Picture buyers panel confronts challenges

This is the podcast of the second panel I organised and moderated at the 2010 Picture Buyers Fair in London. This time we had a great group of picture buyers to engage in a public discussion. Where many discussions take place in the stock photography industry, not many involve the actual buyers. This made this discussion both interesting as well as confrontational at times.

The great panel was made up of my old Corbis colleague Jamie Klingler,  now Photography Director and Editorial Finance Manager at shortlist magazine, Veneta Bullen, Picture researcher and chair of the picture research association and Desney Ryan, picture editor at Look magazine, IPC media.

The panel adressed a wide ranging number of changes in the way buyers source images. Sellers often get frustrated by negotiation and seemingly never ending budget cuts. The buyers explain how they themselves had to deal with reduced budgets and talked through the alternatives they are finding that allow them to buy more images for smaller budgets. The panel also explained why, apart from budgets, they choose certain agencies over others.

Towards the end of the panel an active debate started with the audience. This is well worth the wait. Like my previous panel this one takes about an hour. As an extra bonus we agreed to give Picscout some ‘airtime’ before the start to explain how images can get licensed after being found on Google.