MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: markstout on July 31, 2009, 15:19
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I have noticed disturbing trends among microstock agencies, particularly the trend toward demanding higher professional standards while the prices for licensing photos are in a race for the bottom. I am attaching a photo that was rejected today by one of the microstock agencies as "not reaching our desired aesthetic level" and essentially telling me it was not worth the 14 cents they are licensing images for. I'm a bit shocked. The image is sharp, completely in focus when viewed at 100% and perfectly exposed and composed. The work involved in creating the image is considerable, lining up the model, packing the tents, backpacking gear and other props and the strobes, battery packs etc up the mountain was not exactly easy.
I walked away from microstock over a year ago when seeing how utterly futile it is to think it could ever support the costs of doing business. However, microstock is also eliminating my paying clients at a staggering rate and I found I now have little choice but to spend the time I would otherwise be working for pay shooting microstock.
However, I must say if the aesthetic quality of this image (mind you it was not rejected for technical imperfections such as focus) is not worth 14 cents we are all in serious trouble. I have posted the image below as well as a copy of the letter I sent to the agency after the rejection. If the agencies are going to say this image does not meet thier standards, I think it is time we demand a bit of professional pricing and licensing practices from the microstock industry as well.
(http://markstoutphotography.com/online/micro.jpg)
The letter sent to the agency:
As I get images rejected, the same thought occurs to me over and over. On the home page of the _____ site it advertises images for as little as 14 cents. This is not enough to park my car for 5 minutes in the downtown areas where many of my shoots are conducted, it is not enough to pay the credit card transactions fees on a single transaction (hence the requirement to subscribe or buy PACKAGES of credits), you can't even buy a stick of gum or penny candy for that amount anymore. Yet a photo that required planning, finding locations, or setting up a studio, wardrobe, paying models or finding models to work free in lieu of paying to shoot thier portfolios (which I would make considerably more on) is a fantastic amount of work. Much more than the computers and the credit card agencies do to have their computers automatically process the transaction at about 30 to 35 cents per transaction, plus interest and other fees charged on to both credit card holders an merchants.
One of the photos rejected today and MANY of the photos rejected in the past have been of exceptional quality. I am not a newbie. I am a pro, I have been commissioned by leading national and international magazines, fashion desigers and ad agencies. To tell me a photo is not worth 14 cents is OFFENSIVE, particularly when these same photos have been accepted on the other microstock sites and are selling well. I will admit some of the photos deserve rejection... however, even those are worth 14 cents!!!!
Microstock began as a place for amateurs and has raised the bar to demand professional quality. Instead of raising the price to support the increased quality demands, it is cutting prices trying to edge out the other microstock agencies. It is also engaging in deals to increase downloads that are highly destructive to the photographers and the microstock industry itself, such as a deal made by one of the agencies in which Microsoft would license images for a one time fee of $20 each and then make these images available FREE to anyone who bought a copy of Microsoft Office. What is wrong with this? Well, reverse it. Does Microsoft allow someone to buy ONE copy of Windows and then provide it to others free? Hell no! They know it would destroy thier business. As a note, they also charge higher fees for larger corporations to license their software than to individuals. Kind of like the old rights managed stock photo system that the industry has now thrown aside at great cost to us all. This race to the bottom is one in which we will all lose.
Yes, I know, I could just stop selling microstock. I did for some time. However, if you walk through the grocery store and look at the magazine covers, you will flnd an astonishing number of microstock photos gracing the covers of major mags. Many of the magazines I shoot for are now using microstock in lieu of paying photographers. A court even recently ruled that a major photographers photos of a once in a lifetime event were worth only $7.00. This absolutely destructive ruling was based on the anticipated earnings the photographer would have made were these sold as microstock!
I know there are many hobbiests on microstock who don't care if they make money and work "day jobs" to pay for their equipment. However, the industry itself depends on the professionals who make their livings as photographers and maintain the facilities and equipment to do the work the industry needs so badly.
I am writing this to urge the microstock industry to back up and evaluate the LONG TERM impact of its pricing and distribution methods on the very people who supply you your lifeblood. Again, microstock pricing and licensing is in a race to the bottom and 14 cents is about as close to the bottom as it gets. The next step is the free sites ... which is right where it began... Come to think of it, maybe that would be a good thing.
If you are going to tell me my images do not reach the desired aesthetic quality, then demand enough money for them to make it worth my while to produce better images for microstock. Demand enough money to licence the images to support the cost of producing them. Be as professional yourselves as you are now demanding from your photographers!
I know this will not go over well. But I also know that all who read it will see the truth in what I am saying, even the industry execs....
Mark Stout
http://markstoutphotography.com (http://markstoutphotography.com)
http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.com (http://markstoutphotography.wordpress.com)
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If this was a bonafide reject it would be surprising. Did you check with the agency? Reviewers are only human and click the wrong buttons once in a while.
Otherwise your well thought-out message reads like a proper manifesto for change. :)
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Sounds like you're having a rough time right now. Sorry to hear that.
If you're looking for comments on the "aesthetic" quality of the image, it's kind of a boring image of a guy on a rock.
iStockphoto has consistently raised their prices each year, and introduced the Vetta collection of exceptional images at 3x the price.
Maybe you just need to re-evaluate who you are playing with. Or seek another source of income or business?
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Sounds like you're having a rough time right now. Sorry to hear that.
If you're looking for comments on the "aesthetic" quality of the image, it's kind of a boring image of a guy on a rock.
iStockphoto has consistently raised their prices each year, and introduced the Vetta collection of exceptional images at 3x the price.
Maybe you just need to re-evaluate who you are playing with. Or seek another source of income or business?
No I am not looking for comments on the aesthetic quality of the image. I KNOW is is a good image. I am saying the microstock industry needs an overhaul.
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Sounds like you're having a rough time right now. Sorry to hear that.
If you're looking for comments on the "aesthetic" quality of the image, it's kind of a boring image of a guy on a rock.
iStockphoto has consistently raised their prices each year, and introduced the Vetta collection of exceptional images at 3x the price.
Maybe you just need to re-evaluate who you are playing with. Or seek another source of income or business?
oh come on, http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=egg&action=file (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=egg&action=file) is not exactly the opposite of boring. They're eggs. It's stock. ;) Agencies can't lowball creatives and then turn around and drop the editorial hammer on them just because it suits the current marketing plan, and expect not to piss off key suppliers.
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Hi Marksout,
You made a very sellable image here. Much better than so much of what I see on Micro. I would take the above advice from zymmetrical and send it through again. It was probably the problem all Micro sites suffer from, poor editing. These are not professional editors looking at your work. I have had many sellable images rejected, waited a couple of weeks and sent them through again with no trouble. I think most people would say that this is a strong Micro image. Sunglasses, lose them next time for a frame or two buyers love to see the eyes.
Good Luck,
Jonathan
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nice shot, as someone who reads nature / travle mags I could see it used a lot :) I'd resubmit
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Sounds like you're having a rough time right now. Sorry to hear that.
If you're looking for comments on the "aesthetic" quality of the image, it's kind of a boring image of a guy on a rock.
iStockphoto has consistently raised their prices each year, and introduced the Vetta collection of exceptional images at 3x the price.
Maybe you just need to re-evaluate who you are playing with. Or seek another source of income or business?
oh come on, [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=egg&action=file[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=egg&action=file[/url]) is not exactly the opposite of boring. They're eggs. It's stock. Agencies can't lowball creatives and then turn around and drop the editorial hammer on them just because it suits the current marketing plan, and expect not to piss off key suppliers.
Thank you! I am not attempting to just bitch and whine here. I am saying there is a dangerous and disturbing trend here occurring with microstock and what it is doing to the industry as a whole. The downward pressure it has created on the rest of the industry and frightening - as in the court case where a photographers photos of a once in a lifetime key event were worth only $7.00 based on the defense's attorneys arguement that were they sold as microstock, that is all they would make (they were not microstock). If microstock wants to accept only the work of amateurs it is justified in the insanly low licensing fees. If it is going to demand high end professional quality, it needs to demand high fees from its clients. To demand profesional work and amateur fees is hurting both the beginning photographer who cannot compete with the pros on microstock, and the pros who are finding the financial rug is being pulled out from under them.
I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock... but can the industry support the 100,000 plus photographers who are uploading to it having 1 million plus downloads per year? What will happen to these guys as the microstock agencies demand the same quality of work from the rest as well (for less than a buck a download)?
Microstock needs to evolve. It is either a laughably low priced outlet for people to find amateur photos for web sites etc where quality doesn't matter, or it is an outlet for professional photos BEING LICENCED AT PROFESSIONAL PRICES.
To the earlier poster that I responded to, I will say that iStock is the ONLY microstock agency attempting to move in the right direction. It does demand the highest quality and restricts uploads, but it is also working to push up prices. They still have a long way to go before I could consider being an exclusive photographer with them. I hope they make it. They started the photos for nothing game, I hope they finish taking the responsibility needed to bring pricing back to a level that will sustain professional contributers.
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It is a good and sellable image, but the agency, if it is what I assume it is, is well known for arbitray rejections and dictatorial management. If you are taking it personally, you are just hurting yourself further. I am not sure if this letter will get you anywhere, I hope it does.
You are right that the agencies demand professional quality yet pay sweat shop (or less) fees. Even IS is not immune of arbitrary rejections. The difference is IS has a Scout review system in place so you have another chance.
Change is what we need, but most photographers are too busy counting pennies and looking after their self-interests, so I don't know what else to say.
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It is a good and sellable image, but the agency, if it is what I assume it is, is well known for arbitray rejections and dictatorial management. If you are taking it personally, you are just hurting yourself further. I am not sure if this letter will get you anywhere, I hope it does.
You are right that the agencies demand professional quality yet pay sweat shop (or less) fees. Even IS is not immune of arbitrary rejections. The difference is IS has a Scout review system in place so you have another chance.
Change is what we need, but most photographers are too busy counting pennies and looking after their self-interests, so I don't know what else to say.
Not taking it personally, I know it is a good image and don't need someone else to reinforce that. The reason for the post is to illustrate just how badly change is needed. If this does not reach microstock standards, then prices asked for licences need to return to those of the rights managed era. To do otherwise is hurting both the pros whose work is worth more and the amateurs (for which and on whose backs microstock was started) who cannot hope to compete with the pros for the same price.
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The concept and composition of the image is good but, for my money, not particularly well executed. The image is exposed for the sky leaving the subject and the foreground somewhat underexposed. A fill-in flash would probably have helped quite a bit.
If it had been a landscape view (or at least if the subject had below the skyline) then the use of a graduated ND or double exposure would have been needed to cope with the contrast between the sky and the mountains.
Your website portfolio has some great stuff so I'm surprised you can't see the significant flaws in that shot. Jonathon is right about the glasses and a smile would have been better too __ microstock is largely about brightly coloured happy images. I'd have considered that image 'borderline' and expected some agencies to accept it and others to reject it.
You keep banging on about '14c' but I'm with 7 agencies and none of them sell for that low. I average just a bit under $1 per sale.
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Nobody's perfect, and we all get rejections. It's all part of this stock game. Reviewers are imperfect as well. Resubmit the image - you just got a naive reviewer. Some of them need to relax with all of the drugs they must be snorting on the weekends.
I personally find that inconsistency in reviews is the #1 biggest problem in the microstock market. Sure, some places have higher standards than others. That's all fine and well. Can they at least stay consistent, though? You know, like...actually train their review team? I'm not talking 10 minutes, take an ABC quiz and you're in. I mean, spot checks - regular reviewer re-evaluations by a designated head of the review team. Sure in theory every agency has this type of setup, but from what I see personally not much focus or money is invested into it. It's often brushed aside, or poorly executed.
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The concept and composition of the image is good but, for my money, not particularly well executed. The image is exposed for the sky leaving the subject and the foreground somewhat underexposed. A fill-in flash would probably have helped quite a bit.
Excuse Me????? Subject underexposed? Hardly1
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I can't imagine why that shot would be rejected. It's more than good enough for any stock purposes - and for the prices they're paying, they should have called you up and thanked you for it. It might have just been a mistake... but in general, I agree with almost all of your points. Microstock has destroyed an existing business model, and what they are putting in its place is neither fair nor sustainable.
The people running these microstocks have to be a bit giddy right now. They've entered a business where they find their is almost no supply-side resistance on price - they've found they can just keep on reducing commissions and not only do contributors not pull their portfolios - but tens of thousands of new photos keep coming in every week.
There is a point however at which experienced, creative professionals will stop submitting new shots requiring models, setup, front-end work and extensive post-processing. I sense that point has already been reached, and so the overall variety and quality of new submissions has to be decreasing. Slowly, the air is coming out of the balloon. Do they think they'll be successfully selling nothing but kids' cell-phone photos, 3 years from now?
The only point on which I disagree is the claim that IStock is trying to improve things for contributors. From my experience, they just expect you to jump through even more hoops than the others, for the same insignificant payments.
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It cracks me up, to read some of the responses to this thread. You can't even post about a stupid rejection without getting it critiqued. This shot has good commercial value and nothing wrong with it. It's an environmental lifestyle portrait. Well done Mark, keep up the good work.
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Sounds like you're having a rough time right now. Sorry to hear that.
If you're looking for comments on the "aesthetic" quality of the image, it's kind of a boring image of a guy on a rock.
iStockphoto has consistently raised their prices each year, and introduced the Vetta collection of exceptional images at 3x the price.
Maybe you just need to re-evaluate who you are playing with. Or seek another source of income or business?
oh come on, [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=egg&action=file[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=egg&action=file[/url]) is not exactly the opposite of boring. They're eggs. It's stock. Agencies can't lowball creatives and then turn around and drop the editorial hammer on them just because it suits the current marketing plan, and expect not to piss off key suppliers.
Thank you! I am not attempting to just bitch and whine here. I am saying there is a dangerous and disturbing trend here occurring with microstock and what it is doing to the industry as a whole. The downward pressure it has created on the rest of the industry and frightening - as in the court case where a photographers photos of a once in a lifetime key event were worth only $7.00 based on the defense's attorneys arguement that were they sold as microstock, that is all they would make (they were not microstock). If microstock wants to accept only the work of amateurs it is justified in the insanly low licensing fees. If it is going to demand high end professional quality, it needs to demand high fees from its clients. To demand profesional work and amateur fees is hurting both the beginning photographer who cannot compete with the pros on microstock, and the pros who are finding the financial rug is being pulled out from under them.
I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock... but can the industry support the 100,000 plus photographers who are uploading to it having 1 million plus downloads per year? What will happen to these guys as the microstock agencies demand the same quality of work from the rest as well (for less than a buck a download)?
Microstock needs to evolve. It is either a laughably low priced outlet for people to find amateur photos for web sites etc where quality doesn't matter, or it is an outlet for professional photos BEING LICENCED AT PROFESSIONAL PRICES.
To the earlier poster that I responded to, I will say that iStock is the ONLY microstock agency attempting to move in the right direction. It does demand the highest quality and restricts uploads, but it is also working to push up prices. They still have a long way to go before I could consider being an exclusive photographer with them. I hope they make it. They started the photos for nothing game, I hope they finish taking the responsibility needed to bring pricing back to a level that will sustain professional contributers.
ft brought in infinite (unfortunately for emeralds and above and it could easily be lowered, many people have a few images that could go into this collection) and 123rf have the evo label but I dont remember hearing from anyone as to whether sales are worthwhile in either. there is also the midstock agencies
I think istock bringing in vetta is excellent but it's not a new idea and istock is moving in both directions with the photos.com / jiu subs where you get paid $0.25 for xxlarge, which is optional for individual photogs so again isnt a critism just an observation that they too pushing things lower.
