Hi all,

I thought we could use a thread where we make our own predictions and personal goals for the year and then we can check back in 12 months how it went?

Commitment to goals is always stronger if you announce them in public...

You can also talk about special shooting plans or new things you want to learn and master.

And obviously feel free to edit your post whenever you have a new idea.

So, here are mine.

Industry predictions:

- most agencies will start taking ai content, because they realize just offering an ai tool for the customer does not replace a nice looking ai collection. Not every customer wants to spend an afternoon prompting if they can just download something useful in 10 seconds.

- probably another drop in royalties, especially for the "usual suspects"...the exciting news of so much more volume if the files just cost 1 cent...particularly worried about p5. How long will there be an exclusive collection with 60%? Or 40% for non ex?

- a renewed increase in buying more non ai content and customers asking to exclude ai more permanently instead of always having to select it with every search.

- increase in video sales, especially for the use of amending an existing video with ai, also increase of people buying images, real or ai, to be used as a base for video

- video ai improves and companies offer cloud upsizing so you don't need to have a 20k computer

- interest in uploading ai actually going down or levelling off, because people realize that what the youtubers promised is not happening, going back to making stickers for etsy or trying a new youtube channel. stock has no viral growth component.

Personal goals

- reach at least 10k files an Adobe (currently 7100) - ideally 12k, but I doubt I can reach that.

- add at least 600 videos to BB and in general get back into the habit of uploading and producing videos. Ideally 1200

- do normal photo/video shootings every week

- upload 1200 files to istock (which can also go to adobe)

- by middle of the year, or whenever sora becomes available start testing ai video again, perhaps 100 ai videos for the entire year

- meet up with people for regular shootings, including meeting up for editorial events

- do at least one city trip over a week-end with a full stock shooting plan

Money: at least 12k for the year, best would be 15k. Longterm I need 30-45k.

Research and genre focus: editorial, ai people, mostly normal daily life food for normal camera work. Little daily life moments, cleaning routine, doing paperwork etc..

Learn about at least one festival or holiday I don't know - perhaps Diwali...and learn what kind of content I can produce as someone not from the region

For people - family life and elder care, business and fashion are not for me even though there is probably a lot more money in both

Private goals: get much better sleep, lose more weight, see more friends again

The goal is roughly 3000 images, including ai images that will go to adobe but also include 1000 normal camera assets that can go anywhere including istock.

And then I will try to generate 1200 videos, normal videos and a minimum of 600 for BB, but hopefully 1000 for BB.

The volume in video will probably come from editorial and little daily life clips, mostly food.

Most important is to get back into the habit of creating and processing videos. I have to think differently for video and I need to plan my shootings to get the best clips. Also do research for missing content across agencies.

This year I uploaded around 3400 files to adobe, another 120 in the queue and maybe another 300 that I will upload.

So uploading a minimum of 3000 to Adobe looks doable if I already uploaded around 3700 this year. But uploading 5k assets to reach 12k? I don't know. That would require a consistent 420 files a month.

We will see. But I must activate the other agencies and especially istock which has my oldest port and bb which is great for video. It is amazing how reliable their income is and I think I only uploaded 20 clips this year.

no, I don't think ai video is there yet. I tried it but didn't like the results.

There is so much easy and useful stuff you can take with a camera, plus I have a backlog of nearly four years of clips I haven't processed yet.

BB is an insurance against port closure in case criminals attack my port and the adobe algos close me down. Plus, they sell really well, on average better than if I sell myself.

I will still add video to my normal ports but probably 70% will go to BB.

It works for me, doesn't mean others should do it.

no, you can very easily create clips on pika or runway. it is created in the cloud.

you just need a good computer for the upsizing software. upsizing 5 seconds takes nearly 3 hours on my computer.

but the generation of the clips is not that easy. any problems you have with generating images is multiplied with video.

sometimes you get very cute looking stuff, but for the time and money invested it is 10 time faster to just shoot something with your camera.

however, there are many people uploading ai video to adobe. thousands of new clips every day, just go and have a look.

i am just not going to be one of them. maybe in 18 months, who knows.


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so what are your predictions and goals for 2025?

My goals for 2025 (sadly) don't include anything for microstock. But will be uploading some lower quality content from time to time to "feed the beast" and hopefully keep earning on similar level as in 2024.

@mike

Maybe the beast will surprise you in 2025. Could be an interesting year for stock. Good luck!

@pires

That�s the spirit!

I wish you an exciting 2025, will be interesting to see how well you do if you are fully focused on stock.

Please let us know.

Personally, I don't have any interesting stock targets, because I am in the war zone.

Curious - are you prohibited from photographing stock image opportunities there?

My industry predictions are that most agencies will accept AI-generated content due to its improved quality and creativity, which cannot be replicated by traditional photography.

Already, it is possible to generate 4K images using Flux Ultra, and upscaling to 8K will not be a problem with online upscaling providers.

My forecast is that AI-generated content will replace up to 80% of generic photo content within the next 1-2 years, and the entire market, as well as earnings, will increase due to the higher quality of content. However, earnings will be more concentrated among a few large contributors who specialize in AI-generated content and understand the needs of buyers.

Demand for classic shoots will rise only for niches, where byers will need real authentical content, which can't be generated.

AI Video creation will become better but will be still not good enough to replace real video shootings, so that I would wait 2 years before starting generating.

My personal goals in 2025 are:

- To create a portfolio of 20 - 30.000 high-quality, generic AI images with high demand, earning up to $300-500 per week.
So far, I have created approximately 10.000 images in 2 months but uploaded only approx 3.400 images so far. I am currently reaching to approx $80+ this week.

