Photographer, Art Director, Editor Scott Redinger-Libolt Interview

Image of Latina women with low rider cars shot on a Blend stock photo shoot art directed by Scott Redinger-Libolt.

Interview with Photographer, Art Director and Editor Scott Libolt

Thank you John for the opportunity. It’s a privilege to be interviewed by a top shelf photographer such as yourself. In efforts to be completely candid, I must preface this interview by stating these are simply my current opinions, they are ever changing, and in no way represent the viewpoint of any stock agencies I have ever worked for. Not everyone agrees with me all of the time …not even myself.

Scott, I have only been art directed on stock shoots twice in my life, and once was by you. I have to say it was a great experience and I remember thinking during the shoot that you were saving my… well, lets say your contribution to that shoot saved the day.

Ah, yes… our famous Lowrider shoot. Good times… we’ll have to do another one soon.

Still, I don’t really know a whole lot about you. I know you shoot stock and you have been (and are) an editor/art director for Blend images. Can you fill us in on your journey to being both an art director and a stock shooter?

My first photo gigs were in the early 90’s shooting publicity stills on film sets (mostly horror films) in Los Angeles. This was one of the most interesting photography experiences of my career. I learned a lot about filmmaking and the camaraderie on-set is wonderful …but I couldn’t see myself growing old in Los Angeles eating junk food and smoking cigarettes in-between takes.

Inspired by travel photography, I became curious about stock photography and employed myself at Westlight (one of the top five agencies at the time). Westlight was formed by National Geographic photographers, lead by Craig Aurness. Amazed by the people and photography that surrounded me, I strayed from the assignment path completely and by 2000, I began shooting stock under the pseudonym, “PBNJ Productions”. Simultaneously, I held Editor and Director positions inside agencies such as Corbis, Brand X Pictures, Jupiter Images, Blend Images, and SuperStock.

You could say I bring a unique combination of skills and experience to my profession now as I shoot for as many stock agencies as I have worked inside. The rounded perspective has made me a well-informed advocate for photographers and agencies alike. I currently divide my time between shooting stock, assignments, creative consulting for photographers, and freelance photo editing for Blend, SuperStock, and the Green Labor Journal. My wife and I just moved to Miami Beach last year, which we are very excited about.

Scott, how does your experience as an art director change your approach to photography?

Not so much the directing, but the overall agency experience has made me a much more profitable stock photographer for sure. Knowing what makes a stock photo sell is the key to success in this business. Evolving one’s style with the changing times is also very important. My only complaint is that after 14 years in this industry, it becomes harder for me to shoot subjects like fine art, edgy self-promos, editorials, etc.. I developed a bad habit of questioning the commercial value of whatever I was working on. This is really bad for the creative process and I’ve had to distance myself from stock in the past to redefine my inspirations and renew confidence in my creativity.

Does your experience as a photographer improve your ability to communicate and work with other photographers in your capacity as an editor/art director?

Consulting photographers on making better pictures actually started with my employment at professional photo labs in the late 80’s and has been a quest ever since. My experience as a shooter and skills with Photoshop further enhance my art directing abilities. I believe that by knowing the scope of creative options and how to achieve them gives me an edge. I must say, I have my challenges as well…. I often find myself directing a photographer to shoot a scene as I would shoot it myself. It’s very hard sometimes NOT to impose my own personal style and vision onto the project even though its actually my job to do just that. Twisted, huh? With that said… my efforts have been both praised and criticized.

Do you ever want to just take the camera out of a photographer’s hands and shoot the damn shot?

Yes, and I’ve done it a number of times …though always at the photographer’s request. I’ve requested specific f-stops and lighting techniques too. Some photographers have boundaries while others commend the experience and team effort. Everyone’s different and one of the important skills of art directing stock photographers is knowing the level of participation that is expected. Years ago, I flew to the tropics to art direct a photographer for Corbis. When I arrived, the photographer told me, “I usually just shoot whatever I want” …so, I was completely hands off and the photography was beautiful. Whatever it takes… I don’t mind lugging C-Stands or ordering lunch.

Do you have any observations about having your own work edited by someone else?

Because of my experience, I provide very tightly edited shoots to my agencies. As a result, my acceptance rate is pretty high and RPI is above average at most agencies. I know what my best-sellers will be and I think it’s important not to give an editor any opportunities to choose bad (less sellable) images. Equally important, I don’t want editors to over-select by choosing too many unneeded frames. Each picture costs me time and money in post-production and I don’t want to clog up my workflow with low or non-selling similars. I do really like being art directed on a shoot. It takes off a lot of pressure and frees me up to be more creative.

What do you like to shoot the most?

This is a hard question for most stock photographers as many are generalists. With stock, I mostly like the constant changing of subject matter and strategizing new challenges with each shoot. My wife and I shoot most of our projects together. Our inspirations are similar and our specialty is People/Lifestyles. However we both find more personal fulfillment these days when shooting spontaneous travel and fine art. When I’m shooting, I think equally about the composition, the feeling, and the authenticity conveyed within the image. Hitting the target with all of these crucial aspects gives me much joy and satisfaction …and this feeling is why I shoot.

Coming up with a constant stream of ideas can be pretty daunting. What is your approach?

When seeking subject matter for stock photography, it’s best to keep a calendar of events. Start by outlining everything that is in some way participated or celebrated…. Holidays, Sports, Travel, Weddings, Babies, School, etc… Nearly everything humans obsess on is cyclical. The same goes for needs of art buyers. If photographers can hit with the right subjects at the right time, they can maximize the life and profit of their images. Once you have made a subject calendar that is in-line with your inspirations, locale, and resources… you must shift the whole schedule backwards to account for advance art buying (about 3-4 months) and your “time-to-market”. Time-to-market varies depending on your own workflow and that of your agencies. You can plan your whole year out in advance and use it over and over. If I only followed my own advice with this process, I’d be… well… probably not sitting at my computer right now.

To what extent do you research your shoot ideas?

Films, fashion mags, and real life are my top places for inspiration. Really great styling, quirky documentaries, unique people, and interesting places turn me on. It’s so important to take time and soak up the things that surround us every day. I mean really soak it up… you might realize that you are missing quite a bit.

For ideas (other than the handy subject calendar), I suggest looking everywhere EXCEPT at stock agency search results. Look there ONLY to see what your competition is. Do not make a shot-list from what already exists. Photographers must shoot outside the redundancy found in agencies if they want their pictures to be noticed and licensed. Working with a good art director or editor can help you develop your ideas and steer you into a more original space.

How do you go about finding the “holes” in agency collections?

Your editors should be able to give you a list of holes …or you can research them pretty well yourself. With our travel photography, we simply do destination-specific searches, break-up the trips into cities, and portion out to the agent with the least amount of relevant search results. Same process can be done with lifestyle shoots by searching subject, concept, and ethnicity to find the agency with the least coverage.

How do you prepare for a stock shoot?

I like to get all the production tasks locked-down first before I let myself indulge in the creative part. Location, casting, crew, permits, props, wardrobe, rentals, lunch, and logistics first. Then hopefully, we’ll have a couple of days left for creative but not always. By this time, I’ll have likely accumulated the key shots in the back of my mind or on little scrap notes I stuff in my pockets. Production can be stressful but it’s also a distraction that allows for the creative process to manifest itself without too much pressure from me to be brilliant or to be doubtful.

Tell us about your experience with Blend. Has working with Blend been different for you than with past or other agencies?

Working for a progressive company like Blend is awesome. Many of Blend’s employees work from home (which is great for the planet and the bottom line). I’ve worked with Sarah Fix and Rick Becker-Leckrone, in many capacities and at many agencies, for the last 13 years. For the last few years at Blend, I’ve been responsible for editing, managing, and preparing all promotional imagery on Blend’s website and eNewsletter. My part-time schedule allows me to set my own hours and gives me time for personal projects.

You and Cristina work as a team. How do you divide up your responsibilities?

Yes… We live, love, work, and fight together 24/7. I usually drive the original concept of our shoots whether stock, portfolio, or assignment. We both share pre-production tasks and Cristina takes a lead on post-production and marketing. During our stock shoots, we both are shooting simultaneously using different focal lengths. The night before, we coordinate who will shoot what, when, and from what angle and lighting. This method has proven very successful as we generally get an equal amount of selects with two styles of coverage. It just takes more crew to assist but it is totally worth it.

In your opinion, what makes a great stock photo?

A great stock photo is fresh, unique yet familiar, can be cropped horizontal or vertical, and has space for client’s text/logo. For best sales potential, stock photos must have context and end users should be able to apply a multitude of concepts. The ever-growing trend for realistic advertising also dictates a more respectable aesthetic.

What qualities does a photographer need to succeed in stock?

A trust fund… perhaps a second job? Just kidding (kinda) …but we all have our own definitions of success. In my opinion, professional photography is as much a lifestyle choice as it is a profession. The satisfaction from making photographs is part of our profit and should be factored in (but not taxed).

It doesn’t matter what you are shooting these days (stock, editorial, or assignment), revenues have declined considerably. The hay days of the late 90’s – early 2000’s are finished and we need to get over that. The truth is however (in stock at least), the revenue back then was too high to sustain itself and a market correction was inevitable. Very few agencies actually reached high profit margins due to the overhead and marketing it takes to function and compete. I’m not saying that the current revenue average is appropriate either… the economy must factor in. I believe active shooters will see a noticeable bounce this year.