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I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock...
Well ... look and learn from them and you'll be making good money too. Simples.
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I can't imagine why that shot would be rejected. It's more than good enoug. It might have just been a mistake... but in general, I agree with almost all of your points. Microstock has destroyed an existing business model, and what they are putting in its place is neither fair nor sustainable.
The people running these microstocks have to be a bit giddy right now. They've entered a business where they find their is almost no supply-side resistance on price - they've found they can just keep on reducing commissions and not only do contributors not pull their portfolios - but tens of thousands of new photos keep coming in every week.
There is a point however at which experienced, creative professionals will stop submitting new shots requiring models, setup, front-end work and extensive post-processing. I sense that point has already been reached, and so the overall variety and quality of new submissions has to be decreasing. Slowly, the air is coming out of the balloon. Do they think they'll be successfully selling nothing but kids' cell-phone photos, 3 years from now?
The only point on which I disagree is the claim that IStock is trying to improve things for contributors. From my experience, they just expect you to jump through even more hoops than the others, for the same insignificant payments.
Thank you. I just love the folks posting saying the image is "no good". I just have to laugh. It is certainly worth a buck. I certainly agree with your point about the good photographers will stop submitting. I did. But I found I was forced to resume submitting for a while until hopefully the industry resumes commissioned work. Many of my magazine clients are now using microstock, and use it as a club to attempt to get my prices down when quoting shoots. I do know one of the top microstock photographers made a post some time back about how at a cost of $40,000 to produce 2000 new images in three months, his sales were falling. He is still doing microstock and I suspect the reason is that he too has found it is quite difficult to sell thorough high end stock agencies or directly when chances are the client can find an image of equal quality on microstock. I license images directly and through one high end stock agency, but have found my "sales" have been significantlly impacted in a negative way on the higner end sites.
I hope this post will cause a few to stop and think, cause a few to start DEMANDING fair return on the investment of our work and less of the weird, weird posts where people defend their right to get screwed that I see so often on the microstock forums!
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I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock...
Well ... look and learn from them and you'll be making good money too. Simples.
See my earlier post, these guys are finding it less than a picnic now too... $40,000 to produce 2000 new images in three months and have NO INCREASE in sales is not exactly the right direction!
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Maybe your reviewer was attacked by a bear in the woods or had a traumatic experience at scout camp. Whatever the reason the reviewer rejected it, ridiculous rejections happen and you have to roll with the punches like someone else said. Unless you are exclusive, there are other agencies out there. Cut your losses and don't waste too much time on it.
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Sometimes I wonder if these people are actually hired guns of the agencies.
I hope this post will cause ... less of the weird, weird posts where people defend their right to get screwed that I see so often on the microstock forums!
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I agree we should cut the losses, but ain't we just a bunch of silent lambs?
Maybe your reviewer was attacked by a bear in the woods or had a traumatic experience at scout camp. Whatever the reason the reviewer rejected it, ridiculous rejections happen and you have to roll with the punches like someone else said. Unless you are exclusive, there are other agencies out there. Cut your losses and don't waste too much time on it.
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Sometimes I wonder if these people are actually hired guns of the agencies.
I hope this post will cause ... less of the weird, weird posts where people defend their right to get screwed that I see so often on the microstock forums!
Lol! I know... but it occurred to me when writing a post to my own blog on another subject what this is. It’s just human nature. Some people work to get ahead and help others do the same. Some like to get ahead at the expense of others. Others have given up and seek to pull others down to their level.
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I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock...
Well ... look and learn from them and you'll be making good money too. Simples.
See my earlier post, these guys are finding it less than a picnic now too... $40,000 to produce 2000 new images in three months and have NO INCREASE in sales is not exactly the right direction!
Just because Yuri spent $40,000 on his work doesn't mean A. it's a smart move, or B. you should either.
You're right - it's a perfectly good shot of a guy on a rock. But that's all it is. I'm not seeing any concept, like hope, or exploration, or freedom there.
And if said agency has 2000 other shots of guys on rocks, they may be a bit tired of just seeing guys on rocks. They may be trying to push the collection a bit. The fact that you get $.17 or $1 from a licensing doesn't affect the direction they want to take the collection. Or it could just be a persnickity reviewer.
You can take the opinion or not - I don't care.
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It cracks me up, to read some of the responses to this thread. You can't even post about a stupid rejection without getting it critiqued. This shot has good commercial value and nothing wrong with it. It's an environmental lifestyle portrait. Well done Mark, keep up the good work.
It is insane indeed. As if there is an Attila the reviewer in each of them.
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I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock...
Well ... look and learn from them and you'll be making good money too. Simples.
See my earlier post, these guys are finding it less than a picnic now too... $40,000 to produce 2000 new images in three months and have NO INCREASE in sales is not exactly the right direction!
Just because Yuri spent $40,000 on his work doesn't mean A. it's a smart move, or B. you should either.
You're right - it's a perfectly good shot of a guy on a rock. But that's all it is. I'm not seeing any concept, like hope, or exploration, or freedom there.
And if said agency has 2000 other shots of guys on rocks, they may be a bit tired of just seeing guys on rocks. They may be trying to push the collection a bit. The fact that you get $.17 or $1 from a licensing doesn't affect the direction they want to take the collection. Or it could just be a persnickity reviewer.
You can take the opinion or not - I don't care.
I see you think .17 cents for your work is fair. I hope one day you learn what you are worth.
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You keep banging on about '14c' but I'm with 7 agencies and none of them sell for that low.
Yes, one agency advertises that in its front page. It is not what they pay contributors, but what a buyer pays if they buy a certain subs plan.
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I see you think .17 cents for your work is fair. I hope one day you learn what you are worth.
Not to worry! My minimum for an XS on iStock is $.19 . :) You're the one with the agency that pays an amount you aren't happy with. That's why I said maybe you should revisit who you are playing with.
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However, if everyone becomes IS exclusive, meaning total monopoly of IS, I doubt if that would make you happy, Mr SJ, lol.
I see you think .17 cents for your work is fair. I hope one day you learn what you are worth.
Not to worry! My minimum for an XS on iStock is $.19 . :) You're the one with the agency that pays an amount you aren't happy with. That's why I said maybe you should revisit who you are playing with.
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In the 3 years I have been doing this, commissions have generally gone up, not down. A few sites have low subs commissions but they don't sell much and some of us no longer continue supplying sites that sell subs for $0.25. It gets a bit boring reading that prices are plummeting when overall they aren't. There are more sites trying higher prices now but that doesn't seem to be mentioned as much as subs. Overall, I would much rather have the commissions available now than when I started.
As for rejections, who cares? There have been people complaining about them all the time I have been here. It isn't getting any worse for me, some sites reject more than others and the reasons can be baffling. As long as my earnings increase each month, I am not concerned.
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However, if everyone becomes IS exclusive, meaning total monopoly of IS, I doubt if that would make you happy, Mr SJ, lol.
No, I certainly don't want that. However, dropping whatever site we're discussing does not equal going exclusive.
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Getting back to the oriiginal topic - the rejected image - I guess I could agree it's not an electrifying concept shot. But, off the top of my head I see "outdoors", "youth", "possibilities", "independence", "the future", "health", "solitude", "hiking", "backpacking" and probably any number of other topics.
The point is, it's good enough, and way better than tons of cr@p they've already accepted. Seeing a clean professional image like this, from a contributer who's been sending in quality stuff, why not just take it and say "thanks"? Or at least, give a polite reason for rejecting it, something like "doesn't meet our current needs".
Bottom line: microstock contributors have all the clout of undocumented migrant farm workers.
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A few sites have low subs commissions but they don't sell much and some of us no longer continue supplying sites that sell subs for $0.25.
Huh? DT, SS, FT and IS are all paying me 25-30 cents for sub sales, and the sales are 99% subs. I'm not quite seeing the paradise you're describing. So what are these other sites I'm overlooking?
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... Do they think they'll be successfully selling nothing but kids' cell-phone photos, 3 years from now? ...
Dude, you just let out a great idea! Now let's see how long it take someone to capitalise on it. Yes....."Cell-Stock."
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A few sites have low subs commissions but they don't sell much and some of us no longer continue supplying sites that sell subs for $0.25.
Huh? DT, SS, FT and IS are all paying me 25-30 cents for sub sales, and the sales are 99% subs. I'm not quite seeing the paradise you're describing. So what are these other sites I'm overlooking?
You get 99% subs sales with istock? I find that impossible to believe. All those sites pay me well over 30 cents for subs and I get more pay per download at higher prices than subs sales.
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It cracks me up, to read some of the responses to this thread. You can't even post about a stupid rejection without getting it critiqued. This shot has good commercial value and nothing wrong with it. It's an environmental lifestyle portrait. Well done Mark, keep up the good work.
Yes.
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Bottom line: microstock contributors have all the clout of undocumented migrant farm workers.
I don't think micro shooters have even that much clout. Where I live many undocumented farm workers are able to buy new pickup trucks regularly. Try walking into your local government welfare office and say you're a starving microstock shooter and see how many benefits that gets you!
Best thread in a while around here!! Thanks for starting it, MarkStout!
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You get 99% subs sales with istock? I find that impossible to believe. All those sites pay me well over 30 cents for subs and I get more pay per download at higher prices than subs sales.
Ok let me be more accurate. I get mostly sub sales on all of these, but only on SS are subs 99% of my sales.
Sounds like you're doing much better than I am.
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Some things I have noticed; micro generally likes a very bright image and although yours is in the acceptable range it would likely do better being brighter. Second, many super great images have not place on micro. Learn how and submit them to macro sites. Thirdly, try not to get too caught up on what gets rejected; although I have done my share of bitching as well, it is a real time waster.
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See my earlier post, these guys are finding it less than a picnic now too... $40,000 to produce 2000 new images in three months and have NO INCREASE in sales is not exactly the right direction!
Yuri knows he went a bit over the top on his production costs on that one. I think he just assumed that his sales graph would just keep growing upwards at the same rate forever but of course it doesn't quite work like that. He also once paid someone $2000 to drive around for some weeks as a 'location scout' and the guy didn't actually find anywhere suitable. Yuri loves spending money and, fortunately for him, he can afford to do so. Most of us have to be much more careful.
Microstock is about efficiency in every area __ production costs, time, equipment, everything. Funnily enough most other industries that operate in a competitive marketplace are like that too.
Your general whine about microstock is not an unusual one from people that have been earning a living from photography for some time. I get the impression that you/they think that they should be able to spend whatever they feel like on a shoot, as if it were of no consequence, and the buyers should be forced to pay enough to cover those costs and a hefty margin on top. That would be nice but it's not necessarily going to happen in a world where the buyer has choices and there are many other photographers.
I could do a shoot like yours for no more than $100 and it would take about a day including post-processing. If you happened to live close to suitable terrain and had a willing partner or buddy to model then it would cost virtually nothing other than time. Hopefully I'd get 10 or 20 images out of it and even on microstock I'd expect them to make a few $100's over the next year or two.
Each month I analyse how much the images I uploaded one year and two years earlier have earned. It is surprisingly high and, contrary to popular opinion, the second year's earnings very closely match the first year. Like everything microstock is going to be whatever you want to make of it. As far as I'm concerned if I keep control of my costs then it pays pretty well and gives me a lot of freedom.
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Bottom line: microstock contributors have all the clout of undocumented migrant farm workers.
I don't think micro shooters have even that much clout. Where I live many undocumented farm workers are able to buy new pickup trucks regularly. Try walking into your local government welfare office and say you're a starving microstock shooter and see how many benefits that gets you!
Best thread in a while around here!! Thanks for starting it, MarkStout!
THANK YOU. All I am trying to do here is get a few people to open their eyes. How many of you honestly believe your work is only worth a quarter or so? How many of you think those downloading your work for peanut SHELLS are then willing to turn around and price their work the same?
OPEN YOUR EYES FOLKS. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE WORTH THAT LITTLE? This post isn't about how great my image is. Not at all. It is to illustrate the point that for sums of money that do not really justify a hobbiest spending the time to keyword the photos, microstock is demanding professional quality. This is having a dampening effect on the entire industry, it needs to be addressed.
As a note, microstocks pricing seems to be hurting it as well. I noted a while back that one of the agencies raised its fees and at the same time CUT the percentage paid to the photographers. This is something they would not have to do if they were charging fair fees to begin with.
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You get 99% subs sales with istock? I find that impossible to believe. All those sites pay me well over 30 cents for subs and I get more pay per download at higher prices than subs sales.
Ok let me be more accurate. I get mostly sub sales on all of these, but only on SS are subs 99% of my sales.
Sounds like you're doing much better than I am.
I must be. With istock, I have 57 subs sales out of over 10000. Can't imagine anyone having mostly subs sales there. I get more PPD than subs on FT and DT, it is only SS that sell more subs and their PPD are increasing.
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All I am trying to do here is get a few people to open their eyes. How many of you honestly believe your work is only worth a quarter or so? How many of you think those downloading your work for peanut SHELLS are then willing to turn around and price their work the same?
OPEN YOUR EYES FOLKS. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE WORTH THAT LITTLE? This post isn't about how great my image is. Not at all. It is to illustrate the point that for sums of money that do not really justify a hobbiest spending the time to keyword the photos, microstock is demanding professional quality. This is having a dampening effect on the entire industry, it needs to be addressed.
I'm going to have to let you in on a little secret Mark .... sometimes microstock images actually sell more than once and the average commission is actually many times higher than you are suggesting.
It is about time that you opened your eyes to reality rather than trying to overstate your case with misleading figures.
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Bottom line: microstock contributors have all the clout of undocumented migrant farm workers.
I don't think micro shooters have even that much clout. Where I live many undocumented farm workers are able to buy new pickup trucks regularly. Try walking into your local government welfare office and say you're a starving microstock shooter and see how many benefits that gets you!
Best thread in a while around here!! Thanks for starting it, MarkStout!
THANK YOU. All I am trying to do here is get a few people to open their eyes. How many of you honestly believe your work is only worth a quarter or so? How many of you think those downloading your work for peanut SHELLS are then willing to turn around and price their work the same?
OPEN YOUR EYES FOLKS. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE WORTH THAT LITTLE? This post isn't about how great my image is. Not at all. It is to illustrate the point that for sums of money that do not really justify a hobbiest spending the time to keyword the photos, microstock is demanding professional quality. This is having a dampening effect on the entire industry, it needs to be addressed.
As a note, microstocks pricing seems to be hurting it as well. I noted a while back that one of the agencies raised its fees and at the same time CUT the percentage paid to the photographers. This is something they would not have to do if they were charging fair fees to begin with.
I have deja vu all over again :) This has been argued about in the past. I really can't be bothered going over the pro-microstock argument again. You are right, go and tell everyone what a waste of time microstock is.
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I'm going to have to let you in on a little secret Mark .... sometimes microstock images actually sell more than once and the average commission is actually many times higher than you are suggesting. It is high time that you opened your eyes to reality.
Nnnoooooo!!! They only ever sell once and the most we can make is 25 cents :)
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I must be. With istock, I have 57 subs sales out of over 10000. Can't imagine anyone having mostly subs sales there.
I had my only subs sale at IS so long ago that I had forgotten about subs there. Today I had two, but 19c per XS images is not strange in IS (normally 21-24c in credit sales, so on my side I'm fine. I only don't remember how cheap buyers pay. My problem is always about how cheap images cost in subs, not just about my share.
