Recently, I've painfully found that one of my favorite commercial stock photographers has erased all his stocks from various stock websites including DepositPhotos. Ironically, I was just about to purchase a subscription there. His works are quite famous. If you read a lot of novels, you must have seen his photos adorning the covers. I myself used his photos for Adramelech and Bleak Woods. In DepositPhotos, he had reached the highest rank: Platinum, which gave him right to sell his photos more expensive. So why did he quit? I wasn't not sure why but vaguely got the idea that he quit because of subscriptions which hacked off his income. Other stock photographers complained the same thing.
Years ago, I dared NOT imagine the word "royalty free photo". The price was obscenely expensive! Nowadays, many cheaper stock websites appear which offer cheaper price but only if you agree to buy them daily. DepositPhotos for example offers daily subscription starting from $69/month which gives subscriber right to download high-res images. Images which normally cost from $5-15 are now available as low as $0.5. Apparently, many people prefer to subscribe rather than the expensive pay-as-you-go.
The only site which he doesn't leave is iStockPhoto. Want to know their subscription price? $995/ 3months with 35 credits/ day. For your information, a high-res image can cost up to 40-50 credit there, meaning you can only download 15 hi-res images/month! I'd rather buy a LAPTOP!!!
When designing arts for other people, I don't care how expensive a stock photo is because I'm not the one who pay for it. However, when designing for myself, price matters! I'll be honest here. I'm not yet successful! It's almost impossible to find new writer clients because cover art has been monopolized by publishers, even if the writers decide to self-publish! And my ebooks haven't been sold obscenely as many as Fifty Shades of Grey. So how can I afford $15/photo for my own covers/ personal projects ??? If ALL royalty-free stock photographers leave cheap stock photo websites, what will happen to photomanip hobbyists who can't afford cheap stocks ???
I UNDERSTAND how the photographers feel. But they have to understand that many photomanip hobbyists will not be able to buy their expensive stocks! Then again, they're not charity workers. Why should they care about photomanip hobbyists???
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