Author Topic: donate your photo to the homepage, no comm?! (Read 6403 times)

gillian vann · « **on:** July 28, 2012, 18:42 »

"We may select one of your images to be featured for free on the homepage. This helps showcase your portfolio. Please note that you will not earn commissions on the image that is selected during that week."

So we help promote their site and they want us to provide free imagery with the tiresome promise that "it'll be good exposure for your port"

Does anyone have any positive stories to tell out of doing this?

lisafx · « **Reply #1 on:** July 28, 2012, 22:18 »

Unless something has changed, they ask your permission before using one of your photos as the free image. You can always just say no.

FWIW, I have had images selected for the free image of the week at most of the agencies (except Istock, which will only feature exclusives) and it has always resulted in greater exposure and sales for my portfolio in the weeks I had a free image featured on the landing page.

I would happily donate one again

oxman · « **Reply #2 on:** July 28, 2012, 23:50 »

Quote from: vannphoto on July 28, 2012, 18:42

"We may select one of your images to be featured for free on the homepage. This helps showcase your portfolio. Please note that you will not earn commissions on the image that is selected during that week."

So we help promote their site and they want us to provide free imagery with the tiresome promise that "it'll be good exposure for your port"

Does anyone have any positive stories to tell out of doing this?

Free exposure for your entire portfolio to millions of buyers.

And your problem with that is...?

JPSDK · « **Reply #3 on:** July 29, 2012, 01:00 »

It is simply such a lousy business and promotion model.
Why is it always the photographer who has to bear the expences, lig fraudulent sales and now eve nthe promotion, which is the middlemans responsibility.
I gave the following answer at CS when they asked for free pictures.

NO.

My pictures are not free. They are for sale.
At agencies like this one.

I will not undermine myself, or the agencies by giving my pictures away for free.
Plus. I think it is a lousy business model, to ask the contributers to "give away".
Why should we?

The agency can do the giving away. They are the promotors. The middleman. I am the producer of content, whereas they know the fancy tricks that will make me money. They can buy one of my pictures and give it away.

Or they can take a loan in the bank and do some promotion. We should not forget that they get at GOOD share of the sales.

sharpshot · « **Reply #4 on:** July 29, 2012, 01:24 »

If they picked one that doesn't sell much, I might be interested but if they picked one of my best selling images, I wouldn't be happy. I think free images should be a much lower standard than ones that are paid for.

Phil · « **Reply #5 on:** July 29, 2012, 01:53 »

deleted

Kenny · « **Reply #6 on:** July 29, 2012, 03:20 »

I haven't been selected for this yet but I must say the least they could do is help promote featured contributors by publishing their name and portfolio link along side the free image.

I'd be okay with giving an image away for personal use but if they allowed commercial use that would be crossing the line.

I would also want to know how many visitors downloaded my image.

What are the terms of use for the free images? They aren't clearly listed on the free image page: bigstockphoto.com/free-images/

cathyslife · « **Reply #7 on:** July 29, 2012, 06:45 »

Quote from: JPSDK on July 29, 2012, 01:00

It is simply such a lousy business and promotion model.
Why is it always the photographer who has to bear the expences, lig fraudulent sales and now eve nthe promotion, which is the middlemans responsibility.
I gave the following answer at CS when they asked for free pictures.

NO.

My pictures are not free. They are for sale.
At agencies like this one.

I will not undermine myself, or the agencies by giving my pictures away for free.
Plus. I think it is a lousy business model, to ask the contributers to "give away".
Why should we?

The agency can do the giving away. They are the promotors. The middleman. I am the producer of content, whereas they know the fancy tricks that will make me money. They can buy one of my pictures and give it away.

Or they can take a loan in the bank and do some promotion. We should not forget that they get at GOOD share of the sales.

I agree. I don't think I need to worry about it, but I think I would say no. Commissions have gone down and down, even though contributors have stepped up their game and are providing excellent images. Perhaps the exposure would help sales, perhaps not. I have decided that I am not going to work based on what might happen in the future. My rent keeps coming in every month at the same time. It isn't based on what might happen in the future.