So, what qualities are needed to succeed in stock? A thoughtful and realistic approach to managing a creative business, flexibility during economic slumps, lots of research, trend awareness, and an annual production plan to create specific imagery intended to provide solutions to art buyers. Sound easy?

What are the most common mistakes you see stock shooters making?

1. New photographers shooting what they “think” stock should look like: When an agency signs a new photographer, many times it’s because of their best portfolio work (which may not look like stock at all). The photographer then believes they must change their personal style to fit “the bland and generic mold of stock”. They remove the personal flair that attracted the agency in the first place which results in a lack of feeling in their work and prevents their photographs from standing out. Don’t change your style! Instead, apply it into the commercial subject matter you are now faced with.

2. Opportunistic shooting without context: This is another mistake made by photographers new to stock. Instead of developing a commercially viable subject to shoot for stock, photographers often end up shooting what falls in their lap. A model needs headshots so a trade shoot is discussed and executed without much effort spent on making it contextual, conceptual, or even commercial. This results in a whole bunch of portraits of a model being a model. Pictures like this are in abundance and easily get lost in search results because of very little keywords associated. Put your model into a commercial role that fits their type.

3. A great shoot but no post-production: I see this more and more now that photographers are out-sourcing their processing/retouching in large batches. I understand the need to cut corners but be sure you approve the batches before submitting finals…especially if you are spending less than a dollar per image. I’ve seen whole shoots that are too dark, too muddy, bad color, poor retouching, no retouching, etc…. If the images don’t pop as thumbnails, they will get over-looked and sales will suffer. You must polish them until they are shiny and bright.

4. Wait and see: A common occurrence with new photographers is they do a few shoots, get maybe 100 pictures on-line, and then stop shooting until they see some revenue. This makes it near impossible to kick-start the royalties into anything substantial. Stock photography takes time and while you are waiting for royalties to come in, the best thing to do is keep shooting. If you want to test the waters, that’s fine …just dedicate a couple of years and make 500+ images before you analyze your earnings potential. By all means, shooting stock isn’t for all photographers but you have to jump in headfirst like you would with any other profession.

At this point in the stock industry, we generally have three choices: Rights Managed, Royalty Free, and Microstock. Do you contribute to all three models?

I actively shoot RM & RF imagery. Depending on how a shoot looks after editing, I make a choice where to direct the content. I don’t do Microstock because I can’t justify the expense vs. profit potential. I like my photography to retain a high production value… This could be in the quality of models, location, post-production, or all three. These things cost me money and I can’t lower my standards so my content can be sold for less money. I would surely lose all satisfaction from my craft. This isn’t to say it’s not right for other, hard-working individuals who are able to produce high volumes of low-touch content.

Where are you putting your most effort and why?

While we’re waiting for our assignment world to resurrect, we are shooting primarily for portfolio and then repurposing it for stock. I’ve found this to be a great way to stay creative and after using this strategy for over a year now, I don’t like to shoot anything for stock unless I can also see it in my portfolio. That means it can’t look a thing like stock. It’s my self-inflicted rehab from years of commercial compromise. And funniest thing of all… the agencies love the content. My editor at Blend remarked he had not seen a submission with so much soul in a long time. This also changes our subject line up for the year because we shoot to attract specific clients …so we shoot with a dual purpose which doubles the value of our photographs and without losing site of client’s needs.

There are many who question the long-term viability of the Microstock model. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I think Microstock is here to stay and the prices will likely continue to rise. I believe it is a price-point dictated partially by an actual consumer need but mostly by individuals who started with a simple, short-term plan of building a low-touch, high-traffic, content purchasing website with only one purpose… to sell it and get out. Geniuses in that respect, I must say… but polar opposite to an agency founded by photographers who have longer-term goals.

Any other thoughts on how the stock industry might look in coming years?

The thought of trying to predict it exhausts me. We have had so many surprises in this industry. If you think about the string of events: Stock first undermined editorial assignments with an RM licensing library and separated the stock photo industry from what was previously known as clip art. Then came the RF option to balance out the playing field and even offered whole CDs of content at a further discount. We can’t forget the subscription frenzy who saw profit potential with unlimited usage of whole collections (for an annual fee). Agencies started production companies to achieve the breadth and depth required to have such wholly-owned offerings …and then comes Microstock and other low-level price points. All the while, acquisitions, productions halting, staff cuts, office closures, fire sales… and you ask me, “what’s next?”

My prediction: With so many price adjustments happening with microstock going up, RF going down, mid-level collections forming, I see the possibility for two major things happening:

1. A merging of price points. If large portions of RF content continue to move downward into a mid-level offering and microstock continues to be marked up, we will inevitably be creating a huge, possibly unmanageable pool of similarly priced content. Hopefully, the cream of the RF crop will retain integrity and remain at current rates with swift and easy access. Otherwise, art buyers looking for content might have experiences much like shoveling snow in a blizzard. I believe RM will remain pretty safe and stay somewhat like it is now. Some agencies have already added varying price points to RM which is fine as long as it’s all clean, readily available, and not confusing. The future challenge will be in managing the zillions of cheaper pictures efficiently.

2. As these aspects of the industry become blurred together by price merging, possible collection mergers, acquisitions, non-exclusive cross-over, etc… There will be a few beacons of light in the dense fog: Niche agencies that retain specialty aspects and highly organized collections of top-shelf content should be able to cleverly set themselves apart from the growing masses. What could be better for an art buyer than the salvation of a few great specialty shops where they can get in, find exactly what they need, and get out quickly. The “positive experience” of licensing content will become increasingly important for agencies to provide. Veer had this strategy figured out long ago with their tightly edited collection and award winning marketing...and they were really just another general collection that sold fonts. Going forward, I believe it may take a lot of clever marketing on the part of the specialized agencies to solidify awareness and redirect the traffic to them. They must make a big push now to change the habits of art buyers as the larger “super collections” are becoming weak and overwhelming, it might just get a little easier to grab much more of the pie. The David & Goliath era is here and other industries are experiencing this same phenomenon.

We hear an awful lot about stock footage these days. Photographers are doing some very creative things with video shot on DSLRs. The Red One has almost become a cult obsession, and who hasn’t spent too much time on YouTube? Has the time to shoot video arrived and do you participate in, or have any plans to move into, stock footage?

I thought about getting into footage ten years ago when cinematographers were making great money…however, I was quickly uninspired when I heard that a lot of the subjects I was interested in were already covered. Agencies were limited at that time and were no longer accepting stuff like time-lapse, slow motion, street scenes, nature scenes, artsy stuff, etc., so I decided to stick with stills. Now, with new HD cameras flooding the market, Internet streaming, and websites hungry for video content, it’s certainly reopened the door. Footage is a highly accessible media with a larger marketplace than ever before and agencies need to replace a lot of their old film footage with newer looking digital coverage.

Knowing what we know about the evolution of stock stills, you can guess what my concerns might be if the prices of footage continues to be unregulated by the filmmakers and offered below RM prices. Web usage fees are currently very low (even for footage) and it probably should be …but we can’t propagate another medium where the cost of production takes a year or two to recoup before seeing profits. I love motion and often reflect on my time spent on film sets. I’d love to shoot and direct stock footage…so I’d love for my worries to be put at ease. Filmmakers need to unite and hold firm on licensing fees. UNIONIZE.

Do you track your sales results? If so, what kind of information are you looking for?

I use to keep very elaborate records for many years. I tracked all my shoots… production cost, revenue per shoot per year, revenue per image, best selling images, etc…. I gained a lot of helpful information and could see which shoots did well, which didn’t, longevity of images, rate of decline, seasonal peaks, etc… My spreadsheets were beautiful works of art.

In 2008, I stopped tracking everything except my average Revenue Per Image (RPI) and my average Cost Per Image (CPI). That’s really the bottom line for me and the simpler I can make things, the less time I have to sit at my computer. Once you know your average RPI (from all agencies combined), you just have to keep your CPI well below. I like to keep my CPI at 50% of my average RPI so I can be somewhat assured that the shoot will reach profit in the first year. The agency with the highest individual RPI usually gets first look at our shoots. As these averages fluctuate, so do my investments in shooting.

Assuming you know which of your images are best sellers, how can you use that information to your advantage (try as I might, duplicating best-sellers has never proven particularly successful for me)?

Well, for example: Say you have a testimonial portrait of an African American male café owner and it sells really well. Sure you can copy the shot and use a female or another ethnicity male. Sometimes it works really well but it’s not a sure thing. Depends a lot if the shot is concept driven or if it relies on the model’s charm. Often enough, the model is the single most important thing to a client. Could also be the timing of the first shot that made it hot…then, after a year or two, the concept isn’t as relevant to our society.

The common thread in my best sellers is that they are all very conceptual, usually rare in the industry, or if not rare, they are best-of-class executions …meaning they are better (or more up-to-date) than the best of what’s on the market. I could duplicate them all and make out nicely but I find it boring to repeat myself. Duplication can be good but only after your original image has lived its life out. If you duplicate your shots too soon, your images are in competition with each other. This does little to diversify your collection and is not an efficient way to increase your profit or the profit of the agency. It’s like playing multiple bingo cards… you want to cover as many slots as possible (not the same slots, multiple times).

Do you do any direct sales?

Not any stock sales but my wife and I are launching a fine art website by end of this year.

Do you think that direct sales will be an increasing part of the puzzle in coming years?

Definitely …but I think it is an either/or type of business model. Having agencies sell for me frees me up to do things other than stock photography. If selling stock was my only passion, I’d probably sell direct too. I think it will become increasingly easier to make direct sales provided your website is optimized for visibility. There are so many new image search tools being introduced so Google will become more effective in time. If you decide to market stock directly, it doesn’t mean you have to stop selling through your agencies. Diversify your collection as much as possible.

