MicrostockGroup
Macro Stock / Midstock => General Midstock => Topic started by: JuhaT on February 16, 2008, 03:06
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Hi fellow photographers,
we are especially searching artists who already have a good portfolio in terms of quality and size.
Highlights:
- We are a Finnish Royalty-Free agency
- Midstock pricing model
- Non-Exclusive contract
- We pay for 35% for single license downloads
- No fees. Totally free joining but limited
We can offer the easiest way of submitting work to us and therefore good profits for the work. Photographer have to just send English keyworded photos using ftp or in dvd media.
At least a minimum of 1000 photos for initial submission and if vector artist a minimum of 100 vectors. Of course we accept also 3D art and artist can have mixed portfolio. Commissions are paid through PayPal or Moneybookers.
If you are interested to read more about us, visit our page:
http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/
Regards,
Juha Tuomi
CEO
Credinet Ltd
VAT FI09801445
Finland
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I think you should provide more information the site (http://www.kuvakori.com/) is in finnish and doesn't look too promising.
Prices are 7/21 Euro for web/print? What is or supposed to be your customerbase?
It's not so easy to convince people nowadays to join a new site.
So if you wanna succeed more information/action from your side is needed otherwise you will be very soon very disappointed.
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The limit of 1,000 is also very forbidding. No info about their customer's base. Do they accept Editorial RF too?
I had to duck out of Photoshelter because they don't want isolated studio models but real people. It's not clear what Rodeo wants...
With a rank of 4,103,115 on Alexa, even my own personal site ranks higher at 600,000 or so.
Compare with Zymmetrical at rank 153,000, Snapvillage at 171,000, Albumo at 72,000 and FeaturePics at 37,000. [ShutterStock has 2,000, Dreamstime has 2,300].
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and they appear to have categories - yuck
when are sites gonna give up on categories?
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Thank you for interest and very good questions. My intention was just to raise some interest about us and then who thinks that meet those requirements we have set asks directly more by email. We have some key points why to join us, one is that its totally free and you don't have to play with the website to get your portfolio on-line, just uploading English keyworded files with the ftp or in dvd, simple as that. Our contract also doesn't tie you up for years and its non-exclusive.
I cant yet publish the renewed site, which is naturally much better than current Kuvakori, which has been online for 5years and has a very solid customer database. That is also why we limit intake of new artists, that everyone has better chance to get decent profits for their portfolio.
We accept only model released RF, we don't have editorial collection. We have already made contracts with some known stockphotographers. We accept isolated studioshots. Kuvakori has now winter-sale going why the prices are cheaper. There isn't option to buy photo as digital usage, that will be possible in Rodeo.
Yes, we have categories, customer survey told us that those just have to be there.
Today it is hard to convince photographers and new stockagencies pops up like every month. Our requirements are also very different compared to others but we ain't looking for thousands to join. We try to make those few happy. We also looking mostly for photographers and artists who does this for fulltime or part time work, in that perspective requirements are easy to meet.
I just hope no one judges before asking more details from me. Thanks!
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Can you tell us something about your sales volume per month? And is your marketing targeted only for Finnish customers and how your customers base and quality standards differs from plugi.fi (www.plugi.fi is another finnish RF stock, which pays 40% per image licensed)? Do you accept images with finnish keywords too?
FlemishDreams: The alexa rankings is not quite correct when you try to get details about Finnish site, because nobody uses its toolbar in Finland or the search engines where te alexa gets it data. But ofcourse if the alaxe ranking is good then the site gets lots of traffic.
br; MJP
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Excellent questions!
We are 5 years old agency and our sales volumes are very comparable to our Finnish competitor Plugi. Though our strategy is different as we are also accepting foreign photographers and joining is free of charge but just limited. That way we can better handle our growth and maximize the profits for the active photographers. At this point when we aren't starting from scratch the volume ain't only point what counts. Sales are divided by the number of photographers and our number are very very small compared to our competitors, that is our strength which also means that individual photographer gets the best possible exposure for their portfolio. Not to mention how easy the submitting process is.
