MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: leaf on September 25, 2012, 07:44
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Yuri just put out a rather informative blog post highlighting a few of his thoughts on the current microstock situation and what themes are worth shooting and which should be avoided.
http://arcurs.com/2012/09/what-sells-in-microstock-anno-2012/ (http://arcurs.com/2012/09/what-sells-in-microstock-anno-2012/)
I agree that the instagram styled photos are certainly a fad that will wash over in 1 or 2 years time. Real life style images however I think will last quite a while and like Yuri, think are worth pursuing if processed in a reasonable way.
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I come from an IT background, let me just put this out here. Photographers have had a hard go in the last decade on all fronts. Digital cameras are in our phones, connected with GPS nowadays.
The internet has allowed sharing these photos in an instant, and social networking the spread of the sharing like a disease.
You think FAD, every man and his dog though wooo i can be a photographer, i remember when cameras hit 3.1MP and that was the bees knees of tech. Everyone who had 200 bux shot photos and put them online. Now you can pull your phone out and wap instagram.
This whole fad is going to fade, people are going to realise they arent photographers. But there are going to be billions and billions of bad photos online. We are in white noise time, wading through all the crap to get to the good, people will eventually realise its not worth holding onto the crap.
Good cameras are expensive, and instafad will fade and the market will plateau back to the pro's being distinguished from the crowd. Only issue is that even an ameteur can take one great shot, times that by a billion and thats a billion great shots to compete with.
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Someone recently posted a similar thread from Yuri about the same thing.
And here was what he said:
Areas in microstock that need more great photos:
Travel photography, special places and extreme nature
Really, really old people
Contemporary fashion
Policemen, military and state officials from all over the world
Pictures of currency other than Euros and Dollars
Aerial pictures
Stylistic still-life in soft and low contrast colors
Fantastic panorama shots in high quality
Motion-blurred and lively pictures
Artistically executed lifestyle, edgy
Natural looking people that don’t look like microstock models
Areas in microstock that are saturated and really require fantastic work if you want to stand out
Businesspeople (too easy to put a group of people in suits around a table)
Isolated people on white (too easy to duplicate and too many people are shooting it)
Anything with a laptop
Nudes
Spa (requires so little set-up and every model in the world wants a spa shoot)
Medical (Too easy: a scrub and a model)
Backgrounds and “lonely tree” kind of pictures
Beach pictures (really too easy)
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Oh, that's just wonderfully ironic.
When I saw the title, Hot microstock concepts for 2012, I was just going to post, "Copy Yuri".
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one day (2 days ago) a guy tells the all world about Yuri super sellers, today Yuri decides to tell the all world again, does that make any sense?
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My concept involves 2 goldfish bowls and a large mouth bass. Problem is the bass wont fit in the bowl, much less jump to the other one. Tried emailing Seaworld on how best to do this but they have not replied. :o
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Oh, that's just wonderfully ironic.
When I saw the title, Hot microstock concepts for 2012, I was just going to post, "Copy Yuri".
Lol, yep. Complaining in one thread about people copying him, and then putting up a blog post on what to shoot to gain fans. Although he does try to shut down his competition: "I would stay away from lifestyle." because "we are definitely one of the companies considered to be a major lifestyle images provider."
The examples of new, "unconventional" images for lifestyle and business look like micro from 6 years ago. A return to the past?
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if you've been selling on DT for a few years, do you remember which pic they used on their off-line page?
who is the copycat now? ;)
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LOL on the Largemouth Bass one! I had a largemouth bass in a very large tank and when I put in a few gold fish all I saw in a matter of seconds was the scales of the goldfish settling to the bottom of the tank!
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But none of the big sites will accept motion blur. Right? Oh wait... they will, if it was faked with a $2 app on an iPhone 5. But not otherwise.
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But none of the big sites will accept motion blur. Right?
there is a guy at SS with over 4k motion blur pictures done outdoor/street, same goes for other agencies (less of course)
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But none of the big sites will accept motion blur. Right?
there is a guy at SS with over 4k motion blur pictures done outdoor/street, same goes for other agencies (less of course)
I think I only tried once, it was a shot of a reel-to-reel tape recorder in action - and it was rejected for "focus". But, I've long since stopped expecting consistency or sense in these things. I assume SS just doesn't like me.
