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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: StanRohrer on March 28, 2017, 06:34

Title: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: StanRohrer on March 28, 2017, 06:34
Yuri resurfaces with a blog post of his current business and building. It appears this image factory is running stronger than ever before.
http://arcurs.com/2017/03/were-back/ (http://arcurs.com/2017/03/were-back/)
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: derek on March 28, 2017, 07:00
Good luck to him!!  that guy is a surviver. Not bad!
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: cobalt on March 28, 2017, 07:16
Impressive!

It is good to hear that he is so confident in the stock market that he invested so much.

This must be the biggest stock production house on the planet.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: drd on March 28, 2017, 07:28
Every one of us would do much better with special deals (shutterstock or istock) giving higher % share of sales!
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: BaldricksTrousers on March 28, 2017, 08:01
He appears to be in the property business, too, with the bottom half of the building rented to a high-end retailer, which is probably a clever move.
I wonder how he is coping with the oversupply problem. He himself was complaining a few years back about not being able to generate the sales needed to justify his production costs. Either he's doing less ambitious stuff or he's found a way of upping his returns (and iStock didn't look like it, from the modest sales figures he was cranking up on one of his identities there).
PS - if he produced 4.1 million pics last year with about 30 photographic staff, I make that a daily production rate of something like 500 images per person.  I know it only takes about 1/100th of a second per pic, so it's only 5 seconds' work a day ... but it still sounds a bit tough to me!,
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: sharpshot on March 28, 2017, 08:17
He appears to be in the property business, too, with the bottom half of the building rented to a high-end retailer, which is probably a clever move.
I wonder how he is coping with the oversupply problem. He himself was complaining a few years back about not being able to generate the sales needed to justify his production costs. Either he's doing less ambitious stuff or he's found a way of upping his returns (and iStock didn't look like it, from the modest sales figures he was cranking up on one of his identities there).
PS - if he produced 4.1 million pics last year with about 30 photographic staff, I make that a daily production rate of something like 500 images per person.  I know it only takes about 1/100th of a second per pic, so it's only 5 seconds' work a day ... but it still sounds a bit tough to me!,
I presume the 4.1 million images is since he started over a decade ago?  His factory is interesting but it's like a different world to me.  It has nothing to do with what I'm doing.  Good luck to him.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: fotorob on March 28, 2017, 08:41
Somebody suggested to me that the 4,1 Million might be a typo with one Zero too much, because on his peopleimages.com site he has around 390.000 images online, which would fit much better to 410.000 images produced until 2016.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: BaldricksTrousers on March 28, 2017, 08:51
Somebody suggested to me that the 4,1 Million might be a typo with one Zero too much, because on his peopleimages.com site he has around 390.000 images online, which would fit much better to 410.000 images produced until 2016.
Yeah, that would make sense.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: 30217 on March 28, 2017, 09:19
Excellent work
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Pauws99 on March 28, 2017, 09:50
Admire him as a businessman hate his style of photography...not that that really matters. Whether this venture is actually profitable we don't know.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Microstockphoto on March 28, 2017, 10:09
Yuri is well know for not having his blogs proof read. hes also well known for not being the strongest in maths.

having that said, hes a self made millionaire so kudos to him.  he is doing well enough to own a 3000m2 studio in the middle of cape town and write off a million investment in a mobile photography agency which flopped.

fair play
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Minsc on March 28, 2017, 16:46
it's obvious he's taking on a lot of corporate clients in addition to doing micro/macro. There is no way to pay 80 staff members from micro/macro stock revenue alone.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: tickstock on March 28, 2017, 17:01
it's obvious he's taking on a lot of corporate clients in addition to doing micro/macro. There is no way to pay 80 staff members from micro/macro stock revenue alone.
South Africa has very low wages.  Just doing a quick bit of research it seems like it shouldn't be very difficult at all for him to have that many employees.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: zorba on March 28, 2017, 19:45
Yuri is well know for not having his blogs proof read. hes also well known for not being the strongest in maths.

having that said, hes a self made millionaire so kudos to him.  he is doing well enough to own a 3000m2 studio in the middle of cape town and write off a million investment in a mobile photography agency which flopped.

