Why create peopleimages.com?

Although words like authenticity and fair trade are more in line with the description of your morning coffee, these are the words used by Yuri Arcurs when describing peopleimages.com.

Apon asking the 35 year old founder if there is room for another stock site in the industry, he responds with, “No, I don't think there is room for another stock site, but peopleimages.com is not another stock site”. In three short paragraphs he explains why: 

The Pursuit of Authenticity and Quality

To be honest, I wanted to create a site where the customer is spared the excruciating experience of going through page after page of low quality images. Stock images at their worst can be quite bad so it is important to be ruthless by discarding enormous amounts of images that most other stock sites would have accepted. I think that this refining process keeps both us and our customers sane :-)

Fair Trade 

Most customers are unaware that the majority of stock sites take an average of 80% of the image royalty shares and that the photographer is often left with less than 20%. I have first-hand experience in the high costs of running a stock site but by being greedy, many stock sites end up suffocating the product they are seeking to sell. In my opinion, the need exists to offer photographers a decent piece of the pie. Nowadays we buy fairtrade coffee, fairtrade chocolate, fairtrade bananas etc - why not buy fairtrade images? By offering our photographers at peopleimages.com a minimum of 40% of the royalties, our aim is to release them from the shackles of extreme budgeting. The best thing about our favourable division of royalties is that it encourages experimentation and uniqueness from the photographers. We believe that valuing the photographer’s contribution has a positive influence on the end product - the images. Our site alone can't change the industry but we are set on taking a step in the right direction. We´re proud to state that when buying through peopleimages.com, you are supporting our efforts.

A Finger on the Pulse

Having a direct line of communication to the people buying our images (and my own) is a major reason why I decided on creating peopleimages.com. I wanted to hear all the complaints, the praise and the occasional kick in the butt. This direct feedback has definitely kept me on my toes as a photographer have proven to be a healthy exercise. As much as I value and appreciate the opinions of my colleagues, family and friends, their opinions are based on subjective beliefs and not based on actual commercial demand. The people who buy images need them - they don’t buy images because they like them, and this distinction is important. So having a chance to get feedback from the buyers themselves was a major part of why peopleimages.com was born - to create a tighter circle of demand and supply that what I would not ordinarily have when mass distributing through other agencies.