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He's wrong about great panoramas, at least significantly wide ones, they don't sell because the thumbnails are almost impossible to see (and maybe because they don't fit into most designs). Given the effort they take to make I would restrict them to RM.
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But none of the big sites will accept motion blur. Right? Oh wait... they will, if it was faked with a $2 app on an iPhone 5. But not otherwise.
iStock absolutely does. Try a search on London, people sorted by dls.
As the search is playing up, you'll likely have to click off 'southeast England'.
(You search London, it offers southeast England and others. You click that one, but the search separates out to London and southeast England, so you lose all the files that don't have 'southeast England' as a separate keyword phrase. It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.)
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If it's one thing to avoid with micro's it's being artistic.
Artistic = Macro.
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Interesting blog post. His observations are dead on. However, I would stay away from his suggestions of what to shoot, because everybody and their cousin will be shooting exactly what Yuri suggests and in six months they will be as oversaturated as business handshakes.
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Interesting blog post. His observations are dead on. However, I would stay away from his suggestions of what to shoot, because everybody and their cousin will be shooting exactly what Yuri suggests and in six months they will be as oversaturated as business handshakes.
So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
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So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
The secret is just to not listen, then you can do whatever you want. ;D
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So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
The secret is just to not listen, then you can do whatever you want. ;D
JACKPOT! ;D
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Interesting blog post. His observations are dead on. However, I would stay away from his suggestions of what to shoot, because everybody and their cousin will be shooting exactly what Yuri suggests and in six months they will be as oversaturated as business handshakes.
So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
One might think one might just have to think for one's self. That DOES sound tough!
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So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
The secret is just to not listen, then you can do whatever you want. ;D
+1
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The answer is obvious, surprised nobody has spotted it - If you want to shoot 'hot concept' images in 2012 take photos of Yuri himself in lifestyle situations, preferably wearing scrubs and eating organic celery whilst holding a goldfish bowl with a laptop jumping out of it.
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The secret is just to not listen, then you can do whatever you want. ;D
Yep. That's my rule on government edicts also. Just be yourself, build your own world, develop your own slant, do your thing.
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So if you follow the link to the article in Luissantos84 thread (Topic: GDUSA Reader Survey Reveals Stock Imagery is a Designer’s Best Friend) and read the article the most used images are in the following categories:
Top 5 categories of images used most often
People
Business/industry
Concepts/Backgrounds
Lifestyle
Medical/Healthcare (this category is new to the Top 5)
Combined with Yuri's assessment everything is as clear as mud.
Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) has released an annual survey (sponsored by iStockphoto) of more than 1,000 readers which indicates that use of stock imagery has grown nearly three times in just 25 years, starting at 39 percent in 1986 and reaching 98 percent in 2012.
Designers use rights managed images but predominantly use royalty free
Rights managed – 29%
Royalty free – 98%
Designers use multiple stock sites
Use only one – 14%
Use 2-3 – 49%
Use 4-5 – 31%
Use 6 or more – 6%
[url]http://www.mystockphoto.org/gdusa-reader-survey-reveals-stock-imagery-is-a-designers-best-friend/[/url] ([url]http://www.mystockphoto.org/gdusa-reader-survey-reveals-stock-imagery-is-a-designers-best-friend/[/url])
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does that mean my next photo session with fresh garden tomatoes on seamless white should be cancelled? However, they do fall under GL food items according to the food chart ::)
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Well, I am trying to tap into some of the concepts of using normal people, everyday situations, panorama landscapes of travel locations that are not done to death, tourism photos, seniors, but fotolia rejected 60% of what I submitted. Only agency that does that since everyone else is accepting the photos.
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So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
The secret is just to not listen, then you can do whatever you want. ;D
Exactly.
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So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
;D
No, the real message is take your marbles and go home! Please!!!! ;) ;D
But seriously, I agree with Cory and Tyler. Best solution is think for yourself and shoot what you like.
