MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: S. on March 11, 2007, 08:43
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there are reviewers on this forum? i've got some questions for them about it!
- it's a full time work? part time work? or you can dedicate to it a few hours per week?
- can a submitter be a reviewer at the same time?
- how can someone become a reviewer?
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CanStockPhoto are looking for reviewer(s) right now.
Here is the link:
http://www.canstockphoto.com/employment.php (http://www.canstockphoto.com/employment.php)
Good luck!!
Lana
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Quote CanStockPhoto "Depending on your weekly volume, you may receive up to 4 cents per image".
Wow - if you reviewed one image a minute...and maintained that pace, you would earn $2.4 per hour. Ouch!
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hehe, thanks! ;)
but i don't like Canstock.. it hasn't ftp, so i've got no images online (i hate html and java based upload system) ;)
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Wow, is that true? 4 cents a pop??? That explains why they have 'bad days'.
I think that if I owned or managed a micro agency, the reviewers would be some of my best paid 'salaried' and fulltime employees. I would think that these folks are the frontline bread & butter of your success. Your business would only be as good as what they approved or turned down. They should be highlly trained in the standards that you expect the customer to find in your agency's portfolio.
'Peice work" mentality in reviewing photos I think would be counter-productive. At the same time, I would expect that these well-paid reviewers would be aggressive in their review process.
But then that's only my humble opinion. Afterall, I know jack-squat about what goes on behind the scenes there.
8) -tom
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on reviewing...
personally, i think all reviewers should be designers, the folk that actually buy the images, they would know best what is needed and what is usable.
If that was the case I bet that SS wouldnt be so tough on noise.
(as a side note, i had gotten so used to reducing noise for SS that I was getting rejections from IS, who realize the true damage noise reduction does....hence now nothing gets NR and only when SS rejects it for noise do I run it through the filter, and only on their uploads, so in a sense, they are getting inferior quality shots compared to the other sites...)
As a photographer with mucho training i wouldnt even consider myself qualified to review stock, if approached by one of the agencys, i would be flattered but still wouldnt want to do it.
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on reviewing...
personally, i think all reviewers should be designers, the folk that actually buy the images, they would know best what is needed and what is usable.
Great point, Void!! 8) -tom
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on reviewing...
personally, i think all reviewers should be designers, the folk that actually buy the images, they would know best what is needed and what is usable.
While that might be true for buyers that are true designers, I believe that there is a large percentage of buyers that are not designers. They are just small businesses, mom-and-pop operations, churches, non-profits, people with websites, people looking to buy an image for a greeting card, etc. For those buyers, they need something that is quite the opposite: an image that is pretty much ready-to-go.
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- it's a full time work? part time work? or you can dedicate to it a few hours per week?
It depends on the site
- can a submitter be a reviewer at the same time?
Yes
- how can someone become a reviewer?
It also depends on the site. For example, when SS needed to add some reviewers, they asked for it in the forum section. For their last request a few months ago, you could email your application if you had more than 250 pictures (approved) in your portfolio.
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on reviewing...
personally, i think all reviewers should be designers, the folk that actually buy the images, they would know best what is needed and what is usable.
While that might be true for buyers that are true designers, I believe that there is a large percentage of buyers that are not designers. They are just small businesses, mom-and-pop operations, churches, non-profits, people with websites, people looking to buy an image for a greeting card, etc. For those buyers, they need something that is quite the opposite: an image that is pretty much ready-to-go.
in which case, the images would have already been gone through by the designer reviewers and as a result all would be ready to go...no?
Most deisgners I know have formal training in art, deisgn and composition, most photographers i know dont...and a random look through stock sites supports this observation.
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My understanding is that many designers look for an image that is isolated on a white background. This way they can take the element in the image and incorporate it into a design.
For example, take this image of an autumn leaf:
(http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2250731/2/istockphoto_2250731_maple_leaf_in_fall_colors_isolated_on_white_bg.jpg)
That type of image is in contrast to an image that does not need anything else, what I would call "ready-to-go". No design needed, no other elements, etc. A buyer can take the image and put it on their website, brochure, etc.
For example, take this image of the Lincoln Memorial and American Flag:
(http://thumb6.shutterstock.com/photos/display_pic_with_logo/60924/60924,1152186978,1.jpg)
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i think we are straying too far from the point geo......so off i go.....
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Go to SS and search for my thread called "A Day in the life of a reviewer"
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Go to SS and search for my thread called "A Day in the life of a reviewer"
argh, search functionality on SS forums has been temporarily disabled. ;) do you have a direct link?
