Why Second-Best Photography Won't Do Now


by Rohn Engh - Date: 2006-12-05 - Word Count: 291 Share This!

In the past decades, when photobuyers needed a particular photo, they would send out a request for it to several stock photographers and stock agencies simultaneously. As a result the photobuyer would receive several submissions. The buyer would choose the photo that most closely fit the bill and would return the rest of the "slides" to the other respective photo suppliers.

Photo researchers were excused for not locating a photo that contained all the ideal specifics. The searching had to be done by hand, with paper, film, and file folders, and the process was cumbersome and slow. Often the photo request to the photo supplier had a 7-day or shorter deadline. Everyone was under the same constraints. When they couldn't locate a specific image they figured they had "done their best," and the "second-best" or even "fifth-best" photo alternative was accepted. Photography used in publications of the past reflects these inadequacies. Editors and art directors frequently resorted to generic images, in content and style.

Finding The Specific Photo

Today, the advantages of our technological revolution make it possible to easily locate very specific and even obscure photos, thanks to textcentric Internet photo searching through services such as Google and others. Marketing techniques of the past are being phased out as photobuyers are learning to use the new Internet tools available to them, leading to new directions in photo-finding and acquisition. The needs of your photobuyers are influenced by their awareness that they now have the technology to locate highly specific pictures. We notice the increasing use of content-specific images in documentary films, coffee table photo books, biographies, textbooks, encyclopedias, you name it.

Make sure your stock business responds to what's happening in this new field of photo searching by the use of Web search tools.


Related Tags: stock, images, agencies, supplier, request, art, photo, researcher, generic, directors

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Telephone: 1 800 624 0266 Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: http://www.photosource.com/products

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