As I work on my SEO and increase my web traffic, people are finding and licensing images from me. They are finding my images through Google searches. So far that is the exception rather than the rule. Do you believe that such online searches will become increasingly important for buyers to find stock photos, or will such searches remain on the periphery?

Finding photographer’s images directly is bound to increase but I think sales will remain periphery in comparison to agency websites unless the photographers have enough money and time to continue a vigorous marketing and SEO strategy. So, it’s a matter of doing the math and comparing the net profits same as we do with all of our agents. In the end, I think it is still wiser to sell through as many viable portals as possible.

Do you have any thoughts about utilizing Flickr to gain an audience for stock images?

I don’t have time for social networking sites and even if I did, I don’t believe in using these websites for monetary gain. I can’t believe that a client I am trying to attract actually has time to “friend” or “follower” me. I have no interest in virtual fame or popularity. I believe publicity seeking on these sites goes against the initial concept of sharing content and ideas. At least this is how they started …and the whole Internet for that matter was based on sharing. I know that we rely on the Internet now to make a living …but Americans shouldn’t try so hard to commoditize everything. Instead, make time for real life contacts, tangible experiences, and real friendships.

Scott, a young photographer visited me in my studio this afternoon and asked if she should pursue stock for a career. In the past I always would have been encouraging, but today I just couldn’t sing the praises of the industry. What do you, or would you, tell young photographers if they ask about a career in stock? What advice would you offer to those new to, or just beginning their careers in stock photography?

Stock photography can be really fun, creative, and rewarding. It’s what you make of it really. Work on your online portfolio! Your website isn’t just to help you get assignments…. It will also help you get contracts at agencies, attract models, and give you industry respect when collaborating with stylists and negotiating access to locations.

There are two main strategies to making stock photos. Some shooters concentrate on quantity in hopes that a lot of pictures will sell for a little bit each while others concentrate efforts on making single images, usually very conceptual, that will sell fewer times but for bigger amounts. Find the method that best fits your personal inspirations, skills, and lifestyle.

The first year in stock is very hard as there won’t be much money coming in. Stock takes time so you must be patient and set yourself goals as to how much money you can invest to kick-start that revenue. Be sure to choose an agency who has a good RPI. Look on their website and contact some photographers who are shooting similar content for them. You should try to make at least 200-300 selected images in the first year (per agency). If you do your research, listen to your editor, shoot smart subjects with commercial models, and spend not more than $5000 - $7000 doing it, you should be in great shape and inline to increase your goals for the 2nd year. If you can achieve more than 300 selects, your experience will be more rewarding. Your revenue expectations must be realistic and your faith will be tested more than once.

Do you have any advice for us old dogs about how to survive this image-glut and the twin terrors of Microstock pricing and the recession?

It’s a very hard time for the advertising industry as a whole right now. One good thing is that recessions are cyclical …so our economy is as sure to recover, as it is sure to fall again in 5-7 years. We all need to understand that we are in a non-necessity industry making every one of us extremely vulnerable during economic slumps. Therefore, we must not live beyond our means. As for microstock’s affect on our livelihoods, I don’t think there is anything to do except to adjust and evolve our business models to accommodate the changes. With good quality images flooding into these lower price points, all we can do is make better pictures so we can continue to justify a higher price and make our pictures stand out among the “glut” as you put it.

Is there a positive note you can leave us on?

I think there is a renewed sense of hope for the Rights Managed licensing. RM built the foundation for this industry and I believe we are coming full circle to embrace it once again. My personal RM revenue has seen the least decline and the most stability over the last decade …so in the long term; I think that’s a pretty smart place to invest. I believe there will always be a large enough quantity of clients who prefer licensing RM imagery through a respected source rather than wade through a rising sea of lower-level imagery. If RM’s higher standard of quality remains in place (meaning if agencies don’t flood it with similars and mediocrity), it’s armor will shine brightly and continue to provide an outlet for professional stock photographers and sophisticated art buyers alike. It’s up to everyone’s ability to uphold the integrity and prestige of RM…or the perception at least. Based on our experience with what is happening to every other price point, we have no choice. I have a similar hope for very high-end RF imagery with proven sales records. While most agencies are spending time identifying lower-end imagery to sell at a discount, I think it’s just as important to use efforts to identify the highest quality and push it forward. There is a fog coming and agencies need to work hard on their shine and allure.

A similar circumstance with stock footage… the integrity of the filmmakers will be challenged by low prices and limited licensing options through big agencies. Footage has a lot of possibilities if filmmakers come together and form outlets for direct sales similar to how Blend Images formed as a unity of photographers interested in retaining control of content.

Thank you John for the opportunity to inform, inspire, anger, and vent. I hope you enjoyed my ranting. I’m always open to comments and invite criticisms. Photographers seeking creative consultations, please drop me a note on the contact page of my website: http://www.redinger-libolt.com

Shannon Fagan, Photographer and Stock Artists Alliance President

Shannon Fagan photographed this young girl in New Mexico, and found a print of it in China (see interview for details).Photo ©Shannon Fagan

Shannon, I know you as a top stock shooter and as President of Stock Artists Alliance. I also know that you have done many large produced shoots both here and abroad. You have won a raft of awards from Communication Arts Photography Annual to PDN to Print and even to the Addys. Can you fill us in on your background, how you came to be a photographer and how stock came to be your focus?

Thanks for such a nice introduction John. I’m at the ten-year point in my career and it’s been a decade’s worth of introspection these past few months. Our industry is rapidly evolving into unprecedented territory. I took a seat recently in attendance at multiple key industry conferences: Media Bistro’s User Generated Content Conferences in San Jose and New York, the Picture Archive Council of America’s Conferences in Chicago and Miami, the Photo Plus Expo in New York, and the Society of Digital Agency’s Conference in New York. I’m soon en route to The Professional Photographers of America’s ImagingUSA convention in Nashville. It’s an honor to share my observations from this collective experience with your audience. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned this past year, when you’re an industry President during a recession, and during a sea change in media content sourcing; everyone seeks an active opinion. You and I won’t fail to deliver here J

I concentrated in photography during a college degree filled with academics and art/photography courses at the University of Memphis. I had key mentors such as art photographer Larry McPherson, sculptor Greely Myatt, and painter Richard Knowles. Prior to that, my high school senior year included explorations of creative independent thinking speared on by a Fulbright exchange educator Luc Weegels from Amsterdam. Collectively, these persons taught me everything that I needed to know about process, about being prolific, and about being a professional. I took internships in New York City summer after summer, and when I graduated in 1999, I was ready to begin my waking dream of combining creativity with business. I loved photography, and I loved art, but I knew that it was necessary to earn a living in turn. Stock photography was a natural component and I was quickly being presented with multiple contract opportunities.


What agencies carry your work and do you also license images yourself?

I’m with nearly every major collection for stock photography internationally. It reads as a who’s who list of image aggregators, including microstock as a recent addition to the mix.

I currently not involved in direct licensing. It’s not that I don’t believe in this manner of distribution, as there are some very worthy proponents in this area of selling. I’m an admirer of the collections of Jim Erickson and Saxon Holt for example. Both have fantastic business models, niche content, and established clientele. This is very smart for the type of businesses that they have found themselves involved in.

If price is the “holy grail” of our industry, then completing direct licensing is both a business and a lifestyle choice. I have chosen to coordinate the logistics of travel to photograph, and to run the daily business operations. I’m also the creative director and technician. Completing direct sales and marketing would take a major expense and commitment initiative on my part. I’ve chosen to focus my energies elsewhere, and it’s partially a choice of reducing my overhead and remaining flexible to changes in our industry in the years to come. When you commit your business to direct licensing, you must first acknowledge the necessary means financially, the time logistically, and the support infrastructure long term. Your primary goal is to drive adequate sales traffic to offset these startup and yearly costs.

Direct licensing sure sounds popular these days, especially with the availability of a simple Google search for images. In my experience, image creators must be level headed and understand that a bulk core percentage of stock image buyers just want “a photo”, “any photo”, and they are not willing to wait for a return phone call, nor able to pay consistently more than the going market price. Direct licensing really works for collections that cannot be obtained elsewhere, and for which have established clientele already interacting with the niche-oriented photographer/s. Current agency contributor contracts do not allow for direct licensing by the contributor. One must understand that taking on direct licensing means taking on a level of business commitment long term with a separate offering unseen in agencies.

Tell us a bit about SAA, this new merger, and why we photographers should join.

The Stock Artists Alliance is the world’s only trade organization devoted to stock imagery licensing. It is now merged with the world’s largest photographic organization, The Professional Photographers of America. We choose to join forces in a consolidation of opportunity to provide the Alliance of Visual Artists (PPA’s umbrella organization) with an unparalleled level of stock expertise. They provided us with access to top legal experts, some of the best benefit packages for photographic members worldwide, and a service orientation that goes unmatched. This combination of forces will bring SAA members offers of equipment insurance, health benefit packages, seminars for business training, their own dedicated AVA/PPA Imaging USA conference, and a membership services department dedicated to their individual needs. We have an SAA dedicated publication, Keywords, and a dedicated email forum uniquely designed to address ongoing debates in the stock photography industry. We initiated a twitter stream this year and Facebook presence. We’re the only trade organization that addresses stock concerns directly with top agency owners and creative staff. It’s a prime membership to include as part of one’s business planning and daily operation. I encourage your readers to join in and participate in the discussion.

