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Messages - Elenathewise
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9 10 ... 35
101
« on: January 21, 2015, 12:57 »
Nikon Service. Don't try to get rid of these yourself, you'll make if worse. After 8 years spending a few bucks on proper sensor cleaning should not be a big deal. They do a very good job. I have to drive more than an hour each end to get to my Nikon Service center, but it's well worth the trip. I am also a Nikon Professional Services member and they do sensor cleaning for free for me. Some photo stores offer sensor cleaning too but I was never happy with their results. Go to Nikon.
102
« on: January 21, 2015, 12:49 »
I sell from my personal site: www.elenaphoto.comThis makes more money than many "low earners" agencies. I don't advertise at all though, so if you do you can do much better.
103
« on: January 21, 2015, 12:46 »
What's Zazzle doing there? With 24% of stock photography market? Must be some joke...
104
« on: January 13, 2015, 22:22 »
I had many shortlisted, but never a sale. I think I am about to give up - too much trouble, and it is true that many customers give a very vague description of what they want, or don't really know what they want. I remember one brief requesting a business environment that "is not stocky" and the image that won was the stockiest image of a business meeting I ever seen. I shot something once for them specifically, and then the brief got cancelled because the client "decided not to run with the story". Some images do get selected and sold - but I guess it's too much of a lottery for me.
105
« on: January 08, 2015, 21:05 »
What reason did your insurance company find to refuse you cover..?
Well, there seemed to be several reasons. How I remember it, basically they said because the case was alleging fraud, they could not help me out, even though the fraud is only alleged, and I do not agree that I committed any fraud, they said it was not going to happen. Also, because I paid the model, it means she was not a client or something and the insurance would not help for that. I think their insurance model is only thinking about photographers doing weddings and such, and rarely deals with photographers who actually pay models.
I sort of looked into getting a lawyer try to help me get them to cover it, but that could costs tens of thousands of dollars and take several years, and still not work out. I don't have the time or money to take that chance.
Wow. Shows you what this kind of insurance is good for. Taking your money, that's all.
106
« on: January 06, 2015, 18:24 »
1,1864 dollar for 1 Euro  lowest in 9 years
This has a good effect on my USD earnings. Yay.
Not so good for my euro earnings!
107
« on: December 19, 2014, 18:15 »
Personally, I am getting really tired of being fleeced. I will watch agencies very closely and will stop uploading to those with questionable business practices (many of those are not getting my new uploads already). Lucky for us, there are still a few places where stock business is done in a reasonable way.
108
« on: December 15, 2014, 21:48 »
One thing for sure - Lik's getting a lot of traffic to his site because of all this publicity, and probably selling a lot of his "cheaper" stuff too... good marketing move... regardless of the sale being fake or real, he got the clicks... I should do something like that for my FAA portfolio 
109
« on: December 13, 2014, 11:39 »
^ do you really think that when you sale a photo $ 6.5 millions you need to be on FAA ?
Sigh.... was a joke...
110
« on: December 12, 2014, 23:06 »
the art mafia is pushing obscure stuff like Gursky or even selfies like Cindy Sherman, Lik instead is selling images that are easy and commercial for everybody especially those outside the art world.
while we all agree his stuff is overphotoshopped and overhyped how can they justify paying millions for a Gursky ? Gursky is shooting food in supermarkets and a river in the countryside, Sherman is shooting selfies with a Polaroid, Jeff Wall shoots random people on the street with bad framing and bad focus .. the list goes on.
Lik should join FineArtAmerica - his stuff would actually do well there;) But instead all these photographers are providing an important and essential service to really rich people (with or without the help of art mafia) - giving them yet another opportunity to brag how much money they can throw away... someone has to do it, right? Otherwise all these obscenely rich people may just go suicidal since they wouldn't know what to do with their lives... 
111
« on: December 12, 2014, 11:48 »
The Guardian article is pretty nasty - I can sense the bitterness and jealousy of the author. You can have an opinion but why get so emotional about it?
As to the outrageous price for the pic - well good for him, but it's all about who you know and who you ... you know:) His biggest sales are to the same "art collector".