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So, you can't shoot what he says not to shoot, and you can't shoot what he says to shoot. This is a tough business! ;)
My take is if you shoot what he doesn't shoot you remove him as your competitor. Who needs a powerful competitor like him?
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Someone who believes in themselves and not in invincibility.
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Well, I am trying to tap into some of the concepts of using normal people, everyday situations, panorama landscapes of travel locations that are not done to death, tourism photos, seniors, but fotolia rejected 60% of what I submitted. Only agency that does that since everyone else is accepting the photos.
Or get inside Cape Canavral and photographing space launchings, shuttles and all that ;D
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...but fotolia rejected 60% of what I submitted.
I find Fotolia's acceptance criteria so completely out of kilter with all the other agencies that I have stopped caring whether they accept my work or not. I just pitch my work at the level that iStock and Shutterstock accept, and that seems to work for all the agencies except Fotolia.
Given that Fotolia don't constitute a huge slice of my 'pie', I'm certainly not going to change the way I work just to suit their idiosyncrasies.
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Someone who believes in themselves and not in invincibility.
That's a brilliant phrase. I'm going to write that one down. :D
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...but fotolia rejected 60% of what I submitted.
I find Fotolia's acceptance criteria so completely out of kilter with all the other agencies that I have stopped caring whether they accept my work or not. I just pitch my work at the level that iStock and Shutterstock accept, and that seems to work for all the agencies except Fotolia.
Given that Fotolia don't constitute a huge slice of my 'pie', I'm certainly not going to change the way I work just to suit their idiosyncrasies.
Thats what I do, well, process for SS, I am not on IS, and they all take the photos, but FT doesnt like them. The photos are technically fine because the only rejections I get from FT are too many on file or we dont like the aesthetic quality. When I search their database of touristic locations, I find gaps, I submit photos that fill that gap, and then they reject for too many on file. ::)
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Someone who believes in themselves and not in invincibility.
That's a brilliant phrase. I'm going to write that one down. :D
Sean seems to be in an especially good mood. Yuri must be copying his stuff. :o ;D
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In another thread I'm ranting about 'focus' and 'lighting' at SS. There's a common topic these days: the agencies are all trying to become more selective, they're dialing up their acceptance criteria, and they're doing it in goofy and inconsistent ways that are pushing a significant number of experienced photographers to the point where they stop submitting, or greatly reduce it. I know I've reached that point myself.
I'm seeing lots of posts from people saying they've finally stopped contributing to an agency because of over-the-top rejections for content, commercial value, lighting, focus, 'similars', etc. We've all accepted some number of rejections in the past but lately it seems to be getting to a level where we feel it's just no longer worth the hassle of submitting, given the other factors of declining sales and commissions.
I think people who really take pride in their work and try to produce a solid product are the ones most likely to get angry about dumb rejections (especially 'similars') and start to redirect their efforts elsewhere. The micros will be seeing a higher percentage of stuff from people who care less and just keep hammering in mass quantities of uninspired shots.
It's a good example of the "Law of Unintended Consequences".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences)
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In another thread I'm ranting about 'focus' and 'lighting' at SS. There's a common topic these days: the agencies are all trying to become more selective, they're dialing up their acceptance criteria, and they're doing it in goofy and inconsistent ways that are pushing a significant number of experienced photographers to the point where they stop submitting, or greatly reduce it. I know I've reached that point myself.
I'm seeing lots of posts from people saying they've finally stopped contributing to an agency because of over-the-top rejections for content, commercial value, lighting, focus, 'similars', etc. We've all accepted some number of rejections in the past but lately it seems to be getting to a level where we feel it's just no longer worth the hassle of submitting, given the other factors of declining sales and commissions.
I think people who really take pride in their work and try to produce a solid product are the ones most likely to get angry about dumb rejections (especially 'similars') and start to redirect their efforts elsewhere. The micros will be seeing a higher percentage of stuff from people who care less and just keep hammering in mass quantities of uninspired shots.
It's a good example of the "Law of Unintended Consequences".
