NZPhotographer Issue 53, March 2022

A Sea Change In The Stock
Photography Industry
By Ana Lyubich
Over the last decade, nothing has changed
in the way that stock photography platforms
manage their commission structure, apart from
photographers receiving less money year on year for
the same number of sales! So it’s no wonder a lot of
photographers have lost faith in trying to sell their work
online in recent years.
For the global giants such as Shutterstock and Getty
Images, photography has been used as a commodity
for far too long with photographers receiving pennies
for their image sales despite the time, effort, and
energy needed to not only take and edit the photos
but upload them too. When the reward is so little
but the effort so high, there is no real motivation for
photographers to keep uploading their work despite
thousands of people and companies seeking fresh,
interesting, and authentic photographs.
I felt that it was high time something changed. Since
the beginning of last year, together with our team,
participating local NZ companies, and selected
Excio members, we have started building a new kind
of photography marketplace. Some of the findings
we came across during the development of the
marketplace I am sharing with you here.
THE FREE OPTION IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE
“I guess it’s just the way things are... and when we use
Unsplash, we take advantage of those photographers
who offer their work for free.” – This was the answer
from a big NZ educational institution when I asked if
they thought using free photographs from the web is
a good thing.
If businesses such as Shutterstock have helped
diminish the value of photography, sites like Unsplash
22 March 2022 NZPhotographer