as it will improve their cash flow.

A Merger: ShutterStock Acquires BigStockPhoto

Just got the news from facebook. ShutterStock has bought over BigStockPhoto to build up their strength in discreet downloading market.

This is the first merger & acquisition in the microstock industry with one microstock agency being bought over by another. The last time a merger happened was when iStockPhoto was aquired by Getty Images. In that case, it was more like a main-stream, traditional stock agency trying to break into the newer field of microstock.

With ShutterStock's acquisistion of BigStockPhoto(BSP), the biggest question in my mind is: Do I need to pay the 30% tax to the US too for my BSP revenue? If the answer is YES, then this is really bad news for me. If the answer is NO, then it doesn't affect me much.

I also wonder whether the photos submitted to BSP from now will be reviewed by ShutterStock's reviewers? Or they will have a different set of reviewers? What about the resolution requirements?

There are a lot of questions to be answered, and I hope everything will be more clear in the coming days. I don't want to see any changes other than higher sales & payout :)

My 1st Contribution to the US Bailout Fund

I received my first payout from ShutterStock, after they imposed the 30% tax withholding rule. This is my very first contribution to the Great American Bailout Fund. The amount of tax being withheld is small, only a couple of dollars.

At this moment, I am not 100% sure that the withholding tax is only a few dollars, still need to continue to observe, but at least it gives me some incentive to continue to work with ShutterStock. I stopped my contribution to them since two months ago.

Now, at least there is some 'hope'!