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August 02, 2005

Multiple Agents - Yes or No

Multiple Agents - Yes or No

How many stock photo agents should represent my work? This question is asked frequently both by new artists who want to enter the stock image field and also by well-established artists who want to expand their client reach and increase their revenue. Unfortunately, the best answer may be, “it depends.”

It depends on the type of subject matter you shoot.
It depends on the volume of work you produce.
It depends on the difficulty and cost of producing your images.
It depends on the needs of your agents.
It depends your business models - Rights Managed, Royalty Free, or Subscription.
It depends on whether you have agents, portals, or both.
It depends on whether your agents are foreign or domestic.
It depends on your time and financial budget.
It depends on whether or not you have a staff to help you.
It depends on the marketing and distribution capabilities of the agents.

Although there is no single answer, Alamy, Getty Images, Index Stock Imagery and Masterfile were nice enough to offer their input from the agent’s point of view. Their information should help artists answer some of these questions for themselves.

All four companies were asked if they allow contributors to give their work to more than one agency. All four answered YES. Stuart Cox at Alamy claims: “Submitting to multiple agents improves the artist’s revenue return opportunities, while providing the widest possible audience for the photography.” Index, Getty Images and Masterfile are “image-exclusive.” That means that while they allow artists to submit to multiple agencies, they do NOT allow artists to submit the same image to more than one. Alamy is “non-exclusive”, which Cox says, “therefore gives the contributor the opportunity to work with multiple agencies without any contractual problems.”

None of the agents have stuck to the old “photographer-exclusive” approach. Anthony Harris, VP of Photographer and Filmmaker Relations at Getty Images states: “We respect this need for freedom and affirmed it in the standard contracts introduced four years ago.” Bahar Gidwani, CEO of Index Stock Imagery says it goes a bit further: “We also allow our artists to market images themselves, including those they have given us.”

Each company is fairly flexible on the number of ‘selects’ they require for submissions, because they are more interested in a high quality submission than receiving high quantities of images. As Index describes it: “Often the quantity of work an artist produces is related to her/his technique or artistic approach. For instance, some of our artists use extensive post-processing - either digital or print/chemical - to achieve a specific ‘look’. There is no point in pushing our artists to submit more images,” says Gidwani, “if they don’t meet our quality and subject need standards.”

Cost is always a factor, when considering submitting high volume imagery. Masterfile and Index claim they do not charge their artists fees on their submissions. Getty Images explains that there are no submission fees for their traditional collections. However, they mentioned two examples of fees for optional programs - images included in catalogs, and ‘Photographers Choice’ images; a program launched last year for photographers who are part of the Rights Managed collections of Stone, The Image Bank and Taxi. These artists can pay a small per-image fee, and Getty will upload these images without editing them.

Because Alamy started as a “portal,” it has a different system. They offer a tier system for payment and commission. In their words: “Alamy Green is 25% commission, with 10 cents per image per month storage charge, but most contributors opt for the Alamy Blue contract which is 35% commission returning 65% to the contributor with no storage charge. The only additional cost is when we issue a payment to a contributor. This is a charge we have levied by our bankers and is passed on at cost in order to keep the commissions we charge as low as possible. The payment charge is $8 for a check or $11 for wire transfers and this is made if a contributor’s account is $250 or more in credit at the end of each month. If no payment is made, then no charge is levied.”

All the agents other than Alamy define ‘similars’ about the same, and prohibit submitting similars to other agents. In Getty’s words: “Key factors considered in reviewing images for similars include models, clothing, props/detail, settings and locations, composition, feel/atmosphere, idea/concept/story, activity and technique. When a number of these elements are similar or identical across two or more images, it is likely that we will consider them to be similar.” According to Alamy, they are non-exclusive. This makes it possible to submit similar material to both Alamy and other agencies, provided this fits with the other agent’s contract.

How tight are the edits? At Getty Images, Index and Masterfile, the edits are pretty tight. Index normally takes less than 10% of a submission, and they do not take all the similars. According to Susan Morissette, VP of Content Management at Masterfile: “If we are only interested in one image from a shoot and know that an artist is with another agency, we will sometimes pass on the image so the photographer can market the entire shoot somewhere else, but this is an unusual situation. In most cases we feel we take a reasonable number of similars to meet client requirements.” Alamy has a different take on the matter: “We don’t edit our collection but instead allow our photographers and agencies to edit their own work. We offer guidance, and our advice is to edit with impact.”

Most of this discussion has involved Rights Managed imagery. Some artists create large inventories of non-exclusive Royalty Free imagery that is represented by many agents. These images can also appear in subscription models, the newest of the sales structures being employed by the larger agents. This can get confusing, as agents will cross represent some of each other’s collections, and some companies will be represented by the same foreign agents. All of these issues can affect the photographer’s business model.

As a final thought, these four agents were asked how they saw the issue of multiple agents affecting their general image inventory. Alamy offers this advice: “Bad editing can cause redundancy ---conversely over editing can cause a homogenized look to preside over the collection. Multiple agencies representing similar images from the same photographers can be problematic, as the clients are seeing too much of the same content in multiple sources and from an art buyer’s/picture editor’s perspective this can make research quite laborious. Our advice is to consider having diversity within your submissions to maximize your impact through multiple agencies.”

Masterfile notes: “There is a danger of slipping into a pattern of using the same formula of shooting to cut time and costs in order to move images onto multiple websites as fast as possible. This curtails creativity and hinders growth. The photographer’s challenge should be to reassess their work and challenge themselves creatively to work at new and interesting ways of representing the individual agencies or clients needs.”

Getty Images assures us that: “We respect each photographer’s individual talents, style and point of view, and strive for collaborative working relationships, sharing trend information and providing art direction to develop images that meet targeted customer needs. We think that this approach positively impacts each photographer’s unique creativity while providing the diversity in our collections that customers need. Thriving competition is always good for every industry.”

Index Stock concludes with: “We feel submitting to multiple agents benefits some artists and is poor for others. We feel artists benefit more from a closer relationship with a professional editor at a single agency, allowing the artist to focus on his/her strengths and to get clear direction on subjects and style. One of the biggest misconceptions people have about our industry is that it is a ‘numbers game.’ Instead, it is a ‘quality game.’ We are in favor of any business system that allows and encourages our artists to create more high quality images.”

Thank you to the following contributors to this article:

Alamy - Stuart Cox, Contributor Development and Partnerships Manager
Getty Images - Anthony Harris, VP of Photographer and Filmmaker Relations
Index Stock Imagery - Bahar Gidwani, Chief Executive Officer
Masterfile - Susan Morissette, VP of Content Management; Linda Crawford, Manager of Artist Services; Felicia Cohen, Artist Recruitment Manager

Author, Pat Hunt, is VP of Corporate Relations at Index Stock Imagery, a lecturer, and a writer for various photographic publications. (path@indexstock.com)

Posted by Pat at August 2, 2005 08:15 PM

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