Looking at his photos, some of them are nice enough, some of them are the most mediocre sh*t. Nothing blows my mind though. Which brings me back to the "who you know" comment;-)
112
« on: November 17, 2014, 11:17 »
In my humble opinion normal is different today than when I started in micro stock 8 years ago. Monthly revenue was far more predictable. Today, normal for me is wild swings in revenue. This month SS is doing fine, but Dreamtime and Istock are 70% down as of the 15th with Thanksgiving week next week. So as a whole I expect a crumb-bum month. This is the new norm for me. One month might be monster good and the next gutter bad. And while one agency does well in the same month, the other tanks. In my opinion this is the new norm and I expect that cycle to continue on a downward trend. I make this comment based on the 80/20 rule because I know there are those who will say that their overall revenue is growing. For the masses that is not the case, but for some, it is the case.
I suspect stock agencies have to rotate their content in some ways to get their huge libraries exposed to customers... if your images get more exposure during high season you get the "monster good", if not - well you get below "normal". The thing is everyone's in the same boat - so the sales probably average out over a year or so. Better look at yearly numbers to see where things are going I think.
113
« on: October 29, 2014, 13:23 »
I got the email that I have been added to the SEO testing list and I just sent an opt-out. I usually pay a lot of attention to my titles and descriptions and I don't want anyone else meddling with them. Somehow I don't feel that I would benefit from this at all.
114
« on: October 15, 2014, 16:08 »
I think each photographer has unique style that's most dear to them. If you're a pro stock photographer you probably can shoot any style, but you will still love only certain style or subject most, and that will show in the final quality of your images. Knowing what you love and knowing what are the most appropriate places to sell your work is a formula for success. If you don't get excited by Stocksy's style, not on the real "omg, this is me!" level, why waste time applying? Some other venues will bring you much more satisfaction and money...
115
« on: October 14, 2014, 13:56 »
Got the 3 emails as well with various amounts.
116
« on: October 14, 2014, 13:51 »
I have sales - this month is actually pretty good, although you can't count on it to be consistent. But then it's not microstock, so it is to be expected. I have only carefully selected and processed images there, not my entire portfolio.... http://elena-elisseeva.artistwebsites.com/
117
« on: September 15, 2014, 23:02 »
Pretty good month so far, nothing too crazy, apart from one day with several SODs that broke all my records... How do you guys call this - "BDE"? :-)
118
« on: September 10, 2014, 13:38 »
I just had my first sale after going without one for the last 23 days - it was a subscriptions sale for a whopping $0.35 
This is with a portfolio of around 2.700, in case someone is wondering...
Wow. That's incredible. What's happening with Dreamstime???
119
« on: September 10, 2014, 13:36 »
I have very small old port, but RPI was always very good and acceptance is good. In the past couple years I have wondered if uploading has actually HURT my sales at DT. The more I upload, the worse numbers at the end of the month. New stuff just doesn't get any traction anymore and overall it lowers RPI. I have hundreds of model released dance photos, only upload a few here and there (they don't sell well so I'm not in a huge rush and not sure that micro is best) - but I really feel that new unsold photos have somehow hurt sales more than benefited them! Also... I remember an old friend clearing out photos that haven't sold and he said it seemed to help his sales. Just speculating, but...
I have only 4.8% of unsold files on Shutterstock, most of them are new photos that didn't get picked up yet. On Dreamstime, many of my good sellers never got found and sold. Clearing out these photos doesn't seem like a right thing to do to me, there is nothing wrong with them. I wish DT focused more on delivering the content to customers and efficient advertising.
120
« on: September 04, 2014, 10:36 »
Same experience here. Started out reasonable, and the earnings were OK. Not anymore.
121
« on: September 03, 2014, 12:48 »
For indies, they just become a mid-low tier agency and get uploads according to their new lower priority status.
Yup!
122
« on: September 02, 2014, 12:10 »
Earnings in August 2014 are almost 50% down compared to August 2013. Portfolio size more than 12,000. Added close to 1000 images during this time. The dip in earnings never been that bad before.
So... adding 1000 images leads to 50% drop in earnings. Speaking of sustainability of this business....
123
« on: August 25, 2014, 21:27 »
Great...
124
« on: August 25, 2014, 16:18 »
This one (and several other images) has Yuri's models: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hlarreac/14419814210/It also says Depositphotos_3326860 in the title. The file is not on Depositphotos anymore but looks like it's been downloaded from there (legally - no watermarks), at least initially. Regardless, shouldn't be made available for download.
125
« on: August 17, 2014, 12:30 »
4 (!!!) downloads yesterday with over 9,000 images in my portfolio... This is an all time low - never happened before. Makes me wonder if their sales reporting is broken - in this case one can hope. But if it's just how sales are going to be from now on - scary and sad.
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