MicrostockGroup
Macro Stock / Midstock => General Macrostock => Topic started by: Phil on January 22, 2008, 18:30
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Hi,
For those who have seperate portfolios for micro and macro (and / or midstock) how do you decide which portfolio to put an image in??
Thanks
Phil
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Phil,
For me is a very personal choice, I don't sell in micro my travel photos (landscape, nature, architecture), except for very generic images like sunsets or those shot especifically for microstock purpose, like airport images.
Regards,
Adelaide
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For me there are several criteria that count in either direction.
Contents:
- Common, not so unique images with great volume potential goes to micro (Paper clip isolated on white).
- Unique photos with limited sales potential, but high value for those who need it, goes to macro (Most of my travel and editorial photos)
Technical quality:
Photos with great sharpness that can easily be enlarged to Alamy's 48MB standard are likely macro candidates.
Photos that have to be reduced to 4MP to look sharp are obvious micro candidates.
Then, there are all those in between, around 98% I guess :D
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From what I'm reading here, it seems that macro is good for travel photos. Is that right?
Or is it that travel doesn't sell well in micros?
I'm curious
Claude
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From what I'm reading here, it seems that macro is good for travel photos. Is that right?
Or is it that travel doesn't sell well in micros?
I'm curious
Claude
You are right and you are right. Many travel photos, particularly from "exotic" places (nowhere is exotic for those who live there), will mostly sell in low volume. A photo of a temple in the jungle of Cambodia can't be used to illustrate anything but a temple in the jungle of Cambodia.
On the other hand, those who need a photo of that particular temple in the jungle of Cambodia are mostly willing to pay more than a dollar, and often many hundred dollars, since that is cheaper than going there to take the photo themselves.
But to get good money for travel photos, they really need to be top notch. There are so many people travelling with cameras now, and the market is flooded with mediocre travel photos that will never sell, not even once. Here, as anywhere else, quality is what sells.
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There is a very interesting posting at iStockphoto forums about selling your images on Alamy. Jim Pickerell's article is posted there too. Aparently the top 100 Alamy photographers earned between $163000 and $15600. Pickerell thinks that Lisa Gagne might earn more than 163000 but does not think the 100th photographer earnes as much at iStock as the 100th photographer at Alamy. But aparently he is wrong, read for your self: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=63287&page=6 Before that posting there is also a discussion about selling travel photography on macrostock. Oh and BTW since Alamy is introducing the novel use, which might only be slightly more expensive than iStock pricing, is it now justified to put the same images on both Alamy and microstock?
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Oh and BTW since Alamy is introducing the novel use, which might only be slightly more expensive than iStock pricing, is it now justified to put the same images on both Alamy and microstock?
How do we know how expensive the novel use photos are going to be? I am sticking with sending photos to alamy that are not on the micros. I think it could damage alamy if we all start uploading microstock photos there.
I have no problem sending them to the midstock sites that allow higher prices though, like LO, SV and FP as the price can be similar to alamy or with a much smaller difference.