We accept images either English or Finnish keywords. We have a translation engine so clients can make the decision by themselves what language to use.
We aren't involved in any ranking lists. At least we aren't aware of any of them.
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I guess, new talented artists should command Finnish otherwise they have no chance in this agency.
Minimum upload of 1000 pics looks like this agency wants to collect as much pictures as possible in a very short period of time. And then? At this point, smart cheaters should desappear with all the collected photos.
Looks like barefaced swindle...
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I will join you if you pay me initial 2000 euros in advance. I have 2500 images to upload.
www.dinostock.com
lol. hhh
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I guess, new talented artists should command Finnish otherwise they have no chance in this agency.
Minimum upload of 1000 pics looks like this agency wants to collect as much pictures as possible in a very short period of time. And then? At this point, smart cheaters should desappear with all the collected photos.
Looks like barefaced swindle...
This is silly. If they wanted to collect as many images as possible in a short time, they wouldn't ask for a minimum. Do you have any real information about them or are you just making it up?
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We signed with Rodeo a few months ago and just received first sales report for March. Very pleased with results considering minimal marketing efforts! As perspective, there can be a good return from regional distributors. Given the choice, many clients sometimes prefer to interact with a "local" company with localized keywords.
Here's our revised March/Q1 chart showing where Rodeo falls in the revenue mix:
(http://www.iofoto.com/updatedQ1.jpg)
Of course, each photographer should make their own decisions- this is not an endorsement, just my perspective on supporting the concept of a local neighborhood store.
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As a stockphotographer myself I understand very well that all "new players" in the market can be very suspicious. Allthough we have been in our local markets for 5 (long) years, started and learned about this business from scratch. Our goal is of course to make money which means sell as many images as possible. However we want to keep our photographers happy and to get at least a decent sales means usually a very strong portfolio. We have got our new system on-line for just little over month (including short beta testing period) and don't have yet enough information how rapidly our foreign photo sales are growing.
We are lucky to have Iofoto to be one of our photographers and it is very good that he gives neutral information about the sales of many agencies. What is very surprising is our position against some much bigger international agencies. I have to emphasize that we do our business in just local markets at the moment. That is one point I think our strategy is working quite well, which means not taking just everybody who wants just carefully selected photographers and their portfolios.
There isn't any need of knowing Finnish language since our system translates Finnish keywords to English and searches those from all English keyworded photos. Clients can also choose do they want to search from all (domestic and international collections) or just from one.
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Hello fellow artists,
Time to Rodeo update again ;). Rodeo had a great last year, total growth of over 100% in year 2008, for three years in a row. Rodeo will be 6 years old stock agency this month and we are full of energy and motivation to develop the business further.
Rodeo shortly:
- Royalty free photos
- Price for multimedia usage 15 Eur, hires images 40 Eur
- 35% commission for single license sales
- 5% commissions for referral sales
- Over 100.000 photos on line
- Only 49 photographers around the world
- Our business is dedicated to Finnish markets at the moment
Want to join our team?
We are constantly searching for new artists. Who other agency could offer such a great exposure for their images. We don't have millions of photos and 100.000 photographers on line. We are picky but we believe that taking all in would really hurt all our photographers earnings, we grow the amount of photographers carefully with the growth of the total business.
We have now made slight changes to our recruiting requirements. It is now a minimum of 500 photos to join but if you're really talented and active stock artist, please fill up the application and give us a portfolio link and we think about it. All and all, we're looking for active artists, that is the only way to get good sales a year after a year.
Check our application and agreement page and let us do the selling for you
http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm (http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm)
Don't forget our website (Only Finnish language):
http://www.rodeo.fi
Don't hesitate to ask more about us > please send a email to me > address is located in the application page.