fair play

Production – 7 (producers, runners and stylists)
RAW processing – 6
Retouching – 24
Advanced Retouching – 2 (3d, CgI)
Keywording and distribution – 6
Copyright and Legal – 1
Sales and support – 2 (peopleimages.com)
Video Retouching Department – 3
Cinematographers and focus pullers – 3
Kitchen staff – 3
HR and recruitment – 1
Photographers – 22
Interns – 10

these are the things that make me tough to keep on running :-D

I have to make & do all the stuff by myself! :-D

Luckily Arcurs doesn't upload in Shutterstock but ... what about his pupils? :-/
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Shooter on March 28, 2017, 20:09
good job yuri but your architectural photography needs work LOL
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Justanotherphotographer on March 29, 2017, 01:50
.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: jonbull on March 29, 2017, 09:29
Most of people are interns..other part time. Is big but 80 people full time? Well i doubt. He do assignment? I doubt. If he had a succesfull commercial career like hired photographer you would see everywhere tearsheet with advertise net and job done for customer. As photographer is style is pretty limitedto interest big commercial customer.
For me is more an investment with money don in the past, than something he really do for photobusiness. Sure is not making any money h did in 2010, people images is a flop, he is still selling very good but i doubt he is selling like in the past. Too mich competition, much better phtographer. He is style is so 80s.. Overly faked style.
He was a genius to do the right things in the past. Now living of those money.

Being in south africa for months cape town is not. The most expensive city in the world. But to do a building like this you need millions of dollars.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: jonbull on March 29, 2017, 09:35
it's obvious he's taking on a lot of corporate clients in addition to doing micro/macro. There is no way to pay 80 staff members from micro/macro stock revenue alone.


Doubt. We would see a website based on commercial achievement. For me his gsmbling. Investimg and all. His production cost are still super high compared to big houses in eastern europe and wuality of his files is average. I saw his website peopleimages and really90% ofimages lookedmadeinastduio of 100 squaremeter, 4softboxesand a white background, other stuff is mostly outdoors, in. Each or ity street.i saw,uch more complex images produced even in shutterstockthan people images. 410000 images so fand a staff of 80 people? Orhe not pay anybody, he prganizethosei ternshipwherephotographer shootforfreeand not retain copyright, or most are paid very lowsalary. L
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: michaeldb on March 29, 2017, 21:26
Not sure I would pick South Africa as a place to start a new business.  :-[

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/bury-them-alive-white-south-africans-fear-for-their-future-as-horrific-farm-attacks-escalate/news-story/3a63389a1b0066b6b0b77522c06d6476 (http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/bury-them-alive-white-south-africans-fear-for-their-future-as-horrific-farm-attacks-escalate/news-story/3a63389a1b0066b6b0b77522c06d6476)
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: MxR on March 30, 2017, 02:05
Is necesary all this people??!! Is profitable!??

I admire Yuri, really, and dont care if photos are beautiful or not: this is stock...! But i think is not realistic this statistics
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Pauws99 on March 30, 2017, 02:34
Is necesary all this people??!! Is profitable!??

I admire Yuri, really, and dont care if photos are beautiful or not: this is stock...! But i think is not realistic this statistics
I suspect there was more profit in rebuilding the site and leasing the downstairs. It does sound very ambitious/risky but hes certainly a darn site richer than me.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: Justanotherphotographer on March 30, 2017, 03:45
Every one of us would do much better with special deals (shutterstock or istock) giving higher % share of sales!
Yuri got himself to the position where he could command better deals.
Title: Re: Yuri Arcurs New Building Blog Post
Post by: jonbull on March 30, 2017, 08:56
Is necesary all this people??!! Is profitable!??

I admire Yuri, really, and dont care if photos are beautiful or not: this is stock...! But i think is not realistic this statistics
I suspect there was more profit in rebuilding the site and leasing the downstairs. It does sound very ambitious/risky but hes certainly a darn site richer than me.


of course is.
sure doing this in new york or copenahgen would have cost 5 times...in south africa probably considering that most of people working in construction are black underpaid is a good investment.
for a company producing 4000 images most against clean background, with basic retouching in 90% of photos not clearly the ind of retouch that need 4 days for a single image, 24 retoucher is ridiculous...and i doubt even is true, even 3 pullers of focus. many guys are mostly great at creating a great buzz around them. i doubt he's selling and earning like 5 years ago, but not even 50% of that sum. anyway the place looks amazing..and i'm sure he has tons of gear.