170 Case Studies
British in origin but now also New Zealand citizens, they describe
themselves thus: “We were keen amateurs and successful club
photographers for many years but wanted an outlet that would allow
us to make some money from our work and that did not require our
presence on a regular basis. We don’t consider ourselves serious pro-
fessionals now, probably more part-time professional would be the
best label.”
They discovered the microstocks from an article by Royce Blair,
“New Paradigm Shifts in Stock Photography.” Asked about the
time they commit to their photo habit, they said, “It’s very variable.
We shoot as we travel; then if we have very much to process, we
stay in one place to process, maybe a couple of days of full-on
processing.”
Colin and Linda do not have favorite sites, as such, being of the
view that they all have their good and bad points. Asked about exclu-
sivity, they echoed the near-universal view of those I have spoken to:
“We are not exclusive and don’t plan to be. At the moment, we cannot
see any advantage in it. We feel that it is in the long-term interests of
photographers to support a mixture of sites.”
They had some pretty strong views about some sites they submit
to: “Although Shutterstock is probably the second highest earner for
many people, the subscription model will only ever appeal to the large
downloader. If Shutterstock were to set up for individual downloads
at the same pricing level as Dreamstime, it would probably take the
crown very quickly due to its existing high profi le. Maybe Shutterstock
and Dreamstime should merge!”
I’m not sure Serban Enache of Dreamstime and Jon Oringer of Shut-
terstock would necessarily agree, but it’s food for thought at least.
Generally, Colin and Linda were pretty positive about the microstock
industry and the sites they send their work to. However, they do also
send work to two traditional libraries, Alamy and Acclaim, because
they do not tightly edit work, and to Trevillion Images, which, they
say, accepts more impressionistic work.
Colin and Linda’s fi gures are presented in Figure 10.4 and come
with the warning that at the time of answering my questions, they
had just added a lot of new images to Shutterstock, which might
make their per-image average performance look less healthy than it
actually is.
Colin and Linda clearly admire iStockphoto and benefi t from its
strong fi nancial performance, but they echoed a criticism I have
heard from many and that has been repeated on my Yahoo! forum
that changes to iStockphoto’s search engine has damaged their
sales.