getty sales?

I've sold some, recently for a book cover (BIG bucks) but you really get very little money all in all. It's a bad deal, but hey I'm no proffessional so I'm quite happy with what I get.
 
I just looked at Flickr and the amount the photographer gets is almost nothing!

There are two levels of sale:

Rights managed, Getty takes 70%

Royalty Free, they take 80%

Yeah 70 or 80%...you didn't read wrong, they take nearly EVERYTHING. No F--king thanks.
 
A photo editor has contacted me through flickr about a photo I had on my blog, it is almost an ID photo and if they decide to use it then 50 bucks. Good enough for a snapshot.
 
getty

getty

"A photo editor has contacted me through flickr about a photo I had on my blog, it is almost an ID photo and if they decide to use it then 50 bucks. Good enough for a snapshot."

Depending on who that 'photo editor' is, and the publication or organization that he/she works for... you can get at least 3X that amount... up to maybe 10X that amount.

They called you, right?

That means that you have something that they can't find, or don't like the regularly-available pictures of, anywhere else. Exclusivity has value.

$50 may be good enough for you, but if you want to make and hold friends in The Community Of Photographers, you MIGHT consider not dragging the "Industry Standard" price of a mugshot down to $50.

Which, of course, means that the next time that someone calls you, they'll offer $12.50...

As to Getty... the BEST deal at Getty, is for "Legacy Photographers" who are working on 8-10-year-old contracts... which means Getty takes 60%, and the photographer gets 40%.

Most Getty contracts are on the 70/30 (Getty gets 70%) deal, and if they feel that they have a 'live one'... they take 80%.

They also license pictures for $50... which means that... if an average Getty photographer wants to make $40,000/annum (before taxes, and Cost Of Doing Business)... Getty will have to license 2,668 of that photographer's photos, during the course of a year. That would be an unlikely number.

Getty is a Beat for any photographer looking to make a living.


Greg.
 
steamer said:
A photo editor has contacted me through flickr about a photo I had on my blog, it is almost an ID photo and if they decide to use it then 50 bucks. Good enough for a snapshot.
Click to expand...

$50 is basically free. You got cheated. The picture I licensed recently for a book cover gave me enough money to live for nearly a month even if I sell nothing else in that time. For one photo that I 'snapped' while wandering around an abandoned farm with an old Olympus SLR in my hand.

Of course, there's more to it than that. I had to develop the film, scan the negative, and because I am obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, I spent several hours editing it obsessively dodging and burning tiny areas most people would never notice....but then again, people keep telling me that my work is very good! Then, when the company that licensed it paid me, i had to dig it out of the archives and resize the file, put it up on my webserver for them to download, email them a download link, and take it back off the server once they got it.

Damn, this is starting to look like WORK. Good thing I demanded enough money to pay for my work, right?
 
I also got the invitation too but I took very long time to think again and again to accept it.
But they said that I have at least a couple step to cancel the deal. I may try on a few digital files but not my B&W film work which will go for limited edition silver gelatin print only.

IMO, The rate are very very cheap for photographers in exchange and photographer can not sell a similar shots of that pictures.

Cheers,
kitaanat
 
I hate to think how people who made a lot of money out of stock 10 and 20 years ago do now. I can only imagine their profits have plummeted and that they have had to significantly diversify.

I would not sell an image at $50 unless I was selling a hell of a lot of them and I felt they were worth nothing more than this. I tend to aim for quality not quantity so the Getty concept is the antithesis of everything I do. No thanks. I'd rather go without and not feel like I had been raped.
 
Greg M. said:
$50 may be good enough for you, but if you want to make and hold friends in The Community Of Photographers, you MIGHT consider not dragging the "Industry Standard" price of a mugshot down to $50.
Click to expand...

A plea for solidarity? A non professional photographer should abandon (is this the right word?) money for a professional photographer somewhere else in the world? For a friendly place in a virtual community? Sorry, but this sounds strange.
 
