johnrochaphoto.net

In a previous post I mentioned that I’m primarily a stock and editorial photographer.

But I do have some images for sale as artworks and some of these are hosted with Imagekind.

For the next few posts I’ll show an image from this collection.

And so to more ways of being on the web…

Whether it’s the economic situation or other things, I find that it’s finally caught up on me.

I find that I can’t think about blogging too much.

At the moment I actually have to look for some more business.

As I said, many agencies have crashed, and one of them, of course, was one that I was building up a good relationship with – Photoshelter.

But now I’m working with a new agency, alongside my established relationship with Alamy – I’ve decided to work with the  “Footprints” agency.

If you’re interested in seeing the pictures I’m gradually going to put on this site then you can click on their logo on this page.

Now, we’re still talking abut getting onto the web.

I became a photographer before the internet was even begun and since then there’s been a tremendous explosion of web traffic and hundreds of ways that photographers can get on the web.

So much depends on whether you just want to share your pictures with your friends or if you’re interested in the commercial or artistic possibilities.

As I think I’ve mentioned, I’ve decided to concentrate for most of my actual site needs on WordPress and I’ve got a number of reasons for this.

One is that WordPress is a blogging platform but it’s quite easy to turn it into a more conventional non blogging website – what is sometimes called a Content Management System or CMS.

This makes it very easy to constantly update material while keeping the same format and structure which can be quite difficult with a conventional website.

I do think though that’s its worthwhile to have somewhere that you can practise your website authoring skills or you HTML skills and for this reason it’s worth looking at some of the free hosts and storage sites that are available today.

Alexander Nevsky in Snow

The Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral Church in Sofia has been a good seller for me.

It’s one of the most famous buildings in the Balkans and it’s best to try to get a slightly different image.

Maybe that’s why I’ve found that snow scenes have done well.

I’m in the happy position that I live within easy walking distance of this fine building and so I can photograph it in all seasons by day and by night, in outline and in detail.

As Stock Photography is partly a numbers game it means I can easily build up a large set of different images of this great church.

The general economic climate and the various changes in the stock photo industry mean that I’m going to write a slightly different blog than I meant to, but I still think that I’m on theme.

It’s for you to judge.

Just as I was planning more chat about the business of stock photography, and how to have a web presence, it turns out that for many individuals and companies it’s actually the end of the business of stock photography and the end of their web presence.

Those of you who have followed my blog for some time will have seen that the link I used to have to Photoshelter has gone because Photoshelter, at least as a stock photo agency, is no more.

I received the news the other day from Alamy, as an Alamy contributor, that Alamy are reducing the photographer’s percentage.

The reason they give is to generate more money to break into the United States market.

And if we look at the USA market, what is happening?

Corbis is still there. Luckily, it seems to have great financial backing but as far as I know, is not exactly a money spinner.

Getty, the big player – its business model so much criticized by Photoshelter, has taken over Jupiter images for a mere $96 m dollars.

Now $96 m. dollars may not be small change to you and me but it seems that somewhere there’s money to be made in the stock photo business.

And only yesterday Digital Railroad posted on their site:

“October 28, 2008

To our valued Members and Partners:

We deeply regret to inform you that Digital Railroad (DRR) has shut down.

On October 15th we reported that the company had reduced its staff and was aggressively pursuing additional financing and/or a strategic partner. Unfortunately, those efforts were unsuccessful. Therefore Digital Railroad has been forced to close all operations.

Digital Railroad has attracted a loyal set of customers and partners, and we regret this unfortunate outcome. Without sufficient long-term financial support, the business had become unsustainable.

Thank you for allowing us to serve the photographic community these past few years.”

So what’s to be done?

Well I have some ideas and just for the moment I’m going to continue with how to build a web presence which might be even more important in these troubled times.

Interestingly enough I recently revisited Dan Heller’s site and found some interesting comments there which reinforce the point I made about photographers and web designers:

“If you get beyond your own technical skills or interests, then you might want to outsource the job to a web designer. But buyer beware: this path comes with some risks”

I suggest you read his comments here

Now I’m not going to suggest to everyone that you do what Dan did and learn everything yourself  but I do still want to emphasize that however much you want to work with an expert professional like a web-designer, it’s still a good idea to have some idea of how to do things, if only to ask the right questions.

You’ll see that this Blog is hosted on WordPress.

It’s taken me a long time and lot of thinking to make this decision, and things are changing all the time.

I’ll comment on my reasons for choosing a blogging platform and some other online matters in my next post.

By the way, so far my images have been straightforward stock photos but I do try to explore other outlets for sales and so for the next few blogs I’m going to showcase some of my photos available for sale on ImageKind