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All I am trying to do here is get a few people to open their eyes. How many of you honestly believe your work is only worth a quarter or so? How many of you think those downloading your work for peanut SHELLS are then willing to turn around and price their work the same?
OPEN YOUR EYES FOLKS. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE WORTH THAT LITTLE? This post isn't about how great my image is. Not at all. It is to illustrate the point that for sums of money that do not really justify a hobbiest spending the time to keyword the photos, microstock is demanding professional quality. This is having a dampening effect on the entire industry, it needs to be addressed.
I'm going to have to let you in on a little secret Mark .... sometimes microstock images actually sell more than once and the average commission is actually many times higher than you are suggesting.
It is about time that you opened your eyes to reality rather than trying to overstate your case with misleading figures.
I know that. THEY STILL AREN'T SELLING FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH! THAT IS THE POINT. Again, I'm sorry you consider the worth of your work and yourself worth so little. I honestly cannot understand why you would defend your right to get screwed. Can you?????
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I am surprised to see so much controversy in this thread! To me it is fairly obvious that is a good stock photo. Nothing at all in its "aesthetic quality" that would justify a rejection, IMO. Assuming it is as focused and noise free as stated, I can't imagine a legitimate reason to reject it.
Sometimes reviewers just screw up. We've all had it happen to us and it isn't the end of the world. Just another little aggravating part of the micro business.
Glad to see you decided to resubmit Mark. I am certain it will be accepted and go on to be a decent seller for you.
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THEY STILL AREN'T SELLING FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH! THAT IS THE POINT. Again, I'm sorry you consider the worth of your work and yourself worth so little. I honestly cannot understand why you would defend your right to get screwed. Can you?????
What are your images worth Mark?
How much did that shoot on the mountain cost you in time/money and how much should they be sold for?
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I am surprised to see so much controversy in this thread! To me it is fairly obvious that is a good stock photo. Nothing at all in its "aesthetic quality" that would justify a rejection, IMO. Assuming it is as focused and noise free as stated, I can't imagine a legitimate reason to reject it.
Sometimes reviewers just screw up. We've all had it happen to us and it isn't the end of the world. Just another little aggravating part of the micro business.
Glad to see you decided to resubmit Mark. I am certain it will be accepted and go on to be a decent seller for you.
I'm not resubmitting it. The others have accepted it and it is being downloaed several times per day on each. The point I decided to needed to be made here is the double standard being made by microstock which I thought this image would illustrate well. The quality standards being demanded are professional, the pay per download isn't really even something that could be considered good for a hobbiest. This is not good for anyone.
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THEY STILL AREN'T SELLING FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH! THAT IS THE POINT. Again, I'm sorry you consider the worth of your work and yourself worth so little. I honestly cannot understand why you would defend your right to get screwed. Can you?????
What are your images worth Mark?
How much did that shoot on the mountain cost you in time/money and how much should they be sold for?
You might find this article enlightening. You seem to be lacking information on what photography is worth to those using the images. You will also find other good articles on this site regarding how to determine things such as calculating your cost of doing business....
http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp (http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp)
You can choose to raise your standards of what you are worth, or try to pull everyone else down with you. It is up to you. Not a game I will play and I do speak out against injustice.
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I know that. THEY STILL AREN'T SELLING FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH! THAT IS THE POINT. Again, I'm sorry you consider the worth of your work and yourself worth so little. I honestly cannot understand why you would defend your right to get screwed. Can you?????
Although, as I said, you have a perfectly fine picture there, I do have to wonder why you are selling microstock if you are offended by the prices charged. That is something we all know going in to this business. Presumably every one selling on the micros has decided that the opportunity to do volume outweighs the (admittedly quite low) individual selling price.
If you are this concerned about the price per sale rather than the overall return per image, you are never going to be happy in micro. You would probably be better off submitting to Alamy or one of the other mid or macro stock sites.
With mostly the same number of images on Alamy and the micros, Alamy makes up roughly 3% of my monthly sales. Obviously I am happier with the micros that net me the other 97% :)
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I'm not resubmitting it. The others have accepted it and it is being downloaed several times per day on each. The point I decided to needed to be made here is the double standard being made by microstock which I thought this image would illustrate well. The quality standards being demanded are professional, the pay per download isn't really even something that could be considered good for a hobbiest. This is not good for anyone.
Sorry, I must have misunderstood. I thought you were looking for solutions.
Just having a bit of a snit because someone (unfairly) rejected your image?
And naturally that means all the rest of us should pull our images from the micros in solidarity with you? Narcissistic much?
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Not a game I will play and I do speak out against injustice.
What color is your cape ? ;)
Seriously, if you're so offended stop selling micro and get a job you can afford to live on.
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You might find this article enlightening. You seem to be lacking information on what photography is worth to those using the images. You will also find other good articles on this site regarding how to determine things such as calculating your cost of doing business....
[url]http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp[/url] ([url]http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp[/url])
You can choose to raise your standards of what you are worth, or try to pull everyone else down with you. It is up to you. Not a game I will play and I do speak out against injustice.
Oh for f**cks sake. Stop side-stepping the issue __ that link is about editorial images, nothing at all to do with general stock.
I'll ask again. What did that shoot cost you and how much should you be paid for them?
(And being as you seem to like shouting to make your point) HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK YOUR IMAGES ARE WORTH?
Why don't you just answer the question honestly if you want to 'speak out against injustice'. What a pathetic cliche. I love the smell of burning martyr in the morning.
EITHER PUT UP OR SHUT UP.
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You might find this article enlightening. You seem to be lacking information on what photography is worth to those using the images. You will also find other good articles on this site regarding how to determine things such as calculating your cost of doing business....
[url]http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp[/url] ([url]http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp[/url])
You can choose to raise your standards of what you are worth, or try to pull everyone else down with you. It is up to you. Not a game I will play and I do speak out against injustice.
Oh for f**cks sake. Stop side-stepping the issue __ that link is about editorial images, nothing at all to do with general stock.
I'll ask again. What did that shoot cost you and how much should you be paid for them?
(And being as you seem to like shouting to make your point) HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK YOUR IMAGES ARE WORTH?
Why don't you just answer the question honestly if you want to 'speak out against injustice'. What a pathetic cliche. I love the smell of burning martyr in the morning.
EITHER PUT UP OR SHUT UP.
I see you attacking a valid point, but I don't see you saying you are personally making enough. Do you? How much are you making on microstock? Is it enough to cover your cost of doing business? Enough to pay your models? Or do you just figure models should work free? Enough to cover the cost of necessary equipment repairs, upgrades, props? Or do you work a day job to fund it. Do you even know your cost of doing business?
Why the hostility? Why the attack. I think the earlier poster that she thinks some of the commenters work for microstock agencies must be correct. I can see not other reason why you would insist photographers should work for peanuts. Which of the agencies do you work for?
My point is simple. Microstock needs to pay more. The images are being used to market the products and services of others, without which they would have no profits. Why should they profit at the expense of the photographers who are producing the images they depend on?
Why is it so important to you to hold down the earning power of photographers?
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When you answer my questions then I'll answer yours.
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How much did that shoot on the mountain cost you in time/money and how much should they be sold for?
The two -- time taken and money spent -- have never had much to do with how much a stock image was worth or how much someone was willing to pay for it. The Microsoft splash screen of field and sky was worth $125,000 for the one sale. How long did the photographer spend on it and how much was the expense? Probably not too much on either.
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How much did that shoot on the mountain cost you in time/money and how much should they be sold for?
The two -- time taken and money spent -- have never had much to do with how much a stock image was worth or how much someone was willing to pay for it. The Microsoft splash screen of field and sky was worth $125,000 for the one sale. How long did the photographer spend on it and how much was the expense? Probably not too much on either.
Thank you. Much of the value of an image has to do with its use. That pricing model, rights managed, has been under assault for some time now with the move from rights managed to royalty free. I believe it is to the detriment of the clients as well. Microstock images are frequently misused, and the loving couple at the beach can as easily be used to market condoms or a medication for STDs ... and imagine how the owner of the beach resort who used it to market his resort feels when flipping through a magazine and sees the SAME image used to sell STD drugs? Or to see the same image used to promote a competing resort? When downloads in the thousands are required to profit on a microstock image, the probability of it is great. I am a bit surprised more image buyers are not staying with Rights Managed models so they can "know where there image has been." After all the images they use to market themselves are the image by which their customers will percieve them... as well as any other associations with that same image.
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I see you think .17 cents for your work is fair. I hope one day you learn what you are worth.
Not to worry! My minimum for an XS on iStock is $.19 . :) You're the one with the agency that pays an amount you aren't happy with. That's why I said maybe you should revisit who you are playing with.
Congrats Sean on passing the half million downloads on istock, and at $2+ per dl, guess you know what you are worth.
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Thank you. Much of the value of an image has to do with its use. That pricing model, rights managed, has been under assault for some time now with the move from rights managed to royalty free. I believe it is to the detriment of the clients as well. Microstock images are frequently misused, and the loving couple at the beach can as easily be used to market condoms or a medication for STDs ... and imagine how the owner of the beach resort who used it to market his resort feels when flipping through a magazine and sees the SAME image used to sell STD drugs? Or to see the same image used to promote a competing resort? When downloads in the thousands are required to profit on a microstock image, the probability of it is great. I am a bit surprised more image buyers are not staying with Rights Managed models so they can "know where there image has been." After all the images they use to market themselves are the image by which their customers will percieve them... as well as any other associations with that same image.
Sooooo ... you still avoid the all questions.
How much are your images worth (in your own tiny mind)?
How much did your mountain shoot cost you?
What do you think they should be sold for?
Why are you trying (unsuccessfully) to sell them 'for 14c' if you think they are worth 'much more'.
Why won't you actually give a direct answer to any questions?
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Hey Gostwyck,
Thanks for the info on the shelf life of your images holding steady on their second year. I don't have that kind of data yet and I am happy to here you say that.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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I see you attacking a valid point, but I don't see you saying you are personally making enough. Do you? How much are you making on microstock? Is it enough to cover your cost of doing business? Enough to pay your models? Or do you just figure models should work free? Enough to cover the cost of necessary equipment repairs, upgrades, props? Or do you work a day job to fund it. Do you even know your cost of doing business?
If you aren't able to make it work, then you should find a job that allows you to live as you like.
Why the hostility? Why the attack. I think the earlier poster that she thinks some of the commenters work for microstock agencies must be correct. I can see not other reason why you would insist photographers should work for peanuts. Which of the agencies do you work for?
Always the last resort of someone with no real argument. It's a conspiracy! There's hidden agendas!
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Always the last resort of someone with no real argument. It's a conspiracy! There's hidden agendas!
Exactly. I believe the technical definition is "full of *".
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Hey Gostwyck,
Thanks for the info on the shelf life of your images holding steady on their second year. I don't have that kind of data yet and I am happy to here you say that.
Cheers,
Jonathan
You're welcome. I was quite surprised too. The way prices have been rising in microstock have rendered older data useless in that regard. It seems to me that older images, with most agencies, if they sell infrequently but consistently, have a way of creeping slowly up the sort-order rankings.
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I'm calling shenanigan's on this thread.
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As for rejections, who cares? There have been people complaining about them all the time I have been here. It isn't getting any worse for me, some sites reject more than others and the reasons can be baffling. As long as my earnings increase each month, I am not concerned.
Well put. That's what it's all about, at the end of the day. We all get personally and slightly emotionally attached to our images, sometimes. It's hard not to. We all know how long it takes to organize, set up, compose, shoot, edit, describe, keyword, and upload a shot. After being around this business as long as we have, I think sometimes rejections hurt us now more than they even used to; back when we were just learning the "microstock ropes". I like your line of reasoning much better, though. I think that as I improve in my skill and quality as time goes on, the standards are also increasing - so it doesn't ever feel like I'm getting to the point where the rejections are getting any fewer. I only find inconsistency in reviews with several agencies. The rest are pretty much 95-100% acceptance, all day every day.
I'm calling shenanigan's on this thread.
haha me too :D On that note, I think it's time to go to bed.
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Wow this one is a roller-coaster and my first comment.
The topic is not really about the rejection, as the answer reviewers are just people that get £0.05 for each image they review and the make mistakes, and the solution to resubmit has been rejected.
As an independant supplier I can offer my products or services to anyone I want at any price point I want, the stock site as an agency or merchant is my customer, and I do not have a contract with them where they must accept all I produce, I understand they look at each offering and decide if it fits their requirements and if they would like to represent it, if they turn it down I will offer it to my other customers.
The cost to produce my product is not a concern of my customers, I have read thier terms & conditions and scale of rates, I have agreed to these, to enable me to register and trade with them, if at any point I am not happy with what they pay I can withdraw my products from their market place.
As I have agreed and accepted the rate I will receive from my customer, what the stocksite sells my product on for is not important to me that is how they trade.
Like every other supplier I would like more for my product, but this is affected by an over supply of similar products from other suppliers and the agressive marketing policies of my customers.
As there are so many suppliers of a product that is easy to produce and get to market, there is no chance of a cartel or union to protect my interests, so I am left with the choices to either stop producing and push trollies, change the products I produce to ones with a higher market value, be more selective with customers and where I place my products, keep suppliing and look for new markets.
As much as the OP has thought it through, it has been said many many times before, everyone would love more money for their product but the market is driving the prices and revenue, and once again a topic that was meant to unite photographers will as usual divide them, because we are competitors in the industry and have our own agenda.
David :P
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.... a persnickity .....
being persnickety ...... you write it persnickety (AE) or pernickety (BE) but not persnickity --- rejected ;-)
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This thread suffers from Old Hippy syndrome :)
http://www.microstockgroup.com/ranting-general-stock/micros-will-eat-microtards- (http://www.microstockgroup.com/ranting-general-stock/micros-will-eat-microtards-)!/
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I am a full time pro and I really agree with markstout in his first post. I have resolved the same problem by NOT shooting people and NOT going to locations. If I did, it would be for RM images. I only tinker with stuff in my studio and/or around the house, or submit "holiday snaps".
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Microstock images are frequently misused, and the loving couple at the beach can as easily be used to market condoms or a medication for STDs ... and imagine how the owner of the beach resort who used it to market his resort feels when flipping through a magazine and sees the SAME image used to sell STD drugs? Or to see the same image used to promote a competing resort? When downloads in the thousands are required to profit on a microstock image, the probability of it is great. I am a bit surprised more image buyers are not staying with Rights Managed models so they can "know where there image has been." After all the images they use to market themselves are the image by which their customers will percieve them... as well as any other associations with that same image.
That's not misuse it's a sensitive use issue. Images get used for everything. As for multiple use issues, well that's what RF does not provide. RM is still strong and alive, where it used to be the only license, it now shares the market with RF, both macro and micro. But RM is a long way from dead.
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I am a full time pro and I really agree with markstout in his first post. I have resolved the same problem by NOT shooting people and NOT going to locations. If I did, it would be for RM images. I only tinker with stuff in my studio and/or around the house, or submit "holiday snaps".
I also see Marks point, and somewhat agree. But I think the above is the perfect solution. If I'm gonna be spending hundreds of dollars for a shoot, it's not going to be submitted to Microstock. Only Sean Locke and others of his caliber can afford to do that. ;)
Each person has to choose what his or her bottom line is. If the prices paid for contributors' photos goes lower, I will reach my bottom line and stop contributing. Fortunately, the commissions have been going up, even if only by pennies.
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It cracks me up, to read some of the responses to this thread. You can't even post about a stupid rejection without getting it critiqued. This shot has good commercial value and nothing wrong with it. It's an environmental lifestyle portrait. Well done Mark, keep up the good work.
