What's Your Workflow Volume?

csproductions

« on: January 16, 2012, 19:34 »

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I'm curious to know what the general workflow volume is for other stock photographers. I shoot primarily with models, and I'm doing good to get 30 viable photos per week. For instance, I just finished retouching the shots from Wednesday of last week (it's Monday evening as I write). There are a total of 28 retouched out of a raw count of 73. Some of the 28 finished photos will get rejected, of course, and that number will vary significantly from site to site. Having finished keywording, I'm uploading to the first of a handful of sites, after which I'll have to further process them on the sites in order to submit. Some sites, as you probably know, are a breeze (i.e. SS only takes a minute or two). Others are very tedious and time-consuming, like Fotolia where we can only edit one file at a time. And forget IS! I don't upload there at all any more. But it easily will be a full week from shoot to submit for this batch.

So with 28 viable files, averaging roughly - what - 20 files being accepted? (God forbid that we should submit too many of a good thing!) That's 20 files per week in a game where we need 20,000 files to make an income that even approaches something decent. It will take 1000 weeks to do that... 20 years! (19.23 years if you want to get technical.) And that's working a full 52 weeks per year! Are we all that desperate?? Huh


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wut

« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2012, 20:09 »

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Models too, 1-2 shoots/month, I'd say I UL 25 images/month. For the first time in my MS career I actually postprocessed 75 from a single shoot (so I went for quantity instead of quality), but it really was that kind of a shoot that you can do that (studio healthy lifestyle). I uploaded 2/3 of them so far, SS rejected 2 or 3, DT 1, the other sites accepted every single one. And I didn't UL them to IS, since the best match is still punishing indies and I'd just waste 75 photos. It really is a PITA to upload big batches to many sites sites, even if I don't do UL to IS. FT and DT and DP take way to long for the reason you already stated, SS takes 15 minutes or so (since there are always errors with keywords, but the editor is really great otherwise), 123RF and CS are a breeze, but they don't sell much, so I'm not sure I'll upload there anymore, at least not to CS. In times like this I wish SS would introduce exclusivity, since I'm really fed up of ULing to so many sites, it just takes so much time, although you have IPTC etc and it's supposed to be relatively automated. Well it's not, it's not even close.

I've seen so many small ports that perform great. I think it's more about the quality, then the quantity. There are many ports with less than 500 photos, that outperform those with 5k+. I really admire those togs and strive to get just a bit closer to what they do. I've also seen reports from ppl with 3-4k port not even earning 1k/month. I think such ports should earn at least 2k, if you upload regularly as you say. It's a waste of time if you produce like a madman and get some pocket money out of it. I mean stock photography is hard work, not a hobby you enjoy, so you should get payed accordingly


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luissantos84

« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2012, 20:54 »

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I would love not to get into this discussion but you are certainly pushing it

have you read what you just said? are you at least following it or just nice to talk about the dreaming career and all that crap?

do you really think its better to have 300$ per month instead of 1000$ but with 6x the work? (at least to get the pictures online, now don´t see much actually) not to mention that I can go this moment over my portfolio/delete half of it and I will be at your dreamy rpi

I believe you need to see if you/other are looking into a hobby or FT job and also what are the expenses beside time, thats actually a big flaw of yours, I love how can someone talk about "other work" without knowing the real facts behind it?

p.s: Slov comparing 300$ to 1k $ is really pocket money