Best regards,
Juha Tuomi
CEO
Stock agency Rodeo Ltd
PL 61, 00661 Helsinki
Finland
VAT registered company FI09801445
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Is anyone able to report on recent sales at Rodeo and how they compare with other sites?
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Steady sales and building nicely. Around 70 euros in my best month with 350 photos uploaded so far.
They have a referral scheme so I would be grateful if anyone joining mentions that Stephen Rees referred them in the box at the bottom of the form. http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm
I did have a problem with my keywords not being read. It wasn't working when my keywords were separated by commas. If they accept you, I would recommend uploading a small batch first to make sure they are OK.
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Thanks Stephen __ enjoy the referral ;)
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My finnish is a bit rusty, so please help me understand : I can see 2 prices for each image : 40 and 15 euros. And Rodeo would pay 35% ? So artists would earn about 15 or 5 euros per image sold ?
Another question : if a photographer sends a dvd with 1000 keyworded images (keywords embedded in IPTC I presume) - how long will it take for these 1000 photos to appear for sale on the website? Will they first appear on Kuvakori and then be transferred to Rodeo, or will they only appear on Rodeo by the end of February?
I also read that "you will take care of the rest". Does that mean the photographer does not have to do any processing, like choosing categories or so?
Last one (at least for now ;D ) : what kind of photos are you looking for in the first place? (or, if the answer is "all kinds of photos" : what kind of photos are you NOT looking for?).
It'll be quite weird to work with a site where you cannot check your sales ...
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I joined Rodeo at the end of December (sent them a dvd with 1000+ photos) and it took a couple of weeks for my portfolio to go online. They have a friendly approach with photographers and I had my 1st hi-res sale right after the photos went online, so it looks promising. :)
Juha informed me about this first sale, but then reports come monthly by email. I'll keep you updated as soon as I'll get the first one.
If some of you may want to refer to me in your application form, here is the link it....http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm (thank you in advance.... :D)
Best,
Diego
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Might be tempted - IF they adjust the payment model slightly....
Say... 35% for the agency - and 65% for the contributor ::)
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Might be tempted - IF they adjust the payment model slightly....
Say... 35% for the agency - and 65% for the contributor ::)
I used to think like that but now I prefer sites that spend money on marketing and generate sales. There are several sites that give me a big % commission but so far most of them have failed to generate any significant earnings.
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Great to see that there is so many artists interested about smaller agencies too.
Here comes some clarification about our workflow. Photographer can either send photos/vectors in dvd or transfer by using ftp. Photos must have keywords in metadata. Model releases can be uploaded separately. Our editors makes all work from that on. We want to make it easy for photographers to submit. Some times we are able to review photos very quickly and occasionally it might take even few weeks, depending on the season. Anyway it can take several weeks to generate sales depending on the content of portfolio. It can take time that customers adapt that certain specialities are found. Usually business, family and senior categories are most searched among very good concept photos. Those generate sales very quickly.
Price for the hires photo is 40Eur so photographer gets 14Eur for single download sale and 11.20Eur for credit download.
Price for lores photo is 15Eur so photographer gets 5.25Eur for single download sale and 4,2Eur for credit download.
Credit download commission is lower since customer gets discount of the package prices. Those are mostly used by high volume customers.
Referral gets 5% from each of referred photographers sales price. If photographer sells photos for 1000Eur per month, referral gets 5% of that. Not 5% from the photographers commission.
To Fljac (and others too): As a stock photographer my self too I understand very well the both sides and yes it is also tempting for an agency to give outstanding commission rates to collect quickly thousands of photographers but to be honest, marketing, developing and paying salaries ain't easy part either. If it would, there would be thousands of more agencies around the world but that is just general discussion about making business. Every agency has its own strategy.
To Anyka (and others too): Kuvakori was our old name. After we developed totally new system we changed our name to Rodeo, company itself haven't changed beside that name. We are general agency with a wide range of customers but first what comes to my mind is that we have a big hole in food photos and good concept photos of all kind. We send very detailed monthly sales reports by email. You see thumbnail, download date, sales price and commission. You can even see all referral sales and their prices with thumbnails. We have started also a monthly photographer newsletter were we share some search statistics of previous month in Rodeo.
