TODAY’S PHOTOGRAPHY PARAPHERNALIA . . .
HERE TODAY….
GONE TOMORROW

If you’ve decided to put your photographic talent into the stock photo industry, remember this solid principle: No one will ever invent a substitute for pictures.

Because photography is like so many products in our gadgetry world, it’s always going to undergo improvement. Think of the first computer games.

Today’s amazing technological device is tomorrow’s souvenir. It wasn’t that the product was based on a faulty concept; it was just that an industrial society moves on and the constant element is c h a n g e.

The one element you can count on is that someone, somewhere right at this moment, is inventing a new way to take photos, a new way to deliver them, a new way to sell them, a new way to preserve them for posterity.

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Take cameras themselves. Soon that clumsy
clunkiness of mirrors and shutters in SLRs
will be gone and a new camera design that’s on
the horizon that is lighter in weight and quiet in
sound will replace today’s cameras, both amateur
and professional.
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In the marketing field, I stumbled on an email in January (last month) that led to a website where a photobuyer, full figure on plain background, was announcing that her publishing company was embarking on a publishing venture of three new book topics in April: wildflowers, children’s pets, and surfing. The deadline to submit was February 15th. She promised that payment for pictures was far above the usual microstock payment and in line with standard rates.

This new approach to finding photos puts the burden on someone else and saves her time and, of course, money. The selection of photos will be probably by an editorial committee through in-house light boxes. Look for other small house publishers to improve the system.

What else is changing in the process of selling your stock photos?

Book publishing itself can be expected to change to fit shorter press runs, and quicker turnover from inception to production and distribution.

Analog film was not in jeopardy until digital came along. Some die-hards are still producing film-based images, but fewer photobuyers are accepting them. Digital delivery killed the cumbersome transparency delivery. Sure there’s still talk on the forums about the merits of film-based pictures vs. digital. It has now subsided to a whisper.

Another example…Polaroid… Gone… withering on the vine. The concept was right for its times. But digital has replaced it.

Take cameras themselves. Soon that clumsy clunkiness of mirrors and shutters in SLRs will be gone and a new camera design that’s on the horizon that is lighter in weight and quiet in sound will replace today’s cameras, both amateur and professional.

What else will be coming along?
· Text search for finding the exact photo for a photo researcher will be improved
· Video tag search. No longer will alt tags and additional captions be necessary for a search engine to find specific video content on the web.
· New MAC and PC upgrades with short learning curves will reduce photographers’ workloads.
What can you do about it?

Don’t be too quick to jump aboard to buy a new product. Watch for announcements of new products that will affect your business operation or picture-taking. When the patent holders believe they are ready for mass production of their new product, you’ll see them advertising on the web, in the magazines and other places.

Play a wait-‘n’- see approach, and when the pioneers have tested it out, then it’s time to strike and spend the savings account you’ve been hiding under the bed. In the meantime, keep in the race with the tools that have proved useful to you so far.

Rohn Engh is the best-selling author of “Sell & ReSell Your Photos” and “sellphotos.com.” He has produced a new eBook, “How to Make the Marketable Photo.” For more information and to receive a free eReport: “8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer,” http://www.photosource.com/8steps.php