Our stock photo agency, Index Stock Imagery, has assigned
each of the images in its collection to a single category and subcategory.
There are about 2400 possible category and subcategory combinations, ranging
from lifestyle-oriented topics such as Concept—business
and Couple—outdoor;
through specific technical or product subjects such as Architecture—church,
Land
Transportation—truck, and Medical
Science—physician; to natural history subjects such as Zoology—bear;
and including more than 1100 travel-related topics such as Kenya—Portraits
and Texas—San
Antonio.
People have questioned the need for this system in an image world that seems
largely driven now by keywords. In many cases, the category and
subcategory names are also keywords. (For instance, church, bear, and San Antonio are all valid
keywords.) Many people feel that categorization is a remnant of the
past--of a time in our industry where we had no digital files, and each image
had to be put into a single folder in a physical filing cabinet!
I look at our categories from a different perspective. I find that they
help me sort through and organize the license data we generate, and put it into
an actionable framework. An image of San Antonio could be primarily a nature image (and categorized as Flowers--wild, e.g. image 565953, or
Family—mother & child, e.g. image 489150a), for instance), an architectural
image (categorized as Architecture—door, e.g. 404679) or even an abstract restaurant
interior (Architecture—restaurant, e.g. 259506a). When our image
metadata experts tagged an image with the Texas—San Antonio category and
subcategory, it tells me that the primary message of the image is travel and
tourism-related. I can therefore do things like:
1. Recommend that artists go to San Antonio to shoot more images (or stop going there, if
the images we already have are not doing well).
2. Point a travel-oriented client to a set of images on San Antonio and be sure that the client will
see the type of images that he or she expects to see.
3. Analyze how San Antonio, Boy—outdoors, or Family—mother & child images are doing this year
compared to previous years, or how travel, lifestyle, or concept images are
doing, in general.
4. Check to be sure that we have current images in key categories.
Last year, we added more than 250,000 images to our file. We tried hard
to encourage submissions that would fill the holes in our file--and would keep
our collection looking fresh and relevant. (Our most recent addition to the San
Antonio subcategory are about a year old.)
I plan to write a series of blogs about our category system and the information
it conveys. I'll finish this entry, and start the series, by noting a few
category/subcategory areas that are obvious holes in our file. Please
point us towards any sources of the following types of images:
Couple—women: One of our best-selling subcategories, but we have only 19 images.
Historical—old west: Another good-selling subcategory, but only 32 images.
Industry—home building: A huge industry that is in the press, all the time. But, only 8 images in our file.
Insect—worm: Yes, the lowly worm sells well—all three images!
Washington DC—cathedral: Yes, our capital city has a cathedral, and images of it are popular. But, we have only seven examples in our file.
Sport & Leisure—water polo: Not a mainstream sport, but probably one that has upwardly mobile connotations. Our fifteen images of it sell well.
Switzerland: For some reason, people seem interested in images of Switzerland. Zurich, the Matterhorn, Geneva, and the Appenzell are all big sellers. Interestingly, other Swiss subcategories like Friebourg, Klosters, Lugano, and Berne, generate almost no revenue. Of course, some of this variation could be random, but most is probably driven by the conventional view of Swiss tourists.
Nalyi
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