Great questions and discussion and thanks to our photographers about sharing information to others fairly. We like to make transparent business and be trustworthy to our photographers and customers.
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^^^ Many thanks for that excellent and comprehensive post JuhaT. I'll be in contact very shortly.
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Got my first payout already, from February, however did not got a sales report this month. Anybody else didn't get one? Is it because I had no sales or is it delayed?
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I had my sales report from Marsh on 1st April (and was very pleased with the results).
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Sales reports are sent only if sales are occurred. Commissions are also paid monthly so in case sales report are caught in spam filter or lost somehow, you will see the payment in the Paypal or Moneybookers and ask for us sending sales report again.
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I see, so I suppose I had no sales in March, thanks!
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Yes, that is possible if portfolio is very small. It is not that the content and quality has anything wrong but the estimate general revenue of 1-2 euros/year per photo is working very good in our agency and that is expected also in case of very good portfolios too.
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Sales reports are sent only if sales are occurred. Commissions are also paid monthly so in case sales report are caught in spam filter or lost somehow, you will see the payment in the Paypal or Moneybookers and ask for us sending sales report again.
Are you wanting vector as well?
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Sales reports are sent only if sales are occurred. Commissions are also paid monthly so in case sales report are caught in spam filter or lost somehow, you will see the payment in the Paypal or Moneybookers and ask for us sending sales report again.
Are you wanting vector as well?
Yes they are paying monthly and yes they accept vectors. I sent you PM with details and referral ;-)
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Sales reports are sent only if sales are occurred. Commissions are also paid monthly so in case sales report are caught in spam filter or lost somehow, you will see the payment in the Paypal or Moneybookers and ask for us sending sales report again.
Are you wanting vector as well?
Yes they are paying monthly and yes they accept vectors. I sent you PM with details and referral ;-)
Yes cheers
Thank you
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I've sent a request to join Rodeo in middle June, but no answer yet...it's normal or I was just refuse?
Thanks.
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They can be very slow in communications and also reviewing images but not that slow.
I applied to join them in Feb but had to follow up with an email before I got a response. Try writing to [email protected]
I normally receive a sales report at the beginning of the month too but not this month. I don't know whether it's because I had no sales or whether they are on holiday or something?
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Rodeo send us an earning report only when we have sales
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I didn't receive an email from them this month. That is the first time for me. I hope they keep communicating with us. I had some nice sales there but it is hard uploading and not being able to log in to the site to see if there are any sales. Every other site I use lets us log in, so I hope they are busy working on that.
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I can tell you for sure that July is THE summer vacation month in Finland. Image sales in Finland are most likely to be almost zero, and most likely also the Rodeo guys are having their vacation then. Believe me, almost everything is "dead" (business-wise) in Finland during July.
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I am sure you're right about July being a "dead" month, but Rodeo sends sales reports in the beginning of the month, and I did not receive one either. This means that we had no sales in June. As for July, we'll have to wait until the first week of August.
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They can be very slow in communications and also reviewing images but not that slow.
I applied to join them in Feb but had to follow up with an email before I got a response. Try writing to [email protected]
I normally receive a sales report at the beginning of the month too but not this month. I don't know whether it's because I had no sales or whether they are on holiday or something?
Thanks for the answer, I'll try to contact Juha.
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Got two sales in couple months.
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Has any one heard from Rodeo or Juha Tuomi these last two months?
The first 4 months gave good sales, then suddently it went dead : no sales, no reports, no answer to e-mail, just silence. Until a week ago, the site (www.rodeo.fi (http://www.rodeo.fi)) was still working, there was just no contact between submitters/site. Right now (could be just a temporary server problem) the site is down.
Via Google I found www.rodeostudio.fi (http://www.rodeostudio.fi) which seems to be made to attract photographers, though lots of it is in Finnish.
