We’ve heard that Stockxpert was a slowly sinking ship, but this week it has finally sunk.  It all began when stock image giant Getty recently bought out Jupiter, who had recently acquired Stockxpert from Haap Media, a Hungarian based company that owned both StockXchange as well as StockXpert.  It’s like a big square dance in this business… swing your parter round and round, with all of the buyouts.  It was announced a few days back that StockXpert will be no more.  What does this mean for stock contributors?  Well it means some of our images (not all) are now going to be listed on the new subscription based site Thinkstock.com and whatever revenues we were making at StockXpert are basically history.  Can we say pay cut?

I really don’t understand this move, killing a well established brand such as Stockxpert.  What does this mean for stock photo contributors? All we can hope is that the existing Stockxpert buyers move to the other agencies, and that the sales balance out.  Stockxpert was about 8% (a pretty big chunk of change) of my total microstock income, and that’s now gone.  Never a dull moment in the stock photography world! What irks me is that Stockxpert had around 4300 of my images, where istock has just under 600.  This is due to their higher rejection rates, and the fact that I can only submit 20 new images each week as a non-exclusive contributor.  The pressure to go exclusive is ever-increasing.  This is the exact reason why you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in any one basket in this biz.

I just feel like ranting this fine morning.

Has microstock devalued the industry? Sure it has. What once was a $500 photo sale has now turned into a $5 or even 50 cent photo sale.  But in general, the internet as well as digital photography have devalued the industry.  There are even websites being set up where people are posting links to our images, to download for free. One idiot buys them, and then shares them with the rest of the dishonest people that actually take part in the plundering and looting.  There’s really no stopping it, either.  There are contributors that can live comfortably off of a microstock income in many countries around the world.  Do you think these ones give a crap about devaluing the stock industry? Definitely not; they’re probably making a better living than they ever could before.

Traditional and old school photographers can sit around and whine about how much it sucks, or they can adapt to market trends.  Or, stay out of stock altogether.  Sure there’s still a market for macro stock, mid-stock, and rights managed. I personally dabble in a little of each.  Yes it’s nice when I make a photo sale for $400, but honestly if I relied just on those types of sales I wouldn’t be making enough to pay the bills.  Those sales for myself are few and far in between, compared to microstock sales, which are steady and in general, pretty reliable. Overall, the numbers for the rights managed and macro stocks are on the decline.  Getty was smart to acquire istockphoto (and they even recently bought stockxpert from Jupiter) so obviously they are trying to gain back their market share whatever ways possible.

Stock is only just one tiny corner of this incredible industry.  I started as a graphic designer, and even in that field it’s the same way.  You can focus on all sorts of corners of the creative industry…just pick one you enjoy doing the most, and obviously one you can pay the bills with.  If you can juggle a variety of things without trying to heat 6 pans on 4 burners, then go for it.  There are a lot of ways to make money in this business.  We can’t change how the market is, but we can fortunately pick and choose which areas we want to try and compete in.

It never ceases to amaze me…lately whenever I’m traveling every soccer mom, teenager, and senior citizen is rocking a DSLR of some sort.  If not a DSLR, then a state of the art point and shoot.  The technology is here, and it’s getting cheaper.  It’s so available, there is going to be a lot of competition in the future.  Thankfully for us there is a heck of a lot more to know in this business than just buying a camera and pressing the shutter.  BUT then comes the internet and google…where you can learn anything you want in a matter of minutes.  Maybe we’re all screwed

How long do you personally feel this microstock wave will last? A lot changes have happened in this business.  Agencies have come and gone, and there have been some buyouts and mergers.  I’ve been selling microstock for just 4 years now, and there have been changes galore.  The question is…how long will this microstock wave last? Will it continue the way it is for years to come, or will it eventually get to the point where it’s not even worth the time?  What do you guys think?  If anyone is reading this – I’d love to hear your predictions.