Interesting Elena, thanks for reporting. Small sample size obviously but by the sound of it those images would probably have generated far more income on micro, and for a lot less hassle. One good sale at Getty would completely change the picture though.

Good to know. Thanks

Thanks for information. Why do not you put(pay) at least few pictures every month, just to see what will happen?

Dear Elena, you first comment was:

Is it even worth trying out? With prices going down and sales being slow, will I ever see my 50 bucks per image back? Anyone has experience with this?
All comments are welcome,

I wander so often in the stock, how low the photographers have economically gotten and how high their quality of work is.

Read your line, it says : will I ever see my 50 bucks back.

So is this the level on wich stock photographers are wiling to work now? if they see their money back, and maybe a couple of hundred dollars per year for a dozen photos?

I honastly must say, it is time the artistic league  is geting some kind of association that sets some kind of humane ground, like minimum sallery , cost profit equations etc. Suggestions here are welcome. Lisas4aethotmaildaetcom

If a photograhper has 10.000 Dollars, puts the 10.000 on a bankaccount, the intrest lets say 5%, that is what you get on a online long terme savings account, the intrest is 500 Dollars.

What about your investment, depreciation of cameras etc, model cost, fuel car, shoelaces, etc.

Why is it generally accepted, that a stock photographer, that works 6 hours per day on photography and uploading etc, shouold not make a decent income to live a compfortable life?

I can only say, we need some type of lobby, because if this trend continues, not only the photo industry will deminish and look like a dynamically positioned, plastic ,vivid and sterile clean scam, no, the entire creative community will suffer, no photos with meaning and reallity no more, no photographers with thought and weight no more. Only surface conceptual messages out there, like bad salespeople, that try to sell you something you don't need, like a man, who hits on you with lame and old jokes.

Photographers, try to be yourself, make dark and  light pictures sharp and unsharp, do not mold your creativity into this stock requirements cage, try to be what you are supposed to be, artists and don;t sell yourself short.
Look around yourself, if there are some businesses, offer them your work, you can moke easy 300 to 500 dollars per shooting, put this on your account and earn intrest, dont waste your time with * rich website owners, with their imbalanced concepts.
But honastly its not the websites that are so bad, they have to compete, it always end with the leak of protection for the artist, no lobby that iniciates laws for an photographer. A kindergarden teacher has more rights than a photographer.

The scam is, first the websites claimed, to host only amateurs, than they entered into professional quality but left the protection of the professional out. And the dumm photographer complied, provided higher and higher quality, but unfortunately the demand kept beeing steady. Ok, one website makes more this year, but you will find others making less. the number of consumers is more or less steady.

I could write hours about this pulling one after the other point to describe the situation, at the end, Lisa, you make great photos, well tuned to the microstock comunity, do you really believe, your work, from envisioning a photo to finding the model and incredients for your envisioned shot, to realising it, paying the downpayment on the equipment, touching up and keywording to uploading and submitting, do you realy think, all this effort of yours is worth so little?

Add all your cost together, than add the hours worked on a decend hourly sallery, than you have your basic internal cost. Add insurnces, retirement payments rent and leases, and than double this number, than you have the money you shoould earn. Thats the sales price of your work.
But again, the market salesprice (equilibrium), - value of a product is generated by supply and demand.

Submitting more and more, selling licensed is the real sceam. The demand in relationship to the supply is suddenly minimal, and the market value of stock photos is close to nothing.

Its like you sell a car, but when the owner pics it up, istantaniously a clone of the car falls from the sky. So there are infinite cars. The cars are worth nothing no more, all factories go bancrupt and people have to look for new jobs.

Ok, lets offer a solution. The divers have padi, they make the rules and make sure there is always a market.
We need some kind of rule setting association, that controles the handling of rights. Licensed images need to be limited in their resale. For example one photo can only be licensed ten times. Than the rights are sold, to those ten people. Wait, everybody should screme now, whaaat.
Photogrphers, please take some time, a photo is not a unique diamond, its manufactured by a photographer. You can always make a similar one again. The difference is only on the surface, because by limiting their license photos suddeny become a valuable comodity, and their equilibrium price rises in the relationship the supply decreases.
Photograpers, you are making photos anyway, the trick is to get the phots as fast as possible off the market, to get back a balance of work and income visa equilibrium price.

This little change would suddenly create a big result and a new foundation for photographers to leave a decent live again.

Thank you very much

Lisa

Wondering what the percentage payouts are at Getty via the Photographers Choice?
Are they 20% for RF and 30% for RM?

It's 20% RF 40% RM.

"Pay for Placement" .... "Pay to Play" .... gotta say no... never... not in this lifetime or the next. 

Sorry I read this 3 pages on the fly. Is here story about to bee stupidest dog in park but with money?
EG I'am the worst photographer in the world but my rich mom and daddy finance me to be "wanabeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" the best so they pay my placement to Greedy images and with that I am the in round of 10 or 100 best world photographers??
If it is so, I really must to puke now...

I guess that's one way of looking at it. Another would be that you understand the photo market and want the extra exposure you could get from Getty and are willing to invest the money in it.

Not to mention the OP is one of probably the top 25-30 sellers in the microstock business, so she already could reasonably claim to be one of the top stock photogs in the business...

It's true... the OP has a wonderful portfolio and a giant portfolio...  I'm inspired by the artistry and work ethic of the full timers at this site.  No one gets 10,000 images on line by being lazy. 

Am I the only one to think that it's worrying that such a successful microstockerSis only offered the Getty 'pay as you go' deal....

Once they even told Art Wolf and Franz Lanting,  sorry guys but too many elephants, we have already got plenty. They do whatever they want and with anybody.

Quote from: lagereek on May 29, 2010, 08:33

Quote from: joingated on May 29, 2010, 08:27

Am I the only one to think that it's worrying that such a successful microstockerSis only offered the Getty 'pay as you go' deal....

Once they even told Art Wolf and Franz Lanting,  sorry guys but too many elephants, we have already got plenty. They do whatever they want and with anybody.

Remember the Nature catalogue?  From what I heard when TSI was sold they wanted to can the Nature catalogue but had to go with it. It turned out to be one the best sellers ever.

Thats right!  greatest nature catalogue ever and with the worlds top wildlife photographers and it brought in just about more money then anything else.

Real stock photographers doesn't need to pay to get their images online.
Think about that!

That should be "don't". I'm curious what do you think the 50%-80% of the net sale retained amounts to?

Hi Lisa4,

 I just wanted to add in that my RPI over the life of an image is ow between 300-400 dollars per image in it's life time. I spend an average of 50 dollars an image returning about out 6 to 8 times my investment through their sales. In the old days it was $1500 dollars an image over it's life but with the drop it is now down to the 3-4 range. I still find that quite a reasonable return on my efforts. If I produce 40 images in a day for Getty it costs me $2000 and within the life of the images I will return $12,000-16,000 from that days work. I think that is still pretty good money in Macro stock. P.S. That is almost all RF Macro work.

Best,
Jonathan