NYC Photo Plus 2009

Well, I just got back from Photo Plus Expo in New York City and learned a ton about the stock photography industry. The trend is clearly continuing to move further and further toward the microstock model from traditional RF stock, as I spoke to several traditional stock photographers who are seeing a huge drop in sales this year, even as much as 60%, and that’s on top of 2008’s big drop. Reduced budgets and a much cheaper alternative (istockphoto, fotolia,…) are really hurting traditional RF and this trend will presumably continue through next year.

On the Microstock side, Yuri Arcurs and Andres Rodriguez (two on the right) both pointed out significa 2009 Microstock Panel at Photo Expo in NY nt drops in sales per image. This is due primarily to the increased competition in the market as more hobbyists turn pro ( yours truly included ) and more successful macrostock photographers entering the microstock market. Yuri and Andres also noted that the trend is toward more real and natural stock photographs and less ’stocky’ images. My hunch is that this has been a voiced concern from designers for many years, but possibly in varying degrees from year to year. For more thoughts and quotes from the microstock session check out my new friend Tyler Olsen’s forum post. I’ll try to periodically post some more things I learned from the conference over the next few weeks, but in the meantime check out one of my new favorite stock photographers Tyler Stableford, a great stock photographer… and real nice guy too.