Jupiter bringing up shooters from the “farm team”
Jupiterimages has announced a program to allow contributors to its micro-stock site, StockXpert (the sister product to the popular stock.xchng free image site), to submit images for possible distribution under its mid-price range RF brand, Dynamic Graphics (DG.) On a page on the StockXpert site dedicated to the program, the company invites contributors who have been members for at least three months to submit exclusive-only imagery.
The program offers micro-stock shooters, who generally take only a cut of the $1 to $5 prices their images fetch on StockXpert, the opportunity to license images at the more favorable price levels on DG; $79.95 for a low-res file, $149.95 for medium-res and $219.95 for high-res. "Dynamic Graphics is one of Jupiterimages' most established brands and this new channel will provide the Stockxpert community the opportunity to showcase their work while injecting fresh, new content and a global perspective to one of our existing collections," stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupiter.
When asked about micro-stock, Gary Shenk, now CEO of Corbis, likened it to a farm team from which new talent could be recruited for the high-end collections. Getty has already put in place its own program to bring successful micro-stock shooters up into one of its higher end brands, though Getty’s eligibility requirements of having achieved certain sales levels as a micro-stock shooter are much stiffer than those at Jupiter. This “farm team” approach exemplifies how the industry has been turned on its head by crowd-sourcing, making the environment much more difficult for professional photographers who now must compete with an army of digital-camera bearing amateurs (many quite talented) who face no barrier to entry into the business.
Website: StockXpert
Comments
Unfortunately an agency that didn’t want to cannibalize their collection of quality images by reverting to micro-stock is now going out of business:
http://jeffsingerphotography.com/blog/2007/09/28/ibid-rip/
Posted by: Jeff Singer | September 28, 2007