It is insane indeed. As if there is an Attila the reviewer in each of them.
It appears one of them just might be a reviewer. Today I received a written warning for "having been submitted many times without correcting the issue" and threat of having my account deleted. Yet it was the first time I submitted the image. The problem was that I had forgotten to attach the model release. I'm not so stupid as to repeatedly submit the same image where the subject IS the model and not attach the release. Especially when I already have the release on file with the agency!
I have contacted the agency about the issue. I will also contact them by phone on Monday. Hopefully they will remedy the situation and not simply continue with, or allow the reviewer with ruffled feather to continue with, the same putative actions. I'll post which course of action they decide on.
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I am a full time pro and I really agree with markstout in his first post. I have resolved the same problem by NOT shooting people and NOT going to locations. If I did, it would be for RM images. I only tinker with stuff in my studio and/or around the house, or submit "holiday snaps".
I also see Marks point, and somewhat agree. But I think the above is the perfect solution. If I'm gonna be spending hundreds of dollars for a shoot, it's not going to be submitted to Microstock. Only Sean Locke and others of his caliber can afford to do that. ;)
Each person has to choose what his or her bottom line is. If the prices paid for contributors' photos goes lower, I will reach my bottom line and stop contributing. Fortunately, the commissions have been going up, even if only by pennies.
I came to that same conclusion once However, landscapes are rejected as having too many on file, images without models do not sell well. Rights managed photos do not move well now either due to the availability of microstock and that is why many pros are now submitting to microstock. In the early stages when building a port, commissions do go up... However, once there are thousands of images in your port it can seem it is not going up enough to justify the work involved.
Please understand, I am not trying to bash anyone or imply anyone should take down their images or anything along those lines. All I have been wishing to do with this post is encourage the industry to look at some problems that need to be addressed and to encourage licensing fees that will better support the quality of work now being demanded. Years back microstock was much easier, there were people with ports of every household object shot on a white background (like matchbooks, can openers, etc) and they were making a killing. It has evolved. The demands of image standards, models, styling, composition, theme, etc wanted to meet the standards has been raised considerably and that is why I posted the rejection. I'm not upset an image got rejected. It happens. I'm illustrating how the demands on quality have been raised since the matchbook on a white background days... yet other than cost of living increases that I don't think actually keep up with how much the cost of living has gone up (yes I know we .are in a recession, but costs are still increasing) the fees charged for our images and paid to us are sitll back in the matchbook days. It is my hope the industry will begin to examine the impact the pricing is having on the photographers who are contributing the work and the image industry as a whole. Change comes slow, but I hope some will at least think about what I said.
That said, microstock can still be an invaluable training ground for photographers, though I suspect it is much harder for them to get accepted now than it once was.
I wish you the best luck and hope you do exceptionally well as a photographer.
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I will second that one Zeus,
RM is still very strong if you shoot the right content and are represented by the right agencies. It is bringing in my highest RPI by a mile. I have a friend in RM that had three different images sell for $15,000 this year so far, besides all his standard income from RM and that was just at Corbis.
Best,
Jonathan
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I will second that one Zeus,
RM is still very strong if you shoot the right content and are represented by the right agencies. It is bringing in my highest RPI by a mile. I have a friend in RM that had three different images sell for $15,000 this year so far, besides all his standard income from RM and that was just at Corbis.
Best,
Jonathan
thanks Jonathan. I will look into it again. I am licensing rights managed images directly but do not currently draw enough people to my site to make it pay well. Maybe time to check Corbis and some of the others out again.
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I can only agree.
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The point I decided to needed to be made here is the double standard being made by microstock which I thought this image would illustrate well. The quality standards being demanded are professional, the pay per download isn't really even something that could be considered good for a hobbyist. This is not good for anyone.
I definitely agree with the above statement. Micro Agency are reaching 10 millions images plus. Simple Simon shots on a white background are overused. I see hundreds of grade "b" images with the big six agencies. Hundreds of start-up want to be agencies. Micro must change the days of monkeys with camera for peanuts are history.
Micros are going to have to start focusing on the better contributors. I am surprised that one of the Micro Agencies have not offered Yuri or others bonus commissions for exclusivity.
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I am surprised that one of the Micro Agencies have not offered Yuri or others bonus commissions for exclusivity.
Who says that they haven't?
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Simple Simon shots on a white background are overused. I see hundreds of grade "b" images with the big six agencies.
These types of images are often 'best sellers' and downloaded in thier many thousands every day and are the staple, 'the bread and butter of Microstock', and should not be dismissed so lightly, as they pay the bills for the agencies and some artists, the new higher priced 'quality collections' are a 'nice to have' and will bring in some extra revenue but they are never going to be the normal download price points for microstock.
Hundreds of start-up want to be agencies. Micro must change the days of monkeys with camera for peanuts are history.
Micros are going to have to start focusing on the better contributors. I am surprised that one of the Micro Agencies have not offered Yuri or others bonus commissions for exclusivity.
Business is just about supply and demand not people, because a new CEO of a start up is nice chap and all the artists wish him well because he wants to treat them well, that is all well and good but will not bring in sales, the buyers do not care who took and prepared the image Yuri or a monkey if it fits the requirement.
Artists will suffer lower commission from bigger stocksites for commercial reasons, because of pure sales volume and not higher price points, there are far more artists joining the party than there are leaving, the part-time monkeys can buy entry level kit for peanuts, not just cameras but the laptop as well, and revenue what might be peanuts to one monkey might be a reasonable living for another.
The day of the monkeys has just started, just like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, there is no shortages of new monkeys as the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz who controlled the flying monkeys said, "Going so soon? I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning", which is very true of microstock, it is a very young business with hugh rapid growth, the option is to join the party or leave, but don't close the door as many more monkeys are expected.
The fact that there are already hundreds of existing and start up agencies, and services tells the story of demand, it is not cheap to break into the market with any impact, setup and proof of concept could be as much as 500k for a small player, if there was no demand then they just would not be trying, Istock alone expects fiscal year revenue to exceed $262 million by 2012, add in all the other microstock agencies and you could be talking $600 million, then add in traditionals and maybe $1 billion, so you can see that even Yuri's revenue is a drop in the ocean.
David :o
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[ Istock alone expects fiscal year revenue to exceed $262 million by 2012, add in all the other microstock agencies and you could be talking $600 million, then add in traditionals and maybe $1 billion, so you can see that even Yuri's revenue is a drop in the ocean.
David :o
Your numbers are way out of whack.
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Hi Stardust,
To my knowledge there isn't a Micro collection out there paying people like Yuri higher percentage for his work or making separate side deals. That is a hard secret to keep in this industry and can lead to great dissension if discovered. Just me opinion. I have seen it in Macro though.
Best,
Jonathan
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Simple Simon shots on a white background are overused. I see hundreds of grade "b" images with the big six agencies.
These types of images are often 'best sellers' and downloaded in thier many thousands every day and are the staple, 'the bread and butter of Microstock', and should not be dismissed so lightly, as they pay the bills for the agencies and some artists, the new higher priced 'quality collections' are a 'nice to have' and will bring in some extra revenue but they are never going to be the normal download price points for microstock.
David :o
Great there are thousands of apples shot on a white background and great sellers! Does that means everyone needs to upload a thousand more???
You missed the point... the market is saturated with simple simon images and the demand is for more creative quality images! This requires more skills, equipment, composition, and creativity.
How many downloads at 33 cents will it take to pay for a Pro-DSLR, lens, lights, laptop, software, and etc?
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error
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How many downloads at 33 cents will it take to pay for a Pro-DSLR, lens, lights, laptop, software, and etc?
That's right this microstock business is about volume so yes it will take alot. See my thread "Happy day for a security guard (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/happy-day-for-a-security-guard/msg110023/?topicseen#new)" for a better answer.
However if I combined all sites and all different pricing schemes the average is more then 33 cents a download though. It is closer to a dollar per download.
Denis
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Great there are thousands of apples shot on a white background and great sellers! Does that means everyone needs to upload a thousand more???
You missed the point... the market is saturated with simple simon images and the demand is for more creative quality images! This requires more skills, equipment, composition, and creativity.
How many downloads at 33 cents will it take to pay for a Pro-DSLR, lens, lights, laptop, software, and etc?
I did not miss the point as there are already plenty of creative images and there has always been a demand for these, and I was not talking apples, the top ten most popular images over on Istock in three months have between 1100 - 1800 downloads each, some of these would have high production costs, but that is not in scope for most people.
1. Concept shot: Tree in Palm of hand
2. Family: Happy Playful Family of four
3. Family: Happy Family of four on floor
4. Concept Shot: Child enjoying the sun
5. Business: Teamwork in office
6. Business: Team of People
7: Concept Shot: Group of young people jumping
8: Graphic: Laptop Isolated
9: Graphic: Satin Icons
10: Family: Child with painted hands
You missed the point of my reply, the terms "Simple Simon" and Monkeys are derogatory and disrespectful to fellow artists, I have seen the terms used a few times now and it stinks of the same elitism some of the traditional photographer thought they had when the microsites started.
That amounts to $62.4MM per year meaning the company pays out about 31% of its revenue to 78,000 contributors for an annual average of US$800 per contributor per year.
Many artists start with a what resources they have at hand, so saying that we should all be shooting creative quality images is just wrong, and with the average Istock contributor getting $800 in revenue a year, where is the money coming from to produce the creative shots for microstock.
In time a new and fellow artist can gain more skills, equipment, composition, and creativity, but not many can just hit the floor running!
If the sites do not want the content they will say so, and as you can see from the OP's first post, it does not just affect the new photographers that upload isolated objects.
There is a great quote in this months Professional Photograper page 50:
"You can either take a picture or you can't, regardless of subject"
David
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[ Istock alone expects fiscal year revenue to exceed $262 million by 2012, add in all the other microstock agencies and you could be talking $600 million, then add in traditionals and maybe $1 billion, so you can see that even Yuri's revenue is a drop in the ocean.
David :o
Your numbers are way out of whack.
Look at this article with the Istock expected revenue of 200 million (http://www.abouttheimage.com/4138/istock_launches_high_end_collection_vetta_and_projects_gross_revenue_of_200/author3) for 2009 then add 3 years growth.
That is just one agency Istock now add SS and the others from the big six, Getty, Corbis, Alamy and the traditionals main agencies, and all the smaller macrostock, midstock and microstock players and the personal websites, and it will not be far out.
David
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The point I decided to needed to be made here is the double standard being made by microstock which I thought this image would illustrate well. The quality standards being demanded are professional, the pay per download isn't really even something that could be considered good for a hobbyist. This is not good for anyone.
I definitely agree with the above statement. Micro Agency are reaching 10 millions images plus. Simple Simon shots on a white background are overused. I see hundreds of grade "b" images with the big six agencies. Hundreds of start-up want to be agencies. Micro must change the days of monkeys with camera for peanuts are history.
Micros are going to have to start focusing on the better contributors. I am surprised that one of the Micro Agencies have not offered Yuri or others bonus commissions for exclusivity.
I know you mean well shutterdrop.
But there could also be another reason why white background Simple Simon shots are ubiquitous
in micro. I would never think of spending money for a studio shoot or model shoot and upload it to micro. Why would I ? The rewards of a few cents is ridiculous, it does not even pay for the clothes I rent for my models, never mind the depreciation cost of my lights, camera, etc.
I know there are some high cost photos with micro. My auditors would shoot me (no pun intended)
if I even try to tell them it's a good idea to spend heavily to shoot for micro.
Micro has the most asinine reviewers. That being said, micro has the highest review criteria.
But ask any accountant worth his/her salt, and they will say that this excessive standard on the images does not reflect on the commissions earned by the photographers.
I feel that one day, some magic dust is going to fall over many of these great micro photographers in their sleep, and they are going to wake up to realise they should not be spending so much money to shoot such high standard images. 25 cents per download, woo hoo !
As someone once said , " How can a buyer justify paying sub prices for quality images, yet continue to
pay 6 bucks for a cup of latte at Starbucks every morning".
Wake up angel dust ! Our images should at least cost as much a that cup of latte.
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deleted
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You missed the point of my reply, the terms "Simple Simon" and Monkeys are derogatory and disrespectful to fellow artists, I have seen the terms used a few times now and it stinks of the same elitism some of the traditional photographer thought they had when the microsites started.
David
There hundreds of "starving artist show" every weekend. Is that derogatory and disrespectful name? I call it truthful.
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Absolutely agree with Mark - Amen to that!
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Cybernesco's points are valid, however I basically agree with markstout - microstock's quality expections are totally out of balance with the commissons. UNLESS of course you "make it up on volume".
The people making money in microstock are doing subjects that many buyers want, so even at 25 cents, they recover their costs. That is fine. But what about images that have limited appeal - a small number of buyers that want them, but they'd pay a few dollars?
As I see it the basic problem in microstock is that contributors have no control over their pricing. Maybe I want do an unusual or elaborate photo, and bet that a few buyers, somewhere, someday, will want it and would pay $5 . I'd like to set that price myself, or at least choose from a set of pricing tiers. Nope, the pricing structure is "one size fits all". So there's no point in doing that photo, and as a result those buyers will never see it.
In any normal market there are commodity products with mass apppeal and rock bottom prices, and niche products with higher prices. Microstock is like a big shopping mall full of nothing but "Everything's $1" stores. It's simplistic, and a huge waste of opportunity for both contributors and agencies. The result is everyone madly shooting the same things - trying for big mass market hits - and usually wasting their time.
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But what about images that have limited appeal - there are a small number of buyers that want them, but they'd probably pay a few dollars?
That's the point of Vetta...
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That's the point of Vetta...
Not as I see it. I can't choose to put my images in Vetta, they have to be selected - by art school snobs who don't share my aesthetics, or those of my potential buyers, and think they know everything about photography and the image market because 4 years ago they learned how to set up a web site and a database. Maybe the real point of Vetta is to create an exclusive club that you want so desperately to be in that you'll keep jumping through the hoops and submitting images for 30 cent sales. ;)
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Microstock is a small extension of freedom in a capitalistic society within its democracy. In that realm, this is part of its evolution. And like any evolutionary step, you either adapt or you suffer the consequences of not adapting.
Of course I would like to see better pricing for contributors, who would not? But better arguments then those in this thread would need to be raised. I don't think complaining about rejections or the cost of making images are sufficient reasons for this industry to take notice.
Denis
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I don't expect the Big 6 microstocks to change - and contributors who are satisfied with that model don't want them to change. What I want, I guess, is for sites like CutCaster to start having some success.
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That's the point of Vetta...
Not as I see it. I can't choose to put my images in Vetta, they have to be selected - by art school snobs who don't share my aesthetics, or those of my potential buyers, and think they know everything about photography and the image market because 4 years ago they learned how to set up a web site and a database. Maybe the real point of Vetta is to create an exclusive club that you want so desperately to be in that you'll keep jumping through the hoops and submitting images for 30 cent sales. ;)
compared to what? Stockastic?
objectively speaking, many of you put up with a lot more crap as long as you don't see the name "Getty" or "Istock".
you don't crap on it if it's DT, FT, SS, as much as if it were IS.
you still have to jump thro hoops , many times with Atilla with the other Big 6.
so in this sense, Vetta makes the better of 2 evils.
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objectively speaking, many of you put up with a lot more crap as long as you don't see the name "Getty" or "Istock".
you don't crap on it if it's DT, FT, SS, as much as if it were IS.
You must overlook a LOT of the threads around here.
