Often too much choice could be a bad thing and stock photography is a good example. For years lots of the household-name stock photography agencies would promote themselves as being the biggest and having the largest collections. If you have been paying attention though, you may have spotted that's not such a favourite selling proposition any more and many of the larger libraries are now desperately trying to find other ways to distinguish themselves in an overcrowded market-place.
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 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.
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 goes back to the way the photo researcher values their time, and what type of value they put on finding the right photo fast. The best news for photographers is, more and more are prepared to pay a little bit more to bypass the tedium of a mass-distribution library and hone in on quality new images sooner.
So next time you want to buy stock photos, take a pass on the huge stock photo supermarkets, and check out a couple of the boutique collections instead ... You could be amazed at the difference.
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 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.
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 goes back to the way the photo researcher values their time, and what type of value they put on finding the right photo fast. The best news for photographers is, more and more are prepared to pay a little bit more to bypass the tedium of a mass-distribution library and hone in on quality new images sooner.
So next time you want to buy stock photos, take a pass on the huge stock photo supermarkets, and check out a couple of the boutique collections instead ... You could be amazed at the difference.
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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