Alfonso's torrential, direct and sometimes provocative speech along with his extensive stock industry experience and insight make this interview a very useful and easy read. Alfonso was interviewed by Theodoros Papageorgiou with questions aimed to shed some light on areas that puzzle many full time and part time stock photographers.

Theodoros Papageorgiou: Tell us a little of how and when did you became involved in stock photography.

Alfonso Gutierrez: I started in photography from the chemistry side of it: I was 13 years old when I was developing images that I took with an Agfa 6x9 camera my father had. The chemistry aspect of the processing was what caught my eye. Consequently, I was taking photographs to be able to process and experiment with the results. While I was studying to get my chemistry degree I was not abandoning my interest and I was consistently experimenting with the color photography chemistry of that time with such old emulsions as Anscochrome and later with Ektachrome E-1; those early times were actually interesting and lots of fun. It was not until the early 60's that the creative part of photography captured my attention; since then I'm still here shooting and editing.

TP: You've been in the stock photography business for over thirty years. What is your single most important advice to stock photographers?

AG: I think the best advise that I can give to photographers interested in stock photography is to learn to be very persistent, highly patient and a real hard worker; even more nowadays, when there is a huge offer of images in the market. When there is saturation, too much offer of a given product, the prices for it goes down.

TP: From the over 1400 photographers currently with age fotostock , how many are engaged full time in stock production in terms of annual income?

AG: I don’t know all our photographers personally, thus it is difficult for me to know how many of them are actually full time stock shooters. However, I know about those that are closer to us, those that I meet regularly and even those that we produce with. I could say that a good number of them live off what age fotostock sends them every month. And they live comfortably enough as far as I can see.

TP: Is it financially feasible for a photographer to pursue stock as a full time occupation?

AG: Yes, it is if you wake up in the morning and dedicate 8 hours a day five days a week to your stock photography occupation and you are in fact attending your business: a stock photography business . Stock photography is a business like any other. Naturally for your business to give you sufficient money to sustain you and your family you need to know a lot about your business, and unfortunately those that fail to make stock photography the occupation in which they are employed full time are, simply said, bad business people and don’t know enough about the business they were in.
Stock photography is not only about taking pictures, it is about running a business and most photographers don’t have the faintest idea how to transform their passion into their profession.

TP: In this supply driven market, what is the best way for a new stock photographer to enter the market?

AG: Funny enough, the only way to enter into this market is knowing very well how to produce really good images . Images of any subject, but well resolved both technically and aesthetically. While this seems simple, the fact of the matter is that it is the most difficult part: there is so much irrelevant photographs around that, it is scary.

TP: What are the critical points in your photographer approval process?

AG: Approving a photographer to be part of our team of contributing photographers is not easy.
We never know whether the photographer understands his/her responsibility when he/she signs a contract with us. We expect the photographer to carry that part of the agreement that says that he/she has to supply images regularly but most photographers don’t read contracts, and if some do, most of them don’t understand what they read anyway.

Photographers, especially those anchored in the old stock photography thinking, still live in those prehistoric times when they were the center of the photography universe; not any more, luckily! So, when we accept photographers that look promising we keep telling them that they have to be consistent in quality and submit regularly if they want to see substantial money reaching their end. However no matter how many times you repeat things, or no matter how analytical our selection process is we still find from time to time the old stereotype: inconsistency in their submissions, badly edited selections, lots of 9 to 5 o'clock imagery, little personal work, boring photography style, etc.

The reason for the editing process we undertake on any selection of images we receive is essentially crucial: we keep only those images that make sense, both technically and from a graphic and conceptual point of view. The summary is that there are many critical points on the approval process, but once a photographer is approved we never have any control on what his/her behavior is going to be in the end. Thus we try to be highly selective but assuming all known risks at the same time.

TP: What are the most common misconceptions that photographer’s have about the business of stock photography?

AG: The biggest misconception of all is that if their images don't sell enough or at all, it must be the fault of the stock agency. They never analyze, for example, how many images they have in a given website compared with the total number of images that that website contains. The simplistic thinking they show is "...if my images don’t sell, there is something in the marketing of my images that is wrong..." There is not a shadow in their thinking to suggest to them that their images may be old, outdated, too few or their subjects are topical, marginal, irrelevant or there is a saturation of the same subjects in the files of the stock photography agency they are working with.