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http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/abt10847-0-asc-0.html
found it!
now i'll go to read! ;)
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i've read only the first page for now (tomorrow i'll read some more)
i found it very hilarious... he is complining about EVERYTHING
if it's a true story:
1. he have to change his work, he obviously don't like his actual one
2. he's near a nervous breakdown
3. if strawberry, car-light, flower, whatever-bla-bla images sells well, why we don't have to submit them?? :)
4. last but not least: i would like to be in his shoes for 24hours and see if it's true everything he said! ;)
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i've read only the first page for now (tomorrow i'll read some more)
i found it very hilarious... he is complining about EVERYTHING
if it's a true story:
1. he have to change his work, he obviously don't like his actual one
2. he's near a nervous breakdown
3. if strawberry, car-light, flower, whatever-bla-bla images sells well, why we don't have to submit them?? :)
4. last but not least: i would like to be in his shoes for 24hours and see if it's true everything he said! ;)
It's more than true, she left off the bad stuff. Of the 70,000 or so submitters on all the RF sites 90% of them shoot the same same stuff, No concepts, no imagination. Quite depressing actually. The other 10% pay all the bills.
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The story is very true! The author of the original is a friend of mine as well, and I wrote the second one about my first couple of days as a reviewer. ;D
Reviewing is a great little gig, and I love my job, but there are days when I get batch after batch after batch of crappy photos all day long. 100's of them at a time. Rooftops, train tracks, stop lights, brick walls, boring boring subjects anyone can shoot. Today I rejected an entire batch of 100 photos for technical issues: noise, overexposure, clearly out of focus...ugh. It gets really frustrating sometimes, but then there are those days when I get to see the most amazing photos at 100%, where I can see all the detail and true artistry. In an instant, one great shot can alleviate the headache caused by hundreds of crappy shots.
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i've just read some other pages of that thread ;)
now i undertand what she means:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?searchterm=brick+wall+texture+red
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?searchterm=speedometer
I'll try to be more original in future! ;)
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As boring as some of those brick walls are, some of them could be quite useful as stock. I feel for the reviewers when they have to review boring subjects that are poorly executed(I'm sure I have had a few in that category ;D ) but boring subjects is the name of the game. That's not to say that there aren't many many creative and very talented stock photographers, it's just that the boring subjects is what sells. Some of my best sellers are isolations of stuff. Boring to look at, boring to shoot, but they sell.
Just my 2 cents...
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Gee, before I retired after 25 years doing the same thing day after day, I think I had days like that too.
If I were to take that lengthy post by the reviewer to heart, then I would have to say that person was looking for
some excitement in their job. Perhaps if the job were a little more challenging they would not be so cynical?
Yeah like: How about reviewing images while sky jumping in a parachute at the same time? Jumping out of a plane
would surely get the blood flowing.
It sounds to me as if the reviewer has seen every single type of image there is to photograph 100 times or more.
Truth be known we all get bored with our jobs. So what?! It's a fact of life. Move on.
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My portfolio also has its fair share of boring shots from my earlier days in microstock! 8) Cement walls, asphalt, swimming pool water...and sure, they do sell on occasion. But once I became a reviewer, I stopped taking those kinds of shots, because I saw the same images day after day and became acutely aware of the oversaturation of certain subjects. In an average day of reviewing (somewhere between 1000-1500 per day), at least 25% of the photos I see are poorly executed rooftops, lamp posts, electrical towers, brick walls, train tracks, doors and the like. Seriously. I can get excited over a simple rooftop or door, if the photo is executed well.
Being a reviewer isn't a "job" to me either, nor is it for the original author. It's just another aspect of our photography businesses, and a very rewarding one at that. I'm fortunate in that the company I'm contracted with allows interaction between the photographer and reviewer, so I actually get to help people one-on-one become better artists and contributors.
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Karimala, how on earth do you find time to review that many photos, give personal responses on each, and shoot?
P.S. Let me apologize in advance if you happen to get my latest submission(only a couple of images), I wanted to take one of them back but I can't. :(
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I do microstock for a living, so I have eight hours a day to get both jobs done. ;D
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karimala:
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Lets try this again:
K: No offense, and please don't take this personally, but isn't that a conflict of interest? I would think it would be.
Let's face it, in order to make $7.50 an hour (min wage) you would have to review 189 images a minute, or 3 images a second.
I think what's happening is uploads are being rejected or approved on maybe 1 sample per batch. Upload 50, 50 rejected or approved.
And we don't have to get into the turn-over rate for reviewers. That's why many micro-stockers are looking for other outlets for their work. Let's face it, with 1 million plus images on most sites, how many pages will a designer or consumer of these images look through?
Particularly when most of the keywords don't match the image. (that's a pet peeve with me, instead say 50 keywords, it should be limited to 7) In microstock, an image isn't worth a thousand words, rather, a single word may be worth a thousand images.
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...you would have to review 189 images a minute, or 3 images a second.
I think that your math is off a little.
1500 images/day = 187.5 images/hr (if we assume an 8 hour day) = 3.125 images/min = 1 image every 19.2 sec
If we use 1000 images/day, it turns out to be 1 image every 28.8 sec.