Micro stock has exploded onto the scene, but seems to be reaching a maturation point, at least for many of the top micro producers who are for the first time seeing their earnings level off. Do you have any thoughts on the future of micro stock?

User generated content is hot, and for microstock, it is being created professionally by photographers amongst us. To some degree, it is an oxymoron to call professional microstock content “user-generated”. Earnings are leveling off because of an oversupply in nearly every channel of imagery internationally. Free imagery isn’t seeing a leveling off in earnings however (I’m being a bit tongue and cheek here!), and it is becoming a new competitor as users provide talent in trade for exposure.

I have a great respect for microstock. Microstock photographers are some of the most business savvy in our industry. Its history is a classic self made commercial art success story that is a reminder to nearly all of us who started out in art school with dreams of being professional photographers. The future of microstock is a repetition of other classic branding stories. There will be stratification of the offering by quality and price, and price itself should continue to rise, albeit slowly. It will continue to eat away at traditional pricing for imagery that is inherently the same or can be obtained at lower prices.

I’d look at the airline industry in terms of where it goes from here. There are top tier airline carriers with limited routes, but their clientele is small, particularly in a recession with a tightening of budgets globally for the next couple years. There are mid tier fliers and they take the bulk of traffic with great expanse. There are low cost competitors, with perhaps no frills, but great service. Passengers “dressing up” today for any international flight in business class, let alone coach, has become a thing of the past. Expecting complimentary dinner service has also permanently changed. This goes to say that flying as an art of travel isn’t special anymore and we might take note of that with the following.

I’m going to take a lot of flack for saying this next statement, but I do feel that what we do as an industry for commercial photography is not any more insular than the B2B businesses hiring us. Expect media in the coming years that is generally less driven by quality and creative invigoration, and more driven by price and availability. I appreciate this New York Times article by technology visionary Jaron Lanier, and audio interview. Making a portrait of Lanier was my first-ever editorial portrait assignment. I shot Kodak negative film with a Pentax 67 camera and delivered contact sheets to Fortune Magazine. It’s an understatement to say that our manner of business has changed dramatically since that time, and it was uniquely resonant to me to read about it Lanier’s book “You are Not a Gadget”.

Look at the airline industry and how tickets are bought and sold. Where did the travel agents go? Availability will be the next self-fulfilling prophecy in commercial art. Desktop publishing software took out the printing industry. Rights managed creativity was cherished because that was what was prolifically available. This table turned and then went to Royalty Free. It is now microstock.

We are reading online newspapers proliferated with cell phone images. We are watching television commercials shot with low-end cameras to be made to look “user-generated”. We want to create our own content. We want to be individually famous for 15 minutes. Apple and Facebook are on this trend line. Do not expect to bend the wants of the consuming public globally. Microstock listened to that, intelligently. In fact, it helped to develop it as a self-fulfillment to what was an anticipated global desire, just as Apple’s iPod did with portable mp3 music at a low cost. Follow your heart and combine it with your creative and business intelligence. You do not necessarily have to be a microstock photographer to succeed. You do need to be positioned with where the marketplace is going.

Royalty Free images have certainly been suffering from the glut of such imagery available. As photographers, our response to declining revenue from that glut is to produce more imagery. Do you see any way out of that vicious circle?

I take a lot of direction from comments made by Jeff Howe, author of the book "Crowdsourcing", when he addressed the User Generated Content Conference in New York. Howe said "photography is the canary in the coal mine, with inexpensive cameras, easy editing, and internet access. The threat to photography is a continued downward price pressure due to natural pressures of supply and demand." We are not seeing a decrease in the interest to provide image content online, rather, it is exponentially growing.

I believe the vicious circle may be starting to slow. However, ironically, it’s not because there isn’t a desire to have it continue by the content creators. Photographers love to shoot. I objectively project, and assess in observation, that it is slowing because those that create the content can no longer afford to create it in the quantities that they did in the past. This is because revenues are being choked by distributed offerings at lower price points, ‘free’ being one of them. To maintain continued investment, one needs a steady revenue of encouragement. The big question yet to be determined is what is the tipping point for contributors to earn a living vs. returns on investment that they are experiencing this year and next?

The next question to follow is one that we have witnessed play out for the past two years already. I ask this analytically. What happened to all of the motivational mechanisms for an agency to support its self-funding contributors with art direction support, production help, imagery training, and regular meetings to keep the buzz of energy alive? What happened to mentorship? The signal to seasoned contributors and seasoned agency staff, if you read between the lines, is that the image licensing industry is confused, financially struggling, and veterans are necessarily expendable. This is a market condition at this time, and for small business owners operating as full time professional photographers, generally energy begets energy. Leadership is becoming a rarer commodity as images commoditize.

As traditional contributors find other paths that are more lucrative and more rewarding, will crowd sourcing or new professional or semi-professional photographers be able to take their place? My gut tells me yes, but my business sense tells me no. Shooting stock independently, as a professional, takes years of experience and innovation cultivation. Agencies have laid-off numerous instigators of creative direction, i.e. their salaried art directors and editors. There are now more laid off professionals in this area than there are available positions for them to be assimilated into. They must and will migrate to other professions, commercial art not necessarily to be one of them. This is a dot com era bust for the stock photo industry. There could be two upcoming changes in our traditional industry: increases in royalty percentages to core contributors to encourage participation, and/or ‘perk’ programs to initiate veterans. Major microstock agencies are already doing this with their regular contributors whose canister levels or selling levels are high. I’d take note of that. It’s quite impressive on their part. It’s one of the reasons we are not hearing of professionals in the user generated fields jump ship to more traditional lines of selling.

Microstock has a different need than Rights Managed. Contributors all have the same need. They need to be cultivated if to be retained over time. When the industry was on the growing upswing, cultivation was high via agency staff support, regular agency meetings, and the like. Now, we are witnessing a downswing. What goes up, yes, does come down. Ask veteran assignment photographers about their career changes over time. Being a freelance commercial artist is not a protected, tenured, salaried position, and agencies will see changes to “who” is providing the content. It is highly unlikely that the stock photographer of tomorrow is being actively cultivated by today’s agency staff in a manner that retains long-term relationships. Imagine for a moment, the start up fixed overhead costs associated with ingesting new contributors on a self-funded traditional scale. Veterans of today will slow submissions, retire, and move to new industries. It’s happening in 2009, and I agree with what was explored at the UGCX in New York – this will be the year that it all changed. This opens up a new era in stock photography. Flickr and iReporter might be a good model for the future of content in years to come, and if we’ve seen self-fulfilling prophecies of the past, I cannot help but see that what’s available is what will be bought. It’s not that the model that currently exists is invalid. It continues to work. I’m pointing to where we’ll be in 2-5 years. Everyone agrees that licensing content on the web is due for a change. Now that average prices to produce the content exceed what the content sells for, one knows that the current model is broken.


How do you feel about the future of Rights Managed stock photography?

You, John, have been a voice of reason for rights managed this year and you’ve shared with your readers some really wonderful insight. Rights Managed imagery continues to carve out a stable future and strategy. It is an ingredient to a successful business if the contributor enjoys shooting it and is interested in creating the types of unique content needed in this area. Personally, Rights Managed has been my best success for creative imagery and personal artistic development for my entire career. It may not have trained me in the logistics of a diverse offering and building my business to a new revenue level for re-investment elsewhere, but it was a crucial component of my shooting and will continue to be.

One thing I find mildly distressing is Getty’s current fixation on Flickr. I have even heard that some Getty photographers have started putting images through flickr instead of Photographer’s Choice (Getty’s pay-to-play option) to avoid the PC charges and perhaps get a better acceptance rate. How do you see flickr’s role in the larger picture of the stock photo industry?

Flickr highlights just how much a contributor now must ‘play the system’ and not just create award-winning imagery alone. I would go so far as to say that distribution of imagery is more important than what the imagery is itself. Jaron Lanier’s book also addresses this important truism of Web 2.0. This has created the vicious circle that we talked about above. It encourages imagery to be commoditized. This is just simply a business condition at this time. It does not show any signs of letting up any time soon, so my advice is as follows: As a contributing creative commercial artist you have a responsibility to your business (to your models, your crew, your future hires) to stay in operation. They rely upon you as a market maker. Flickr is leveling the playing field, yet again, to the barriers of entry to license imagery globally. If you assess that it is worth your business’ time to channel distribution via Flickr, I would vote to try it. One must look at the amount of time it takes to participate in licensing via this manner. Flickr was not designed as a place to house professionals’ full time portfolios, and yet, in evolution, it has tested that. It’s a tool. Use it as such if it fulfills a need that you have. The industry will eventually adapt around that, just like it did around the digitalization of photography.

There are an increasing number of options to detect copyright infringement of images, such as PicScout and Tin Eye, to name just a couple. Do you think that there will be a shift away from so much piracy?

I’m in Beijing at the moment, and I just got off the Skype phone with PicScout’s CEO Offir Gutelzon. I was shocked to learn that in the United States, where intellectual property has reportedly the highest degree of enforcement, that 85% of all online imagery being used is pirated. 85%! These are PicScout’s numbers talking here, and if it’s 85% in the US, how much more could it be in other countries throughout the world? I was informed that in China it is estimated that all major stock agency licensing accounts for only 40% of imagery use in the marketplace there. The other 60% is pirated. If that’s the case, then China is doing better than the United States! Take that!