Another misconception worth mentioning is the "non-exclusive paranoia" that many photographers show: their images have to be non-exclusive or else no one will represent their images. Luckily there are places on earth where they can fulfill their dream and be fully non-exclusive, this relives pressure on stock agencies like us that *are* still image exclusive. Working in a non-exclusive environment makes them feel that the door of the cage is open and they can leave any time they want, but photographers only want to leave when their images don't sell and then, and again, they fall into the misconception mentioned above and they want to leave without any logical analysis or premeditated thinking, like anxious birds, they only want to get out of the cage. It is really funny in the end!

TP: age fotostock offers RM imagery as well as RF imagery through your PIXTAL brand. How should contributing photographers divide their imagery in terms of what kinds of images fit in RM and what kinds fit in RF licensing?

AG: Nowadays there are no differences between the kind of images that fits RM or RF. RF is an assumed product by the market and clients only discriminate between both when price is a factor: they know very well that RF has a non negotiable price, therefore in spite of its obvious advantages from a licensing point of view, sometimes they buy RM because they can negotiate its price.

TP: We live in a fast paced world, what's the average lifecycle of lifestyle and similar imagery with short "expiry dates"?

AG: It all depends on how astute the photographer is. If all your lifestyle productions are very trendy in style the lifetime of those images is going to be really short. However if you choose clothing, hair style and make up that is a bit neutral and conservative and shoot a mixture of editorial and conceptual images, they can easily have 5, 6 or even with some images 10 lucrative years.

TP: Is the biggest return per image/year on RM or RF licensed images?

AG: If we are talking about average prices, then I can say that the biggest return per image for any given subject is RF nowadays. Of course though, selling RM you may be lucky and sell one image at an exorbitant price something that will happen very infrequently with RF.

TP: Currently you have about 4 million images online and you have a tight editing policy in place. Can you describe to us the selection process?

AG: We don't have 4 million images in storage, sorry, at least not yet. As soon as we finish uploading three major collections that are currently being processed, our numbers will be over 3 million professionally edited high resolution files in storage.

TP: age fotostock is incorporated in Spain and in the US.
Do you see any differences between the European and the US markets in terms of style, pricing and subject areas?

AG: Yes, there are many subtle but important differences in shooting style and subject matter between the US and the rest of the world not only with EU and I think it would be too long to itemize them here at this time; it is easy to understand that multiculturalism, clothing, fashion style and approach to work and way of life are quite obviously different from a sociological point of view, therefore those differences have to be reflected in the photographs that different markets buy. And from the price perspective, luckily, American prices are still substantially higher than those prevalent in most of the EU countries.

TP: Are there any changes in the most wanted subject areas recently either in the US or the EU markets?

AG: Not really; photography is very cyclical with the language it uses to convey an idea in a given photograph, we can see this if we review the recent history of photography from an aesthetic point of view. We have had images in B&W, then in color, then tinted, then overexposed, underexposed, then blurred, then sharp, then wide-angle, then medium tele, then 300 mm. and even 600 mm., etc. style. Each technique conveys a certain look and creates a determined atmosphere in the images therefore everything has been used extensively since photography was invented and let's face it, in spite of the obvious limitations of the photography language, there have always been photographers combining everything to get great images. But the most wanted subject areas are not about how to describe them, but the nature of those particular areas of interest and in this respect, the market is still requiring exactly the same kind of subjects that it was requiring when I started in this business more than 32 years ago.

TP: What are your stronger marketing selling points?

AG: I'm not clear whether you ask about the marketing selling points for clients or to photographers. If for clients it is clear that we are a general stock agency that photographically covers many RM themes and subjects. In fact, many more than most agencies besides the larger corporations although we are pretty close to them in absolute numbers. We also have a compelling RF brand, PIXTAL , and we distribute everybody else's RF images.

