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Author Topic: 'Edstock' now has over 15,000 files...  (Read 38205 times)

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rubyroo

« Reply #50 on: September 08, 2011, 02:32 »
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I kind of like the bottom one actually.  At first glance I thought it looked like an illustration with a lot of copy space, but now it's been pointed out I can see the faint presence of the Sydney Opera House. I've never photographed in those conditions - so I don't have a clue how easy or hard that is to achieve.

In trying to find the photographer, I came across some cracking weather shots on this page.  A bit of an aside - but thought others here might like to see some of these:

http://www.bigpicture.in/18-top-weather-photos-2009/

 


« Reply #51 on: September 08, 2011, 05:56 »
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Hmm... Spagetty Images both market maker and competing with suppliers placed at a disadvantage... Don't that make you think of Google and what happened when they were pushing their own?

« Reply #52 on: September 08, 2011, 06:04 »
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That dust storm was amazing. Woke up in the morning and complete red glow, maybe 200m visibility, street lights still on at 10am. Driving to work it was like someone had started WW3 and dropped some A bombs.

I'm surprised that photo wasn't rejected for white balance not correct. :) I don't think I've seen a camera with a WB setting of dust storm before.

« Reply #53 on: September 08, 2011, 06:09 »
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^ Stranger and stranger... I googled the photographer in the top three images (he's named in the caption), and he's an extremely accomplished and well awarded photographer, with some very high quality sports images.  Can't imagine why he would have uploaded those safari images - especially the top one - to Getty in the first place.

Maybe Getty is the "downstream" for them.

rubyroo

« Reply #54 on: September 08, 2011, 06:42 »
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Maybe Getty is the "downstream" for them.

 :D


Also @ qwerty:  Glad you weathered that storm!   "WB setting of dust storm"   :D

SNP

  • Canadian Photographer
« Reply #55 on: September 08, 2011, 09:41 »
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I don't know who said it earlier...but yup, iStock is "downstream" from Getty.....at least according to their model.

graficallyminded

« Reply #56 on: September 09, 2011, 07:32 »
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Editorial just seems like way too much * work when it comes to selling it under a microstock pricing model.  You'll need 100 decent shots to equal the sames of 1 good generic stock image.  No thanks... Ed can have that piece of the market, for all I care.  Good for him.  I wish I had the patience and time to crank out a keyworded and edited portfolio of that size, no matter if he's a one man operation, or a team.

« Reply #57 on: September 09, 2011, 07:46 »
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'edstock' is a collection of existing wholly owned Getty content from a variety of editorial photographers.  It isn't one man or a team, and it's already keyworded and sitting on Getty.  You're right though.  Under 1k sales from 40k images show it's not really working.

« Reply #58 on: September 09, 2011, 08:08 »
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by sending in this pile of photos they might make something like $2/image per year or so for not much effort for stuff that wouldn't be selling on Getty. There'll be 100,000 on there within another month, obviously there is no reviewing cost so $200K or so extra profit.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #59 on: September 09, 2011, 08:13 »
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by sending in this pile of photos they might make something like $2/image per year or so for not much effort for stuff that wouldn't be selling on Getty. There'll be 100,000 on there within another month, obviously there is no reviewing cost so $200K or so extra profit.
Pity they're saving on reviewing costs: titling, captioning and keywording could do with review - and in the why-the-h*ck-is-this-editorial? category  quality also, diluting the overall atrractivelness of the iStockphoto collection.

« Reply #60 on: September 09, 2011, 08:14 »
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by sending in this pile of photos they might make something like $2/image per year or so for not much effort for stuff that wouldn't be selling on Getty. There'll be 100,000 on there within another month, obviously there is no reviewing cost so $200K or so extra profit.

Exactly. Most of those images have only just arrived in the last couple of weeks so 1000 sales isn't too bad. With no commissions being paid, at say $8 per average sale, the money is totting up fairly quickly.

« Reply #61 on: September 09, 2011, 20:11 »
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by sending in this pile of photos they might make something like $2/image per year or so for not much effort for stuff that wouldn't be selling on Getty. There'll be 100,000 on there within another month, obviously there is no reviewing cost so $200K or so extra profit.

Exactly. Most of those images have only just arrived in the last couple of weeks so 1000 sales isn't too bad. With no commissions being paid, at say $8 per average sale, the money is totting up fairly quickly.