This is such a difficult discussion to be had because many companies project what the infringement percentages are, but no one can ever truly know. The best we can do is educate and make available offerings that allow an easy license to avoid the theft of imagery online. User habits are in line with human nature and the tendency is that if you give someone an inch, they’ll take a mile. That’s a tough act to follow when enforcing legal use of intellectual property licensing online. You can read this two ways. Give people an easy manner to license, and they’ll do so. Give people an easy way to steal imagery unchecked, and well, they’ll do that too.

For many of us these are tough times in the stock photography business, yet there are more people buying stock images than ever. In fact, it is easier than ever to break into the stock photo business, though I think harder than ever to make a good living at it. Can you share your thoughts on the changes that are rampant in our industry and what strategies you are using to deal with those changes?

I’ve touched upon several of these above. One of my favorite podcasts of the past year was from Stanford’s Technology Ventures Program lecture series. Scott Kriens, President and CEO of Juniper Networks said, “there is an inverse relationship to the amount of credit that one takes for success, and how useful the information is that they provide.”

This has been a year in which to do personal introspection and self-assessment as to what lifestyle one wants to have as a photographer. I’m not the only one thinking this, but I might be the only one saying it. Earning a full time living from the profession in the future is clearly under pressure. For the analysts amongst us, we’ve seen it coming for several years. Trade organizations are shifting. Photography publications are shifting. Trade conferences and seminars are shifting.

Ironically, education and validity to the medium of photography remains rooted to the dream that one magazine assignment, or one substantial award will lead to a lifetime career of success. That system started shifting in the early 1990’s. To expect a bounce return to normalcy, pre-recession, would be naïve to suggest. I would not want to be a leader who shares a lack of objectivity, and often, in our media, unfortunately, being objective and pragmatic is viewed as pessimism. The overly zealous, and those with a lack of regard to current needs in our industry, will fundamentally be weeded out.

It is wise to test new technologies, but timing is everything. As returns on shoot days for self-funded stock imagery push themselves into years instead of months, this industry is more and more about entrepreneurship than it is about being an artist. It always has been when you investigate the personalities who are at the top. Follow your heart. I’ve said this several times because this is the best advice that any successful person in any career field ever gave me. If that is in photography, you will always be at the top of your game. Following your heart means recognizing what you are most interested in and what you inherently are good at. I am most proud of photographs that I have made, not because they won awards, but because they touched those around me in a way that I could not have done had I not held a camera in hand. This career is about connection. I love what I do because I can connect people together.

Do you see social media as essential to success as a photographer in the coming years?

It depends on how it is used. Social media is a very potential waste of time. Uh oh, did I say that out loud!? And yet, I love being a participant on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and whatever comes next. It is, no doubt a distraction to my core work, but I can’t help myself because I love being ‘in the know’. That is what makes the abilities of the Internet and mobile communications so successful within the context of social media. It is transforming where we get our trusted sources of news and, in turn, visual content. Humans are social animals and we gravitate to community. We are at a time when the medium, well, perhaps the context, of what constitutes ‘being’ a photographer is changing. The beauty of this is that all photo enthusiasts can share these changes and thought processes via the readily available accesses of social media. Facebook alone has become a massive self-promotion tool for the creative field. I daily get invitations to personal fan pages, networking events, or group integrations. Isn’t it ironic at just how much cutting through the noise of social media mimics the same manner in which stratification of our own licensing industry is undertaking? Irony or not, yes, I believe that social media is a critical component of being a small business in the coming years, but it’s because it’s always has been. We used to just call it ‘networking’.

Are you employing social media, and if so, how?

I’m actively involved with Facebook and Twitter and I just joined QQ and RenRen in China! These mediums are quintessential ways to learn about my colleagues and my friends’ interests and happenings’ globally. From a business perspective, as a photographer always seeking a great idea on which to expand upon, the medium of social networking is a quick means to disseminate and obtain what I like to call ‘whereabouts’. My friends post their needs or interests and I respond. I post mine as well, and a network of sourced information hits my ‘in’ box. It’s the random aspect, filtered, that makes these networks so successful. They naturally filter themselves and provide me with creativity and contacts. Just as any project, the more you put into them, the more you obtain back out.

OK, a bit more about your photography…where do you get your ideas from?

My best ideas come from personal and direct observation. I know that’s a fairly simple straightforward answer, but it’s becoming more and more true as the internet homogenizes us. I never achieved success by direct copies of others’ works, nor their opinions. Be willing to stand out on your own, no matter your work, no matter your ‘take’. This alone is being a success, and today, with all that we’ve talked about above, it is so much more critical than it was just five years ago. Yes, it’s all been done before. Our planet has been Google-d. Therein lies the biggest threat to our creative industry in the years to come. We will suffer from a lack of thought innovation, not technical innovation. There will be a perceived need to not create when there is so much free and available content online at the click of a button. Your ideas as a commercial artist will need to speak to both; what sells, and what sells artistry. The latter will become more rare.

What do you enjoy shooting the most?

Ha! Well, I enjoy a challenge. The more limiting the idea, the more mundane, the more logistically intensive, the more creative it is. Send me your “boring” projects. I’ve had just as much fun shooting a “business handshake” as I have had traveling to shoot throughout Beijing or British Columbia. It’s about the mindset in place when tackling a challenge. I’ll admit, I tend to bore too easily and am on a constant search for a new unchartered adventure.

Can you share a favorite image of yours with us and perhaps a bit about how the picture came to be?

I’ll share a favorite image of Getty Images’ Beijing office. It is one that I was so proud to see hanging as inspiration above the sales staff when I arrived to a meeting there last week. I traveled to Santa Fe, NM in 2003 for a commercial assignment and returned months later to complete personal work. I photographed a young girl in a tiara peering through a star shaped magic wand in her grandmother’s living room. She was glowing with pride and at the same time, all dressed up, acting in a manner of sticky silliness that makes us all feel like a kid inside. It could have been shot anywhere. I did it in New Mexico because I developed a relationship of trust with those that I had been working with there. Remember when I said that the most important aspect of photography for me is connection? I have connected this moment, totally initiated on my own behalf with a family who had never modeled before, to an agency sales team 7000 miles away working in the world’s fastest growing economy. I take pride in this. Send me your impossible projects. There’s no such thing as impossible in my repertoire.

Any words of wisdom or advice that you would like to leave us with?

Again, follow your heart, and most importantly, don’t ever take ‘no’ for an answer. If you do these two things well, you’ll always have a career in visual imagery. You’ll also do yourself a favor, because, you’ll always be great at what you do. No recession or unemployment statistic can belittle that. People love people with energy and those are the only people that I want working on my team. They’re the only people that I can afford. Don’t agonize with bitterness over these adjustments that we’re seeing in our industry. Embrace them with the complacency that as shifting occurs; opportunities open up for movement into other new challenging needs in our economy. One of my key art mentors once told me during a drawing exercise, “You are not a slave to the still life laid out before you.” As photographers, we are illustrators to the elements of life that we rearrange with our lighting and design, retouching, and communication. Seek your best opportunity in this. Others will follow.

To see more of Shannon's work: http://www.shannonfagan.com

Photography And The Future: Advice For The Road Ahead

The road ahead for stock photographers lies under storm clouds, but are those rays of optimsim and future success awaiting us?

I have compiled the advice offered to photographers from the photographers, CEOs, agency owners, art directors, designers, photo researchers and others who I have interviewed over the last year:

Jack Hollingsworth, Stock Photographer, Blend Images Co-Founder, Social Media & Photography Consultant
The money is in getting the photography in front of the consumer.

Marc Romanelli, Stock Photographer (Stills And Motion)
I choose to shoot what I know, shoot what feels right, diversify by shooting motion, as well as stills, finding new agencies that want to build their collections quickly as Workbook did, loading them up with images but not forgetting the "girl that brought you to the dance" in the first place...that would be your bread and butter agency. In my case that agency is Getty.

Ellen Boughn, Stock Industry Consultant and Pundit
Think of your business as a multi-layered cake. Get your work into all the layers of the business. DEVELOP a specialty and be the best at it in the world. Even photographers on microstock sites need to build their brands within the site in order to get maximum downloads.

Colin Anderson, Stock and Assignment Photographer and Co-Founder, Blend Images
Shoot work that is unique and hard to copy, and keep expenses down to a minimum.

Jonathan Ross, Stock Photographer and Co-Founder, Blend Images
I would say keep costs down. Don’t buy that new camera this year unless it makes you more money. Research is a bigger part of the game, more then ever before. Do your homework and get your ducks in a row before you spend your money on a shoot. Invest in R & D and try to stay true to your vision instead of just copying what you see working for others or that you have already shot yourself. Most of all have as much fun as possible, that always brings the largest rewards, financially and personally.

Rick Becker-Leckrone, Stock Shooter, Co-Founder & CEO Blend Images stock agency
One thing is especially important to keep in mind – now is not the time for a shotgun approach to production. The last decade was about creating massive amounts of RF imagery. Now there’s too much similar content. RM has been underserved with new imagery, but it’s a relatively small market. Micro is interesting, but a lot of hard work and not completely clear one can generate the same returns as in traditional stock. (Yes, some do, but very few.) Chill out in 2009. Figure out what you’re truly good at shooting, figure out what the market is missing and make fewer, but better targeted content. Don’t count the success of your 2009 in the number of images you produce.

Shalom Ormsby, Assignment and Stock Shooter Stills And Motion, Co-Founder Blend Images
A short story, since I’ve been so long-winded. At the end of a talk the Dalai Lama was giving about true happiness, he was asked what was the happiest day of his life. The Dalai Lama smiled and said softly, “That would be today.” May today be the happiest day of your life.