The other sites take their share of heat when they try to put something over on people. Threads complaining about Fotolia are a daily occurance. The recent dustup at Shutterstock over their new tax policy was huge. Before Getty bought StockXpert there were several revolts there over sub licenses and prices. Crestock has lots of threads complaining about them, though maybe they don't count because they are so far down the sales tree.
Mostly DT doesn't do much to pi$$ of contributors, but when they do they get their share of people complaining about them too.
Maybe you only notice the ones about Istock/Getty because of your connection to them.
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Although I'm obviously not a big fan of IStock, that wasn't really the point I was trying to make. IStock did introduce a second tier of pricing with Vetta, but it's of no use to me, because I can't choose to sell my images that way - only they can, and only if you're an exclusive.
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Although I'm obviously not a big fan of IStock, that wasn't really the point I was trying to make. IStock did introduce a second tier of pricing with Vetta, but it's of no use to me, because I can't choose to sell my images that way - only they can, and only if you're an exclusive.
So, the point is valid, it just doesn't apply to you. Sorry.
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Although I'm obviously not a big fan of IStock, that wasn't really the point I was trying to make. IStock did introduce a second tier of pricing with Vetta, but it's of no use to me, because I can't choose to sell my images that way - only they can, and only if you're an exclusive.
Stockastic,
Is that not the point of a collection within the library, a selection of images that the site owners not artists feels have an added value, the inclusion will have guidelines and will be subjective, if everyone was allowed to submit thier images the management of the collection would have a much higher cost to maintain, at the moment the cost is minimal as the reviewers have to review all images, and they can just mark any that they feel qualify for the collection.
General Observations:
If you feel you have images that are to good for microstock then there are the midstock and macrostock agencies where the sales are slower but the return is higher, if they are niche then there are often niche agencies, if they are of local interest then there is self promotion, the world is much bigger than microstock.
Sure the agencies and thier customers want higher value assets at rock bottom costs to be purchased at low low prices to bring in new customers I would want that for my business, the question here is should anyone supply them under these terms?
This is a huge business and Istock was the lower end microstock, Getty are the top end traditional, they are missing the middle tier of customers, to target them through Getty would devalue the brand so they have launched vetta, and the other websites will follow this model, the returns will be less than placing the images with specialist middle tier agencies and once they have a big enough share they can squeeze costs and the artists options will be suffer or leave there will always be another artist to fill any gaps.
Microstock was created by photographers to hurt the big agencies that refused the part-time photographer by supplying free images and now the circle is complete they are hurting photographers, it did take some customers from the big agencies but that was not the value of the model, the value they stumbled on was in opening up the market to many millions of new small buyers like me, buyers that buy an image for a blog or article, or small businesses that need a flyer, the IT consultant that needs an image for the website or presentation, the fast growth has now peeked and there is no new markets for microstock so they are looking at getting a foot hold into other existing middle tier markets.
When these agencies say they talk to buyers they don't mean the majority of small bread an butter buyers but a couple of hundred designers, editors and art directors that make a small part of the business and they are like the agencies the greedy ones that want high value low cost images, the rest of us buyers can find the image we want to add value to our blog, website or presentation are more humble and more than happy with the quality of the images we can licence for a couple of bucks.
If you have assets that you value above microstock the answer is not to get taken in by the hype, but to look for other markets where the image is a better fit, and will get a better return.
David ;)
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Istock is hilarious... they can't figure out what they want.... half my rejects were for not stock related, and then look what they post as image of the week from an exclusive:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=9881724 (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=9881724)
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Yes, it is sad,
because it might be boring, it might be a great shot of a guy on a rock,
but one thing is for sure, it is definitely woth more than a dollar.
Thats the problem here, : what is photography woth.
also:
Are you a great amateur photographer, that wants to make additional money by selling stock. Microstock sites are a great way to do this.
But are you a professional photographer who wants to base your children education and your health and life on making money with photos, than run. Run as fast as you can, and never, never discredit yourself by selling out your hart and valuable work on Microstock.
Now this is a hart statement, and some would say, wait a minute. I make money.
Again I will ask you to differentiate your work. Look at it from the balcony.
You must know, that every professional produced photo sold on a Microstock site is one job less given to a photographer, one job less for a photo model, one job less for a stylist, and one job less for an art director etc. Now selling your professional photo multiple times, is a disaster for the industry.You can draw the picture here youself. It results in a insane decline on the demand for professional photography.
I am a professional photographer for 30 years in stillife, and recently bought a digital SLR to have some fun. I learned as a consequence a lot of what is going on on the internet and must say it is depressing.
It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people.
They recognise often way to late what is going on, and than it is getting suddenly very hart to pull of the expensive productions from the Micro stock sites. They no very well why they don't want you to easy delete your submitted pics.
Stock photography is a old thing, and it exists basically since photography was utilised in advertisements. It was always very conceptual but seldom really specific. Many things have changed. Nowadays photographers are suddenly competing globally.
Any smart lobbyist would immediately pull the emergency break here, the OPEC would reduce its oil output drastically to stabilise prices, the unions would establish minimum wages to ensure that the workers can still feed their families.
The microstock is a cone, carried out by the photographers themself.
The entire Microstock phenomenon is based on the opportunity to sell your creative work several times. That lures the photographer in. Now wait a Minute, if I can sell my artwork several times, doesn't this mean there is more demand? And if there is more demand, should i not get more money than usual? Why do we get so little for our artwork and productions. Millions of photos are competing with each other, given to this stocksites for nothing. through this huge oversupply of photos the value of each foto is down to nothing.
Sites need to get as many photos as possible to create a sufficient base. Than they start separating the ash from the corn. They try to leave the area of amateur contributor and enter into a more professional level.
Istockphoto is the best example. And every professional sold photo on stock is one job less for a professional photographer.
I read several times this week in several blogs photographers discussing their income from stock sites. I must say i am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery. There are few, very very few Microstock photographers that can make a living from it. Many People have 500 photos on a site and get 2 or three times a payout per year. Thats sounds great, but it is actually nothing, its probably less than the upload time has taken calculated in hourly minimum wage. not to speak about the production of the photo. this is em baressing. Please forgive me my English i am German.
So think twice, before you sell out your work on microstock. And if you sell your professional production shots on stock, don't blame others when no agency wants to pay your Daily honorar anymore.
But there are positive ways to market your pictures. Get a unique stile, and offer this photos exclusively for royalty on a site. Art directors are sitting in the same boot, they are the next target by those modern slavemakers. Do not worry, they will stop using Microstock as they see advantage for their industry by paying good money and supporting their industry.
Sincerely, Lisa
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Well put Pixelbytes,
I am right there with you, this is definitely not an anti Istock site.
Best,
Jonathan
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Hello everybody, I started this blog to give some inside into microstock.
but first things first. Are you a great amateur photographer, that wants to make additional money by selling stock. Microstock sites are a great way to do this.
But are you a professional photographer who wants to base your children education and your health and life on making money with photos, than run. Run as fast as you can, and never, never discredit yourself by selling out your hart and valuable work on Microstock.
Now this is a hart statement, and some would say, wait a minute. I make money.
Again I will ask you to differentiate your work. Look at it from the balcony.
You must know, that every professional produced photo sold on a Microstock site is one job less given to a photographer, one job less for a photo model, one job less for a stylist, and one job less for an art director etc. Now selling your professional photo multiple times, is a disaster for the industry.You can draw the picture here youself. It results in a insane decline on the demand for professional photography.
I am a professional photographer for 30 years in stillife, and recently bought a digital SLR to have some fun. I learned as a consequence a lot of what is going on on the internet and must say it is depressing.
It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people.
They recognise often way to late what is going on, and than it is getting suddenly very hart to pull of the expensive productions from the Micro stock sites. They no very well why they don't want you to easy delete your submitted pics.
Stock photography is a old thing, and it exists basically since photography was utilised in advertisements. It was always very conceptual but seldom really specific. Many things have changed. Nowadays photographers are suddenly competing globally.
Any smart lobbyist would immediately pull the emergency break here, the OPEC would reduce its oil output drastically to stabilise prices, the unions would establish minimum wages to ensure that the workers can still feed their families.
The microstock is a cone, carried out by the photographers themself.
The entire Microstock phenomenon is based on the opportunity to sell your creative work several times. That lures the photographer in. Now wait a Minute, if I can sell my artwork several times, doesn't this mean there is more demand? And if there is more demand, should i not get more money than usual? Why do we get so little for our artwork and productions. Millions of photos are competing with each other, given to this stocksites for nothing. through this huge oversupply of photos the value of each foto is down to nothing.
Sites need to get as many photos as possible to create a sufficient base. Than they start separating the ash from the corn. They try to leave the area of amateur contributor and enter into a more professional level.
Istockphoto is the best example. And every professional sold photo on stock is one job less for a professional photographer.
I read several times this week in several blogs photographers discussing their income from stock sites. I must say i am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery. There are few, very very few Microstock photographers that can make a living from it. Many People have 500 photos on a site and get 2 or three times a payout per year. Thats sounds great, but it is actually nothing, its probably less than the upload time has taken calculated in hourly minimum wage. not to speak about the production of the photo. this is em baressing. Please forgive me my English i am German.
So think twice, before you sell out your work on microstock. And if you sell your professional production shots on stock, don't blame others when no agency wants to pay your Daily honorar anymore.
But there are positive ways to market your pictures. Get a unique stile, and offer this photos exclusively for royalty on a site. Art directors are sitting in the same boot, they are the next target by those modern slavemakers. Do not worry, they will stop using Microstock as they see advantage for their industry by paying good money and supporting their industry.
Sincerely, Lisa
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When you answer my questions then I'll answer yours.
you are rediculous and childish
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Istock is hilarious... they can't figure out what they want.... half my rejects were for not stock related, and then look what they post as image of the week from an exclusive:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=9881724[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=9881724[/url])
I grant you that the image is arguably not stock - but that said I like the image very much indeed and if it didn't cost so much I would download it myself in a second but alas the veer collection is too pricey for me to download something just cause I like it ... I can think of some uses for it but not in my area of publishing
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Wow this one is a roller-coaster and my first comment.
The topic is not really about the rejection, as the answer reviewers are just people that get £0.05 for each image they review and the make mistakes, and the solution to resubmit has been rejected.
As an independant supplier I can offer my products or services to anyone I want at any price point I want, the stock site as an agency or merchant is my customer, and I do not have a contract with them where they must accept all I produce, I understand they look at each offering and decide if it fits their requirements and if they would like to represent it, if they turn it down I will offer it to my other customers.
The cost to produce my product is not a concern of my customers, I have read thier terms & conditions and scale of rates, I have agreed to these, to enable me to register and trade with them, if at any point I am not happy with what they pay I can withdraw my products from their market place.
As I have agreed and accepted the rate I will receive from my customer, what the stocksite sells my product on for is not important to me that is how they trade.
Like every other supplier I would like more for my product, but this is affected by an over supply of similar products from other suppliers and the agressive marketing policies of my customers.
As there are so many suppliers of a product that is easy to produce and get to market, there is no chance of a cartel or union to protect my interests, so I am left with the choices to either stop producing and push trollies, change the products I produce to ones with a higher market value, be more selective with customers and where I place my products, keep suppliing and look for new markets.
As much as the OP has thought it through, it has been said many many times before, everyone would love more money for their product but the market is driving the prices and revenue, and once again a topic that was meant to unite photographers will as usual divide them, because we are competitors in the industry and have our own agenda.
David :P
This is very nice you are writing, and the idea you would make more money by producing better photos is very cute. Is like at school. But boy this is only true in the short , very short run. Because as you prop up the quality level of your submitted images, others, many others will go along. The competiion is still similar, and the prices have not changed. The agency has better images to sell and makes more money, but the photographer competes as stongly with all those hight quality conpetitors. The price is regulated by the amount of supply. And supply is insane in Microstock. The demand side is caved out by the licensing principles and has little influence on the price.
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recently bought a digital SLR to have some fun. I learned as a consequence a lot of what is going on on the internet and must say it is depressing.
It seems that you don’t understand the basic principles of a digital SLR and the internet yet which I think would be necessary before making such comments
It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people....
I must say I am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery.
Not really...I knew nothing about photography 4 years ago.. so far I made $41,000.00 and still growing.
See my thread "Happy day for a security guard (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/happy-day-for-a-security-guard/msg110023/?topicseen#new)" for a better response.
Probably only the top 1% of micro contributors are making enough to make a living. Maybe 2-6% are making a good supplemental income, but is that not the truth for all artistic or sports endeavors . I guess after a while if you can’t make that top 6% it is up to you to give up and do something else. It is that simple.
Denis
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Wow this one is a roller-coaster and my first comment.
The topic is not really about the rejection, as the answer reviewers are just people that get £0.05 for each image they review and the make mistakes, and the solution to resubmit has been rejected.
As an independant supplier I can offer my products or services to anyone I want at any price point I want, the stock site as an agency or merchant is my customer, and I do not have a contract with them where they must accept all I produce, I understand they look at each offering and decide if it fits their requirements and if they would like to represent it, if they turn it down I will offer it to my other customers.
The cost to produce my product is not a concern of my customers, I have read thier terms & conditions and scale of rates, I have agreed to these, to enable me to register and trade with them, if at any point I am not happy with what they pay I can withdraw my products from their market place.
As I have agreed and accepted the rate I will receive from my customer, what the stocksite sells my product on for is not important to me that is how they trade.
Like every other supplier I would like more for my product, but this is affected by an over supply of similar products from other suppliers and the agressive marketing policies of my customers.
As there are so many suppliers of a product that is easy to produce and get to market, there is no chance of a cartel or union to protect my interests, so I am left with the choices to either stop producing and push trollies, change the products I produce to ones with a higher market value, be more selective with customers and where I place my products, keep suppliing and look for new markets.
As much as the OP has thought it through, it has been said many many times before, everyone would love more money for their product but the market is driving the prices and revenue, and once again a topic that was meant to unite photographers will as usual divide them, because we are competitors in the industry and have our own agenda.
David :P
This is very nice you are writing, and the idea you would make more money by producing better photos is very cute. Is like at school. But boy this is only true in the short , very short run. Because as you prop up the quality level of your submitted images, others, many others will go along. The competiion is still similar, and the prices have not changed. The agency has better images to sell and makes more money, but the photographer competes as stongly with all those hight quality conpetitors. The price is regulated by the amount of supply. And supply is insane in Microstock. The demand side is caved out by the licensing principles and has little influence on the price.
yep, we are already seeing this. Images that sold happily 2 years ago, no longer get accepted.
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recently bought a digital SLR to have some fun. I learned as a consequence a lot of what is going on on the internet and must say it is depressing.
It seems that you don’t understand the basic principles of a digital SLR and the internet yet which I think would be necessary before making such comments
It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people....
I must say I am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery.
Not really...I knew nothing about photography 4 years ago.. so far I made $41,000.00 and still growing.
See my thread "Happy day for a security guard ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/happy-day-for-a-security-guard/msg110023/?topicseen#new[/url])" for a better response.
Probably only the top 1% of micro contributors are making enough to make a living. Maybe 2-6% are making a good supplemental income, but is that not the truth for all artistic or sports endeavors . I guess after a while if you can’t make that top 6% it is up to you to give up and do something else. It is that simple.
Denis
If we suppose to believe you.
$41,000 in 4 years, lets see that is $10,250 per year. In the US you are below the proverty line and qualify for foods stamps and medicaid! PS: don't give up you security guard job.
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recently bought a digital SLR to have some fun. I learned as a consequence a lot of what is going on on the internet and must say it is depressing.
