Getty Images asked me to be a Contributor.  Wondering whether it is worthwhile -- not necessarily just monetarily, but perhaps just general exposure and "you never know what comes of it" kind of way?  From what I understand, it seems difficult to justify it monetarily.  So the question is whether is has other value that is worthwhile. 

Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Thank you!

It would have been a lot better if Getty had made that offer in 1995....

While stock is not what it once was, there is still money in stock if you know how to create the right images and know how to do it at close to zero cost.

I have contributor contracts with Getty, Corbis and Image Source.  For the last two years I have been giving the vast majority of my images to Image Source.  The reason is that I like the editorial support that Image Source provides.  I like the fact that I have a real live human editor to who works with me while at both Getty and Corbis, these people are a thing of the past.  And I like that I can upload un-retouched jpegs that they then choose from so I only have to re-touch final accepted images.  At Getty you have to upload final images and they choose from those.  Image Source has both a RM and RF collection and a huge distributorship.  The money while not great is not bad.

My income from stock peek in 2007 with about 37k in earnings.  It hit bottom in 2012 with around 8k but I am expecting to hit about 20-24k this year.  It is not enough to live off of but it is nice filler between my commercial gigs, and it gives me an excuse to test (most of my stock images were not shot for  stock but are out takes from test shoots). Plus I enjoy it.  I do on occasion set up a real stock shoot, it is from these that the majority of my stock income comes from.

I would take the Getty contract (are they offering you editorial support and a real editor or just the standard access to their portal?) and I would suggest reaching out to Image Source also.  There is no reason to have all your eggs in one basket.  You can then see who gives you the biggest bang for your images over the next year or two and who you enjoy working with the most.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

I was just involved with a photographer in a conversation on the subject of Getty. That photographer placed an image with Getty and Getty licensed it to Bing as a "Wallpaper of the Day" for US$ 45 of which the photographer got 20% of that.

Bing used it - worldwide - throughout their international subsidiaries [e.g. Bing Japan; Bing China; ect]. Now there are hundreds of infringing copies floating around the Internet, some attributed correctly to the photographer; some attributed falsely to someone else; and some with no attribution at all. A Google image search even turns up links to YouTube pages where the image doesn't actually appear on those pages at all but the image, as a thumbnail, does on the search returns. It appears that the YouTube pages of various kinds and of various YouTube contributors are simply made to link from that image.

The money from the license was virtually an insult to start with, but the infringements have literally destroyed the further commercial value of the image completely.

The photographer commented: "FUCK GETTY!!!"

Studio36

Awesome feedback!

Thank you very very much!!!

This was a simple offer to contribute from Getty -- so would not have expected much.  But again, I sincerely appreciate the great and informative feedback.

Thank you!

Zoltan

I wonder if it means anything that they're soliciting photographers.

You'd think they already have more images than they'll ever need. Is it possible that so many people have left that they're not getting enough new images?

Interesting question.  I certainly did not approach them in any way.  They simply emailed me with a link to my website, a selection of photos from my website, and an invitation to become a Contributor -- along with a link to do all of the "paperwork."

Is it a RM, RF or microstock contract? In general as someone else said stock isn't what it used to be.