Tom Joyce, Owner/Creative Director Creativewerks
Do whatever you do with great passion and make it as perfect as you can. Then let go of it and grab a beer.


Lanny Ziering, CEO SuperStock, Co-Founder Blend Images
Talk to people who buy pictures, find out what they want, go and shoot it.

Trevor Lush, Stock and Assignment Photographer
I see me moving away from the high-volume work I've been doing in the past, towards a much more targeted approach. Fewer images with more added value.

Patty Meyers, Owner, Bloodhound Stock Photo Research
I find more and more art buyers are going to these alternative sites for innovative work. Basically, my advice is to get your images out to as many traditional and alternative image sources as possible, watch the trends and keep your work contemporary, and try and find a niche which needs filled. That and find a partner with a real job.

Inti St. Clair, Assignment and Stock Stills and Video
Shoot what you love. There is not a lot that’s easy about being a pro photographer, and the sad reality is that very little time is spent actually shooting, but as long as you’re loving it, it’s all worth while.

Collette Kulak, Art Director, Marian Heath Greeting Cards
Shoot what you love. There is not a lot that’s easy about being a pro photographer, and the sad reality is that very little time is spent actually shooting, but as long as you’re loving it, it’s all worth while.

Tom Grill, Stock Shooter, Agency Owner (Tetra), Blend Co-Founder
With declining RPI’s it’s becoming more difficult to earn a substantial living from stock photography. Now is a good time to honestly access your talents and resources relative to what it will take to make a go in the tougher times ahead. Follow the old stock market adage of getting out when the market is high and jumping in when the market is low. NOW – in this time of severe economic downturn -- is the time to buy stocks in the stock market as well as pour images into the stock photo market.

Lance Lee, Stock and Assignment Photographer, Mentor, Entrepreneur
For our stock photography projects, I'm encouraging our photographers and production team to work as if they are working in a film production. The process is pretty much the same - creative story telling translated into pictures.

Dan Heller, Stock Photographer And Stock Industry Analyst
Photographers are going to have to get behind initiatives that encourage openness, distribution, and wider-scale adoption of intellectual property. This is the one and only path that will help bring order to the chaos of images on the Internet. And with that comes ranking and prioritization, much like how Google ranks websites.
And when that happens, “quality” images will percolate to the top, and reward those photographers who truly are better than others. If one assumes that most “pros” are better photographers than consumers, the only way pros’ images will be found and licensed by buyers of any sort, will be when there are business incentives for companies to build those technology solutions.

Sarah Fix, Creative Director, Blend Images
A photographer’s greatest assets are their creativity and ability to speak to the market. What is your creative advantage? What do you do better than most?
There is always opportunity during challenging times. Right now in our industry there are fewer images being created, fewer shoots with higher production value, social networking is making it easier to give and receive information, the rights managed licensing model is in need of new content, motion is gaining momentum with affordable cameras that capture both stills and motion – how do you plan on taking advantage of this moment? Adapt as the market changes.

Jeremy Woodhouse, Stock Photographer and Educator (Photography Workshops), Blend Images Co-Founder
Take time to get grounded in a location, check out the bookstores, post card racks, see where the “hot spots” are and work around them. Look for new ideas; introduce some of your own technique/style into a location. Use the light, not only the edge of the daylight but even midday light can work, especially with HDR. You can beat the contrast big time. Revisit the same locations several times in different light.

John Feingersh, Stock Photographer, Co Founder Blend Images
Hold on, keep your chins up, find those holes in the files and fill them with great imagery.

Charlie Holland, Stock Shooter, Former Director of Photography, Getty Images
Be smart, direct your efforts. Spread your submissions out over collections, over time and over business models. Do not overspend on your productions.

Sarah Golonka, Stock Shooter, Stock Photography Consultant, Art Director/Editor
Keep your head up and look back to help prepare yourself for the future. Be aware of and open to change and work with it vs. against it. Analyze your sales history and draw your own conclusions as to why your images did and did not sell, then apply that information to your future shoots. Keep taking creative risks and stick to shooting what you are good at vs. trying to reinvent the wheel.

Trinette Reed And Chris Gramly, Stock and Assignment Stills And Motion (Trinette is a Cofounder of Blend Images)
Trinette: Be open minded and open to change, experiment, use the downturn to focus on what you really want to be doing, stay connected.
Chris: Stay open to the changes and open to learning; don’t pretend to know what you don’t know.

Don Farrall, Stock and Assignment Photographer
I used to counsel photographers about getting into stock and can be credited for bringing a handful of photographers, and even a few illustrators, through the process of securing a contract with Getty; back in the days when that was a Golden ticket. I would have to say that I am much less “Bullish” about it now. These are difficult times to be encouraging, so I suppose I would want to see someone’s work first before I answered that question for them.

Offir Gutelzon, CEO PicScout
Making content available for more marketing applications and promotional use, while selling content as RF, is essential. Photographers should follow your actions, like those you’ve taken that improve rankings on search engines, and promote themselves in new ways, even at the risk of image infringements.

Hope that helps! Look for more interviews in the coming year. BTW, I predict that 2010 is going to be a good year...based on the fact that it rolls off the tongue nicely!

To see the entire interview with any of the above people go to my Interiview Index.

Interview with Stock Photo Team Trinette Reed and Chris Gramly

An Interview with: Luxury Spa and Resort Photographer - Trinette Reed & Chris Gramly  Luxury Spa, Resort, and Hotel Photographer specializing in Fashion, Lifestyle, and Architectural Photography in California


Trinette, can you bring us up to date on how you got into photography and specifically stock photography?

I studied Advertising and Photography at Ohio State University.  I moved out to San Francisco after college and started to work in advertising but quickly realized I really wanted to do photography instead. I remember asking myself after graduating from college, if there were no limitations, what would I want to do with my life?  My answer was to make my living traveling and taking pictures.  I didn't even know if that was possible at the time, but I was determined to find out.

I worked as an admin assistant to the Director of Photography at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco for about five years while I built my photography portfolio and figured out how I was going to make a career out of this.  The school was a great place for me to learn because I met a lot of professional photographers, got to take free classes and basically immersed myself in the photography world.  Deanne Delbridge actually introduced me to stock around 1997 during an inspirational workshop at the school, it felt like a perfect fit for me. A lightbulb went off. I loved the freedom stock would allow me to make the images I wanted to make.  I started doing stock and assignments in 1998 and have been full steam ahead ever since.  I also co-founded Plush Studios, a content creation company representing photographers. We represented about 15  photographers for a number of years.  I really enjoyed mentoring, collaborating with and art directing other artists. I am also one of the founding owners in Blend Images which was started in 2004 and has been a life changing adventure for me.  I have met so many wonderful friends and collaborators through Blend.

Chris, how about you?
Chris:  I am a jack-of-all-trades.  I studied mechanical engineering at The Ohio State University and moved to San Francisco after graduation to work for a big six consulting firm where I was a consultant/programmer.  I ended up working for a smaller firm after that, then a few startups during the dot-com days.  During my years in the corporate world I spent time in Australia, Vietnam, Germany and other areas of Europe for work and travel.  When I wasn’t working I was taking pictures.  I have always had a deep love of making pictures, which probably started by watching my father who taught black & white photography to deaf high school kids.  I was always around photography and being photographed so naturally I was intrigued.

I would say I left the corporate life, but really it left me.  I was fired from my last tech job for my unwillingness to sacrifice my personal life for work – it was the best thing that ever happened to me.   From that point on I have worked for myself.  For the next few years I was a general contractor and began flipping houses in the bay area, when the housing market crashed I met Trinette and decided to finally pursue photography – something I had always wanted to do.

So how did you guys end up working together?
Trinette: I met Chris through a good friend who suggested that he call me and pick my brain about photography.  Chris had recently decided to pursue photography as a career.  We became good friends first and had fun exploring photography together.  About six months later, we took our relationship to the next level and have been happily working together ever since.  We have a great flow together and our skill sets compliment each other really well.  Not to mention that we totally love and adore each other, and I happen to believe that he is the most perfect man in the world.

Chris: When I met Trinette I realized that the myth “You can’t make any money as a photographer” was not true.  I was curious and had to learn more.  I have always been a quick study and I finally met someone who knew the business of photography.  I am blessed to have met her and I love her to pieces.  We make a good team and love working together – what could be better?

What does your teamwork look like (i.e. do you have different roles and areas of responsibility as well as shared roles)?
Trinette: We share a lot of roles, but also have different roles too.  We usually share pre-production unless one of us is busy with another priority. We tend to brainstorm together both for shoots and overall business/ company direction.  I do the editing usually getting opinions from Chris where needed on final edits and keywording.  Chris deals with all the equipment (thank god) and manages all the technical stuff, data and backups. I really love art directing as well.

Chris: I prefer to have Trinette do the styling, she is very good at it and I tend to doubt myself when it comes to which scarf looks best with which jacket.  If we hire a stylist Trinette directs them while I am busy with the gear, making sure everything is in order, clean and organized.  I find that we have a very complimentary set of skills and it all ends up functioning like a well-oiled machine.

Bottom line, there are things I don’t want to be dealing with and she happens to be great at those things – the reverse is also true.

On joint shoots do you both get behind the camera?  How do you decide who does what?
Trinette: Yes, we both do.  We decide that based on who is feeling like shooting, it usually works out where one of us is feeling it more than the other. It also depends on who/what we are shooting for. We each have our own contracts at some agencies, so that often dictates it as well.  Also, lately, I have been shooting stills while Chris is shooting motion at the same time.  That allows us to really cover more ground when shooting stills and motion, which we have been doing on most of our shoots.