The money in stock images these days (if there is any) is in the specialised libraries, not getty or the other big players.
 
tom.w.bn said:
A plea for solidarity? A non professional photographer should abandon (is this the right word?) money for a professional photographer somewhere else in the world? For a friendly place in a virtual community? Sorry, but this sounds strange.
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You guys always say that, but how about this: Charge what the photo is REALLY worth. Then you have far more money for gear and you haven't destroyed a fellow citizen's livelihood.
 
Turtle said:
I hate to think how people who made a lot of money out of stock 10 and 20 years ago do now. I can only imagine their profits have plummeted and that they have had to significantly diversify.

I would not sell an image at $50 unless I was selling a hell of a lot of them and I felt they were worth nothing more than this. I tend to aim for quality not quantity so the Getty concept is the antithesis of everything I do. No thanks. I'd rather go without and not feel like I had been raped.
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I think the photographers who successfully did lifestyle stock back in the nineties have made enough money for an early retirement. Seriously, that was the golden age of stock photography and there was a lot of money to be made.
 
Last image I sold through a stock house- a stock photo, not royalty-free- I net 25 bucks. The prices are in the toilet. Getty ate up the other stock outfit I work with, my contract is a 50:50 split of the sale price. But little sells these days compared to ten - fifteen years ago when I easily made a living from stock. Granted, I'm shooting way less for them, but only after several years of losing money making the same or more effort than I did ten years ago with ever diminishing return.

Sure fashions change and all that, but making $25 per image use is a far cry from averaging $250 per.

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Charge what the photo is REALLY worth.
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Sadly, today it is not worth much. Besides, the houses set the price not the photographers. I'm sure the house would get a good chuckle from my telling them I needed $250 not $25 for that image.
 
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Chriscrawfordphoto said:
You guys always say that, but how about this: Charge what the photo is REALLY worth. Then you have far more money for gear and you haven't destroyed a fellow citizen's livelihood.
Click to expand...

I had a discussion with a photo researcher some time ago and he told me some interesting things about his experience with amateur photographers (like me for example). He has much more work with amateurs because they don't know how to handle these requests, don't know how to send the file, don't know how to write an invoice etc. They probably are not so punctual because they do all this in their free time. So if an amateur charges the same as a pro and he has a choice, then he takes the photo of the pro. He only takes photos of amateurs if they are cheaper or it is a very special photo.

So why are you worried about the amateurs who sell one photo in their life? Do they destroy someones livelihood?

Edit: perhaps it's the amount of one-time-sellers that is threatening?
 
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Chriscrawfordphoto said:
I just looked at Flickr and the amount the photographer gets is almost nothing!

There are two levels of sale:

Rights managed, Getty takes 70%

Royalty Free, they take 80%

Yeah 70 or 80%...you didn't read wrong, they take nearly EVERYTHING. No F--king thanks.
Click to expand...

That's their standard rate for contributers now too.

Been thinking about Lonely Planet Images: not sure if they're big enough to generate many sales, but it's a 60-40 split at least. Much more stringent portfolio/submission process for new photogs though.
 
despite the poor $$ one might get from getty through flickr...many people post pics there ANYWAY just to post pics...so if over a year one can sell enough photos to maybe earn a new lens...that would be gravy and i bet many would be doing the happy dance.
 
back alley said:
despite the poor $$ one might get from getty through flickr...many people post pics there ANYWAY just to post pics...so if over a year one can sell enough photos to maybe earn a new lens...that would be gravy and i bet many would be doing the happy dance.
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If they were smart they could get enough for a new lens from EVERY sale, not one lens from a years worth.
 
has nothing to do with being smart.

i make my living shuffling paper about, making sure we are on budget, writing reports and talking people off the bridge occasionally.

i have no desire to do anything remotely similar in order to sell my photos (providing anyone might want to buy any) but if getty will do all that for me....
 
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