Photogenesis : Artist Relations
If your art is on our website, you’re more than just a Photogenesis contributor; you’re a stakeholder in the vision of the company. It makes sense to us, therefore, to play down the distinctions between artist and agency... in fact, we see Photogenesis itself as an art project. And we aim, through the following principles and practices that comprise the basis for our artist relations, to reflect the sense of co-ownership we believe in.
1. We think artists deserve to be rewarded generously and promptly for their time and creativity – more so than is typical in image-licensing today. To that end, we’re committed to providing the highest artist-commissions that good business sense will allow. And our accounting will be instant: we’ll send you your share as soon as we receive payment ourselves, which in most cases will be within days of the time of sale.
2. The creativity of our photographers is at the heart of our operation, and we aim to reflect this on our website. For one thing, as an artist, you’ll have your own gallery on Photogenesis, complete with animated Flash displays of your work and links to your image-detail pages, which will also prominently feature your identity. (Compare this to what’s typical in the image-licensing world, where the names of artists are generally appear as fine-print footnotes.) And for another, our overall library size will be much leaner than our competitors’, which means that your work won’t get buried in search results among thousands of other images.
3. Contracting images with us will be virtually free of risk. This means, first of all, that listing won’t cost you any money. Second, it means that you’ll retain the right to sell your images on your own. Third, our contract terms are among the shortest in the business, leaving you free to opt out of the partnership if it’s not working out. And finally, in terms of copyright protection, we’ll go above and beyond in closely managing the reproduction rights of your work – and in always keeping you abreast of when and where your images are scheduled to appear.
4. Keeping your time investment to a minimum is another priority. If you’re like most photographers, you’re busy enough without having to resize images exactly to specs, fill out keyword checklists, or arrange your photos by subject. All that stuff is our job. Yours is simply to send us your best images and their captions through whichever means is easiest – our FTP server, the postal mail, or the direct-upload system on our website (coming soon).
5. We believe you deserve all the information we can possibly give you about the exposure and licensing of your images. (They’re your images.) That’s why we’re making plans for an innovative artist’s “studio” on our website, where you’ll be able to view thumbnails of the all images you have up on Photogenesis, along with a wealth of statistics on each. You’ll clearly see, for example:
– complete information on image-licenses past and current: to whom, when, for how long, for what sizes, for what purposes, and so on. (Note that our licenses are strictly rights-managed, not royalty-free.)
– page-view statistics, such as how many times each image has been viewed and at what conversion rates (the ratios of page-views to purchases).
6. Our web presence includes your web presence. If you have a personal website to showcase your images, we want to do what we can to enhance its value and visibility on the web – including offering suggestions to improve its search-engine optimization and viability as a starting point for image-licensing. Then, whenever traffic from your website to ours results in sales (of any images), we’ll automatically send you bonus 'affiliate' commissions.
7. We are a representation agency, not an assignment agency. We will never pay our staff (or anyone else) to take photographs. Anyone who wants to prepare work for submission to Photogenesis must do so on their own time – just as you’re doing it on yours.