For marketing to photographers the selling points are clear, we are still based on the 50:50 split in both the RM and RF (try to find a similar offer in the market) and do all the keywording, image retouching and even image scanning for free, relieving them of the hassle of having to do all that by themselves and freeing valuable time to shoot more.

TP: What type of contract do you offer to your contributors? Are you exclusive only or do you accept also non exclusive contracts?

AG: Our contract with photographers is image exclusive and there is a reason for that: our agents in 92 countries will be upset if they can't close a RM exclusive sale if that is what the client wants or the same RF picture will be seen in another RF distributor at a different price, most of the times at a lower price indeed. Our network of agents is essential for our existence today. Therefore we have to protect our network to be a viable option for our photographers.

TP: Microstock companies seem to be doing good business these days, do they create a new market or they are just eating from the same pie?

AG: It is always difficult in stock photography to know what the term "good business" really means. Many well known stock agencies of the past where doing "good business" and when they were sold and their figures were made public the reality was something else.

Microimages model is something that will increase the size of the pie and not the contrary. It is clear that companies and people that need an image but never would have been able to pay a price for it will be enticed to buy and use images if they are going to cost them a dollar or two, something that in the long run leads them to buy more expensive imagery. It has happened with the RF/RM model already, who at age fotostock would have been the vaticinator to say that 2005 would end up being the record year in sales for the whole 32 years of history of age fotostock?
The future looked really gloomy at the beginning of the century when RF was progressing, paper catalogs disappeared and the corporations were eating out the world as everybody was saying. The reality has been very different, RF has consolidated and the results have been more business for all of us, at least for us at age fotostock. Let’s welcome the arrival of the microimages business model.

TP: Do you feel that microstock has devalued stock photography or are they a natural consequence of the RF licensing scheme?

AG: I think microimages, like RF, are a consequence of the disruption created by digital photography, telecommunications and computer technology. Nowadays everybody can have a camera and can go out and shoot images, view them on the computer they use to do other things and finally upload them into many places on the web. This is not intrinsically negative, it really isn't, this is very positive and I think in that respect microimages are something positive too.

It is positive that my neighbor that loves photography but works in an office and would never think of leaving his job and start a photography career and even less, distribute his Sunday images through age fotostock, now feels personally realized because his images, good or bad, imaginative or descriptive, are downloaded, commented and on top he receives a check of a few dollars in his mail box now and then. This is gratifying and in fact really healthy to photography and not the complete opposites as, probably, all those stock photographers of the past may be whispering in their restricted cenacles.

And finally I don't think microimages as such have devalued the quality of stock photography imagery as stock photography today and even twenty years ago has achieved tons of mediocre photographs too.

TP: Do you think pro photographers should engage in microstock?

AG: Why not? If a *pro* can't get some of his images accepted by traditional stock agencies, he/she has too many similar already in non-exclusive agencies and the leftovers are still acceptable anyway, why is he/she not going to take the dollars of the microimages business? Probably his/her images are going to be download a ton of times, so why not profit from such a win-win situation?

TP: From your rather extensive experience as a businessman and agency owner do you think that the microstock business model may be viable in the long run?

AG: I'm absolutely convinced that the microimages model is a very viable model no matter from what angle you look at it. There are plenty of people around the world that need an image at a very cheap price and that image doesn't have to be an Ansel Adams masterpiece, so the market is guaranteed. And from a business point of view it sounds like a viable one, as the photographer gets the less money, works the most to make the images a product to sell, and is paid when the money accumulates. Considering the few cents the photographer gets from every download, it is easy to realize that microimages companies end up administering a certain amount of money that will be paid in a future date in view of the high number of photographers that have microimages to sell, the relative low number of images have most of them online hence the relative low number of downloads are going to get many of them.

TP: Do you think that there will be strong market pressure for lowering prices for RF or RM imagery as a consequence of microstock?

AG: Prices are going down already in view of many factors but none of them related to microimages business; in fact the lowering of prices relates more to internal circumstances of the stock photography industry rather than the intrinsic nature of prices. It has more to do with the penetration needs in all markets that companies with financial structures based on speculative shareholders are forced to apply than if the images are RM, RF or microimages.