It seems that you don’t understand the basic principles of a digital SLR and the internet yet which I think would be necessary before making such comments
It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people....
I must say I am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery.
Not really...I knew nothing about photography 4 years ago.. so far I made $41,000.00 and still growing.
See my thread "Happy day for a security guard ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/happy-day-for-a-security-guard/msg110023/?topicseen#new[/url])" for a better response.
Probably only the top 1% of micro contributors are making enough to make a living. Maybe 2-6% are making a good supplemental income, but is that not the truth for all artistic or sports endeavors . I guess after a while if you can’t make that top 6% it is up to you to give up and do something else. It is that simple.
Denis
If we suppose to believe you.
$41,000 in 4 years, lets see that is $10,250 per year. In the US you are below the proverty line and qualify for foods stamps and medicaid! PS: don't give up you security guard job.
That is right, I haven't give it up yet. I made $3200 in 2006, $10200 in 2007, $15300 in 2008 and $12500 so far in 2009. That is a progressive thing. Who in this world will start a new business in photography from nothing and make $50,000 a year right from the beginning? Denis
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Lisa from Germany, please don't start posting your lengthy rant in every thread you don't like. It is annoying.
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Cyber,
You've got the right idea and a great attitude. Your progression will continue as long as you persevere despite outside pessimism. That's true for microstock or any other endeavor. Your past occupation means nothing. Your view of the future is what counts. And the drive to achieve it. Good luck.
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Cyber,
You've got the right idea and a great attitude. Your progression will continue as long as you persevere despite outside pessimism. That's true for microstock or any other endeavor. Your past occupation means nothing. Your view of the future is what counts. And the drive to achieve it. Good luck.
Thank you Louoates I share your though. Denis
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Istock is hilarious... they can't figure out what they want.... half my rejects were for not stock related, and then look what they post as image of the week from an exclusive:
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=9881724[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=9881724[/url])
:D
I laughed at that too. Sure it's a creative image, but...
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If you have assets that you value above microstock the answer is not to get taken in by the hype, but to look for other markets where the image is a better fit, and will get a better return.
I think the concept of microstock is great - it's just been carried too far. I like the idea of selling worldwide , easily, through a commerical web site, for low prices. But the prices have been driven too low, and one price doesn't work for all images. I'm not looking for $100 for my images, but 25 cents does nothing for me. We can't all be doing images that sell 100, 1000 times - it's not mathematically possible, there aren't enough buyers. Can't I do a photo that sells 10 copies, for $5 each? No, not on microstock.
This pricing system only works for high-volume images and therefor cuts out a significant part of the market - as you point out.
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Lisa from Germany, please don't start posting your lengthy rant in every thread you don't like. It is annoying.
Yes, by her own admission she is brand new to the world of digital and the internet.
While everyone is entitled to their opinion, it would probably be smart to spend a year or two getting the lay of the land before deciding one is informed enough to be lecturing the rest of the industry.
Not to mention the inconsistency pimping her blog about how "great amateur photographers" can "make additional money selling stock" in one paragraph, and then decrying microstock as the destruction of the professional photography industry in the next paragraph.
If she had bothered to do ANY research at all, she would know that most of the professionals she's advising to "run" from microstock started off as the amateurs she is encouraging to join it. ::)
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it would probably be smart to spend a year or two getting the lay of the land before deciding one is informed enough to be lecturing the rest of the industry.
I disagree. On a forum like this, I to see all sorts of opinions, even from those who started yesterday. I feel I can separate the wheat from the chaff on my own.
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The local MacDonald's jobs start at 8.75 per hours with up to 29 hours. You receive a 25 cent raise after 90 days. Free food and drinks!!
8.75 per hour at 29 hours equal: $253.75 per week times 52 weeks for a total $13,195 per year.
Plus free food, drinks, and management opportunities!!!
Give up your Micro Stockings and join the Golden Arches.
Mickey Dee beat Micro Stock!
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The local MacDonald's jobs start at 8.75 per hours with up to 29 hours. You receive a 25 cent raise after 90 days. Free food and drinks!!
8.75 per hour at 29 hours equal: $253.75 per week times 52 weeks for a total $13,195 per year.
Plus free food, drinks, and management opportunities!!!
Give up your Micro Stockings and join the Golden Arches.
Mickey Dee beat Micro Stock!
In my case, microstock hours are very flexible which I can work around my security guard job. I would not be able to do that at Macdonald. Plus, for me, microstock is way much more fun then working at Macdonald and now is more lucrative. Denis
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The local MacDonald's jobs start at 8.75 per hours with up to 29 hours. You receive a 25 cent raise after 90 days. Free food and drinks!!
8.75 per hour at 29 hours equal: $253.75 per week times 52 weeks for a total $13,195 per year.
Plus free food, drinks, and management opportunities!!!
Give up your Micro Stockings and join the Golden Arches.
Even if free, I wouldn't call it 'food', and think of the smell. :o
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The local MacDonald's jobs start at 8.75 per hours with up to 29 hours. You receive a 25 cent raise after 90 days. Free food and drinks!!
8.75 per hour at 29 hours equal: $253.75 per week times 52 weeks for a total $13,195 per year.
Plus free food, drinks, and management opportunities!!!
Give up your Micro Stockings and join the Golden Arches.
Even if free, I wouldn't call it 'food', and think of the smell. :o
That's right another reason for me to stay away from that place as I have some difficulties to keep my bad cholesterol low. Denis
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It seems basic economic principles are not understood by all this creative hart working wonderful people....
I must say I am embarrassed for how little photographers are working, this is worse than slavery.
Not really...I knew nothing about photography 4 years ago.. so far I made $41,000.00 and still growing.
See my thread "Happy day for a security guard (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/happy-day-for-a-security-guard/msg110023/?topicseen#new)" for a better response.
Probably only the top 1% of micro contributors are making enough to make a living. Maybe 2-6% are making a good supplemental income, but is that not the truth for all artistic or sports endeavors . I guess after a while if you can’t make that top 6% it is up to you to give up and do something else. It is that simple.
Denis
[/quote]
Dear Denis, I looked at this blog and found it interesting. Yoou write: I have 1100 photos online exept Istock 960. Does this mean yu have around 2000 pics online?
Would it be fair to say , that you took around 1 hour per picture to prepare, touchup, scan and upload etc ?
Ok, I calculate 2000 images times 1 hour makes 2000 hours. And the average rejectionrate on Istock is something like 50% as I was told, but we don't want to get picky. So lets say its 50 and forget about the rejections from all other sites. So we end up with 3000 Hours pur sidework.
That is an interesting number. Lets assume you work 200 Days a year, so in 4 years you have worked 800 days. 3000 hours devided by 800 days makes you a constent contribution of 3.8 hours every working day to stock.
so you do dayly uploading etc of around four hours. You can do this, because you get payed for this 4 hoours becuase you are watching over someones property. i think this is a great concept to make use of your valuable time while doing this job. if youo are lucky yu have a night shift and are free of distraction to do this.
Beside this, you make nice good photos that are saleable. I am proud of your focus and happy for your success.
Cheers, lisa
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Lisa, trying to make yourself look all smart by typing a bunch of numbers and then insinuating he does his stock work while he is doing his other job, not only makes you look dumb, but also childish and catty. I suggest you go back to your still life work and stop trying to edjumacate us.
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I am constantly reading comments where photographers compair their work with Mac donalds Jobs, minimum wages, lifeguard jobs or security guards, etc.
I never thought about myself on such a low income level. I more compare my work and myself, my improtance and income to an academically educated batchelor or master.
Cheers, Lisa
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Lisa, trying to make yourself look all smart by typing a bunch of numbers and then insinuating he does his stock work while he is doing his other job, not only makes you look dumb, but also childish and catty. I suggest you go back to your still life work and stop trying to edjumacate us.
So you think he is not doing this at least partially at work? Are you sure?
Did you ask him?
Just run some numbers yuorself instead of getting all emotional. If he doesnt do it at work, he has do to it off work. Security guards have 8 to 12 hour shifts. 4 hours preparation and uploading/ day , shooting, family life, normal life, 8 hours sleep, mmm, how many hoours does a day have? Sounds not enjoyable to me.
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I don't have to run numbers, Lisa, because I worked on my portfolio 10-15 hours a week after my regular job for almost three years before I went full time photog. I'm sorry if that doesn't mesh up with your lifestyle of shooting vegetables or whatever 30 year German veteran 'still life' photogs do, but there you have it.
So, why don't you apologize nicely and move on?
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Just run some numbers yuorself instead of getting all emotional. If he doesnt do it at work, he has do to it off work. Security guards have 8 to 12 hour shifts. 4 hours preparation and uploading/ day , shooting, family life, normal life, 8 hours sleep, mmm, how many hoours does a day have? Sounds not enjoyable to me.
That's why he's only got 1100-odd images on-line (his IS ones are fewer because of the higher rejection rate) after 4 years of endeavour. Most microstock full-timers are producing 100-200 new images per month, probably with an 85-99% acceptance rate depending on agency.
Lisa __ it's obvious you know absolutely nothing about our industry. Your half-soaked observations and whimsical nonsense calculations are completely wide of the mark. You are wasting your time and ours because you don't know anything about the subject.
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I am constantly reading comments where photographers compair their work with Mac donalds Jobs, minimum wages, lifeguard jobs or security guards, etc.
I never thought about myself on such a low income level. I more compare my work and myself, my improtance and income to an academically educated batchelor or master.
Cheers, Lisa
Ah, well educated but no common sense.
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very sad.
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Would it be fair to say , that you took around 1 hour per picture to prepare, touchup, scan and upload etc ?
I can't speak for Denis, but apart from a short time last year when I thought it might be a challenge to take photos specially for stock, I'm out there taking photos anyway. I'd guess I take on average 10 minutes to prepare and touch up the images I'm taking now, plus uploading and keywording, which I now find easy on micro (iStock), less so on macro. At the same time, I'm coding some of my images for Powerponts, school, camera club competitions, my private website, whatever. I'd be doing all that anyway. So I'm not spending that much time specially on stock. It's very stress relieving, as when I'm focussing on getting all the technical aspects right I can't think about work, so it's far better for my health than jogging or gardening which leaves my mind free to fret.
And I can listen to whatever music or radio channel or audio recording I want, which I can't do in my day job, and I couldn't do in MacDonalds (I'm guessing, it's years since I've been inside one).
BTW, since we're mostly digital now, we don't need to scan.
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Hi All,
Personally I think this person has heard all of your disappointment and disagreement with her posts. Maybe we should just let this one end. No one is getting anything of value out of it but a lot of frustration and name calling. Just my two cents.
Best,
Jonathan
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Just run some numbers yuorself instead of getting all emotional. If he doesnt do it at work, he has do to it off work. Security guards have 8 to 12 hour shifts. 4 hours preparation and uploading/ day , shooting, family life, normal life, 8 hours sleep, mmm, how many hoours does a day have? Sounds not enjoyable to me.
That's why he's only got 1100-odd images on-line (his IS ones are fewer because of the higher rejection rate) after 4 years of endeavour. Most microstock full-timers are producing 100-200 new images per month, probably with an 85-99% acceptance rate depending on agency.
So lets say he shoots those 100 to 200 images in 10 days, that gives him 10 to 20 images per shooting.
And he works like every civilized person arouond 20 days a month, so he has another 10 days to upload them.
so he uploads and touches up 10 to 20 images per day. I seems my number crunching not so bad.
Anyway it still does not sound enjoyable to me, but it might be all right with you. How i said and others said so often in several blogs, its up to you to set your own values.
I cannot help myself, but I start thinking, that this site is a marketing site for the Microstock industrie. Comments are just to emotional, ignoring any critical fewpoints or comparisons. Not giving in to any thought . Discrediting my points emotinally does not give evidence of an analytical process.
I wouldn't wonder, if in a week or two all bloggs are back to happy flower power stock photographers messages.
So guys and girls, i am off, yuo can breath free again, I am off to make some, -how did one of you guys call it? I am off to make some stupid big money, for some stupid big agency that has decided to stay away for this shoot from stock. Hope you guys allow me a bit longer to ,make "stupid big money" until even in this area you take over with 5 dollar jobs.
cheers, lisa
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So guys and girls, i am off, yuo can breath free again, I am off to make some, -how did one of you guys call it? I am off to make some stupid big money, for some stupid big agency that has decided to stay away for this shoot from stock. Hope you guys allow me a bit longer to ,make "stupid big money" until even in this area you take over with 5 dollar jobs.
cheers, lisa
But you're not making "stupid big money" because if you were you wouldn't be here complaining about the microstock industry.
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And we've made it back around to the normal "You guys are shills for the sites" post, which means this thread is complete. Thanks for playing Lisa, and off with you to your "stupid big money" shots.
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------------------------ THE END ------------------------
Starring: - Lisas4 as ... 'The Educator' and 'Big Money Photographer'
This is an entirely fictional account. Any resemblance to a real life person, living or dead, is entirely co-incidental
-
Okay....now that she's gone, I guess I can say it....
HAPPY FLOWER POWER TO ALL OF YOU!!!
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So guys and girls, i am off, yuo can breath free again, I am off to make some, -how did one of you guys call it? I am off to make some stupid big money, for some stupid big agency that has decided to stay away for this shoot from stock. Hope you guys allow me a bit longer to ,make "stupid big money" until even in this area you take over with 5 dollar jobs.
cheers, lisa
But you're not making "stupid big money" because if you were you wouldn't be here complaining about the microstock industry.
RT,
So I suppose that makes you some big time monkey, I mean money making not so stupid dude here , is it?
If ganging up on her makes you so big, that's not very impressive.
Why is she not allowed to voice her opinion, as silly as it may seem to you.
I think your ganging up on Lisa4 is not that impressive, but we still don't expect you to bugger off like you expect her to do .
So, come off your blooming high horse and let's keep this forum an open discussion.
Not unless you like to start your own where every single dude has to agree with you and your flipping motley crew of lupe zombies !
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Just run some numbers yuorself instead of getting all emotional. If he doesnt do it at work, he has do to it off work. Security guards have 8 to 12 hour shifts. 4 hours preparation and uploading/ day , shooting, family life, normal life, 8 hours sleep, mmm, how many hoours does a day have? Sounds not enjoyable to me.
That's why he's only got 1100-odd images on-line (his IS ones are fewer because of the higher rejection rate) after 4 years of endeavour. Most microstock full-timers are producing 100-200 new images per month, probably with an 85-99% acceptance rate depending on agency.
Lisa __ it's obvious you know absolutely nothing about our industry. Your half-soaked observations and whimsical nonsense calculations are completely wide of the mark. You are wasting your time and ours because you don't know anything about the subject.
Oh Gostwyck, you are so bloody subtle .
If I remember you are always telling everyone else (no name mentioned) they know nothing about your industry.
I am glad one of us know so much of this bloody industry.
Are you in the Lupe business too? LOL
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------------------------ THE END ------------------------
Starring: - Lisas4 as ... 'The Educator' and 'Big Money Photographer'
This is an entirely fictional account. Any resemblance to a real life person, living or dead, is entirely co-incidental
Gee, wish I could say the same for you too, Gostwyck.
Go become a flipping fictional character too, puleez * ! 8)
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I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in. It certainly doesn't contribute to the threads, and most of it makes no sense.
Nobody ganged up on Lisa. She elicited opinions from everyone on the site, both with her copy and pasted rant repeatedly, and her insinuation that no one here knows what they are doing. If anyone agreed with her, they were free to post as well, although posting in nonsense talk normally doesn't help make a cause.
