Peter Greenway talked about his journey into the world of image libraries and how this led to specialising in book cover work. It happened by a chance meeting with a very well-known photographer, Tony Worobiec, who simply asked have you sold your images to an agency?
Peter started what is now a 5-year journey which has proven to be a hard and steep learning curve.
The agency business has several sections, “Stock photography” for the supply of specific images with a plethora of agencies, low payments. Next are the likes of Adobe and then the ‘big boys” Getty Images, Trevillian, Arcangel. Peter has images mainly on the Arcangel library plus others such as Shutterstock and Getty. With Blenheim Palace local to us he warned they have a total embargo, so never send identifiable images, they will sue! Variety is key to image libraries so you could well have something to sell. This is the premium end, and you hand over management rights to them, they exclusively market and promote and limit use to one per licence. 50/50 royalty split. It’s a brutal process with an acceptance rate of only 13-15%. Peter finds he can sell rejected images to Getty on a non-exclusive basis and some have sold well. His most successful image to date is this full-page image of St Marks. You get paid for every county in which the book is published.
Peter on average submits 5 images per week and freely admits it’s a hard and at times challenging process.
Martyn Pearce
Do join us for our next presentation evening on Wednesday 5th October at 7.30pm at The Adderbury Institute, Adderbury speaker to be confirmed. Also we have our annual exhibition on 22nd October in the church at Deddington during the farmer’s market.
More details on our website.
Anne Hunsley
www.addphoto.co.uk