[photopress:logo_Getty_black.gif,full,alignright] The year is not starting out good for the stock photo business. Getty Images is putting it’s massive collection on the block according to The New York Times. (sure, go ahead and register to read the article. It’s free.)

As UGC (user generated content) became the tools of advertising art directors everywhere, the bottom dropped out of the market.

Here is iStock’s home page pricing module:

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From IStock (now owned by Getty Images)to Flickr. the people doing the layouts you’ll see online and in print selling you whatever you really need, have realized that the imagery that folks relate to most has been made,well, by those folks. You, your friends, lot’s of people.
And they can, and do, “borrow ” it for free from all of these sites for presentations. And when it come to finalizing these ads and bring them to market?
They are pretty darn cheap compared to what it was. Yes, they do pay, but it ain’t what it used to be.

Now there was major controversy about usage fees for stock photos used on the web. Getty introduced a $49.00 fee which caused the photographers to be up in arms. It was amended to be a 3 month.
I guess the writing is on the wall though. The stock business for photographers is on a downturn.
By the way, I’m not showing a Getty Image photo because they have a big old logo splashed onto the image and I think you should take a look for yourself.

Yes, there is alway a market for unique images. And extremely high quality images. Or the fastest fix to an assignment.

BUT, you knew that was coming, the supplemental income for photographers from stock sales has been WAY trimmed down. Like so many things these days.
You may want to watermark your images, which you can do with many of the digital image management sofwatre today.

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