Bob Finlay

Cheyenne Rouse

Lou Jacobs Jr.

Toni Lankerd

                                                    

In the early stages of your photomarketing career you are going to encounter "The Flake" –the small start-up stock agency that will promise you the world if you let them market your photos. Let’s call them AJAX.

After many years of observing the world of stock photography, I’ve seen that photographers can avoid a lot of grief by listening to three small words: don’t do it. That is: don’t resort to a desperate decision to place a selection of your images with a stock photo agency like AJAX, that has no accountability or track record in the industry.

How do you avoid this? When you’re just starting out, unfortunately sometimes you can’t. The agencies available to you as a newcomer are newcomers themselves. And most stock agencies just breaking into the market don’t have the credentials to qualify to join PACA (Picture Agency Council of America) - which is a stamp of approval of an agency's reliability.

My best advice if you do plan on trying out an upstart agency (AJAX) that you have been unable to find much background information on, is to sign up with AJAX only if you live within a day’s driving distance of their office. Or, you may have a good friend or relative that lives nearby.

All stock agencies should offer a contract. Since AJAX is not a nationally recognized agency, cross out any phrases or paragraph(s) in the contract that bind you to a lengthy duration of time. Limit the time to one year.

From Ajax’s point of view, sometimes this level of agency figures they are doing you a favor by spending their money to find outlets for your photos. This can translate into a patronizing approach to handling your images: slow response to your inquiries, sloppy administration, inadequate filing and retrieval.

Most photographers are eager to place their pictures in a stock agency –any agency. If you are going to make an investment (your images) in an upstart stock photo agency, make sure their cash position is such that you can sleep well at night, knowing that your pictures are in good hands. No matter how clever the agency’s ideas, marketing plan, or emotional appeal to you, stand back and take a realistic look at the downside.

If Ajax’s revenues fail to materialize, their enthusiasm begins to wane, their attitude sours, and the resulting effect in the next months is that you find your pictures are gathering as much dust in their files as they were in yours. The exception, of course, is that you have lost control over them.

HOW TO GET THEM BACK

Retrieving your images now becomes paramount.

Let’s look at Ajax’s position. The owner has taken a second job to make ends meet. He/she has no help, so retrieving your images from the files is going to take after-hours labor. Even the cost to FedEx your images back to you will come as a hardship. Any monies due you are not available. Available cash has gone to pay for the telephone (which will soon be disconnected). It’s not going to do much good to rattle sabers at them and threaten a lawsuit. No attorney will take this kind of case on contingency.

Your objective is to get your images back. If you can personally visit AJAX, you have more leverage than a photographer who lives, say, 1,000 miles away.

Do your own detective work. Are they paying the electrician, the plumber, but not you? Are they paying other photographers, but not you? Remember, they have already won Round #1. They have possession of your images.

Try diplomacy, first. Explain that you have other outlets for your images. You want your pictures back –no questions asked. You’ll even pay for the shipment or personally visit the office.

If that doesn’t work, take AJAX to Small Claims Court. Sometimes a summons from the Sheriff’s office will give them a wake-up call. Your situation will come to the top of the pile (they are probably getting similar requests from other photographers).

If you go to court and are victorious, the judge might award you damages. The Sheriff might serve them papers, but you still may never see the cash if they declare hardship with no ability to pay.

This caution is not meant to be an indictment of small stock agencies, per se. Historically, the majority give real service to our industry. Just make sure, if you’re looking at a small, "unrecognized" agency, that you give it a good hard look. -RE

(PACA, http://info@pacaoffice.org )

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