- To create around 300 - 400 high-quality traditional photos during my vacations and photo shoots with my young daughter.

- To learn more about the needs of buyers to create more in-demand content.

- To improve the quality of AI upscaling at higher resolutions.

-Focusing more on videos, including  aerials.
-Grow my YouTube channel, including my new channel forum.
-Hopefully to increase my weekly income, now I make around $10 a week on Adobe, nearly 6k assets.
-Spending more time with the family.
-Maybe adding new qualifications to my CV.
-Want to travel more.
-Upgrading my drone, and maybe adding new RF glass next to my EF lenses.

Maybe we should have a youtube channel or etsy store section on the forums.
Basically to monetize our content in different ways as an add on to uploading to agencies.

And on Creative Market too. 

blackboxglobal, a distribution agency and community

blackboxglobal, a distribution agency and community

Okay, that's what I thought... They basiclaly just distribute to the video sites for you on your behalf, correct?

My concern with them was:
a) What happens if you accidentally upload duplicate content? (I.e., say you submit via them, somehow forget that you did, then submit via your own account, or vice-versa)
b) To me - it "seems" they are in a little bit of a precarious position - "because" they are submitting on behalf of a LOT of people - potentially they could get east indian/south asian spammers that simply steal someone's portfolio, get's 'submitted' via bbg - and then jeopardizes the entire bbg account... (if I remember correctly, wasn't their actually a post that said bbg HAD gotten 'banned' temporarily because of something, or maybe they didn't?) that being said - they've been around I think for a couple years now? if they didn't (already) get banned, I'm surprised they don't appear to have had that happen yet... But - maybe they were smart and contacted the agencies to let them know what they were doing (so in case that happens, their entire account doesn't get 'banned').

As an aside:
a) How do you get paid/what payment methods are available? (I didn't see that on the site).
b) Interesting its in Ontario, Canada (at least according to the legalese).

@superphoto

The agency that was temporarily banned was wirestock. BB these days has an intensive sign up process, you need to upload a showreel and do a personal interview to get accepted. At least that was the last thing I heard. And they do not accept everyone.

BB does not take ai. That is probably the easiest way to avoid the spammers. And ai is probably the big problem for wirestock.

So now BB is a gated community where not everybody gets in so easily. I am sure they also had/have spammers, but they will kick them out once discovered. But because the sign up is not automatic I am sure they screen out a lot of undesired content.

I got in early when you just had to sign up. Not sure if I could get in today as I am not a pro. But I think they still take amateurs, they just want to know people are genuine and want to be part of a community.

Blackbox has sharing tools built in. So you can have your models, your location team, a make up artist, camera people all sign up and then once  the project is completed everybody gets their assigned percentage from the sales. It is designed as basis to do your own movies, not just stock. However so far a complete movie section is still missing. But from what I understand that was the original idea.

It is the main difference to any other distributor or other agency.

You can also team up with someone who does post processing and metatagging for you, so you can optimise your workflow. You can also ask around in the community for shooting partners etc...

BB takes 15% from the sale before they pay out to you. But part of that is compensated because BB as a large entity get higher ranks or percentages than if you do it as a solo producer.

For duplicates...well...you need to be careful...however you could probably write to them. They actually do write back, it is not a distant team.

But the easiest is to decide on a genre that goes to BB versus a genre you upload yourself. In my case a certain type of editorial always goes to BB whereas other editorial always goes to my own accounts.

The duplicte thing is the same as having a contract with gettyimages, stocksy or any other high end partner that requires full exclusivity.

Since you send in the whole shoot, the risk of duplicates is not very high.

You don't have to process the entire shoot in one go, just decide this shoot is exclusive for bb and then process as you please.

The same way I would do it for stocksy. Or the way others do with cavan or archangel etc...

Nobody has to work with a distribution partner.

But personaly I really like the friendly BB community.

And I also see BB as a form of insurance, if the Adobe hunter killer algo targets me for whatever reason and my port gets blocked, the income from BB, including sales from adobe, would still be coming in.

That is why I like them and will make BB a strong part of my video uploads next year.

eta

payment I use paypal, no problems

ai will continue to increase, but won't eliminate other images for specific niches & SS will succumb to the ai memes

--- goals

• continue to add metadata to 15K+ images from last 5 years
  
• continue to add 500+ images to agencies each month
• lead a group tour of xmas markets on the rhine or danube in Nov
  
• continue to lead tours to Turkey & the Balkans with many photo opportunities - next year i'll take groups to Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria & T�rkiye
• organize other discounted river cruises that offer multiple locations over a short period of time

Have to say I am not as optimistic about 2025 as I have been in previous years looking forward to the new year. That said, I have not given up and am continuing to upload.

Just generally, compared to 2023, this year 2024 has seen a big fall in earnings on Shutterstock and a smaller fall in earnings on Pond5. iStock has shown a modest rise in earnings in 2024 while Adobe Stock has seen a huge rise in earnings. The end-of-year fall off in terms of earnings has been earlier, faster and further.

Still I did reach some goals with every month since February to November achieving >$1k per month. I just passed my total 2023 earnings earlier this month but must be considered in light of uploading over 500 videos to each 4 portfolios this year, and over 2000 to 2500 to each 4 ports since November 2021.

I just hope 2025 doesn't see a greater fall in contributor earnings overall though I do acknowledged the exceptional performance of Adobe Stock many of us seen this year.