Chris: I am thankful that we can both shoot, art direct and light.  I think it would be a lot more pressure if only one of us could shoot because sometimes you just need a break or you just don’t feel up to the task.  We can cover more ground and maximize our investment when we both have a camera in hand.  When only one of us is shooting it is great to have a second pair of eyes to provide feedback and creative input and art direct talent.

I know you work together as a team, do you also maintain separate photography endeavors?
Trinette:  Yes, we do.  We both have ideas that we want to carry out that feel more personal to us, in those cases, the other person is in more of a supportive role rather than a collaborative role. We usually discuss this up front before a shoot so it’s clear to both of us. I think it’s important in a collaborative relationship like this where we support each other in having our own individual ideas and vision when that arises. It’s nice to have both options, we have a great flow in our collaboration and we both know we have the freedom and support, to say “hey, I want to do my own thing on this one.”

Currently how (with whom) are you distributing your stock photography?
Trinette: Currently, we are shooting both macro RM / RF, micro RF, macro/micro motion video and assignment work.  We distribute our stock work mostly through Blend and Getty and various micro agencies. 

Are you seeing any trends with the individual distributors and with the business as a whole? What is your long-term view of micro?

Trinette: I think the obvious trends are that buyers are moving towards micro and agencies are being forced to lower prices to compete.  At the same time the quality of micro is increasing by leaps and bounds. There are some really creative photographers in micro doing amazing and inspiring work.  I personally think that micro and RF are going to merge at some point in the future.

Chris: Recently iStockphoto has introduced a premier collection called Vetta.  I am participating in this collection at iStock and it has performed quite well.  I believe there is exciting potential for other micro agencies to create similar collections.  It is clear that customers are willing to spend $100 on a well-executed micro image and I find this very encouraging. I expect to see other micro agencies follow suit by raising prices and putting some energy into value add collections.

Trinette: I would personally like to see the barriers between micro and RF come down and have one model with different price points depending on quality. At this point, what is the difference between micro and RF content?  It used to be price, but now Vetta images are selling for $100 in micro, and Getty is selling RF (and RM) images for $1.  The distinctions between these two different models no longer make sense.  Agencies like Fotolia and Veer are now putting micro and macro both on their site side by side. I think this is a step in the right direction.

I also think the micro agencies have a very hard time sorting the relevant images for their customers.  There is a ton of room for improvement in this area.  Agencies like Shutterstock have decent sales for two to three weeks when you first upload and then your image sales falls off very quickly.  The new content goes to the top.  I hope that at some point they will be able to move the high quality content to the top of the search engines so customers are getting more relevant results.

My other big concern overall in the photography industry is that there seems to be a general sentiment in the marketplace that a lot of people think that images are free.  I find it a little disturbing how many images are being used illegally and how socially acceptable image theft is. Most stock image usages are unauthorized.  There is a lot of money on the table from those usages.  Some of it is ignorance and some of it is intentional by the user. It would be nice to find a way to deal with that, educate people, and offer them the images to buy at a reasonable price.  I know there is some technology being developed to be able to track images better.  I am looking forward to seeing how that develops.  

Chris: One trend that might be obvious is that you cannot just go out and produce a shoot the way you used to, spending money at will, knowing you will make it back in the first year or less.  Cost per image has become the name of the game, both in micro and macro.  I could go on and on here, but I’ll try to stick to the question…
 
Another obvious trend is the insane amount of images entering the market.  If customers cannot see your images, they cannot buy them.  This has become one of the biggest hurdles in micro and somewhat of a challenge in macro depending on where your images are sold.  In micro you are competing with thousands (if not tens of thousands) of images for a given keyword phrase and the search priority is often based on sales performance of an image.  Having your images seen is not that easy.

In my opinion the business as a whole is still in flux and I don’t think the dust will settle for some time.  I agree with Trinette that micro and macro will merge, the question is - what will that look like?  There are still a lot of changes brewing in this industry and let’s just say I have my seatbelt pulled tight for the road ahead.  

Trinette, you are a founder of Blend Images. What do you think the future holds for Blend?
I think the future for Blend is a positive one. I think Blend’s strength lies in owning all levels of the market for ethnically diverse imagery.  We are launching a new mid stock collection soon, which I am excited about as well as our recently launched RM collection and motion film is coming soon too. We want to be THE place to come for diversity, and we want to capture customers at all price points and be able to fill all their image needs. 

We are also offering a level of customer service that our customers really appreciate. I think there is a bright future for a high quality niche collection like Blend. This is a niche market that has been growing and will continue to grow.  At Blend, we see everyday that customers are still willing to pay macro prices for good quality images that fit their needs.

I think something else that makes Blend strong is community.  We have a tight knit group of owners and contributing photographers that represent a wealth of talent and knowledge. We believe in sharing information and figuring this thing out together, this has been something that has made us stronger as a company.

Chris, I have only known you for a few years. I have always been impressed with your IT skills, and I have to admit that your photography belies your relatively new emergence on the professional scene. To what do you attribute your quick (from my point of view) success?
Chris: Aww shucks… Thank you for the compliment John.  I think the biggest factor in my rapid success has been connecting with other professionals like you and Trinette (and Jack, Stewart, Rick, Shalom, etc. etc… there are many others) and soaking up as much knowledge as I can. Trinette has been my biggest inspiration and asset through this journey.  Besides being an extremely talented and creative photographer she is also a brilliant businessperson.  She has taught me a great deal and through her I have managed to plug into a community of professionals that provided me with a great advantage when it came to finding good information and best practices.  Learning photography is one thing; learning stock photography is another thing entirely.  I already had some of the photography part down, but the stock part came through observing, participating, discussing, making mistakes and just going for it.  Spending time in your studio working with you has been very valuable to me in many ways, which is just one example.

As I said before I am a quick study and I love to learn, especially when it comes to something that I am passionate about. I believe that my engineering background and strong technical ability have been priceless assets along the way.  I have seen many photographers struggle in this arena and I am fortunate that I have the technical skills to adapt and troubleshoot my way out of the technical abyss.  It also helps when learning new crafts/mediums like motion.

Trinette, you have a strong background with the traditional “Macro” end of stock, and yet you appear to be dipping more than just your toe into the micro waters. Can you share your thoughts on that?
Trinette: Well I noticed that my returns in macro took a really hard hit over the last several years all the while, the editing was getting tighter and tighter and returns were plummeting, this was really squeezing our ability to turn a profit on stock shoots.  Right now we are really in a testing phase with micro, it’s very different from macro in many ways and there is a bit of a steep learning curve.  We are still in the learning phase.  One of my favorite things about micro is being able to edit my own images. 

I will say however that my Blend sales have held much more steady than my Getty sales.  My Getty sales have fallen off a cliff.  That is a very positive thing about Blend that it is so widely distributed and not solely dependent on any one agency. 

Chris, what are your thoughts on micro and do you think your beliefs are influenced by not having such a history with macro?
Chris: I think I have a lot less resistance to micro than a lot of people and I think it is important to stay open to change when your industry is in flux.  I don’t have the history of making a guaranteed $100 to $500/image/year as a standard for my income so I haven’t really taken that for granted.  I entered this market when it was already on the decline and micro was already up and running, though I didn’t really ‘get’ micro at the time so it was not on my radar.  I believe micro is a very viable outlet for imagery of a certain type and I am more than happy to be involved with it.  There is something very satisfying about being in control of your content and being able edit your shoots.  As Trinette said, we are still in a testing phase and we are paying close attention to the data and the changes.  The jury is definitely still out for us and I am not suggesting that traditional macro shooters can jump into microstock and start seeing good returns.

As Tom Grill mentioned in his recent blog post:  50 x $200 = 200 x $50.  The dollar amount is the same at the end of the day and the emergence of volume sales in stock photography is here to stay.  As a businessperson I want to pay attention to this model and see how I can benefit from it.

At this point how much of your energy is going into RM, how much into RF, and how much into Micro? What is your reasoning behind these choices?
Trinette:  I would say we are doing about 50% RM, 50% Micro (including motion) at this point this year. That could change as we acquire more sales information from micro – the numbers will show us the reality in the market and where to put our energy.

What have you learned about achieving success in the microstock arena?
Trinette: I do not consider myself successful in the micro area yet. It’s way too early to tell. The logistics of micro can very quickly bury you.  We went through a very intense three-month process of figuring it all out last year and wanted to give up on it everyday.  Now there is a service called Lookstat that handles our micro content. They are a really great company. I wouldn’t think of getting into micro without their help, they offer a really great service of retouching, keywording, and uploading content.  They also offer data management so you can see your sales and what shoots are making you the most money.

Lifecycle will be something very important to evaluate with micro.  If the lifecycle of an image is six months or even a year, that will be an important factor in evaluating profit. 

Chris: I agree with Trinette that we would not be pursuing microstock without the valuable services provided by Lookstat.  We also use JaincoTech for some of our retouching, yet another way that Trinette and I can spend more time producing & shooting and less time bogged down with the details or post-production. For us it is too early to draw conclusions about microstock, we have not been in the space long enough.

One of the challenges in micro is analyzing sales data.  Recently Lookstat implemented the ability to create Collections so we can group images by shoot and then see the sales data per shoot.  Analyzing sales data is key and we love to crunch numbers – just because your images are selling doesn’t mean you are making money.  You have to analyze the cost to get your images to market - from the shutter to the agency website.  Lookstat is also going to be adding other features like portfolio growth, sell through rate, etc.

