New Trend to offer more Free Stock Photos?

Another micro payment stock agency dips into zero payment stock photography these days.

Following an earlier announcement from micro payment stock agency Dreamstime which introduced a new sector for free images in January this year, also Inmagine´s brand 123RF announces the implementation of a Free Images section with currently 231 images and illustrations available at web resolution (72 dpi).

123RF notes that "the images offered for free downloads are NOT rejected submissions but actual accepted photos from our contributor's portfolio", but these complementary images appear only for 24 hours in the Free Images section.

 

Free images from Dreamstime "are limited to 10,000 copies in print usage", and also 123RF´s free images "are limited to 10,000 copies usage".

123RF has also created a new section called Hear It! for interviews with their top photographers.

The first interview was conducted with UK-based photographer John Morley:

Question: What was your biggest challenge coming into this industry?

Morley: I'm still facing it and that's to get to a point where I can concentrate full time on photography. It's achievable and it's not so difficult.

Exaggerated statement: old-fashioned professional stock shooters run more and more out of business, and new amateur microstock shooters tend to concentrate more and more on doing the stock photo business fulltime. A good or a bad development? Possibly only the reality.

More details here and in the 123RF Free Image License agreement.

 

Related:

• PicFindr: Not Alpha, not Beta, just not done yet (March 21, 2007)
• FreerangeStock: Totally Free High Resolution Stock Photography (April 06, 2006)
• Interview With Mark Thomson/Yotophoto (June 19, 2005)
• Yotophoto: The Long, Soft And Inevitable Revolution? (July 15, 2005)
• Free High Quality Stock Photography (July 14, 2005)
• "Free" Stock Photography and Royalty "Free" Stock Photography Sites without Breaking the Bank (June 28, 2004)
• istockphoto.com: "Bringing the price down to a level where everybody can afford to buy a stock photo" (April 28, 2004)

 

Comments

[Constantin]

Interesting piece of info Andy. We are considering something like giving out some free credits upon enrollment ... Free image and free credits has the same basic idea, draw attention/traffic to the site.