What worries me most, is the fact that Juha Tuomi is not reacting to the microstockgroup posts anymore (he used to be very quick in response a few months ago).
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OK, the site is on-line again, so that was a server problem. It's even up-to-date because I am seeing a series of Autumn and back-to-school images. But the silence towards submitters is still going on ... so has any one heard of them since June ?
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I haven't heard anything for the past two months. I used to get a sales report email and prompt payment every month. They did review a few of my photos that I uploaded a few weeks ago but I am not uploading more until I see another sales report email. Hopefully it is just the summer holidays. Winters are a bit dark in Finland, so I am sure they get out as much as they can in the summer.
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I haven't heard anything for the past two months. I used to get a sales report email and prompt payment every month.
Same here. I miss them! :-[
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If this goes on much longer, one of us should learn Finnish ... shall we draw straws ? ;D
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I finally sent e-mails to the 3 people I know at Rodeo, and this was Juha's reply today :
(I did check my spam folder daily though).
Hi Anyka,
Have you checked you spam folder? Reports should be sent thru June. July reports isnt sent yet. Some photographers have been found the reports in Spam folder since it is html mail with a lots of small thumbnail photos which might be caught by even easier set filter. You should add my email ([email protected]) to safe senders list.
As summer is very challenging time for us as we're shooting a lot of new photos ourselves too are reports delayed a great time. Also summer months commissions are paid later September/October as July/August is national holiday season here in Finland and sales are very slow.
All emails what I receive will certainly get answer usually in 1-2 weeks. Summer season is exception as I might be out of office several days at time. Daily requests and questions I get thru out the year is like I earlier mentioned very challenging as I write around 300-400 emails every month plus all other work. As I always tell to everyone we only have two full time employees (me and Tero Sivula) and Ossi is doing reviewing as part time. Til we get more employees there is usually holiday seasons a great delays in replies since we have to keep up all the customer inquiries the minimum delay.
Hopefully this cleared up things how things work here and everything is going great here!
Best regards,
Juha Tuomi
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^^^ Thanks very much for that Anyka. Your Finnish is definitely improving!
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I will be in Helsinki late October and hope to meet up with my namesake. Maybe can make a blog about it if he has time to hook up.
From my first trip back to the motherland last year (first from my family since they decided to pack up and go to Canada in the '30s), I have to say it's a country full of highly educated and motivated young people. And, apparently, a whole bunch of 7-11 - style quickie marts where there is a backroom for fanatical gambling on horse races. So, if you are an Equine photo specialist I am sure you could make a killing in that market. :)
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They are doing great with such a small work force. I wish some of the other sites would work as hard at getting buyers. Hope to get more sales reports after the summer.
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Just received my sales report for June, thanks Juha. I will try a few uploads again now.
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Same here!
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We are alive and kicking!
No worries, I would just need a few extra hands and couple more hours in a day.
It was totally my mistake that I forgot to send a photographer newsletter to tell about how we work in summer time (or other holiday seasons). In summertime I'm out of office a lot of time shooting new photos and that means that email is totally jammed by all kind of questions and inquiries. We have to prioritise the customer service, calls and emails.
About sales. Rodeo has done amazing growth percents whole year thru to June. July was first month that we made little worse than year 2008 but the sales are so slow in that month since national holiday season, many small companies are totally or partly closed for a few weeks. Kids have here 10 week summer vacation starting in early June and ending around mid of August. During that time bigger companies have enough employees to keep companies running. Usually adults have 4-5 weeks summer holiday in Finland.
Hopefully that cleared up more.
Regards,
Juha
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4 to 5 weeks holiday for adults???? I think I will be moving to Finland !!!
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Hehe,
Anyka, that rarely apply for entrepreneurs. So if you or someone is thinking about moving to Finland make sure that you will be employee. First year you dont get full holidays but next year yes. ;)
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so how many sales per how many images are people getting here?
