The Spotlight Is On You THANKS TO NEW GENERATION MEDIA
New Generation Media is a phrase coming into its own. Stock photographers are hearing it more and more frequently. Where'd it come from? It's a response to the increasing ways you can transmit information, including visual and audio information, in today's hi-tech world.The good news: these evolving forms of image creation and image delivery have created new digital markets for you. As a successful stock photographer you need o stay on top of not only what’s happening in the traditional print media: magazines, books, textbooks, videos and catalogs, but also the exploding electronic media -- the communication companies utilizing HD television, video processing, CDs, cell phone videos, iPods, iBooks, iPads, desktop image delivery, screen-touch educational tools, and on-demand picture retrieval.
Some of the latter are being tested to see which ones emerge as the favorite tools for both photo editors and photographers using the marketing advantages of the Internet.
Classic commercial stock photography (the familiar scenics and generalized "situation" shots) as we've known it over the past decades will continue to be in demand, but the overwhelming supply of these generalized stock shots, available now on CDs, micro-sites and other discount sources on-line, will diminish their value -- and price tag, based on their usage by the photobuyers, or the value the photobuyer sees it bringing to their company or project.
The New Generation Media market is so vast that it utilizes what has come to be known as "micromarketing," the ability to isolate specialized markets and respond to them efficiently.
Micromarkets are specialized (niche) markets. If you narrow your stock shooting to a niche area and can supply a deep selection of photos in this specialized category, you are well on your way to being an authority in your specialized category.
In the retail marketing area they call this branding. If you are known for your “brand” you have won half the battle of acquiring new customers in this new generation of Internet marketing – the search engines will fill in the other half.
To survive in the New Generation Media, it’s even more necessary now for stock photographers to become specialists. The rules for photography excellence haven't changed, only the target. The demand by photobuyers for content-specific images will spur new generation media photographers to focus on specific subject areas they enjoy, and then to service markets whose needs match those areas. The provincial generalist (the classic commercial Rights-Managed stock photographer) will fade.
Want to read more?
http://www.photosource.com/psn-article/spotlight.html
|
International Home Page |
 
|