In the July 24, 2007, creativeprose newsletter, I praised iStockphoto for maintaining its contributor payment structure instead of slicing the contributors’ slice of the money pie ever smaller.
I invited you to let me know your thoughts on the subject, and did you ever! The differing opinions were a treat to read. Below, I’ve included all of the responses for which I received permission to publish. To add your opinion, simply look for the voxbox icon on the left-hand side of this page and click “Respond to this article.”
Sue Adams
It’s a good thing – very good. There are thousands of small business clients who simply cannot afford $250 for a stock photo for a one-time ad or a postcard or one-time use in an email blast. Satan? I think not. Call it reality therapy.
Randy Brandon
Selling any stock photo for less than it costs to produce them is thievery by any and all of the stock photo agencies that do it, period.
How the entire stock photo industry has been all be destroyed by the few mega-stock agencies; (i.e., Corbis and Getty) is well documented. These large agencies have all but totally purchased all but a very few small agencies, and basically turned the economics of an entire industry on its head. The economic model of the industry now is that the agencies make all of the money, and the creatives who actually do the real work have been consigned to accepting the virtual crumbs for all of their hard work.
The bean counters, and corporate left brainers have won, and my only hope is that they will all have their own special level of hell reserved for their future.
David Brugge
It’s unfair to professional photographers worldwide that the age of digital cameras and digital distribution has cut so deeply into their livelihood. Much in the same way that it was unfair that desktop publishing software and postscript image setters cut into the livelihood of typesetters, and design and layout programs took a bite out of the pocketbook of graphic designers. But the toothpaste is out of the tube and there’s no putting it back. Professional photographers have a clear choice. The can find niche or specialty markets for their work the way typesetters had to do, or, like graphic designers, set their work high enough above the din that clients can clearly see what they are paying for. As for iStockphoto’s increasing revenue by increasing prices, I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. iStockphoto is a single player in what looks to be a very large field. As they continue to take microsteps towards a “living wage” for their contributors, there is always someone else waiting to fill the gap that they leave.
Brad Cathey
Background: 29 years in the design biz (I’ve seen it all: hot type, waxers, Scitex, 4.77Mz PCs, Intel Macs).
Back in the day, when PhotoDisc was nearly the first on the block with digital stock, we were paying $19.95 a piece. After they sold to Getty, we saw those prices rise 10x to 15x that. Stock photos again got too expensive for our non-profits.
Then iStockphoto arrives to set us all free (granted, quality suffered in many of the images), but suddenly we were back in the business of incorporating photos back into our work.
Purists don’t like the notion of micropayment. Maybe they think we need to hire assignment photographs, pay thousands, fight over usage rights, etc (big overstatement, probably). But clients are willing to except less quality for less money. Just look at what “desktop publishing” did to typography. But the clients don’t care about kerning tables and beautiful “color” because they don’t have to wait overnight for the type fairies, and it’s way cheaper.
iStockphoto takes care of its contributors. Story: I have a cousin (single mom) who is a very good amateur photographer who made $1200 last month selling on iStock.
Design is all about compromise (at least if you’re doing for clients). And iStockphoto, and those like it, is part of that balance. I welcome it, and at the same time love my assignment photographer…when I can afford him.
Gail Dorsett
If not for iStock I would have to get by with clipart out of old books. Not everyone, including my clients, can afford $65 and up for one photo or whatever the going rate for illustrations is these days elsewhere. iStock and others like it are lifesavers for the little guy. Gail in Houston
Hal Fisher
What’s not to like with istockphoto? If you have ever sent a rush layout to a client and had it quickly approved only to find out that the high rez costs of the shot you used are way over the budget… you’ll come to appreciate istockphoto!
Brian Heim
I work for a non-pro?t and, as much as I’d love to use the overall superior stock that I ?nd on sites like Veer, we just couldn’t afford it. The same goes for many of my freelance clients. If I went with the more expensive sites, it could almost double the cost of the work I do for them. And THEN the most likely outcome is that they’ll ditch my services entirely and just have someone throw together something in Word using Windows Clipart.
It’s not a black or white issue, and people should try for quality in design and photography when they can afford it. But I love that there are options available for when I’m designing an invitation for a fundraiser or birthday party without breaking the bank.
Gary Holmes
Micropayment stock sites are here to stay. New sites launch every day. As you can see they are in demand. Most images are fresh and high quality. iStock photographers will even create new images for designers at no extra cost. The larger established stock sites got stuffy, stale and greedy with their offerings. The micro stock sites have come and filled a necessary niche.
Also, as an independent designer I like the network and camaraderie offered by istock.
Tim Kramer
I couldn’t possibly be without iStockphoto. As a single person print collateral and web designer, purchasing 6 months or a year of one of the big stock photo agencies is not possible. In fact, I have always considered big agencies to be the spawn of Satan. They are priced so outrageously and obscenely that they themselves have forced the birth of the micro-payment sites.
Henry Long
We deal exclusively with non-profits. Before iStock, we invested thousands in royalty free stock photo CDs. We usually only used 20% or so of the photos on a CD. With iStock, we have a much larger variety to choose from, we can purchase only what we use, and the quality is getting better all the time. I hope they are the forerunner of what is to come.
Jim McKnight
Some shoppers want to buy at Walmart just as some clients want the designer to use a free image from the Internet for low budget projects. Those of us who work for non-profits and small businesses have a hard time convincing our client that a $200 image will really make their brochure any better. At least iStockphoto gives us some inexpensive choices. I use it frequently and am amazed at the quality and variety of the images at those prices.
