What About Flickr?
[by Thomas Werner]
Art buyers and art directors look for photos in the places they are most familiar and comfortable with. Put your photos up on Flickr, a large number of art buyers and photo researchers look for, and purchase, images there.
14 Responses to 'What About Flickr?'
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I have photos on Flickr, and people definitely find you through it. My concern has been if Flickr / Yahoo try to somehow take your rights and sell it themselves. So far, my research has shown that you retain your rights. But, it’s in the back of my mind. Any thoughts?
ASMP recently reviewed the terms of service used by the major social media sites. http://www.asmp.org/socialmediaterms
Flickr is on the list of those reviewed.
Are there statistics regarding photo research using Flickr versus traditional stock or microstock agencies?
How do you prevent people from clicking and basically stealing your photos?
> “look for, and purchase, images there”
Ixnay on the urchasepay.
A long time ago I stopped posting large sizes to Flickr because despite the All Rights Reserved notice, I’ve have several photos “borrowed” for commercial purposes. That was before I knew about copyright protection and registering with the Library of Congress, and the potential of filing a small claims case seemed like a great deal of effort.
Since having started posting small images, I am now contacted by “editors” and “publishers” that tend write letters that go like this:
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“Hello, I love your work! I’m publishing a book on X and many good photographers such as yourself are contributing work. You should be honored I’m even asking you.
I would really love to use the photographs that you’ve put so much work into creating. Unfortunately I don’t have an budget to pay you, nor can I offer you anything in return except all the notoriety you’ll gain from being one of the photographers in book X that I’m going to sell for profit.
Also, I’m on a very tight deadline and I need your images right away. Please send them and I’ll even post your name as a credit in 6pt font in the back sleeve.”
–
Ok, sarcasm is mine, but I have received 3 such requests in recent months that do read a lot like that. I kindly reply to turn down their offer, and suggest they educate themselves by watching this video on the Vendor Client Relationship:
http://bit.ly/Rc7EW
Flickr is a wonderful place for letting creative people use your photos for non-commercial purposes, and I’m all for that. But don’t try to rip me off.
I like the Leslie Burns approach to Flickr. Her idea is that it’s the place to “show a little leg” to entice viewers to visit your main portfolio site. Not a place to place a portfolio worth of material.
I follow her advise and use it tease audiences to visit my blog site when I make a new post.
Matt,
I know a number of photo editors, photo researchers and art buyers at large agencies who us Flickr to look for interesting images. They are looking for something very different from Micro stock, I do not think the two compare.
In addition to possibly selling a few images, you are creating move visibility for yourself and your work, and that is a good thing.
Be where the buyers are, and I do know many who go to Flickr.
Thomas
Tequila,
Put the smaller jpegs on Flickr and keep the larger jpegs and tiff files at home. Only send the large files when a buyer calls, and you have received a purchase order or have a signed invoice, or have received other job and payment confirmation. Check people out before sending them high res files.
Will someone take your small jpegs….possibly. Your other choice is to never show them, and they would never be taken, but people would know far less about your work. I also believe that the damage done by someone taking a small low res file is minimal in return for the possible benefits.
I would hope that people link to them on facebook and my space because they think they are great, once gain creating much more visibility than you ever could by yourself. You need to be where the buyers are, and more and more buyers are spending time looking at images and video on places like Flickr and YouTube. Most photo researchers for large magazines are in their early 20’s and going to Flickr is second nature to them.
Remember to fill in your metadata, even though some programs will strip it out. Also remember to copy right your work before posting.
Thomas
Steven,
I couldn’t agree more, good business practices apply wherever you are doing business, Flickr included. Be aware of rip offs and also be ready to negotiate, just because someone says they do not have any money in their budget does not mean they do not have it to spend.
Many will ask to use your images for nothing because too many people give their work away. Ask for fair value for your work, an image posted on Flickr is not any less valuable than one on the Getty Images site. Be sure that you are being paid what you deserve.
Thomas Werner
@ Steven Erat: But does that make you a sale? The power of flickr is in the metadata.
It ranks very well in google images, so clients will find your images eventually, if you have good descriptions and keywords.
It’s not so much a portfolio, the power is more in the numbers and words. I’m not saying you should put every crappy shot on flickr ofcourse, quality still matters.
I’ve had requests for images via flickr from people who wanted them for cheap, and I never heard back when I quoted them a fair price.
But I’ve also made some decent sales via flickr, so I think the 25$ for a pro account is a very good investment.
That was a reply to Mark Harmel ofcourse, my mistake.
What size does anyone suggest?
@Andrew – I suggest 500 to 800 pixels on the largest size. You really can’t reproduce anything other than web content at that size.
Please be cautious that Flickr will do takedowns (without warning) when you put direct links to places that sell your work.
It’s crappy but it needs to be said.
I would suggest putting links to you main website or blog landing page not to a direct purchase path.
Okay. So I uploaded about 400 shots to flickr yesterday – automated batch process, I didn’t wait around!
Within 3 hours I had almost 2000 views. Very good you say? Not so much, I think. I do a lot of Resorts and hotels and some of these these were Spa shots. Guess how many views a woman draped only in a towel gets?
Are these just young boys, fuelling their fantasies? I find it hard to believe that many kids just happened to type in an appropriate keyword in that short a time.
Smells fishy to me.