Occasionally too much choice can be a bad thing and stock photography is an excellent example. For years plenty of the household-name stock photo libraries would promote themselves as being the largest and having the biggest collections. If you've been paying attention more recently though, you could have noticed that isn't such a unique selling proposition any more and plenty of the bigger libraries are now busy looking for alternative ways to differentiate themselves in a crowded market.
The truth is, many photography users find giant stock image collections time-intensive and tedious to search, in spite of the improvements in photo search engine technology. The issue is, the scale of these collections has increased at a greater rate than the search technology has improved ... So in many cases, photo research has essentially gotten slower and more difficult. It's no surprise then that more photography-researchers are opting for smaller 'niche' photo libraries, when they need to buy stock photos on the web.
These boutique stock libraries do not even try and compete on volume and most of the time they cannot compete on price either ... But more photo researchers are heading to these image stock sites regardless, with a completely new set of reasons-to-buy.
Personal customer service, direct contact with the photographers, fresh original images, unique styles and content. OK, maybe these aren't totally new reasons after all , but they are reasons-to-buy that have been pushed aside for far to long.
A lot of it comes back to the way in which the image buyer values their time, and what sort of worth they put on finding the right image fast. The good news for photographers is, more are prepared to pay a more to avoid the tedium of a mass-distribution library and hone in on quality new photographs faster.
So the next time you need to buy stock photography, take a pass on the massive stock image super-stores, and check out a few of the boutique collections instead ... You may be pleasantly surprised.
The truth is, many photography users find giant stock image collections time-intensive and tedious to search, in spite of the improvements in photo search engine technology. The issue is, the scale of these collections has increased at a greater rate than the search technology has improved ... So in many cases, photo research has essentially gotten slower and more difficult. It's no surprise then that more photography-researchers are opting for smaller 'niche' photo libraries, when they need to buy stock photos on the web.
These boutique stock libraries do not even try and compete on volume and most of the time they cannot compete on price either ... But more photo researchers are heading to these image stock sites regardless, with a completely new set of reasons-to-buy.
Personal customer service, direct contact with the photographers, fresh original images, unique styles and content. OK, maybe these aren't totally new reasons after all , but they are reasons-to-buy that have been pushed aside for far to long.
A lot of it comes back to the way in which the image buyer values their time, and what sort of worth they put on finding the right image fast. The good news for photographers is, more are prepared to pay a more to avoid the tedium of a mass-distribution library and hone in on quality new photographs faster.
So the next time you need to buy stock photography, take a pass on the massive stock image super-stores, and check out a few of the boutique collections instead ... You may be pleasantly surprised.
About the Author:
Matt Brading is a photographer and writer with the Global Eye co-operative stock photo agency, where buyers can deal direct and buy stock photos directly from the photographer
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