Wetpixel as Stock Photography Agency??

Since wetpixel reunite a great amount of photographers from all parts of the world, and certainly has gained its place between the top underwater photography websites, why not to organize an agency in where each member of wetpixel can have their images for sell??? (obtaining wetpixel its respective commission of course)

It even could be a section that links to the websites of each one of us or something a little more dedicated...

I mean, most of wetpixelers knows the business, knows the prices and know what customer could need, so most wetpixelers have the "know how" (not me...), and also it can help to unify market values of our images.

I also consider that the most experienced photographers have his own agencys and regular clients, but would not be this the most efficient agency?

I don´t know, maybe this is a silly idea, but since most people doesn´t know how much is the value of an image, and between all of us cover almost the whole world, this can be a potential solution and business oportunity for all of us, including Mr. Cheng and wetpixel staff...

Sounds like an excelllent idea to me.

I would have thought if you want to make money as a Photographer the best way to do it is on your own and not through an agency ..

.. if you have the motivation and want to sell images as a business then that would be the route to go .. if you just want someone else to do the work and maybe have the privelage of having a few images in corners of magazines a stock agency would work.

IMO stock agencies are one of three categories ..

1) very talented photographes with mind blowing images

2) masses i mean MASSES of average images for cheap reproduction

3) news / sports specific for daily or at least more regular use of specific events

I think at best even though we have some very talented photographers here and some amazing images popping up from time to time at best a stock company without huge distribution and money for backing would if lucky fall into category 2 ... but i doubt we have enough images from recent times as well as years gone by to even meet that quota.

.. then theres the organisation and filing of images !

Maybe this would work:

I'd consider paying a fee to wetpixel for the privelage of being in a directory of photographers - the type of thing that potential clients could use as a resource. It would have to be more than a simple listing or web link; maybe a 6-12 thumbnails, a synopsis of the services provided and a link to the photographer's site, maybe a more detailed secondary page if the client wants to see a little more (maybe this is irrelevant if there is a site link. There could be a prominent link always visible on Wetpixel. It would need to be of professional design standard to keep the clients interested consideriing they are mostly designer-types.

People without their own site could at least link to flikr or similar.

Thinking on the run here but maybe those who sign up and pay the $s can get some advice on charging, or a couple of members with fotoquote (or similar) could provide a quoting service so that it doesn't act purely as a way of clients getting cheap photos, which is no good for anyone.

We are in the process of setting up a photo library!

".. then theres the organisation and filing of images !" sums up the fundamental problem - this has taken us 18 months to deal with! Then there's the issue of ACCURATE captioning.

Also important are:

Quality Control - an ABSOLUTE if you want to sell for decent fees - and extremely difficult for a website like WetPixel simply because unless images are individually scrutinised it is impossible to tell whether web-based quality will translate into publishable quality at a required size/resolution.

Lastly, the market - we see specialisation as the key - there are plenty of huge all encompassing libraries and agencies, but many have poorly and even inaccurately captioned marine images - these sometimes get into print and lead to red faces all around. Knowing a specific market, its requirements and fulfilling these is the only way we figure that money can be made. Simply wanting to broadcast the availability of nice images is unlikely to be enough today.

WetPixel is a great resource but I am far from convinced that it should be seen as a marketting tool for imagery. Anyone want to comment?

Giles and Paul make very good points - quality and work. I know the work involved in managing my own small collection of mediocre images is immense never mind what an agency that is proactively selling goes through.

Heres and idea if Eric wanted to consider something - for a fee allow users of wetpixel's galleries to have an additional html line "to buy this image click here" which could then be set to go to a members external site or agency page.

I dont use the galleries but it would mean no work for the wetpixel team (outside a little PHP addition), a well deserved income for wetpixel and exposure for sellers through wetpixel's immense traffic..