Still seems extremely fast for reviewing an image (especially since there is overhead for loading the image and approving/disapproving it), but at least it is more accurate.
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Well, let's see...I could chime in here since I've done 80-90k reviews at LuckyOliver. :)
We're lucky to have pasionate Bouncers on board (though I still do some reviewing). We see our Bouncers as a part of the community...so we encourage Bouncers to both submit and review- it really keeps us in touch with the whole process.
It just depends on the submissions. We have our own system that I won't get into- but an established photographer that has a proven record is going to be easier to review...we don't need to write a whole bunch...they already get it (but then it can be slow because it's also fun to admire the craftsmanship).
In the end it's not about trying to reject images- it's about helping people create better ones (yeah, yeah...I know, we're idealistic). Ultimately our technology will help filter images based on merit. We have a three tiered structure in which we can override any review, but we tend to trust the original gut call.
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Bryan, forgive me, but you don't have a clue about human nature.
Geopappas, are you from earth? that math doesn't work here.
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I think what's happening is uploads are being rejected or approved on maybe 1 sample per batch. Upload 50, 50 rejected or approved.
Ian - my personal opinion is there is nothing wrong with looking at 1 sample per batch. Have you ever submitted to Alamy? - as a point of reference, I had a batch of 94 refused because they didn't like 2 images. It's a fact of life. If you don't like it, try joining an agency like Getty or Corbis that painstakingly reviews and keywords every image for you (and refuses most of them). Did you know that the commission rate for Getty RF is only 15-20%? You get what you pay for (hidden costs actually).
I applaud Karimala for coming forward and telling folks she's a reviewer. There's a lot of risk involved with that. I reviewed for an agency for a while. That agency is no longer around and, in the end, I didn't see a red cent from my efforts reviewing - compensation was based on an increased commission percentage and in 6 months, I never got to payout and the agency folded. What people don't understand is the return is not in the money (unless you live in a country where the exchange rate is very low compared to the USD or the Euro), the return is in learning the business. I previously did some work for another agency, and the benefit was again learning the business. I've resigned that position because as you put it:
That's why many micro-stockers are looking for other outlets for their work.
It has nothing to do with how many images are online at the agency. What it has more to do is understanding your return on investment and the value of your time. Many get caught up in the argument of the micros vs. royalty free sales, vs rights managed sales. The fact of the matter is if you are able to produce the volume of Andresr, Photoshow, PhotoEuphoria, Forgiss, etc., etc. then Royalty Free is the way to go no matter if it is a traditional agency or a micro. If you can only produce a few hundred Royalty Free images a year, then your best bet is with a traditional agency selling rights managed in that you will get the same return on less efforts. If you get to know some Getty photographers or some photographers that are even contributing to Alamy, you'll hear they are are earning upwards of $50,000 per year on a partfolio of 250 images. Alamy will have 10 million online before the end of Spring. These are the folks that don't shoot the ordinary stuff like brick walls or women on cell phones and, if they submit nature images, they are on the level of Galen Rowell's work. They aren't the ordinary joe's of microstock like 90% of us (myself included).
A reviewer's job is thankless, but it's a stepping stone to greatness. Nothing more, nothing less.
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GeoPappas: It's me that's not from around here, you're right, approx 3 images per minute. Forgive my outburst.
Point being, why not pay them .25 an image? I think you'd get better service to the contributors and to the clients.
Let's face it, what's the finished work worth from the designer or client standpoint? I would, if I had my preferences, higher download cost to compensate reviewers properly so they can afford to get experience and make a living.
When I was a kid, I stacked #10 cans of tomato paste on pallets, 12 wide, 8 high, the cans came right off the line and were hot as he_l. Usually wore out two pair of fireproof gloves a shift. 8 hours with a break every 2 hours and 1/2 hour for lunch. A few years later, they got automatic pallet loaders after I bought the company.
That's just about the same job as a reviewer without the burnt hands. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, the process of reviewing cannot be automated. It's being tried due to the volume of input into the sites, and the reviewers are being burned just the same as I was when I was 15, not their hands, but their objectivity and creativity: to see something in nothing.
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I don't think there is a conflict of interest, and neither does the company where I am a reviewer. They also don't have a problem with me speaking up (just as long as I'm not revealing confidential company info!).
I used to be an editor at a local newspaper, and was also simultaneously a reporter. There isn't any difference between those roles and my new roles as a photographer and reviewer. I approach my role as a reviewer the same way I did with my role as an editor.
My interest is the same as both a photographer and reviewer...developing quality stock archives, whether that is with my photos or someone else's. I'm also interested in helping people learn to be better photographers, and passing on all the great things I've learned from other photographers who once helped me. In time, the other sites where I'm a contributor will benefit from the time I've spent helping all of these people through my reviews at the one site, because so many of them contribute to multiple sites.