The Landscape of the Photography Industry [INFOGRAPHIC]

photography landscape

photography landscape

Have you ever wondered about how a picture actually gets created by a photographer and then distributed through mainstream media? The process happens to be far more complicated than snapping a photo and posting it on Facebook. Fortunately, Taylor Davidson, Director of kbs+ Ventures, has provided a great map of the adventurous world of photography for analysis and strategic planning. The entire layout of the photography industry including camera and phone manufacturers, editing applications, post production services, stock photo agencies, photo management sites and social sharing networks, is charted.

According to Taylor:

The photography industry has gone through a revolution over the past 5-10 years as the introduction of digital cameras, smartphones, social media platforms, and the cloud have created massive opportunities and disruptions in the industry. 380 billion photos were taken in 2012; for context, that’s 4 times as many as just 10 years ago, and it’s 10% of the total amount of photos ever taken.

number of photos taken

The goal of the graphic is to follow the flow of photos from the creators (pro and amateur) through distribution via people, consumers, brands, marketers, buyers and publishers. Each bucket (like camera manufacturers, editing tools, etc.) groups similar companies of focus, in an order from left to right, as to map the entire journey of an image from creation to its destination. Taylor adds, “It’s not meant to be exhaustive in naming all the companies in each bucket, but directional in capturing the main players that exist today.”

For photographers, the landscape can be used as a basis for strategy and as a guide to identify new opportunities and websites of value!

Some major players in the photography industry:

Camera Manufacturers: Canon, Nikon, Sony
Phone Manufacturers: Apple, Samsung, Nokia
Wearable Devices: Glass, Memoto
Editing: Adobe, Nik
Mobile Editing: Aviary, Snapseed
Sharing, Messaging & Community: Flickr, 500px, Instagram
Prints and Products: Shutterfly, Snapfish
Professional Photo Management & Websites: Photoshelter, SmugMug
Consumer Photo Management: Dropbox, Photobucket
Infrastructure Applications: Chute, Imgur, ImageShack
Stock Photography Agencies: Gettyimages, shutterstock, iStockphoto
Image Security: TinEye, PicScout
Advertising and E-commerce: Luminate, triplelift
Analytics: Nitrogram, Curulate, Webstagram, Statigram
 
What are your favorite sites to discover, manage or edit photos?

Daniel Zeevi

By Daniel Zeevi

Daniel is a social network architect, web developer, infographic designer, writer, speaker and founder of DashBurst. Full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology, creative art and web humor.

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