I think it goes back to the days when microstock was hugely profitable. Some of the people feeling down about the industry have seen huge reductions in their income because of te changes. Like you, I choose to be positive about the future and just keep working to improve and build my portfolios, but I understand why some people are negative about things now.

Take the good info here and try not to get caught up in the BS. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of stock photography.

I am wondering if the problem is we just haven't figured out where the puck is going to go, what is in demand and what will be in demand going forward, I know I don't have the answer yet, wish I did....if we come up with what is and what will be in demand going forward business could be good.

And bear in mind that when you're a newbie, starting from zero sales, every sale at any level is a wonderful thing.

Not so wonderful is "hitting the wall," after you've got several thousand images up on the stock sites, competing with scores of millions more, and you can't possibly create and upload enough to keep up with the ever-increasing number of new images going up every day/week/month/year. Inevitably, your sales (and your income) will begin to fall.

Enjoy your enthusiasm and optimism, Hongover. May the good times last for you!

I think the same people who were very bullish when things were going well are bear-ish when agencies are behaving badly towards contributors. Personal squabbles are just noise and they've always been around - tune that out.

Ignoring a negative track record, relying on the word of an agency and being much worse off as a result wouldn't seem to be a smart way to approach a new venture, even as a part time thing. Your enthusiasm and optimism will help you build a portfolio, but it's worth learning about the business you're embarking on.

Have the common sense to realize that you can't understand other people's reactions to a decade of experiences you haven't had.

Thanks for the insight Ann. I haven't been directly involved stock photography, but I been using it for over a decade now. I've used a SS subscription in the past so I do some indirect experience with it.

I think over the course of the last few years, I've download over 1000 images for various projects from Shutterstock and I've went through about 50,000-75,000 images to download those 1000 images. As someone who used a subscription, I'm really picky about what I wanted to download and that probably gave me the insight into the mindset of a downloader. A lot of work is being used for websites and apps now and if the composition doesn't fit the page I'm designing, I'm not even going to bother with it. Having a beautiful image is simply not enough...it has to be useful.

While I haven't been involved in Photography, my experience with the App Store has been similar. There's the Gold Rush era where even low quality product can earn good money. As the market matures and more people get into it, making money got harder and harder. As an app developer, I've seen my revenue fall steadily over the years. I'm making 25% of of what I used to make, and I've accepted the market for what it is. It pushed me to look to other channels to develop income and I think it's a good thing.

I believe there are always opportunities. It comes and goes. Stock Photography used to make a lot of money. Apps used to make a lot of money. Even with microstock, there are still opportunities to make good money.

Heh, heh.

Hey everybody good news!!! There's still opportunities to make good money!!! Hongover says so and he's had a whole few months experience as a contributor. Whew. What a relief.

There are opportunities even in Microstock if you've seen what I've seen. There are always emerging trends in microstock. When the iPad first came out, I was looking for well-composed photos of people holding iPads in different settings to use for websites. Guess what, there were none and this was months after it was released.

About 6 months later, it started to trickle in and now it's flooded. Now imagine if you were one of the first to take advantage of that situation. You would have made a killing because there was huge market demand for it.

You may think I'm inexperienced, and I don't care if you do. As a SS subscription user, I've seen a side of the business that many photographers have not. I buy your photos and I know what I want.

Back in the old days of 2007 I was an optimistic newcomer too. I'm still optimistic about photography but not microstock. Give it a year or so and we may see you here crying on avatar shoulders. Or like many maybe you'll give up and won't be back. Best of fortune to you.

Thanks Paul. I'll be here and if I'm not, it'll be for other reasons. I'm one of the resilient ones and I have more experience than most think I do.

It took me about 3 months to break the $500 threshold on SS and I think that's better than average. Things can only get better from there.

I got rejected over 10 times before I got into SS. I doubt I'll be giving up now that I'm in.

Enjoy your newby search engine bump

It took me about 3 months to break the $500 threshold on SS and I think that's better than average. Things can only get better from there.

Ok just to show you why we are not happy now.  You are happy breaking the threshold of $500 in 3 months in 2015-  These are the figures for my first month on SS in August 2006.  On the first of the month I had a handful of images up and by the end of the month a couple of hundred at most. Bear in mind that it was almost 100% sub sales as OD sales rarely happened then. My earnings 9 years later with thousands of images are not much more than double that. Maybe now you can see why we aren't optomistic.

There are opportunities even in Microstock if you've seen what I've seen. There are always emerging trends in microstock. When the iPad first came out, I was looking for well-composed photos of people holding iPads in different settings to use for websites. Guess what, there were none and this was months after it was released.

Hopefully this can help some of you improve your sales by producing images that fit what the market needs.

Gee, thanks.  We've all seen what you've seen.  You're not unveiling any secrets here or making any revelations.  You're just reveling in a bit of "ignorance is bliss" here.

I guarantee you, with the size of the crowd, and the experience "we" have, images of the Apple iPad were being uploaded (as editorial) within minutes of unwrapping.   Either you didn't know where to look, or you didn't realize the editorial restrictions.

Have the common sense to realize that you can't understand other people's reactions to a decade of experiences you haven't had.

What she said.

Some great advice here. Compose photos with copyspace, photograph the latest tech trends, get in early.

You should definitely write an ebook, it would be super helpful to have all the advise somewhere easy to reference. Looking forward to reading it, let us know when it's out!