Advance Notes: Here's an explanation of the difference between the stock photographer and the service photographer.
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Know thyself was the advice Plato gave his students. Good advice for the stock photographer, too, who wishes to market his/her stock photography. And a good watchword for photobuyers and researchers, to anticipate what to expect from the photographers they seek out.
To apply Plato's recommendation: If you know a photographer's emphasis, in the vast spectrum of the world of photography, you'll have smooth sledding when it comes to efficiently honing in on the pictures you need, and you'll simplify your transactions.
You can find photographers who can be consistent resources for you, whether you need assignment (service) photography or stock.
'SERVICE' PHOTOGRAPHY:
Many newcomers to the field of stock photography initially set their goals toward advertising, PR, industrial, fashion, and assignment photography. These and similar "work for hire" areas ("service" photography) are paid for on the photographer's day rate basis.
Service photography is a fast-paced existence. ("We need the picture yesterday.") Work-for-hire means in most cases that the client owns the copyright. The photos are often "art-directed." ("We want a girl with blonde hair and a 1960's red dress.") While the resulting photographs have limited "lasting value" (have you ever looked at a graphic-design annual of the year's best photographs? --from 1995?), the large fees in service photography are attractive to photographers.
STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY:
Stock photography, on the other hand, is at the other end of the spectrum. Photobuyers and researchers and stock photographers deal via the Internet, FedEx, and the postal service. Photobuyers can find fresh new talent to add to their select list of photo suppliers.
Increasing numbers of photographers are establishing websites to be able to deal with buyers electronically, or joining a website that specifically gives photobuyers access to scores of photographers who have coverage in targeted areas of interest. One such site is PhotoSource International's own PhotoSourceGROUP, partnered with the electronic PhotoSourceBANK, which enable photobuyers to locate specific-content photos in seconds.
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Telephone: 1 800 624 0266 Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: www.photosource.com/products
Welcome
to PhotoResearcherStock.com. Here's where you'll
find information about researching photos, stock images, buying pictures, stock photography, social photography, photo research, and image collections.
Filing Those 1099 Forms
Advance Notes: It's important for freelance entrepreneurs to familiarize themselves with the steps they can take to keep their taxes to the legal minimum. Our tax consultant, Julian Block, gives expert advice on tax issues like the example below.
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Question: In addition to my stock business, I've authored photo and software instruction books, and I also do photo decor books. Presently, I am represented by two agents -- one for books, and another rep for my decor work. Under the contracts with my agents, each gets a percentage of my earnings.
When filing time rolls around, both agents send me 1099 forms, and I understand that copies also go to the Internal Revenue. The 1099 forms show what money they have sent me during the year in terms of advances, royalties received from publishers, and other payments related to my books or decor contracts. But they do different kinds of bookkeeping!
One agent's 1099 lists the gross (full) amount she received from clients as my income; that is, she does not allow for the commission subtracted by her up front before sending a check for the balance to me. The other one handles things differently; his 1099 lists only the net payment (after commission) he actually sent to me.
How should I report these payments on my return? I know that I have to include payments received from agents in the total figure shown on line 1 (gross receipts) of Schedule C of Form 1040, but I'm not sure which figures to report!
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Answer: Let consistency be your guide. The amount of income you declare should be consistent with the figures shown on your 1099 forms. Otherwise, the Revenue Service's ever-vigilant computers might go bananas, with unpleasant consequences to you.
When it comes to monies you received via an agent, what you should declare depends on whether the agent submits a 1099 form for you that shows the gross amount (total paid by the publisher or client) or the net amount (amount actually paid to you after commission is deducted).
Does the 1099 filed by the agent list the gross amount? Then that's the figure you should include in totaling your income to come up with your gross line 1 of your Schedule C -- and remember to include the agent's commission, which is deductible, on line 11 (commissions and fees); otherwise, you'll overstate your income and overpay your taxes, a miscue that the Internal Revenue's computers are not programmed to detect.
Does the 1099 from your agent instead list the net amount, the sum on the check actually sent to you after the agent's commission taken off the top? Then you should use that amount in arriving at your gross income figure -- and you should not deduct the commission on line 11, since it's already been subtracted from the income figure.
Here's an example. Say your agent receives a check from your publisher in the amount of $50,000 (think big!), deducts a 15-percent commission of $7,500, and sends you a check for $42,500. After that year's end, you receive a 1099 form that shows $50,000. You should include the full $50,000 in your reported gross income on line 1 and deduct the $7,500 commission on line 11. If, on the other hand, the 1099 shows only the amount actually sent to you, $42,500, you should include only $42,500 on line 1 -- and deduct nothing on line 11. Either way, you pay tax only on the $42,500; and either way, the serenity of the Revenue Service's computers will be preserved.