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences[/url] ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences[/url])
You just nailed it mate, exactly my thoughts.
These incompetent/inconsistent reviews are still the main reason I'm moving away from micro.
I was just about to create a whole post about mass rejections on IS which never happened until recently when I still had a few previous batches in que (so now we know why)
I wonder though, if they are dialling up then why do I still see so much snapshots getting accepted into the libraries?
Anyway, what to expect from hobbystock right? Talk is cheap, action=reaction.
Good luck
ps. to show it's not all bad I have a +95% AR at FT, no complaints at all.
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Guys (& Gals)
You cant expect a model like this to continue working forever. The likea of Yuri were smart to tackle this industry with such gusto when they did a decade ago.
Theres this thing called a saturation point, ive mentioned it in other posts. Photographers got screwed with technology for the last ten years. Its starting to plateau out now. Professional gear can seperate itself from consumer gear once again.
But now we have image agencies that have millions and millions of photos. Of course they are going to get stricter on submissions they have started to a reach a saturation point. Customers dont want to look through white noise to find one good shot.
Ive noticed, looking through searches, alot of these agencies rather than hurting submissions, really need to start culling crap images from past years. You can really see the difference in image quality from earlier digital to now.
This alone would create a better market place.
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Saturation, obviously true, and also new owners and investors casting a jaundiced eye on reviewing costs.
I'm sure the agencies feel that weeding out the old junk would be prohibitively expensive, whereas imposing stricter standards on new submissions is relatively cheap. The faster a reviewer rejects an image, the less time he'll spend on it overall.
My point is not that the agencies are trying to raise standards to unreasonable levels, or are doing an inconsistent job of it (although I think both statements are true) but that this will have unintended consequences, by discouraging higher quality contributors who spend more time on their shots and therefor need to get more of them approved in order to make any money.
In other words I think there's a point at which "raising the standards" - beyond what's reasonable - actually results in poorer quality material overall.
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I have not worked in stock, i do IT for photographers.
I have watched this industry from an IT perspective for its lifetime. My thoughts are, as a digital product, they have no choice but to now go back and cull the crap.
They could start by running scripts to remove any images from certain cameras, certain uncompressed image size, image dimensions, etc, i have created this scripts in the past, they are not to hard. PHP can do this quite easily.
Alamy have 32 million imgaes, when i do a search on one of my images it comes up with a handful of others, they all look like they were taken with a 3MP camera in 2002. Thats got to look bad for Alamy.
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I'm sure the agencies feel that weeding out the old junk would be prohibitively expensive
Not necessarily, you just run a batch program that looks at the history of each image every night or once a week.
Dreamstime is automatically deleting old images with no sales in four years. Gradually, the criteria could be raised even to images that sold in the early days but haven't sold in last five years or so.
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Yes they could query their databases on criteria like image size or age, but that's the easy part, isn't it? If we're talking about cr@p I think the high value targets would be dumb, repetitious content and outrageous keyword spamming. And culling that stuff requires lots of human effort.
I actually think this is how new agencies will eventually win out; by starting fresh and learning from the mistakes of the big players, who are now burdened with tons of low-quality material and no easy or inexpensive ways to filter it out of searches.
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What many do not understand is HOW you shoot a subject allowing for copy space and HOW you crop it to create tension and intrigue. You have to think like an art director or web designer. Also creative execution in critical.
Those who grasp that knowledge should do well regardless.
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My point is not that the agencies are trying to raise standards to unreasonable levels, or are doing an inconsistent job of it (although I think both statements are true) but that this will have unintended consequences, by discouraging higher quality contributors who spend more time on their shots and therefor need to get more of them approved in order to make any money.
Exactly my thoughts, could not have said it better.
Another side of the Problem is pure incompetence of Inspectors to judge quality. When talking about quality I do not mean noise. I mean composition. Inspectors too fail on protecting originality. It is IMHO ok and useful to copy concepts and adapt them, but they allow images which are basically 100% copies which is very discouraging.
Then they are punishing creativity. They complain about duplicates and similars but as soon as I upload other looks or concepts which differ from the current Paradigm they reject them.