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:) So much fun friendly discussion on MSG, it never end. Online relation (exchanges) are always useless. 50 lines posts are also useless cause no one read them.
Note: Forums are too anonymous. No one would be like that in real. People would leave before this.
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I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in.
It happens when people drink/smoke/inject more than they can handle. I assume it's why they both change their forum names every few days too, must loss of memory or embarrassment when they sober up.
Puravida/Perusus/whatever, etc has obviously also forgotten how many times he's asked for help on these boards and then thanked everyone for their advice.
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I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in.
It happens when people drink/smoke/inject more than they can handle. I assume it's why they both change their forum names every few days too, must loss of memory or embarrassment when they sober up.
rofl, are you referring to yourself? Gostwyck? drink/smoke/inject?
you should be the one to talk. remember Ms. Newman, whom you consistently crapped on, during your spell of drink/smoke/inject, and waking up, loss of memory or embarrassment when YOU sober up. oh add to that, ALZHEIMER, gostwyck. You forgot all that , huh?
Only you know everything about the business...
what's there not to know about this micro business?
you submit your photos and act like the 3 monkeys (see not,hear not, speak not)
you get the *, you smile and say thank you bwana.
what's there not to know?
it's much like being a junkie. except with the junkie the price (you pay) keeps going up.
with micro, the price (you earn) keeps going down.
whatever, you're hooked and you cannot do squat. you are a micro stock professional.
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I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in.
It happens when people drink/smoke/inject more than they can handle. I assume it's why they both change their forum names every few days too, must loss of memory or embarrassment when they sober up.
Puravida/Perusus/whatever, etc has obviously also forgotten how many times he's asked for help on these boards and then thanked everyone for their advice.
Wow, so you know I drink , smoke and inject. How did you know , unless you are my pusher. :D
Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have said that.
You don't want your country's IRS to know you have a sideline.
'
Um, or maybe as oblahell said, you have Alzheimer.
Hey, that's what drink, smoke and inject do to you , Gost.
Shame ! 8)
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I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in. It certainly doesn't contribute to the threads, and most of it makes no sense.
Nobody ganged up on Lisa. She elicited opinions from everyone on the site, both with her copy and pasted rant repeatedly, and her insinuation that no one here knows what they are doing. If anyone agreed with her, they were free to post as well, although posting in nonsense talk normally doesn't help make a cause.
OMG - could it be that for once I actually agree with sjlocke? Yup ...
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I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in. It certainly doesn't contribute to the threads, and most of it makes no sense.
Nobody ganged up on Lisa. She elicited opinions from everyone on the site, both with her copy and pasted rant repeatedly, and her insinuation that no one here knows what they are doing. If anyone agreed with her, they were free to post as well, although posting in nonsense talk normally doesn't help make a cause.
Sean, u r a cool dude, and I have nothing against that.
I get annoyed too whenever gostwyck does his weird stuff as well.
It's not like we started the thing. Gost and you and some other of your groupies
started it all, from way back when.
We are just carrying the torch.
We won't crap if you won't , either . ;)I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in. It certainly doesn't contribute to the threads, and most of it makes no sense.
Nobody ganged up on Lisa. She elicited opinions from everyone on the site, both with her copy and pasted rant repeatedly, and her insinuation that no one here knows what they are doing. If anyone agreed with her, they were free to post as well, although posting in nonsense talk normally doesn't help make a cause.
OMG - could it be that for once I actually agree with sjlocke? Yup ...
ROFL, see what I mean Sean?
your groupies are coming out of your ears...
Who else? take care, Sean ! Groupies are just as much as annoying as weird noises (no pun intended).
;)
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------------------------ THE END ------------------------
Starring: - gostwyck as ... 'The Know It All' and 'Mind reader'
This is an entirely fictional account. Any resemblance to a real life person, smoking, drinking or injecting , is entirely co-incidental. Or, just onsetting signs of Alzheimer.
-
LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
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LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
speak into the mic, bud.
look into the mirror, fictitious person ! ROFL.
seriously, you do have a fetish. get your little 'wyck checked . it can lead to worst social diseases, actually.
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LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
ha!ha!...
I can see you are more than just an expert at Micro stock business.
You also quite the expert on exotic substance and anal fixation, on top of substance abuse, huh?
You are right, we should get a life... like you, gost..
That's quite a life you got there.
:D
All that, on top of the regular Lube Bj-jobbers you get from being an expert and big money earner as a micro professional, lol.
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LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
well, well, well,
listen to the man with the 'wyck !
he sho KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT.
You Deviant YOU ! Gostwyck, so kinky ! ;D ;D ;D ;D
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LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
well, well, well,
listen to the man with the 'wyck !
he sho KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT.
You Deviant YOU ! Gostwyck, so kinky ! ;D ;D ;D ;D
ALL HAIL THE GREAT GOSTWYCK..
the man who knows too much...
who only thinks he is the only one who knows anything...
inside his fictitious mind hides a great imagination...
ALL HAIL THE GREAT GOST !
gosh !
;D
-
LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
well, well, well,
listen to the man with the 'wyck !
he sho KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT.
You Deviant YOU ! Gostwyck, so kinky ! ;D ;D ;D ;D
ALL HAIL THE GREAT GOSTWYCK..
the man who knows too much...
who only thinks he is the only one who knows anything...
inside his fictitious mind hides a great imagination...
ALL HAIL THE GREAT GOST !
gosh !
;D
Gosh ...
....weeeakkkk !
-
------------------------ THE END ------------------------
Starring: - gostwyck as ... 'The Know It All' and 'Mind reader'
This is an entirely fictional account. Any resemblance to a real life person, smoking, drinking or injecting , is entirely co-incidental. Or, just onsetting signs of Alzheimer.
-
Ok kids, everyone to bed. No radios, no comic books. Lights out!
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------------------------ THE END ------------------------
Starring: - Lisas4 as ... 'The Educator' and 'Big Money Photographer'
This is an entirely fictional account. Any resemblance to a real life person, living or dead, is entirely co-incidental
Gee, wish I could say the same for you too, Gostwyck.
Go become a flipping fictional character too, puleez * ! 8)
Puravida, why did you change your name? Your new one makes me think of that song
"Obladi oblada, life goes onnnnnn yeah...dadadada life goes on...."
and now it's stuck in my head. :-\
ETA: note to self: never add on to a bizarre thread without reading it to the end.
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Ok kids, everyone to bed. No radios, no comic books. Lights out!
ha!ha!... Good one , Grandpa Sean !
Nothing like a good bar brawl every once in a while to clear the anal passages.
Lights out! No radios, no comic books. You heard Grandpa Sean ! ;D
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Nothing like a good bar brawl every once in a while to clear the anal passages.
Oh God __ don't you start down the 'anal' road with those two weirdo's!
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So you think he is not doing this at least partially at work? Are you sure?
Did you ask him?
Just run some numbers yuorself instead of getting all emotional. If he doesnt do it at work, he has do to it off work. Security guards have 8 to 12 hour shifts. 4 hours preparation and uploading/ day , shooting, family life, normal life, 8 hours sleep, mmm, how many hoours does a day have? Sounds not enjoyable to me.
My husband does 12 hour security shifts at night. Add to that the 40 minutes travel either side too. He does hourly patrols of a building and outside it and doesn't have time to do anything more constructive than read a book or watch tv in the small gaps between as he has to supervise cleaners coming into the buildings, night engineers. They don't get to laze about all night y'know. It's slightly offensive to assume that security officers sit free to do other things at their leisure.
Oh and during the day he fits in making me happy which isn't easy as I'm housebound and a miserable cow due to my health problems leaving me in agony, three children and a home study course. He's also happy, and enjoys every minute of his day.
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RT,
So I suppose that makes you some big time monkey, I mean money making not so stupid dude here , is it?
If ganging up on her makes you so big, that's not very impressive.
Why is she not allowed to voice her opinion, as silly as it may seem to you.
I think your ganging up on Lisa4 is not that impressive, but we still don't expect you to bugger off like you expect her to do .
So, come off your blooming high horse and let's keep this forum an open discussion.
Not unless you like to start your own where every single dude has to agree with you and your flipping motley crew of lupe zombies !
I'll respond to somebody wrongly criticising what I do however I see fit, if you don't like my response or that of some others then tough, I neither seek, need or value your opinion.
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aw, come on Jonathan. CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE needs to have their day at ganging up on Lisa . If I recall it was another woman they missed ganging up on a long time back. Since she 's not here anymore, it's been a while since these CRANKY OLE FARTS had their day ganging up on some woman. So, let them play.
You know, as a woman (hard to tell from my picture, I realize) the above is really offensive.
Why should someone have carte blanche to say any idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up, just because they are female? That is so insulting and condescending I don't know where to begin.
If someone wants to express an opinion, fine. If their opinion is an emotional rant filled with wild speculation and outright falsehoods, they can expect that people will disagree with them - sometimes very bluntly. Nobody should come here expecting to be treated with kid gloves just because they are a woman. If you can't play with the big boys stay home and knit.
Nobody is getting picked on here because of their gender - that is until Perseus started throwing around "male menopause" comments. :P
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aw, come on Jonathan. CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE needs to have their day at ganging up on Lisa . If I recall it was another woman they missed ganging up on a long time back. Since she 's not here anymore, it's been a while since these CRANKY OLE FARTS had their day ganging up on some woman. So, let them play.
You know, as a woman (hard to tell from my picture, I realize) the above is really offensive.
Why should someone have carte blanche to say any idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up, just because they are female? That is so insulting and condescending I don't know where to begin.
If someone wants to express an opinion, fine. If their opinion is an emotional rant filled with wild speculation and outright falsehoods, they can expect that people will disagree with them - sometimes very bluntly. Nobody should come here expecting to be treated with kid gloves just because they are a woman. If you can't play with the big boys stay home and knit.
Nobody is getting picked on here because of their gender - that is until Perseus started throwing around "male menopause" comments. :P
funny that you should be offended when it is gender specific,
so tell me, how come you missed gostwyck's gender specific comment about puravida.
and with regards to "idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up,"
what do you say of gostwyck's mouthing out about lisas4, perseus, a once regular lady IS exclusive,etc..?
or is gostwyck immuned to your taste of "emotional rant "without "wild speculation and outright falsehoods" ?
Hmm? ::)
with evidences of gostwyck's consistent obsession to personally attack FEMALE posters here on MSG, I would say that is factual, and informations well backed
to entitle him with the honour of CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE 8)
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aw, come on Jonathan. CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE needs to have their day at ganging up on Lisa . If I recall it was another woman they missed ganging up on a long time back. Since she 's not here anymore, it's been a while since these CRANKY OLE FARTS had their day ganging up on some woman. So, let them play.
You know, as a woman (hard to tell from my picture, I realize) the above is really offensive.
Why should someone have carte blanche to say any idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up, just because they are female? That is so insulting and condescending I don't know where to begin.
If someone wants to express an opinion, fine. If their opinion is an emotional rant filled with wild speculation and outright falsehoods, they can expect that people will disagree with them - sometimes very bluntly. Nobody should come here expecting to be treated with kid gloves just because they are a woman. If you can't play with the big boys stay home and knit.
Nobody is getting picked on here because of their gender - that is until Perseus started throwing around "male menopause" comments. :P
funny that you should be offended when it is gender specific,
so tell me, how come you missed gostwyck's gender specific comment about puravida.
and with regards to "idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up,"
what do you say of gostwyck's mouthing out about lisas4, perseus, a once regular lady IS exclusive,etc..?
or is gostwyck immuned to your taste of "emotional rant "without "wild speculation and outright falsehoods" ?
Hmm? ::)
with evidences of gostwyck's consistent obsession to personally attack FEMALE posters here on MSG, I would say that is factual, and informations well backed
to entitle him with the honour of CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE 8)
as a WOE-man, GOST merely personally attacks WOMAN posters . That does not qualify him to castration for being verbally abusive to "specific" women here.
Obsessive and abusive towards SPECIFIC WOMEN, perharps. Beyond chastization, absolutely not !
Why? because he was here long before you came. And like a MALE-cat spraying his territory, gost is allowed to say what he wants against any women here.
But not you or any body else?
8)
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or is gostwyck immuned to your taste of "emotional rant "without "wild speculation and outright falsehoods" ?
Hmm? ::)
Well, the most notable and obvious difference here - and it really should go without saying but I will be happy to spell it out - is that Gostwyck (along with RT, SJL, and the others who have been critical of Lisa4s comments) actually make money at microstock, have been doing it for years, and most importantly, know what they're talking about. Duh.
Furthermore they manage to do so without an overabundance of SHOUTING, or GRATUITIOUS OVERUSE of emoticons. :'( :-* :-\ :-X :-[ ::) ??? 8) :o :( >:( ;D :D ;) :)
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aw, come on Jonathan. CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE needs to have their day at ganging up on Lisa . If I recall it was another woman they missed ganging up on a long time back. Since she 's not here anymore, it's been a while since these CRANKY OLE FARTS had their day ganging up on some woman. So, let them play.
You know, as a woman (hard to tell from my picture, I realize) the above is really offensive.
Why should someone have carte blanche to say any idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up, just because they are female? That is so insulting and condescending I don't know where to begin.
If someone wants to express an opinion, fine. If their opinion is an emotional rant filled with wild speculation and outright falsehoods, they can expect that people will disagree with them - sometimes very bluntly. Nobody should come here expecting to be treated with kid gloves just because they are a woman. If you can't play with the big boys stay home and knit.
Nobody is getting picked on here because of their gender - that is until Perseus started throwing around "male menopause" comments. :P
funny that you should be offended when it is gender specific,
so tell me, how come you missed gostwyck's gender specific comment about puravida.
and with regards to "idiotic thing in their head, with no facts, experience, or information to back them up,"
what do you say of gostwyck's mouthing out about lisas4, perseus, a once regular lady IS exclusive,etc..?
or is gostwyck immuned to your taste of "emotional rant "without "wild speculation and outright falsehoods" ?
Hmm? ::)
with evidences of gostwyck's consistent obsession to personally attack FEMALE posters here on MSG, I would say that is factual, and informations well backed
to entitle him with the honour of CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE 8)
as a WOE-man, GOST merely personally attacks WOMAN posters . That does not qualify him to castration for being verbally abusive to "specific" women here.
Obsessive and abusive towards SPECIFIC WOMEN, perharps. Beyond chastization, absolutely not !
Why? because he was here long before you came. And like a MALE-cat spraying his territory, gost is allowed to say what he wants against any women here.
But not you or any body else?
8)
sure ! gostwyck's HISTORICAL contribution AGAINST certain WOMEN stemmed all the way from IS forum. we are not strangers to his GENDER SPECIFIC attacks or ABUSIVE PERSONAL attacks on women contributors.
SO , that gives him CARTE BLANC to say whatever he wants to, here?
Wonderful ! He has his fan club, and I 'll start my own .
OK? :D
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with evidences of gostwyck's consistent obsession to personally attack FEMALE posters here on MSG, I would say that is factual, and informations well backed
to entitle him with the honour of CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE 8)
aw, come on Jonathan. CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE needs to have their day at ganging up on Lisa . If I recall it was another woman they missed ganging up on a long time back. Since she 's not here anymore, it's been a while since these CRANKY OLE FARTS had their day ganging up on some woman. So, let them play.
sure ! gostwyck's HISTORICAL contribution AGAINST certain WOMEN stemmed all the way from IS forum. we are not strangers to his GENDER SPECIFIC attacks or ABUSIVE PERSONAL attacks on women contributors.
SO , that gives him CARTE BLANC to say whatever he wants to, here?
Wonderful ! He has his fan club, and I 'll start my own .