Poor lighting & noise = fit with Edstock.  Nice.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #62 on: September 09, 2011, 20:52 »
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'edstock' is a collection of existing wholly owned Getty content from a variety of editorial photographers.  It isn't one man or a team, and it's already keyworded and sitting on Getty. 
Oh, I didn't realise it was wholly-owned content. That's why even non-editorial stuff is getting shovelled up, then.
Am I right in thinking that Getty keywording is done by Getty staff? I've often thought they do a poor job, and this lot confirms it.

« Reply #63 on: September 10, 2011, 05:26 »
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'edstock' is a collection of existing wholly owned Getty content from a variety of editorial photographers.  It isn't one man or a team, and it's already keyworded and sitting on Getty.  You're right though.  Under 1k sales from 40k images show it's not really working.
Didn't Getty try this wholly owned content thing somewhere else with similar results a while back? I seem to remember reading something ages ago.
They seem to think that if they jump this stuff off the back of an existing successful site it will take off, whereas what would seem more likely is that too much of it will upset the delicate balance of what buyers actually want, and cause the original to crash.
To state the obvious it seems to me that they really are in danger of turning iStock into something that no-one will recognise any more, and which buyers may well find a turn off. Nobody looking for images wants to be told what to buy by the seller. They want what fits their needs best. 

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #64 on: September 10, 2011, 06:29 »
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'edstock' is a collection of existing wholly owned Getty content from a variety of editorial photographers.  It isn't one man or a team, and it's already keyworded and sitting on Getty.  You're right though.  Under 1k sales from 40k images show it's not really working.
Didn't Getty try this wholly owned content thing somewhere else with similar results a while back? I seem to remember reading something ages ago.
They seem to think that if they jump this stuff off the back of an existing successful site it will take off, whereas what would seem more likely is that too much of it will upset the delicate balance of what buyers actually want, and cause the original to crash.
To state the obvious it seems to me that they really are in danger of turning iStock into something that no-one will recognise any more, and which buyers may well find a turn off. Nobody looking for images wants to be told what to buy by the seller. They want what fits their needs best. 
A lot of the original Thinkstock stuff was wholly-owned content, and perhaps (?) some of the original ingestion of Agency, some of which were dire, too, and were removed after forum protests. They're not allowing public protest about quality, keywording or captioning with the EdStock dump. To be fair, I'm keeping an eye on the 'dark safari' stuff and it is sinking fairly fast in best match, just like my own new uploads. If you don't sell within the first 24 hours, you're going down, fast.

« Reply #65 on: September 10, 2011, 06:30 »
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'edstock' is a collection of existing wholly owned Getty content from a variety of editorial photographers.  It isn't one man or a team, and it's already keyworded and sitting on Getty.  You're right though.  Under 1k sales from 40k images show it's not really working.
Didn't Getty try this wholly owned content thing somewhere else with similar results a while back? I seem to remember reading something ages ago.
They seem to think that if they jump this stuff off the back of an existing successful site it will take off, whereas what would seem more likely is that too much of it will upset the delicate balance of what buyers actually want, and cause the original to crash.
To state the obvious it seems to me that they really are in danger of turning iStock into something that no-one will recognise any more, and which buyers may well find a turn off. Nobody looking for images wants to be told what to buy by the seller. They want what fits their needs best. 

Yeah, well that started happening the day Getty bought istock and they stepped up their game last year, before they even started shoveling edstock. This might just be the nail in the coffin.

« Reply #66 on: September 10, 2011, 07:25 »
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What they don't seem to realise is that selling art in any form is not like selling tins of beans. You have to have a carefully targeted market, and "ambience" to appeal to and sell to a certain client base at a certain price point. Make it too cheap, and they'll go elsewhere because the perceived value is wrong. Make it too expensive and people will simply find the prices a turn off or find it too elitist. Put the wrong items in there, even if you keep the existing work, and watch the buyers walk away. "It's full of very ordinary stuff you can see anywhere"

There is a contradiction that while as a business it may be "all about the money" if you make that too obvious both artists and buyers won't like it. It spoils the ambience. The best galleries are run by artists with good business sense, not money men with no artistic knowledge.

I spent 20 odd years making and selling bespoke furniture, both to commission and through galleries. I've seen a number of real world galleries go one way or the other. Mostly through trying to introduce cheaper goods, bought in by the gallery to increase turnover and have a bigger mark up, and so losing premium sales when clients either see it as going down market, or can no longer find what they want because artists start pulling work from somewhere which no longer sells and / or gets the price they want. Sound familiar? I've no reason to think that selling online is really that different to selling in the real world.

The point about new work not selling is also very valid. How long can that be "sustainable" for we artists?

« Reply #67 on: September 10, 2011, 08:28 »
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What they don't seem to realise is that selling art in any form is not like selling tins of beans.
<snip>
 How long can that be "sustainable" for we artists?