Pure incompetence.
The dominant Paradigm on the Agency side still seems to be: We do not know anything about art, composition and market value of an image so we approve everything which is technically ok. Now you could say this is true but anyone with experience who is watching some newly approved files on most agencies knows what I am talking about. Too much (compositing and style) crap coming through the filter. I do not want to post links to examples since I do not want to offend anybody.
Furthermore, because we do not know how to invent stimulus for creativity we punish successful microstockers (mostly VOLUME producers) by blocking repetition. Fail. Running an Agency is not only about setting up a nice site with a smooth Database backend and watch sales coming in. It is about to channel creativity, reflect current market and trends and be the node between the creatives and the customer. Worst job ever is doing Dreamstime on this (forgive me the little sidekick).
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I have not worked in stock, i do IT for photographers.
I have watched this industry from an IT perspective for its lifetime. My thoughts are, as a digital product, they have no choice but to now go back and cull the crap.
They could start by running scripts to remove any images from certain cameras, certain uncompressed image size, image dimensions, etc, i have created this scripts in the past, they are not to hard. PHP can do this quite easily.
Alamy have 32 million imgaes, when i do a search on one of my images it comes up with a handful of others, they all look like they were taken with a 3MP camera in 2002. Thats got to look bad for Alamy.
Alamy would have no reason to do that. One of their key markets is secondary editorial where archival images are often required. Even nowadays, news and newly submitted archival images can be as low as 5Mb uncompressed. Although not all news images will go on to have a useful archival life, a program could not decide which - and neither could a reviewer second-guess which story or celeb will suddenly rise in the public interest again. The big story in the UK news last week was the follow up to something which happened 30 years ago.
With a trend towards smaller image use, buyers may not care what camera a photo was taken on. Of my top sellers in iStock, the top was taken on a G12; the next with a 350D and the next two are scanned slides from a Pentax film camera. Probably only one of these would be accepted nowadays, but they still sell. The scans sell from time to time despite there being at least one series in the collection now which is much 'better' on just about any criteria, and are almost certainly selling much better nowadays, but for whatever reason, mine must fill certain projects or layouts better.
Why deny buyers the choice?
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They have a range of settings to start a cull. It is the best thing for the industry at this stage. Millions is getting larger at tens of thousands a day across many sites.
G12, 350D and a scan all are acceptable cameras from a tech point of view. The g12 is fully manual with a ASPC sensor in it. I have g11 to side kit my 5d love the little thing.
They can also use data in the database (input by both staff and users) to help refine this cull, any ignore any image uploaded as editorial.
Who wants to look at bad color rendition, jaggy edges, blocky old looking early digital images. Compare that g12 with an a95 for instance. I can only see a benefit, this is where fresh and active agencies will win into the future. This is why i gather Yuri would have created his own agency, finer control of whats in the catalog. That and he would have had hundreds of thousands of images in his name.
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I wouldn't have any problem with a cull of older stuff, but it would be good if they warned us before removals and gave us the opportunity to re-shoot the subject and submit an improved version.
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Some of my best sellers are from old point and shoots. Some are fairly unique images, others are not. Search position is pretty key, and that is what the sites need to make work. They also could have someone go through the most popular search terms and put some sort of modifier on all the images that don't belong (or just delete them if they are outright spam) so they appear farther back in the search.
This is what BM2 was supposed to do at IS. I think it hurt exclusive sales so they scrapped it (or maybe they just couldn't get it to work right).
On more than one occasion I have re-shot old p&s images with newer gear and better light etc. only to have them rejected or not sell as well as the original. It probably wouldn't hurt the agencies much to delete them, but it would make for a noticeable drop in income for most long time microstock submitters.
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Definitely no problem here with removal of old material. I reshoot the same concepts anyhow every year or two and it would reduce competition from the inactive contribs. But it has to be from the Agency side since no one is willing to disable their own files in fear of losing a cut of the share (like Dreamstime is asking for).
In case of Alamy it may make no sense but nobody really needs a Handshake shot from 2004 of a Point and Shoot anymore, so I think in most cases a script like this would be welcome.
