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 image buyers find enormous stock photo collections time-intensive and tedious to search, regardless of the improvements in image search engine technology. The difficulty is, the scale of these collections has increased at a greater rate than the search technology has improved ... So in plenty of cases, photo research has actually gotten slower and more difficult. It's no surprise then that an increasing number of image-researchers are opting for smaller 'niche' photo agencies, when they need to buy stock photos online.
These boutique stock libraries don't even try to compete on volume and most of the time they can't compete on price either ... But more and more buyers are swarming to these photo stock sites just the same, with a totally new set of reasons-to-buy.
Private service, contact with the photographers, fresh original pictures, unique styles and subjects. OK, perhaps these are not totally new reasons after all , but they're reasons-to-buy that've been pushed to the back for far to long.
A lot of it comes back to how the photography user values their time, and what kind of price they put on finding the right photograph fast. The good news for photographers is, more are prepared to pay a bit more to avoid the tedium of a mass-distribution library and hone in on quality new pictures faster.
So the next time you need to buy stock pictures, take a pass on the big stock photography super-stores, and check out a few of the boutique collections instead ... You might be surprised.
The truth is, many image buyers find enormous stock photo collections time-intensive and tedious to search, regardless of the improvements in image search engine technology. The difficulty is, the scale of these collections has increased at a greater rate than the search technology has improved ... So in plenty of cases, photo research has actually gotten slower and more difficult. It's no surprise then that an increasing number of image-researchers are opting for smaller 'niche' photo agencies, when they need to buy stock photos online.
These boutique stock libraries don't even try to compete on volume and most of the time they can't compete on price either ... But more and more buyers are swarming to these photo stock sites just the same, with a totally new set of reasons-to-buy.
Private service, contact with the photographers, fresh original pictures, unique styles and subjects. OK, perhaps these are not totally new reasons after all , but they're reasons-to-buy that've been pushed to the back for far to long.
A lot of it comes back to how the photography user values their time, and what kind of price they put on finding the right photograph fast. The good news for photographers is, more are prepared to pay a bit more to avoid the tedium of a mass-distribution library and hone in on quality new pictures faster.
So the next time you need to buy stock pictures, take a pass on the big stock photography super-stores, and check out a few of the boutique collections instead ... You might be 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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