PDN - August 2011

New in Stock

By romy ashBy

Opportunities to make money from stock are still plentiful, but a lucrative partnership between an agency and a photographer re- quires finding the right fit.

The founders of three new independent picture agencies offer a fresh look at the evolving stock photography industry from three very different perspectives. What they share in common is having been willing to take a chance on a good idea that is paying off thanks to hard work, enthusiasm and perseverance.

choosing one, and then having to learn coding to configure and customize it to his specifications. Surviving that, Brown was free to focus on what he knows best: pictures. He spent 18 years as a freelancer, followed by a job in the London Bureau of Bloomberg News as a photographer and photo editor. With vast experience in many areas, Brown had particular expertise in the fields of documentary photography and international reportage.

In 2006, he relocated from London to Canada, where he had lived years before. A large, wealthy nation reported to have the third largest oil reserves in the world, Canada—a member of the G8 and the G20—is nevertheless a country where national events go mostly unreported in the international media. Attempting to sell Canadian content to the international market seemed a futile endeavor, so Brown set about exploring options for distributing his Canadian images within Canada. In doing so, he discovered an empty niche: Canadian imagery with international implications—particularly around topics such as water, “During my time as a freelancer,” says Brown, “I gained extensive experience contributing to a number of agencies including Polaris Images, Sipa Press Bloomberg News and a wire service.” That experience has proved invaluable, although N49Photo is neither a typical stock agency nor a wire service. It has no members, no affiliations and offers no subscription service. What it does do is serve as what Brown describes as “a daily picture service with a growing archive with local, provincial, national and global relevance.” The images, all rights-managed, are licensed exclusively for editorial use.

Contributors must be news media or related publishing industry professionals, and as such they earn a highly competitive percentage on licensing sales of their respective images. The agency aggressively markets its images on a daily basis to a wide range of news media outlets, where potential clients can browse files of reportage and documentary projects and images related to political, business and environmental news. Contributors are also required follow a specific Style Guide when captioning and filing images. For example, let the photo editor in search of an image decide, suggests Brown, whether a crowd is big or small, angry or jubilant. Presenting accurate truth in captions without editorializing is a top priority for him.

n49Photo

Greater Vancouver, BC, Canada Founded: 2010

011 (604) 346-3178
www.n49photo.com
Adrian Brown, Senior Photographer/Senior Editor
“Creating N49Photo from nothing proved a massive learn-
ing curve,” says Adrian Brown. One of the biggest challeng-
es came in assessing digital asset management software,
© ADRIAN BROWN/N49PHOTO

Anticipating that N49Photo as a picture agency would attract photographers who travel frequently and cover international events, Brown tailored his growth plan to include international content in addition to Canadian. For that reason, he encourages contributors from all over the world to submit work.

Despite his many hats, Brown is a photographer first
and he’s made N49Photo as photographer friendly as its
possible to be. The agency offers advice and suggestions
to help germinate ideas. Following business news for in-
spiration is one such suggestion, since so much of that
news has to do with the environment and renewable en-
ergy resources. “Just going out the door to an assignment
often presents other photographic possibilities,” Brown
points out. Explore, he says. Be curious. Visit places you
have never been, drive down roads that appear to lead no-
where. “They frequently lead to interesting photographic
possibilities or offer ideas for another time.”
But the real key, Brown says, is optimism. Not getting
bogged down in cynicism over the difficulties created for
publishing and photography by the Internet and digital
technology. “Instead of decrying technological change,”
he says, “why not ask, ‘How can we make it work for us?’”

oJo Images Ltd
London, UK
Founded: 2007

+ 44 (0) 20 7780 7000 www.ojoimages.com Chris Ryan, Chairman With a large royalty-free collection and a small rights-managed collection, OJO has no specialty, per se, except perhaps for the one labeled “Good.” The only requirement is quality. But when they say quality, they really mean it. “We believe that the market has been awash with mediocre imagery attempting to sell at too high a price point,” says co-founder and chairman Chris Ryan. “Micro-stock pricing has eroded the sales of those images even more. Anyone can say we are going to produce ‘quality’ or ‘premium’ images. But saying it is a lot easier than doing it. We restore those levels of value to royalty free with our collection.”