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You dont have to delete that stuff either, just relocate it to a mirrored system so that its always available (in case of editorial stuff, or if a submitter makes a request)
It is obvious as a business model, if images that sell from old cameras still sell, then an executive decision would be made to keep those images. There's nothing stopping a smart programmer from automating this on a tri-monthly basis.
Warn users, image has x issues with it, click here to complain, or it will die.
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Hmm, just read Yuri's blog, and it practically boils down to this - anything that's sellable and easy to do is done and overdone and saturated to the point of being unprofitable; what's left to do is either images with much less sales potential or something that's not easy to do, which also means it is unprofitable; the bottom line is: microstock has become and will be getting increasingly more unprofitable.
I don't think food concepts or fringe business concepts will change the game - there're plenty of amazing photogs who specialized exclusively in food and worked prolifically for the last several years, that market is pretty much saturated too (it falls under the easy-to-do category); and non-mainstream business stuff is just not going to sell that much just for the reason of being not mainstream.
So looks like we're done here fellas... time to move on;-) Yuri might try to explore different subjects matters, but with his expensive production habits I doubt he'll see reasonable returns.
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Has a turd in a toilet been done? I think that would be a good seller and I didn't see that on his list.
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Has a turd in a toilet been done? I think that would be a good seller and I didn't see that on his list.
turds, yes, not turds in a toilet, that I found on DT or SS. :D
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I couldnt find a close up of a vagina on SS. Might be considered pornographic but it can also be labelled as scientific. I just dont have a lot of opportunity to shoot a close up of a vagina. Same goes for penis. There is a gap right there. Good luck.
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Alamy have 32 million imgaes, when i do a search on one of my images it comes up with a handful of others, they all look like they were taken with a 3MP camera in 2002. Thats got to look bad for Alamy.
Have you ever searched editorial in other RM agencies ? They look exactly the same, unless they artificially pimp up the thumbnails in PHP or ASP (sharpened thumbs and adding a bit more contrast and saturation).
This look that you call "2002" is the same look book publishers like and buy.
It's micro images that are overprocessed, not RM images looking dull and washed out.
And indeed on Alamy there's plenty of scans from images shot on film in the'70, and they still sell.
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If it's one thing to avoid with micro's it's being artistic.
Artistic = Macro.
Artistic == Fine Art and Art Galleries
Macro == Creative
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This whole fad is going to fade, people are going to realise they arent photographers. But there are going to be billions and billions of bad photos online. We are in white noise time, wading through all the crap to get to the good, people will eventually realise its not worth holding onto the crap.
Fully agree on this.
What will people do when the internet will be flooded by billions of shots done with Instagram all looking the same and screaming "doctored with Instagram on a phone" ?
And apart this, none of these images are properly keyworded so nobody will ever find them, so it's like if they don't exist and same for Flickr and other photo sharing sites.
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I couldnt find a close up of a vagina on SS. Might be considered pornographic but it can also be labelled as scientific. I just dont have a lot of opportunity to shoot a close up of a vagina. Same goes for penis. There is a gap right there. Good luck.
1000s of results for vagina and penis on Alamy, some of them very funny.
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Artistic == Fine Art and Art Galleries
Macro == Creative
+1
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When you hook a longline with sandeels.
You are nog going to catch a salmon every hook.
But the catch can be profitable.
Until the salmon migrates or they are all caught.
Then you set your hooks deeper, to catch cods.
Same old story.
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The people images, which are at the top of the food chain, will always be profitable because:
A) Fashions change - you can pretty much reshoot your most successfully sold photos of the decade with new clothes.
B) Hair styles change - even if that business suit rarely changes, the hair styles change, so you still can reshoot that young business man.
C) Technology changes - If you shot someone with an older laptop, ipad, or a phone, those things change and down the road you will need to reshoot those people holding newer tech toys.
D) Cameras change - new camera tech is higher MP. If you shot an image at 12mp before, well if you reshoot the same thing at 36mp, it might gain you new traction as the demand for higher resolution image takes its toll.