Another challenge in micro is just keeping up with the changes - there is a large micro community out there and a lot of information to take in.  The best way to keep my finger on the pulse is to tune in to Microstockdiaries.com and listen to what Lee Torrens has to say.  I can’t seem to keep up with all the changes in micro, but Lee is a great source for all things micro and reading his blog is a great way to stay current.

You are also getting into motion. I believe your first effort was on a shoot in Tahiti. Can you tell us about that experience and how it may have help shaped your path in regards to video?
Chris: That shoot was a steep learning curve.  We were in NY last year two weeks before our trip to Tahiti, which was supposed to be just a stills shoot.  After talking to Stewart Cohen and some others in NY, we decided to go for it and add motion to the shoot.   We spent the next two weeks putting it together knowing nothing about motion video. We got on the phone with the Getty film department for advice, hired a DP from LA and rented an HD camera.  We shot two days of motion and two days of stills.  We art directed and had a DP for all the camera operation.  We had some of the worst weather ever on a shoot, severe tropical thunderstorms throughout the day with little bursts of sunshine.  So our shooting time got cut in at least half by the weather. Given that, we had a great shoot and fell in love with shooting film.  Getty ended up taking about 52 RM clips from the shoot. Now we have the 5D and have been shooting film since then with that camera. 



It is probably a bit soon, but do you have any information yet on returns from that effort?
Trinette: We spent about $20K on the motion part of the shoot.  It’s been online since February and we have made about $2K - a bit disappointing to say the least. The stills part of the shoot has done much much better. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have spent that much.  A lot of that money was spent on renting the HD camera and DP.  Now we are shooting with the 5D while shooting stills so it helps keep the cost down significantly. We made the decision for this shoot before we had the 5D so doing it on the cheap was not an option at the time. We also produced the shoot literally just before our Getty sales fell off a cliff.  Live and learn. It was an expensive learning experience.  Here is a link to the motion shoot from Tahiti.  http://www.trinettereed.com/portfolio/index.php?c=7&d=motion+video+gallery

Have you shot any more motion?
Trinette: Yes, we are trying to shoot motion on all of our shoots now.

What role do you see video having in your overall plan?
Trinette:  Very significant. It’s a big part of our plan. I don’t think the sales are there yet, but hopefully that will change soon as the technology for displaying moving images changes.

Chris: I believe motion is going to take off at some point.  People have been saying this for a long time now, but I am a believer.  Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate and younger generations expect to see things in motion.  Before long every billboard will be in motion, posters around urban areas will be in motion.

Right now, what is the biggest challenge you see stock photographers facing? 
Trinette:  Making a living. Producing shoots for low costs, getting enough selects to make it worth it and our changing industry.  This industry has been in a huge state of flux for years now.  2005 is when I really started seeing a steep decline in my stock sales. In 2006, I had a full production staff and studio space. Now in 2009, it’s just Chris and I working out of our house. We outsource whenever possible and we get very resourceful when producing shoots. That downward trend that started in 2005 has continued to now in 2009. No one knows when that will stabilize or perhaps reverse. I know photographers who have given up on stock all together.  Flickr and social media have also forever changed stock photography.

I would love to see the dust settle in this industry and restructuring and merging of the RF/ Micro market at various price points as one model.  High quality content is priced higher.  Again the success of the Vetta collection proves that customers are willing to spend more money on micro sites for quality.  It’s about the customer finding the right image for their need; I believe that customers are willing to pay more.  If the agencies can figure out how to work out the search results so the quality content has better placement and can be prices higher, I think we could actually start making a decent living again in stock.

Chris: If I were a lone stock photographer out there I would make it my priority to get educated about the changes in the market and get involved with those changes.  Get involved in the community of your peers and share ideas, thoughts experiences.  If you put your head in the sand and hope that things will get back to ‘normal’ you will be looking for another career before long.

How are you guys dealing with those challenges?
Trinette:  Diversifying. Trying to stay open minded to new ways of doing business.  We are also focusing more on assignment work and we have a few other businesses in the works, some totally outside of stock photography.

What role do you see your web site playing in the coming years? 
Trinette: I think our websites and SEO is going to be very important. We are already seeing evidence of this.

Chris: As I mentioned before a big challenge is getting your images in front of the customer.  I think direct sales will be the way to do this as technology and SEO make it possible for individuals to handle this in house.

Do you foresee a movement towards more direct sales?  If so, how do you plan to get the necessary traffic?
Trinette:  Yes, I do.  Recently I have had a number of clients contact me that have bought my images on Getty and have wanted to know if I sell any images directly. They told me that they would prefer to buy directly from me.  We actually just had a direct sales portal designed that will be live soon. We link to all of our images on Getty and Blend, and we also offering a collection of images that we are going to be selling directly.  We are very excited about it.  For direct sales, I think the name of the game is focus on a niche, own it, and SEO the hell out of it.

Chris: Traffic, yes that is really the issue isn’t it?  We have only begun to learn about SEO and plan on putting more energy into that this year. For now, we hope that our regular clients will use our direct sales website and plan to build more of an Internet presence in our niche of luxury hotels, spas and resort photography.  I think with SEO, the more niche you are the better chance you have of getting customers to your site. 

It has always been a strategy in photography to specialize. I am, for instance, focusing on business/concept imagery. Am I correct in that you guys are specializing in Spa Photography (sounds like a bit more fun!)?
Trinette:  Yes, we specialize in luxury hotel, spa, and resort photography.  We still do a lot of fashion, beauty, architectural and lifestyle imagery as well.


Can you explain a bit more about that decision?
Trinette: I feel that my work in general over the years lends itself to that specialization, so it felt in some ways like a very natural transition for me.  A couple of years ago, Chris and I were at a luxury resort and spa in Napa Valley on vacation and after thoroughly relaxing into our vacation, we started brainstorming and visioning about where we wanted to take our business and what we wanted to create in our lives.  Focusing on luxury spa and resort photography was what came out of that “meeting” lounging in an outdoor cabana by the pool.

We came home and got right to work on it putting together a new website that focuses on that niche. We realized that we already had a body of work of spas and resorts without even trying, it was right there under our nose in the midst of the thousands of stock images we had been producing.

Chris: We have spent the last couple of years filling the holes we had and also focusing on architectural photography, which is something we both love, and something that spas and resorts need.  Often resorts hire an architectural photographer or a lifestyle photographer, we wanted to provide the client with one stop shopping and deliver architectural, food, lifestyle, detail images and motion video all in one photo shoot to cover all of their visual needs. I think we have done a good job of that and being able to offer all of those services to the client.

Do you still take on assignment work?
Trinette: Yes. And this is actually something we are more actively pursing now. When we were in New York last month, we just signed with a new commercial photography assignment rep O’Gormon-Schramm. We are very excited about working with them. They are already reaching out to the spa and resort market and getting our name out there.

If so, do you plan on placing more, less or the same emphasis on assignment work?

Chris:  More.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of stock photography?
Trinette:  I am optimistic, although there are times in the last few years where pessimism has gotten the better of me in regards to making a living at stock. I am also hedging my bets. I would not feel comfortable being 100% dependent on stock right now.  I used to encourage photographers I mentored to go into stock.  I don’t do that anymore. Having said that, I do think that photographers who can adapt and shoot quality content and keep costs down will be able to continue to make a living, at least for now. One thing is for sure, it is way more difficult and much more competitive than it used to be. I love shooting stock and the freedom it affords me. It was always my dream to do exactly what I am doing.

Chris: I too am optimistic.  I believe that if you are able to adapt you will succeed.  I see a lot of opportunity ahead and I plan to make sure we are poised to be in the best position possible going forward.  Diversification is one way to do this, adapting to market changes is another.  I cannot stress enough the importance of cost per image and analyzing your returns, no matter what space you are playing in.  We have actually expanded our business in many ways during this recession and I think that those who do the same will benefit.

If you had to give one piece of advice about how to achieve success in stock photography in the coming years, what would it be?
Trinette: Be open minded and open to change, experiment, use the downturn to focus on what you really want to be doing, stay connected.
Chris: Stay open to the changes and open to learning; don’t pretend to know what you don’t know.

Trinette, can you share with us a current favorite image of yours (or yours and Chris’s) and the story behind it?



Trinette: This is an image I shot at a hotel and resort on the island of St. Barts.  This woman was swimming underwater in the ocean; I was standing on top of a small boat shooting down into the water. I was leaning over the edge of the boat and Chris was holding the back of my pants so I didn’t fall in. The model kept turning sideways in the water while she was swimming, which actually worked well for this particular shot.  Before we left for the trip, I had this idea of wanting to photograph a woman with various nature elements compositing them together. So when we got home. Chris composited some clouds over her so it looks like she is swimming through clouds and water. This was more of a personal shot for me, not intentionally shot for stock, but of course we submitted it to stock as well.


Chris…same question. 

This is my current favorite image.  My mother was visiting from Ohio and we wanted to do a shoot with her because she is such a beautiful mature woman and she is very comfortable in front of the camera.  We ended up walking on a trail surrounded by grassy hills and nature near our house. There I was with camera in hand and my two favorite women in the whole world so it was easy to make beautiful pictures. I particularly like the feeling in this shot, the connection that jumps out of the image. My mom had recently recovered from breast cancer and I can feel her relief/exhaustion in this shot, at the same time I can feel the love and compassion coming from Trinette. These moments happen day in and day out in our lives and to be able to capture one like this is a gift.