Bennett Expands Ambient Images' Profitability with Digital Railroad

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Owning and running Ambient Images has been a longtime passion for Peter Bennett. His two stock photography archives—New York Stock Photo and California Stock Photo—offer the most comprehensive online collections of images from each state. Now in its 8th year of business, Ambient Images’ editorial content is favored by travel guide books, magazine feature stories, and textbook publishers.

Time used to be Peter’s biggest challenge. "I had previously done all of the image processing and the bulk of the workflow myself," shared Peter. "It was so incredibly time consuming, I couldn’t even put a number on it in terms of hours."

"I've been using Digital Railroad since 2005, and last year was probably one of the most profitable I've ever had."

Peter also needed a more efficient way to work with the photographers he represents. "Digital Railroad's Web-based image management tools enabled me to approach my workflow in a way that was better for me, as well as the photographers we feature," Peter noted. "The faster I can get images onto my site, the faster I can sell them."

"My photographers receive a higher commission by sending final images to me cleaned, key-worded, and with all metadata in place," continued Peter. "It saves an enormous amount of time, increases the amount of images I can put up on the site, and I can pass the benefits back to my photographers. It works great for all involved."

The ability to draw buyers into his archive and engage them is especially appealing to Peter. "I previously didn't have a mechanism for people to register on my site, so I knew I was missing out on great leads," noted Peter.

"Now I get a few new image buyers registering on my site every day, and they're immediately added to my marketing database. Each month I send out an email newsletter with a paragraph about my three home page photos and essays. I use interesting stories and themes, and link them to more images on my site. It really helps showcase our recent work."

"Now I get a few new image buyers registering on my site every day."

Digital Railroad enables Peter to do something he hadn't been able to do before; he can deliver high res images almost instantly. "That's one of the main things that interested me about Digital Railroad in the first place," noted Peter.

"I do submissions to researchers on a daily basis, and it can involve dozens to hundreds of images for each. While it's an important task, manually resizing images took the bulk of my time and was tedious. I can now use the automated Lightbox feature to easily submit as many images as I want, all at once."

"My image buyers love Digital Railroad."

Recently a photo editor at TIME Magazine gave Peter an unsolicited compliment. "She came up to me and thanked me for turning her on to Digital Railroad. She told me how easy it had been to use Digital Railroad sites to get her work done. I've received similar compliments from other clients. Using Digital Railroad is a great way to work."