Julian Block, a former IRS agent and a tax attorney, is the author of "The Stock Photographer's Tax Guide 2007." For details on how to purchase this important 99-page publication: http://www.photosource.com/taxtips.php . For Julian's tax saving and tax planning reports, go to http://www.photosource.com/products and click on "2007 Tax Tip Guides." Julian can be reached at julianblock@yahoo.com . http://www.julianblocktaxexpert.com
Business
Notepad
MEETING PLACE
-- Interactive Flickr Now for everyone. Yahoo has finished a redesign of its Flickr home page that emphasizes the photo-sharing site's social aspects. The new home page shows off more of a user's own photos and more from the user's contacts, and it surfaces social activity such as comments on the user's photos, replies to comments the user made on others' photos, and new photos posted to the user's ... Full
Story
The cost of travel overseas is always
prohibitive for the stock photographer just starting out.
One way to skirt around this problem is to become a home based
travel agent. Make money from home as an independent travel
agent and see the world at a discount! Get details from this
informative eBook.
Should You Charge a Research Fee?
Research fees, in the last century, came about when photobuyers would request a particular photo from several stock photographers and stock photo agencies simultaneously. The photobuyer would receive several submissions. The buyer would choose the photo that best fit the bill and would return the rest to the other photo suppliers.
Stock agencies and photographers got smart and began charging a "research fee" to cover their lost time. The research fee ranged from $25 to $100 (usually around $75) depending on the eventual licensing fee. When a photobuyer licensed ("rented") a particular image, the cost of the research (to find the photos in the files; it required manual labor at that time) was included in the eventual licensing fee.
Around 1997-1998, the Tony Stone agency dropped charging research fees, probably in an attempt to gain market position, but also to reflect the new easier in-house computer searches that were coming along at that time. Most stock agencies followed suit (they had to!). Today, very few general stock agencies charge a research fee.
However, if you are a specialized agency, or individual stock photographer specializing in a niche market, charging a research fee can still be appropriate, particularly in cases of especially obscure, rare, hard-to-locate image requests. -RE
An emerging area of interest for researchers is The Deep Web, sometimes called the Invisible Web. Perhaps it should be called the 'Few People Know About It' Web. Search Engines catalog ordinary web pages made in HTML. But there is a huge area that is 'hidden' from most search engines. Data, that is, information, including photos, in databases. When you are surfing a website and see any of these characters in the address bar: "?, cgi-bin, asp, cgi" you are interrogating a dynamic "database," not a static web page.
Why does this matter? Because there is a lot more information in databases than there is on the "Surface Web." 500 times as much, as estimated by a search engine called BrightPlanet! This includes a lot of photo archives, of course, which are normally not static HTML pages but are dynamically served up when you enter your query into a site's search engine.
As far as researching subjects goes, it is horribly time-consuming to go to various different sites and tap into each database singly. Now there are a number of 'database metasearch engines' growing up: the best of which is BrightPlanet's "Complete Planet." www.completeplanet.com. It's a bit clunky at the moment, but it will improve like other emerging technologies. It's an area to keep an eye on as more and more websites stay current by using dynamically updated information instead of ordinary HTML.
Julian Jackson is a Picture Researcher and New Technology Consultant. Problem Solved! is his latest innovative eBook/Marketing tool and is available free from http://www.julianjackson.co.uk/probsolved.htm
Julian Jackson's eBook, Internet Marketing for Photographers, is 67 pages of information on marketing your images in the new media. $18.99 To read a free extract send a blank e-mail to: extract@julianjackson.co.uk website: http://www.julianjackson.co.uk/marphoto.htm
Of
Interest
Re-publication Permits Privacy Suit to Proceed
Although the language of each state statute may vary, the use of a
person’s name, portrait or picture in a photograph cannot be used for
advertising, commercial or trade purposes, without the person’s written
consent.
This is called the Right to Privacy. The time to bring a lawsuit for
invasion of the Right to Privacy is one year from the first publication
in New York and most other states, but is subject to what is called the
single publication rule. Under this rule, the statute of limitations
begins to run on the date the material at issue is first published or
used. Accordingly, subsequent distributions or uses of the images does
not constitute a separate publication or continuing wrong which would
extend to the date the initial claim accrued.
The purpose of this rule is to avoid an endless tolling of the
limitations statute. For example, a distribution of a work to a library
would be the initial date for statute of limitations purposes, and that
initial date would not be extended each time the ... Full
Story
HOW DO THEY DO IT? Yuri Arcurs - Microstock Entrepreneur - Not content with an
annual microstock income of US$1.3 million and being the top selling microstock photographer, Yuri Arcurs is creating a microstock empire. Here's a summary of his new entrepreneurial activities.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/meet-the-new-yuri-arcurs-microstock-entrepreneur.html
WHO SAID PHOTOGRAPHERS CAN’T WRITE? History in the Buffer - David Burnett, photojournalist, wrote this piece about his experience "in the buffer" covering the election night in Chicago. A remarkable diary of his election night experience.
http://werejustsayin.blogspot.com/2008/11/history-in-buffer.html
TAKEAWAY: When TIME Magazine made “the computer” the Man of the Year, they sent David Burnett to Pine Lake Farm to photograph me and my new Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II. You can see the picture TIME used at:
http://www.photosource.com/rohntime