OK? :D
I rest my case.
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or is gostwyck immuned to your taste of "emotional rant "without "wild speculation and outright falsehoods" ?
Hmm? ::)
Well, the most notable and obvious difference here - and it really should go without saying but I will be happy to spell it out - is that Gostwyck (along with RT, SJL, and the others who have been critical of Lisa4s comments) actually make money at microstock, have been doing it for years, and most importantly, know what they're talking about. Duh.
Furthermore they manage to do so without an overabundance of SHOUTING, or GRATUITIOUS OVERUSE of emoticons. :'( :-* :-\ :-X :-[ ::) ??? 8) :o :( >:( ;D :D ;) :)
Oh, so that's what make it UNOFFENSIVE to mention Male Menopause?
That I am actually not making money at microstock.
aND IF I am actually making money in microstock, I can say anything I want?
Maybe you should explain the GENETIC difference and ENTITLEMENT to those women Gost attacked on IS forum and here on MSG.
That there is a difference?
ROFL
that's like saying, any man who is SUCCESSFUL AND MAKING MONEY is allowed to be abusive to women. Or be absolved to be GENDER OFFENSIVE.
YOU ARE RIGHT about one thing , though PixB,
GOSTWYCK IS DIFFERENT !
:D
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with evidences of gostwyck's consistent obsession to personally attack FEMALE posters here on MSG, I would say that is factual, and informations well backed
to entitle him with the honour of CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE 8)
aw, come on Jonathan. CRANKY OLD FARTS SUFFERING FROM MALE MENOPAUSE needs to have their day at ganging up on Lisa . If I recall it was another woman they missed ganging up on a long time back. Since she 's not here anymore, it's been a while since these CRANKY OLE FARTS had their day ganging up on some woman. So, let them play.
sure ! gostwyck's HISTORICAL contribution AGAINST certain WOMEN stemmed all the way from IS forum. we are not strangers to his GENDER SPECIFIC attacks or ABUSIVE PERSONAL attacks on women contributors.
SO , that gives him CARTE BLANC to say whatever he wants to, here?
Wonderful ! He has his fan club, and I 'll start my own .
OK? :D
I rest my case.
There really is no case for you to rest on, SOrry!
Money does not entitle anyone to be verbally abusive.
If I am not mistaken, that other woman that gostwyck did so consistently personally attack at this forum and IS forum is ALSO MAKING MONEY AT MICROSTOCK.
so being successful at making money in micro stock or anywhere does not entitle anyone to be offensive.
Further more, I AM FINANCIALLY SUCCESSFUL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD,
NOT MICROSTOCK , but still MAKING MONEY.
So, in your bent opinion, I qualify to be OFFENSIVE here too.
BECAUSE I AM MAKING MONEY... in the REAL STOCK MARKET world.
i TOO, ACCORDING TO YOU, have CARTE BLANC to be offensive like Gost.
In fact, I might just be more FINANCIALLY EQUIPPED than Gost in the balance sheet.
Which, according to you, entitles me to be MORE offensive to anyone I please
here or anywhere else.
I rest my case TOO ! :)
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rofl, I wasn't for Gost. I was being sarcastic.
still, whatever turns you on. If you approve of CRANKY OLD MAN WITH MALE MENOPAUSE... being abusive to women,
bully for you.
this door swings both way... ;)
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Money does not entitle anyone to be verbally abusive.
Sorry, so what does entitle someone to be verbally abusive?
Feel free to answer Obladi or Lubzombie. I forget which one of the tag team I am addressing at any given moment.
Oh wait, shouldn't you be making nice with me and patting me on the head? I am, after all, a woman, and according to you (both) that means you are being a bully(s) by disagreeing with me. Right? Or did I miss something?
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Money does not entitle anyone to be verbally abusive.
Sorry, so what does entitle someone to be verbally abusive?
Feel free to answer Obladi or Lubzombie. I forget which one of the tag team I am addressing at any given moment.
Oh wait, shouldn't you be making nice with me and patting me on the head? I am, after all, a woman, and according to you (both) that means you are being a bully(s) by disagreeing with me. Right? Or did I miss something?
No, you didn't miss anything.
You think it's OK for gostwyck to be offensive with one woman, or two..
so it's OK for me to be offensive to you , woman or otherwise.
You cannot play both sides of the fence.
Either both of us are wrong in being offensive or both of us are entitled to be offensive,
to man or woman, or the homo that gost calls me.
According to gost, I am both man and woman, so I am entitled to be offensive ...
ROFL.
don't try to get out of this. you won't ! Get gost to help ! he's the one who knows everything, and you approve of his obnoxious behaviour...
So you should get used to mine too :D :D :D :D
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WOO HOO,
let's go out and burn some bras, shall we ?
P.S.
I am financially abled and very successful making money . So I am allowed to be obnoxious. Carte Blanc Entitlement. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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there ! i put puravida back , with the avatar of a guy, for you and gost to be turned on ! 8)
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No, you didn't miss anything.
You think it's OK for gostwyck to be offensive with one woman, or two..
so it's OK for me to be offensive to you , woman or otherwise.
You cannot play both sides of the fence.
Either both of us are wrong in being offensive or both of us are entitled to be offensive,
to man or woman, or the homo that gost calls me.
According to gost, I am both man and woman, so I am entitled to be offensive ...
ROFL.
Sorry, you missed my point. I will try once more because I have some time to waste with you today.
It isn't the "being offensive" I objected to in Lisa's post, or yours either. Offensive is a relative term anyway.
What I object to, is people pretending to be an authority on a subject they know nothing about. That goes for everyone and really has nothing to do with gender at all.
I am not offended by your tone. I can take it or I wouldn't be here. Same goes for Lisa4s, Stacey (who you keep alluding to), or anyone else on this forum. While your attempts at chivalry are rather quaint, these women aren't/didn't ask for your help in defending them.
Gonna have to sign off now. Got a life to live, and friends and family to spend it with. Besides, I have a feeling you aren't going to understand this post any more than you have any others.
Give my regards to that next windmill you tilt at, would you Don Quixote? ;)
ETA: And here comes puravida moving up on the outside. Do I see 50%eggs joining in too? C'mon, it's a party!! Thanks again for the diversion :D
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No, you didn't miss anything.
You think it's OK for gostwyck to be offensive with one woman, or two..
so it's OK for me to be offensive to you , woman or otherwise.
You cannot play both sides of the fence.
Either both of us are wrong in being offensive or both of us are entitled to be offensive,
to man or woman, or the homo that gost calls me.
According to gost, I am both man and woman, so I am entitled to be offensive ...
ROFL.
Sorry, you missed my point. I will try once more because I have some time to waste with you today.
It isn't the "being offensive" I objected to in Lisa's post, or yours either. Offensive is a relative term anyway.
What I object to, is people pretending to be an authority on a subject they know nothing about. That goes for everyone and really has nothing to do with gender at all.
I am not offended by your tone. I can take it or I wouldn't be here. Same goes for Lisa4s, Stacey (who you keep alluding to), or anyone else on this forum. While your attempts at chivalry are rather quaint, these women aren't/didn't ask for your help in defending them.
Gonna have to sign off now. Got a life to live, and friends and family to spend it with. Besides, I have a feeling you aren't going to understand this post any more than you have any others.
Give my regards to that next windmill you tilt at, would you Don Quixote? ;)
ETA: And here comes puravida moving up on the outside. Do I see 50%eggs joining in too? C'mon, it's a party!! Thanks again for the diversion :D
I am not sure, maybe you should ask lisafx ;)
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Sorry, you missed my point. I will try once more because I have some time to waste with you today.
It isn't the "being offensive" I objected to in Lisa's post, or yours either. Offensive is a relative term anyway.
What I object to, is people pretending to be an authority on a subject they know nothing about. That goes for everyone and really has nothing to do with gender at all.
I am not offended by your tone. I can take it or I wouldn't be here. Same goes for Lisa4s, Stacey (who you keep alluding to), or anyone else on this forum. While your attempts at chivalry are rather quaint, these women aren't/didn't ask for your help in defending them.
Gonna have to sign off now. Got a life to live, and friends and family to spend it with. Besides, I have a feeling you aren't going to understand this post any more than you have any others.
Give my regards to that next windmill you tilt at, would you Don Quixote? ;)
ETA: And here comes puravida moving up on the outside. Do I see 50%eggs joining in too? C'mon, it's a party!! Thanks again for the diversion :D
Sure what ., we are the ones who don't have a life.
It's ironic. Everytime someone disagrees with you, and get their rearend lubed, they all come up with the ubitquitous empirical response, "get a life".
Come on, what, be a little more creative with your remarks.
After all, you are the one who is the expert and the one with the life...
;)
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ARGH.
I think that you are missing PB's point, and that was that the original "attack" was on this person who came from nowhere to spout off a whole lot of nonsense about something she clearly knew very little about. SHE is NOT making money on microstock because she is not (yet) participating in microstock.
I don't think PB was trying to draw lines of differentiation between the levels of contributor here, only between those who actually have real experience and knowledge of microstock, and those who clearly do not.
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ARGH.
I think that you are missing PB's point, and that was that the original "attack" was on this person who came from nowhere to spout off a whole lot of nonsense about something she clearly knew very little about. SHE is NOT making money on microstock because she is not (yet) participating in microstock.
I don't think PB was trying to draw lines of differentiation between the levels of contributor here, only between those who actually have real experience and knowledge of microstock, and those who clearly do not.
granted whatalife, c'est cool !
but that still does not entitle gostwyck to be obnoxious. and PB to mouth off to mention Stacey with equal exuberance, a la gostwyck.
still, i accept the consequence. it is a forum, i can take as much as i give.
so , let's get used to it, like it or not.
i don't have a life, i am not successful , so this is my only life, why not?
the irony to all this? the ones who insist we get a life is spending as much time over here as we are. ROFL...
look in the mirror ! what do you see ? same thing as you see in me .ROFL :D
:D
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Hell, at this point I'd just like to see one thread make it through a grown-up on-topic discussion without the mention of lubricant.
And they wonder why people won't take them or their opinions seriously.
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I am not sure, maybe you should ask lisafx ;)
Ask her what?
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ARGH.
I think that you are missing PB's point, and that was that the original "attack" was on this person who came from nowhere to spout off a whole lot of nonsense about something she clearly knew very little about. SHE is NOT making money on microstock because she is not (yet) participating in microstock.
I don't think PB was trying to draw lines of differentiation between the levels of contributor here, only between those who actually have real experience and knowledge of microstock, and those who clearly do not.
whatalife, good to hear from someone else other than all of us aforementioned.
my point is also missed. whether someone is active or inactive is moot.
we had oldhippy, OP, and many others who were disqualified simply because they are not with micro stock, or more directly, disagree with the culture of micro stock.
they came in here to "rant off" what they know squat.
so what?
is this not a forum? why can't they say what they want?
if it 's not a fact, or whatever, what's the big deal about letting them rant?
we can respond just as loudly to that.
but don't pick on anyone personally, to attack them .
we know by history, our good friend who is departed sadly , who was very verbose and loud
and nasty to many people here. but the big diff is that he was never personally obnoxious. he never attacked anyone directly AS A PERSON.
i can mention another very QUALIFIED AND SUCCESSFUL MICRO STOCK PERSONALITY here as well,
who has been just as loud and outspoken. He too have never attack anyone personally,
no matter how harsh his response.
that is the fine line that is not crossed. the fine line that crude old cranky gost crossed many times.
so PB finds it offensive to read about CRANKY OLD MAN WITH MALE MENOPAUSE.
well, PB can go to the disney site if she does not approve of it.
she could tell me the same, if i don 't approve of gost and his excessive estrogen antics.
but hey, i like to kick arse as much as the other person.
like it or not, i am here to stay. and if i read what offends me, i throw back an equally offensive remark. tit for tat. twit or *. male or female, it's all fair game.
someone before us laid the ground rules, we are merely playing by the same rules they play.
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Hell, at this point I'd just like to see one thread make it through a grown-up on-topic discussion without the mention of lubricant.
And they wonder why people won't take them or their opinions seriously.
and you take everything that gostwyck says seriously? ???
lol c'mon bud whatalife, you got to be kidding me , right? ;)
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is this not a forum? why can't they say what they want?
if it 's not a fact, or whatever, what's the big deal about letting them rant?
Sure this is a forum, but this person came in and managed to badly derail at least 2 threads by copying and pasting her same lengthy rant in multiple places, whether or not it was on topic where it was pasted. I would think this is against the rules of this forum.
I don't even know how Gostwyk got brought up in this thread. (and I can't bear to read back through 8 pages, mostly nonsense, to figure it out) The majority of the personal attacks I'm seeing are not coming from Gostwyk, and they certainly don't have anything to do with the topic of this thread as intended by the original poster.
I guess I would think that those who value this forum would be opposed to threads falling into mayhem as seems to be the trend of late. Nothing wrong with reasoned debate, even emotional debate if it at least sounds a little bit sane. The longer the stuff that has been going on continues, the more "professionals" we will have coming here to tell us what amateurish ignorant imbeciles we are. ... and from the impression being given to the outside world, it seems like a logical conclusion.
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Hell, at this point I'd just like to see one thread make it through a grown-up on-topic discussion without the mention of lubricant.
And they wonder why people won't take them or their opinions seriously.
and you take everything that gostwyck says seriously? ???
lol c'mon bud whatalife, you got to be kidding me , right? ;)
There has got to be some kind of serious disconnect for you to read what I wrote as some kind of endorsement of gostwyck. ::)
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Hell, at this point I'd just like to see one thread make it through a grown-up on-topic discussion without the mention of lubricant.
And they wonder why people won't take them or their opinions seriously.
and you take everything that gostwyck says seriously? ???
lol c'mon bud whatalife, you got to be kidding me , right? ;)
There has got to be some kind of serious disconnect for you to read what I wrote as some kind of endorsement of gostwyck. ::)
no, you are right. objectivity has been alluded from gostwyck's regular antics.
but i have to admit, your objective intervention makes good sense, right after i read the response to persius.
is this not a forum? why can't they say what they want?
if it 's not a fact, or whatever, what's the big deal about letting them rant?
Sure this is a forum, but this person came in and managed to badly derail at least 2 threads by copying and pasting her same lengthy rant in multiple places, whether or not it was on topic where it was pasted. I would think this is against the rules of this forum.
I don't even know how Gostwyk got brought up in this thread. (and I can't bear to read back through 8 pages, mostly nonsense, to figure it out) The majority of the personal attacks I'm seeing are not coming from Gostwyk, and they certainly don't have anything to do with the topic of this thread as intended by the original poster.
I guess I would think that those who value this forum would be opposed to threads falling into mayhem as seems to be the trend of late. Nothing wrong with reasoned debate, even emotional debate if it at least sounds a little bit sane. The longer the stuff that has been going on continues, the more "professionals" we will have coming here to tell us what amateurish ignorant imbeciles we are. ... and from the impression being given to the outside world, it seems like a logical conclusion.
ok, i too did not go back many pages to see that that person was not the OP of this post, and that she hijacked this thread.
good of you to intervene to point this out .
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So interesting I see war now between lisafx - PixelBytes and puravida -oblidihell. The rulers hier are not friends no more. Disagrement to insultive fighting worts.
Helarious to me to eye . Hohoho!
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Ho ho up ya $, whatever whoever you are. New member, huh?
did you resurrect yourself from dracula's tomb or what?
better buy a thesarus ..while you're at it. E bay's got a good bargain. don't you ever get a spellchecker? ::)
I am finished "hier" , if you want to know 8)