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so how many sales per how many images are people getting here?
slightly less than 1dl/month/~150 images
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4 to 5 weeks holiday for adults???? I think I will be moving to Finland !!!
I would miss the sun too much in the winter. Can't be a bad place though because my friends kids tell me Santa lives there :)
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I will be in Helsinki late October and hope to meet up with my namesake. Maybe can make a blog about it if he has time to hook up.
From my first trip back to the motherland last year (first from my family since they decided to pack up and go to Canada in the '30s), I have to say it's a country full of highly educated and motivated young people. And, apparently, a whole bunch of 7-11 - style quickie marts where there is a backroom for fanatical gambling on horse races. So, if you are an Equine photo specialist I am sure you could make a killing in that market. :)
Yes, it would be fun to go out for a lunch. Just give me a call or send email when youre here.
-Juha
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so how many sales per how many images are people getting here?
I was getting 4 or 5 a month but that has gone down, perhaps with more people uploading and the summer slow down. I have under 500 uploaded so far. They do sell for higher prices and pay in euros, I have had a few 14 euro commissions. Some months I have made more than BigStock and 123rf with a much smaller portfolio.
They have a good referral scheme so I would be grateful if anyone joining mentions that Stephen Rees referred them in the box at the bottom of the form. http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm (http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm)
I did have a problem with my keywords not being read. It wasn't working when my keywords were separated by commas. Now I open my files in the free Microsoft Pro Photo Tools program, click on a thumbnail and re-save it. That takes seconds and sorts out the keywords. If they accept you, I would recommend uploading a small batch first to make sure they are OK. Check the readme file on their FTP server for details about uploading. Reviews can take a while.
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so how many sales per how many images are people getting here?
For the months of March-April-May-June I had an average of 140 euros with 1900 photos, which is about 1,2 dollars per image/year, and almost the figure that Juha predicted. However, I don't know how many of these 1900 were accepted and added to the collection, so it might be more than 1,2 per image/year.
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Photographers can easily check their portfolios by putting their name between quotation marks in the search field. The name used in Rodeo can be found in photo detail info page for example: http://www.rodeo.fi/MediaCard.aspx?MediaID=218967&Search=%2522Anneke+schram%2522&Page=1&SearchOptions=1&ImageSizeOptions=3&ImageTypeOptions=3&ViewOptions=1&ImagesPerPage=40 (http://www.rodeo.fi/MediaCard.aspx?MediaID=218967&Search=%2522Anneke+schram%2522&Page=1&SearchOptions=1&ImageSizeOptions=3&ImageTypeOptions=3&ViewOptions=1&ImagesPerPage=40)
The name is usually real name written in photographer agreement if not requested otherwise.
Translation:
Valokuvaaja=Photographer
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I see that you request 1,000 images for initial review, but many photographers are saying that their portfolio is only 150 - 500 images. If large percentage of initial submission is rejected, do you still accept the photographer?
Thanks!
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Good question,
yes we have a certain requirements but still check every applicant even if she/he doesn't met the exact numbers because some have just started and if we see that they have potential we can make an agreement with them. However if someone has 100 good photos and says that those have been taken in two years we have to say no. The reason is explained in our strategy at the start of this thread. We also check the portfolios in content matter. Some has great photos but the content is somehow not suitable in (our personal point of view) Finnish markets. To answer directly to your question that in rare case someone has great portfolio in personal page and we found out that a large amount of hires images in submission isn't good enough in technical matter we have to terminate the agreement. We check the portfolios carefully and estimate how many rejects there will be.
In general every agency have their own (I know, every once in a while it seems to be kind of twisted) strategies who to accept to be a photographer and what kind of images are accepted and what rejected. Personally (and being stock photographer myself) I would definitely don't waste my time by thinking so carefully what is accepted and what rejected, it just takes too much time and all that energy can be used to plan a next shooting and so on. ;)
Happy shootings to everyone!
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Thanks for the quick response!