For couples’ coming to Thailand for a destination wedding between the 1st of July and the 15th of November 2010, I am offering a 25% discount off the overall package price for your wedding photography.

The fine print is this:

1. You have to book and pay the 50% retainer by the 31st of May 2010.

2. The discount doesn’t apply to travel and accommodation expenses. These are billed at actual cost.

Head over to my documentary wedding photography site to view my work or simply contact me with the details of your big day.

Email is studio [at] myweddingphotographer [dot] co [dot] nz

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If you shoot and license stock imagery like I do, then one of the things you always seem to be doing is editing, captioning and submitting imagery to distribution partners. I used to think there was a way around this, but reality has set in, along with regular stints in front of my iMac prepping imagery.

Working with a good stock library such as Aurora Photos is a great way to get my imagery out into the world and in front of potential buyers. The speed to market with Aurora is incredible.

I regularly have my submissions reviewed within a day or two and once I have provided the high-resolution files, they are made live on the Aurora site within days. Pushing the photos out to distribution partners such as Masterfile and Corbis, takes a little longer, but not that much longer. Some recent portrait work accepted by Aurora is already available for licensing at Corbis. That all happened within about 8-weeks, which is fast!

Working with larger, well established stock libraries works for me as I photograph quite a bit of what I consider general travel photography. If you don’t have a large, niche collection such as Art Wolfe, then leveraging off a distribution relationship with a stock library can make a lot of sense, especially if you are starting out in stock photography.

As I have been developing myself a niche and a client base for unique Maldives photography, I have been busy this year populating my own stock library – Thomas Pickard Stock Archive – with my Maldives photography. Leveraging off technology providers such as Photoshelter, I can now license and deliver hi-resolution photos direct to my existing client base, through my own stock site. This works well, in part because I am developing a niche in Maldives photography and also because I have an ever expanding client base seeking Maldives photography.

Below are just a few examples of licensing sales in the last few months. It never ceases to amaze me which images are licensed.

Licensed via Corbis. Image #: 42-22229345

Licensed via Corbis. Image #: 42-22229424

Licensed via Thomas Pickard Stock Archive. Image #: 08710.

Licensed via Getty Images. Image #: 94979111

Licensed via Getty Images. Image #: 90880255

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]]> http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/05/maldives-stock-photography-and-working-with-aurora-photos-getty-images-and-corbis/feed/ 1 http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/03/perspectives-on-working-in-the-photography-industry/ http://thomaspickard.com/blog/2010/03/perspectives-on-working-in-the-photography-industry/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:01:04 +0000 Thomas Pickard http://thomaspickard.com/blog/?p=1455 A while back I received an email from a person asking me about working in photography. What really struck me about the email was this line:

“…no photography jobs, I don’t care about money a lot, more about doing what I like…”

Well, here is the rub. You should never get into the photography business if you are more concerned about shooting what you want, as opposed to paying the bills. Subscribing to what I call the ‘starving artist’ model of being a photographer doesn’t help you or anyone else in the industry. You would be far better taking a totally different job and shooting exactly what you want to shoot, when you want.

Alternatively, you could start thinking about a career in photography this way…

“It’s a business. I think that’s a key component in this industry. When you are in college and you’re thinking about what sort of photographer you want to be, what you want to shoot, how you’re going to shoot it and how you’re going to put your personality into the work, that’s all fine but in the end it’s totally a business.”

Spencer Heyfron in a great interview with Rob Haggart over at A Photo Editor.

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“However, under the circumstances of freelancing, Work for Hire becomes less of a reasonable deal and more of a cynical way for companies to manage overhead at the expense of the people who provide the component pieces for the product that they sell.  Unlike employees, freelancers must provide their own equipment, insurance, and retirement.  Sick days and vacations become an expense along with things that are easy to take for granted like office space, transportation, utilities, etc.  In short, Work for Hire wants to treat you like an employee without incurring the hidden costs of having you as one.”

Matt Slaby via Luceo Images.

I have just started reading Luceo Images Blog posts. This extract comes from a section called Legal Left, Meet Creative Right, written by Matt Slaby. I have never read such a good account of Work-for-Hire and what it really means to the freelancing photographer.

If you are a freelancer and you have encountered WFH agreements (who hasn’t?), then I encourage you to read this thought provoking post.

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A week after arriving back in Bangkok from a month shooting in the Maldives, I picked up my first job with Wonderful Machine.

While I can’t show any outtakes or discuss who the client was, I can tell you that it was part of a global campaign and I was just one of many photographers assigned to it. My brief was to photograph a CEO on-location at a factory site outside of Bangkok. All went well and I hope to post some outtakes in the coming months.

Big thanks to the crew at Wonderful Machine, especially Jess Dudley.