Is it fair to the photographer/creative who sells their work cheaply? No, but it does provide some often needed exposure for future work.
Steve Marston
In last week’s newsletter, you said, “iStockphoto makes more money by raising its product prices, the people who create those products benefit at the same rate.” Yeah, right. Your boat floats 80% higher and mine floats 20% higher on MY work? “Benefit at the same rate” is only true if you think the 80/20 split is fair in the first place. I think that ratio sucks, and wouldn’t sell any of my work where someone else gets 4 times and much for my work as I do. I’d rather give it away! “Actual credits are going up about 8%.” What crap! If rates went from 20% to 21.6% that would be true.
Oregon photographer, name withheld by request
I have been a professional stock photographer since 1993, mostly tourism and destination stuff, however I have done a lot of other photography to make a buck as they say. The age if digital and ability to produce images for next to nothing compared to the price of slide film and processing a few years back allow people to shoot like a machine gun. You can produce 500 images for the price of charging the batteries on your camera. This is one aspect of shooting for micro sites but not what I feel is the main reason.
I feel just about everyone with a camera has the wish to be a professional or be considered a professional and being able to tell everyone you ever knew or were related to that you actually sold a picture somehow makes you feel you have reached the status of a professional photographer. The price you were paid matters not, it is the feeling that if a person purchased one of your images then for sure you are now a “pro”. A case in point, on one of the sites I read in a forum a man asked if he could be considered a professional photographer because they allowed him to post some images on the site for sale. The other issue is these so called “wanna be” photographers have no idea that the images are worth real money and in my estimation do not realize the true value of a photograph in today’s market. So many of the images produced are pure junk and have zero value but some are also pretty good and produced by a person that has some skills. To sum it up, perhaps these micro stock shooters feel their recognition as a professional photographer has arrived with a sale of 75 cents or at least fame and glory is just around the corner. It requires a whole lot of work and experience to produce a good photograph and it pleases me that there are still organizations that are aware of this and willing to pay a decent price to a photographer for an image. My feeling is that the 600 gazillion digital shooters (notice I did not say photographers) and a zillion micro sites have had a major impact on stock photography and not sure where it will end up or how traditional photographers shooting stock will fare in years to come but the old adage of “don’t quit your day job” comes to mind.
Lauri Proulx
I have been using istock.com for the last 3-4 years to purchase photos and illustrations for my projects at work. I have even entertained the thought of joining and putting my wares on display for sale (I am also a photographer as well as a graphic designer for most of my company’s print projects). I absolutely LOVE istock. I am able to purchase quality images for an inexpensive price and I have never been disappointed.
Although I liked the price structure earlier on, even at $1.30 per credit, it is still a deal. And that the creators make money on every sale as well, what a bonus!
Name withheld upon request
Despite my respect for an artist’s right to profit fairly from their
work, I think RM photos are highway robbery and most RF photos are
almost bearable. iStockphoto has been a boon to my business,
eliminating the sticker shock my clients get from other online photo
suppliers. It’s nice to know exactly what the artist is earning. I
wonder sometimes how much Getty gives the creator of a photo I’m
charged $1500 to use.
Anthony Taylor
Spawn of Satan? Absolutely not! Indeed, I view it as the nectar of the gods. The photo resource business has, in my opinion, been a manipulative, uncreative and greedy purveyor of talented artist’s hard work. The former benefiting far more than the latter. I don’t own a hat, but I’m considering going out to buy one, for the single purpose of being able to take it off to the founders of iStockPhoto.
Vincent J. Tecchio
I work at a firm that is between small and midsize and I freelance for clients mostly on a smaller scale [under $15M annual revenue] and these sites are a crucial way I help provide real value to my clients – both internal and freelance. Often it is a huge step for smaller clients to have recognized the fact that they need a designer and – even more shockingly – that good design can help impact their business, rather than “just look pretty”. The problem is they do not translate this very well into resource acquisition. They think paying a freelancer’s rate should include everything – even all the pretty images in that trifold or 10 page media kit. Going back to a small client – who just made the jump to hiring a professional – with several thousand dollars in image requests will go over about as well as a lead balloon.
All that to say: microstock sites provide quality images for a reasonable fee. There will always be a place for commissioned, rights-managed, and higher-priced RF photography, but making quality art accessible to those clients without the budgets of the Fortune 500 is part of commercial equality and I thank and appreciate each photographer who has shared just one image with the design community.
Kathy Dannel Vitcak
I have a small graphic design business…but I have BIG ideas. Before iStockphoto.com, 123rtf.com and the like, I was forced to scrounge around like a dumpster diving rat to find legal CDs for sale on eBay or, if I got lucky, on sale through the catalogs. This really cut into my creativity, not to mention, all that time wasted dumpster diving!
So, I cheered, applauded and dusted my clothes of all the dumpster refuse and joined the ranks of the REAL pros when iStockphoto began.
I bless them, I thank them and I do not mind one bit when the prices rise a bit!
Kenny Walters
As a photographer, I have to say that microstock companies have eroded the quality and replaced it with sheer content; the dumbing down of the stock industry, if you will. Many if not most of the suppliers are not and never were in the business of producing images, and consequently, they have made life for those who are, difficult at best and sometimes simply no longer viable as a business model. Microstock has definitely been a great disadvantage for photography in general.
This article was last modified on April 3, 2022
This article was first published on July 30, 2007
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