65. Stock Photos

August 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

For a few dollars, a company can buy an image of a smiling woman in a headset, a diverse group of suited professionals in a conference room, or a runner racing into the sunset. These are stock photos, the "secret background of the whole world," according to Yuri Arkers, the CEO of People Images and one of the most prolific stock photographers alive. "Essentially any big city, if you walk for 10 minutes, you'll probably see five or six of my shots," he says. His company has amassed an archive of 600,000 images and 250,000 videos, sold on platforms like Shutterstock and Adobe Stock. But the business that once made a relative few photographers rich has become a congested, algorithm-driven market where most contributors earn cents per download, and the shelf life of a successful image is shrinking.

From Elite Guilds to the Microstock Revolution

For much of the 20th century, stock photography was a high-end, exclusive industry. Companies maintained physical archives of film, and clients would order specific file numbers from hefty catalogues. Photographers who made the cut were "handsomely rewarded," selling images for hundreds or even thousands of dollars under tightly controlled "rights managed" licenses. If a client wanted to print an image in a larger size or on a brochure, they paid extra.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:43) **The Ubiquity of Stock Photos** - Zachary Crockett introduces the episode by describing the generic images we see everywhere: chatbot avatars, bank brochures, gym ads.
2 (02:56) **The Pre-Internet Stock Photo Model** - The episode traces the history of stock photography back 120 years, when newspapers had to send photographers for every generic image.
3 (04:41) **The Microstock Revolution** - The rise of the internet in the 2000s allowed anyone to upload and sell photos, with customers paying as little as $1 per download instead of $600-$1,200.
4 (06:08) **Inside a Stock Photo Empire** - Today, Arkers runs a 20,000-square-foot studio in Cape Town with over 100 employees, doing 3-4 shoots daily and amassing 600,000 photos and 250,000 videos.
5 (08:04) **The Economics of a Single Sale** - Most stock photographers earn around 30 cents per image license; Arkers, at the top of the food chain, averages about $1 per sale with over 10,000 daily downloads.
6 (09:36) **How to Predict What Sells** - Successful stock photography requires anticipating trends, not just replicating what's already popular.
7 (11:11) **Anatomy of a Top-Selling Photo** - Arkers' current best-seller is a woman taking a break from a run, hands on knees, smiling at a bright blue sky.

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Show Notes

Making money in the stock image business requires a sharp eye for trends, a very specific type of model, and a race against A.I. Zachary Crockett takes his shot. This episode was originally published on September 29th, 2024.

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