The RM prices are going down because there are segments of the market that can offer volume purchasing power at a low buying price. In that circumstances there is always a stock photography company or two that can accommodate the price and therefore everybody else has to follow if they don't want to lose a piece of the pie.

TP: Has the increased freedom to experiment using digital cameras and software raised the quality of the images you now receive compared to times past?

AG: My answer would be, not yet. Still there are old digital cameras that photographers should get rid of soon whose results today are not what they should be in view of the much better cameras already in the market. Many photographers have not digested the fact that digital is not like film, that the critical tool to get the best images is the camera and its sensor and what operates it all is the manufacturer software. Software is dynamic and is changing constantly therefore every new camera model adds a software improvement that if one is a pro has to consider how his/her images will profit from that improvement.

Even more, there are still many photographers that have not fully understood the requirements of a well designed and thought out digital work-flow. Therefore, we still see many photographers not quite understanding what gamma, color space, screen calibration , noise, un-sharp mask, etc.., mean.

However, on another level, I would say that while digital photography is still not mastered yet for many photographers, at least we can get their Raw files and treat them at age fotostock and bringing to life images that otherwise taken with film, would have been ruined and then not saleable.

TP: age fotostock is a general agency, what types of images are you mostly looking for at the present time?

AG: I would say that the most interesting subject ever is "lifestyle" and all its variations. However, nowadays the offer in this type of image has decreased a bit for obvious reasons to us: (a) there are no catalogs from which to draw inspiration from, (b) it is financially expensive to produce this type of photography and very few photographers today can risk that amount of money, (c) a lot of images have to be produced to break even on the production costs if no money is guaranteed by the agency and (d) why to produce these kind of imagery when there are stock agencies and RF producers that can finance them without the photographer having to scratch his/her pocket?

TP: Is travel imagery a dead business as many say, from the photographer’s perspective?

AG: Are people saying travel photography is dead? I'm sure whoever said that is a fairly novice person in this business. Travel photography is probably one of the most lucrative segments of the market in stock photography today; one only need to see worldwide air traffic intensity and travel offers in the Internet to understand that saying that travel imagery is dead sounds like a pretty silly statement. However, if you say that honey moon travel shots or casual weekend travel images similar to the hundreds of thousands that you can find in most of the non-exclusive outlets, then you are right, travel photography is dead, better stated travel photography has been killed by a tsunami of mediocre photography. But if you are talking about good, solid imagery of the most popular world icons, read world destinations, taken by this relatively small group of well-known travel shooters, then the picture is completely the opposite.

TP: The industry consolidation continues and the mega agencies seem to be dominant in the market and set their rules of the game. Middle sized, general photo stock companies like age fotostock may be more vulnerable to this market pressure than small sized or specialty companies with low overhead. How do you deal with this?

AG: The industry consolidated long ago, and the term *consolidation* is an old fashion one already. The market exists and there are a number of players of different sizes but in any case, all of them fight for market share. This is the true existing status quo. The rules of the game are not set by mega agencies, although it might seem so to those that are not well within the guts of the industry. The rules of the game are set by the requirements applying to the "Internet economy". Furthermore to be a company that can profit from the Internet economy, you must be of a certain size and of a given overheads. These are in fact difficult to sustain for a small or very specialized company, provided that they are not unique in their field, competing can be a challenge.

age fotostock existence has been possible thanks, like a tripod, to three principles all based around the word *independency*. We are "technologically" independent, thus all our own needs to be a player in the Internet economy are satisfied by our own in-house IT team; we are independent in the "contents" we produce and distribute: we represent photographers and other images suppliers in enough quantities to be able to disperse the risk of missing a few of them; even more, we are approached by an increasing amount of photographers each year, over a thousand in 2005 alone, although we only accepted under 250; and to top it all, we produce a substantial amount of new images with selected photographers, more than 25,000 in 2005. Finally we are "financially" independent: age fotostock is a profitable private company owned by a few of us that have been together since 1973 and we don't owe anything to anybody besides the current business obligations.

TP: We've heard about the in-house production at some agencies and production companies however, it doesn't look like this field is really developing fast, is this true?

