Stock Tips: What’s An ISIA?
News from the stock photo world:
- A new trade association hopes to become a gathering place for stock photographers and everyone else who works with stock imagery.
The International Stock Imagery Association (ISIA) launched its web site this week. The group, started by people who met in an online discussion group, now has a board of directors and says it is pursing certification as a non-profit association.
The ISIA joins the alphabet soup of industry organizations that already includes the Stock Artists Alliance (SAA), the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) and several other stock groups. So what makes this organization different?
According to its organizers, ISIA hopes to be an inclusive organization, serving photographers, graphic artists, art buyers and distributors and welcoming a variety of opinions. Though its president and its executive director are both photographers in the U.S., the organization has members from many countries and professions.
“I think there’s room for an organization like ISIA,” says the group’s president, Jim Hunter.
Another difference, says ISIA executive director Clarence Walker, is that the ISIA will be open to many models of stock licensing.
“There were quite a few folks who were tired of the old royalty free versus rights managed debate,” he says.
To us, this sounded like a jab at the Stock Artists Alliance, which has historically advocated against royalty-free stock. We asked Walker, a former SAA member, if he was setting up his new group to counter the SAA, but he declined to take the bait.
“SAA serves what it serves. And they do that well,” he said.
Betsy Reid, SAA’s executive director, was similarly courteous when asked about the ISIA.
“I say more power to anyone who’s trying to bring… everyone together in this industry,” she said.
For now, the ISIA is little more than a web site. Membership is free. As of mid-day today, the ISIA online directory listed 37 registered users - including this reporter, who signed up so he could read the message boards.
- The photographer behind the success of Comstock has launched a new royalty-free stock production company called Tetra Images.
Tom Grill, a stock photographer based in New Jersey who is also a part owner of Blend Images, launched Tetra last month. Grill says Tetra will focus on three categories: still life concepts, people and scenics/travel.
“I’ve done this for 35 years and I know what sells,” Grill says, predicting, “These will be the highest selling images that I know if in these categories.”
So far, all the images in Tetra are by Tom Grill or his daughter, Jamie Grill. Tom Grill says he is not actively seeking new photographers, but may bring in more people the future.
Grill says he expects Tetra to be distributed by many channels, including Corbis, which currently distributes Grill’s rights-managed work. Grill, not bashful about self-promotion, says, “I’m probably their top earning photographer.”
Grill was the co-founder and chief photographer at Comstock for more than 20 years before the image library was sold to Jupitermedia several years ago.
On a typical day, Grill says, he and his production staff can produce 70 stock images. In the past year, he has added about 6,000 images to his collection.
“It’s just experience. Its not that I’m smarter than anyone else,” he says. “We know what sells.”
- U.K.-based Alamy recently celebrated the 4 millionth image added to its stock image library.
Alamy has won praise from photography advocates by paying 65 to 75 percent royalties on image licenses. The company licenses both royalty-free and rights-managed images.
On the other hand, Alamy also doesn’t edit collections, letting its contributors decide which images to sell. That accounts for the astonishing growth in the number of images available. Alamy says its contributors added 2 million images this year and are now adding an average of 200,000 new images a month. At that rate, by our math, the 5 millionth image should come around April.
Go to: PDN