Huh? You couldn't be more wrong. Microstock is not 'art' but a commodity. A piece of art generally speaking has no use or function, quite unlike microstock. Microstock is used on posters, websites, leaflets, TV, etc to illustrate the message being promulgated. It is very much more like 'selling tins of beans' than selling art.

The most successful microstock agency is SS, most probably because it does indeed treat images 'like tins of beans', which are all priced the same. One of Istock's biggest mistakes IMHO is trying to treat images like art with their over-priced collections cluttering up the search.

For the most part we are not 'artists' either, even if Istock does sometimes refer to us as such. Most of us are simply producers of content, primarily concerned with how much money an image or a series will make relative to it's cost of production. Hardly the selfless, immaterial devotion of a true artist.

« Reply #68 on: September 10, 2011, 08:42 »
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this place is becoming more negative than ever, now even doing stock is CRAP :)

I really dont understand, ok the money is the more important and yes you will collect royalties after royalties, you are the man but all this talk every week, almost everyday about devaluating work is really annoying but sure it makes competition more bored and perhaps depressed to the point of stop eheh just like other strategy it might work

« Reply #69 on: September 10, 2011, 12:01 »
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I actually think that Getty might be happy to get IS to die- or at least wither away. As long as they can get the buyers to move either downstream or upstream or laterally. That way they can avoid paying those unsustainable ( >20%) royalties out. So first move IS content elsewhere and move wholly owned and crap to IS. When buyers complain suggest they go to one of the other Getty "family" sources. When sellers complain tell them to take it or leave. Eventually you might think you are submitting to IS, but more and more of your sales will be somewhere else with lower % and no RC.

lisafx

« Reply #70 on: September 10, 2011, 12:41 »
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What they don't seem to realise is that selling art in any form is not like selling tins of beans. You have to have a carefully targeted market, and "ambience" to appeal to and sell to a certain client base at a certain price point. Make it too cheap, and they'll go elsewhere because the perceived value is wrong. Make it too expensive and people will simply find the prices a turn off or find it too elitist. Put the wrong items in there, even if you keep the existing work, and watch the buyers walk away. "It's full of very ordinary stuff you can see anywhere"


Without getting into the "are we artists or aren't we" debate, I do think this is a very good point about the ambiance, and perceived value of Istock images.  Every designer I have spoken with personally over the years who uses Istock mentions that the reason is because they have "higher quality images" or "higher standards" than the other sites.  Whether they do or not is certainly debatable, but that is a widely held perception among their (remaining) customer base. 

By shoveling tens of thousands of obviously sub-par images into the searches, and even slapping a crown on them,  Getty is ruining the "ambiance", not to mention the perceived value of "exclusive" images, and will ultimately squander the last remaining draw that the site has.

« Reply #71 on: September 10, 2011, 13:27 »
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By shoveling tens of thousands of obviously sub-par images into the searches, and even slapping a crown on them,  Getty is ruining the "ambiance", not to mention the perceived value of "exclusive" images, and will ultimately squander the last remaining draw that the site has.
Exactly. It's a difficult game to get right, and going for the biggest profit isn't really the right way to play it. It's not as straightforward as a "normal" retail business where you buy in mass produced stuff at a price and resell it at a profit.
As far as the "Artists or not" thing goes, then OK we're not producing great art most of the time, but on the other hand it ain't baked beans either. The "Churn out enough of anything and people will buy it" thing just doesn't work. (Wholly owned content for example?)
One thing about successful real world artists is no matter what they are producing they never miss a chance to tell an audience how wonderful it is. You'll never really hear them criticise their own work.

« Reply #72 on: September 10, 2011, 15:14 »
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I actually think that Getty might be happy to get IS to die- or at least wither away. As long as they can get the buyers to move either downstream or upstream or laterally. That way they can avoid paying those unsustainable ( >20%) royalties out. So first move IS content elsewhere and move wholly owned and crap to IS. When buyers complain suggest they go to one of the other Getty "family" sources. When sellers complain tell them to take it or leave. Eventually you might think you are submitting to IS, but more and more of your sales will be somewhere else with lower % and no RC.

Makes sense to me that that is what they are doing.

« Reply #73 on: September 10, 2011, 19:38 »
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49253 now

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #74 on: September 10, 2011, 19:49 »
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49253 now
The last thousand + are back to red carpet celebs. These dark safari pics were an odd 'insert'.
Wonder what they'll sneak in try out next?
« Last Edit: September 10, 2011, 19:58 by ShadySue »


 

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