By

George Munday

It's very likely that when readers of Luminous Landscape have considered earning revenue from their pictures, placing them with a stock agency would seem a very lucrative method of earning additional income. Today's stock picture market is however, undergoing dramatic changes and so this may be a timely moment to write about the changing patterns of the stock photography industry and highlight some of the newer models that have appeared; especially the Micro Payment Agency.

Stock photography has been around for some sixty years, during which time it's progressed from an easy source of additional income from left-over assignment photographs, to a major influence in the development of photographic styles for both advertising and publishing. The original business, which started shortly after WW2, led a fairly predictable existence and experienced few changes until the1980's when the introduction of the stock catalogue occurred as a practical method to exhib...