[Leica] Getty Images

[Nathan Wajsman]

Actually, Tina, you are proving Jayanand’s point. What you are describing, namely carving out a niche, taking advantage of the new marketing channels, and cutting out the middlemen, are precisely the kind of adaptations to a new environment that are needed to survive in the business when fundemental change happens.

Cheers,
Nathan

Nathan Wajsman

Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu
http://www.greatpix.eu
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/

Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator

YNWA













> On 01 Mar 2015, at 16:55, Tina Manley <tmanley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm still making a living with stock photography by photographing editorial
> subjects that others do not have, do not want to travel to get, don't think
> of posting, or can't get (especially with model releases).  My average
> income per sale has dropped by about half since I started in the 1980's but
> I'm also selling more than twice as much through world-wide internet
> connections that were not possible before the digital age.  My hope for the
> future is that we will be able to do away with agencies and get 100% of our
> sales through our own websites thanks to effective keywords and SEOs.
> That's on my agenda for this year.
> 
> Tina
> 
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Ted,
>> I am sorry, but that seems to be the marketplace today, however illogical
>> or awful it may sound to you. To my mind, it was inevitable, with the great
>> democratization of photographic matter that digital has wrought. By the
>> way, I have no idea of how stock sales work in detail, so I am just picking
>> up clues from the messages, and applying them to what has happened in
>> professional photography, and management culture, in general. Similar
>> income compression has been happening in a variety of professions, as the
>> hunt for the lowest cost has taken over as a prime management paradigm.
>> Eventually, in all these areas, the end customer benefits greatly through
>> lower prices. Other than weddings, medical, fashion and industrial
>> photography (there may be other niches, too, that I do not know about), I
>> cannot see any other niches where a photographer can make a decent living
>> today....
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Jayanand
>>