AG: Most of us, stock agencies of a certain size, are involved in heavy production nowadays; producing is part of today's game in stock photography when most photographers hardly can produce by themselves either because they don't have the money or they don't know how and what to shoot. Directing productions and financing, or buying them, is necessary part in every stock agency that wants to stay in this market long term. Yes, it is true, we buy productions from photographers and we finance productions too, however I don't anticipate a healthy future for a business based on producing images to sell the production to an agency. Photographers can do that themselves without the need of another intermediate.

TP: Do you think the possibility exists for age fotostock to be bought out by a larger company or you prefer not to think about that?

AG: Why not? age fotostock is a business that exists within certain context and as such, is a company that can be bought, I assume, if there is sufficient money put on the table. Up to this point this is pure business economy. Whether we would say yes to such an offer is a different matter. A situation like this has not happened and we are not working hard today in order to make the company appealing to possible future buyers as it has happened in the past with other companies. We don't think in this matter because we have different goals and targets in life.

TP: age fotostock has its own in-house IT department, a very nice and usable site and a software infrastructure that facilitates the photographer's submission and selection of images as well as the distribution of images to affiliated agencies. You also claim to have one of the most advanced technology platforms the Technological Hosting Platform. (THP) In which ways does this platform improve your services to your customers and contributors and what are your innovations in this area?

AG: The THP performs beautifully what by definition Internet does best: "Thinking global and acting local". The THP directly allows 45 stock agencies around the world to show on their websites millions of images at a cost they can afford and to another group of 47 others receiveing its technological benefits in slightly indirect manner but heavily dependant on our THP software and hardware developments. In other words, the THP allows them to compete in their local markets, helping them to show on their websites an oblivious search engine (the age fotostock search engine) that searches over millions of images in many cases using their local language.

Even more the back end of the THP, the agents' area of the THP, permits all of these agencies to have a rainbow of services in both RM and RF licensing, from rights clearances to generating their price list, create business accounts, register clients and users, monitor their traffic and obtain all the HighRes files they need supply to their clients without having to buy terabytes of storage as age fotostock stores all the HighRes files for all of them in one single, redundant and secure place.

For age fotostock, the THP stores and distributes the images of our photographers and these of other suppliers as well using the expertise, the name and vicinity of a local company. Try to imagine for a minute what all this software development and hardware deployment would cost if tried to be done by a single company.

Our latest innovation is going to be the introduction of e-commerce within the THP operation, for three beta testers in February 2006 and for the rest of the agencies as soon as they decide that they want to implement e-commerce in their THP platform. Imagine the impact it is going to have in sales and competition when most of these directly connected 45 companies will be able to sell RM using a unified, standard, price list, RF, CD´s and other services as well, using their own e-commerce engine.

TP: Do you have plans to further develop your IT infrastructure and try to innovate in the web marketing field? Should we wait for a surprise from age fotostock? Are you optimistic for the future?

AG: Our IT people are constantly innovating the platform in software or hardware areas. Most of what is being done is completely oblivious to the final user of our web or to the support we grant to 92 agencies, and more to come, that distributes our contents. In that respect, yes, there are short term changes and modifications that will be seen in the foreseeable future that will add even more flexibility to the web. We are working in other areas as well, both in hardware and software, that the market is requiring and we see the logic of the demand. I'm not sure that we will surprise anybody though as age fotostock's style by the most part has always been a side of the archetypical American fanfare cliché.

My optimism has a genetic origin, and when I see the present situation of the market I realize that there has never been so many opportunities for stock photography like those that are available today. Both being a photographer or a stock agency, the possibilities of making money and growing are immense. It isn't by chance that we closed 2005 as the best year in sales and profits for our two operations: age fotostock America, inc. distributing in the US and age fotostock in Spain distributing to the rest of the world.

TP: After thirty years in the business are there any surprises left for you?

AG: Oh, yes!! I'm sure that my days will end and I'll disappear with the anxiety of knowing that technological developments of the future will be a lot more interesting than those that we know today and when my day arrives I'll be really sad for not being able to learn, play and master them all.

TP: Do you have any comments about areas we haven't already covered or anything you would care to add?

AG: I think we both have done pretty well this time. Let's leave some topics for another future interview.