If you haven’t heard of Wonderful Machine before, make sure you check out their site. They have a great roster of photographers, spanning the globe.

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Old chairs, Vientiane, Laos. Thomas Pickard / Aurora Photos

It always amazes me what images publications and organisations choose. Case-in-point: this photo was recently published by Newsweek worldwide and a week later, by Newsweek Japan. With a circulation of up to 1.25 million, I would have to say that this photo – which ran half page – is probably one of the most viewed photos in my archive.

As for the image, it was taken one morning while walking down a street in Vientiane, Laos last year. The sale was through my stock agency, Aurora Photos.

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For the people that have asked me to date and the people that will ask me in the months and the years to come, the answer is NO.

I do not provide imagery to companies or organisations to help promote a product or add value to a product, without remuneration.

Why?

It is how I make a living as a photographer.

If I just license imagery for free, then I can no longer make a living as a photographer (this isn’t rocket science folks).

Here are just a few immediate problems that I have as a working photographer with giving away imagery for free:

It does not put money in my bank account.

It does not put food on my table.

It does not help me pay for this computer that I am typing this on; nor does it help me pay for my photographic equipment; nor does it help pay for my marketing costs; nor does it help me pay for…the list is almost endless.

Now that I have cleared that up, let me add this – I have heard all the ‘good’ reasons why I should license my imagery for free.

My absolute favourite is ‘we will give you a photo credit’.

Sorry to burst your bubble and state the obvious, but a photo credit – while important – does not put money in my bank account. It does not put food on my table. It does not help me pay for this computer that I am typing this on. Do I need to explain it again?

Now if you have seen one of my photos and you just know it is THE perfect photo for your product or project or what ever it is that requires some imagery and you are tempted to ask for a free license, then this is what you have to prove to me.

Prove to me that every person working on your project is doing it for free. This also includes all the service providers – printing shops; creative agency; etc – that you may be using.

If – and only if – you can prove to me that everyone is doing this project for free, will I even remotely consider your request.

After all, if everyone else is getting paid, why should I be the one that provides a service for free?

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The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools.

The problem is the will to get good at it.

Seth Godin

I have a lot of time for Seth Godin. He writes a blog post everyday and is an incredibly astute thinker.

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Initially I used Flickr to showcase some of my work and to help provide some SEO juice to my main web site – www.thomaspickard.com

Then after one too many requests for ‘free usage’ or ‘we can give you a photo credit’, I decided to take my work down. I continued to use Flickr to share photos with family and friends through invitation only galleries. Something I still do, to a certain extent.

Not long after, I had my work accepted by the newly opened Photoshelter Collection.

Run by Photoshelter, the Photoshelter Collection was really one way of crowd sourcing imagery from both amateur, serious hobbyist and working photographers. Part of the rationale being, that a lot of the stock available at the time was too stocky; too stale and too boring. Less than a year later, the Photoshelter Collection closed its doors.

A couple of months before the Photoshelter Collection closed its doors, Getty Images and Flickr announced a partnership. The partnership was in essence, Getty editors scouring the Flickr universe to find salable imagery (read: crowdsourcing). Later, Getty let people apply to the Flickr Collection and more recently, they have made a very public call for submissions.

Now I am not saying slap up your work on Flickr in the hope that Getty may email you asking to submit it to the Flickr Collection. Instead, what I am saying is that the times are changing and the deal between Getty and Flickr is a great example of this. As a working photographer I care less about how people find me and more about people actually finding me. And by me, I mean the imagery I have for licensing for publication and commercial uses.

If Flickr helps get more people to my door, or to the imagery I have with Getty Images available for licensing, then great!

In my mind it doesn’t matter how people find you. As long as they do. If you can use Flickr to help people do that, then you should.

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Last week I had my first stock submission to Getty Images reviewed. Of the 500 images I have submitted to date, I had 359 photos reviewed with 173 photos accepted into the library. Given I always submit similar photos – verticals and horizontals of same scenes – I have an acceptance rate of 1 photo for every 2 submitted.

While it is always good to have material accepted, there is always the processing of the final high resolution files prior to delivery. I am yet to have a high resolution file rejected by either Aurora Photos or Getty Images.

When I am preparing high resolution files for delivery, I always think ‘this is forever, so make the files perfect’.

And if you are new to stock or are considering getting into stock, then don’t forget these vital points:

- Always, always, always keep good notes on the who, what, where and when. You will need this information for your captioning and knowing the locations is particularly important

- Try and get model releases whenever you can. Model releases make your accepted work more commercially salable.

- If composition allows, always shoot a vertical and a horizontal of the scene.

- Shoot things a little looser. I’m not talking about being sloppy with composition, rather I am talking about giving the designers and editors that will hopefully license your work, some room for things like copy etc.. during the layouts.

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