MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: Sadstock on June 15, 2011, 19:42
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http://www.arcurs.com/yuri-arcurs-photography-is-looking-for-new-staff-members (http://www.arcurs.com/yuri-arcurs-photography-is-looking-for-new-staff-members)
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Wonder if that's a direct sales channel or he got funding to do an agency.
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Good for him. Got get em, Yuri!
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpK5IXhKr_A[/youtube]
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Good for him. I'm surprised he didn't open up a shop sooner to sell his images. It sounds like that he has been working on it for a while though. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with.
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What's the point of creating a new whatever for the 'YA Collection' when the entire thing is available on every site for $.25 - $500? :). Is he going to pull out of every site?
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What's the point of creating a new whatever for the 'YA Collection' when the entire thing is available on every site for $.25 - $500? :). Is he going to pull out of every site?
That would make the most sense. If you can get 100% of .25 - $500 and buyers can't get your photos anywhere else...
The trick is to not go broke attracting buyers.
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Good luck to him!! he deserves it, the guy is an inovator! always one step ahead.
See! thats the differance, he is out there, ajour, with todays happenings, while the rest of you just sit here scratching your bald heads :D
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I hope he will want our images for his site. Buyers are going to be much more interested if they can get everything they want there. Yuri is amazing but he can't cover everything.
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What's the point of creating a new whatever for the 'YA Collection' when the entire thing is available on every site for $.25 - $500? :). Is he going to pull out of every site?
That would make the most sense. If you can get 100% of .25 - $500 and buyers can't get your photos anywhere else...
The trick is to not go broke attracting buyers.
There's probably thousands of buyers already coming str8 to his port looking for images. So all he has to do is let them now that they could get in at a new place now (he can make a blog post at IS), he doesn't even have to say for less money. It would be great for him and for us. He'd make more while having to submit to a single site, no one will be able to screw him over with lowering royalties, while we get more action at stock agencies. I bet he'll get less sales, but get to keep 100% of it (minus expenses), so if he sells just over 50% he did he'll earn more and we get to split tens of thousands of DLs at big 4 agencies every month ;) . And who's to say he's going to sell them at micro prices at least all of them. He might just make a sort of the main SS like collection with 50k files and sell the very best, say 5% of his images at midstock prices.
I think he'll sell just his own images&videos. Why spoiling it with substandard work, having inspections, when ppl are going to be searching for HIS WORK. Ppl will want, simple, clear, highly commercial shots, not Elena's highly conceptual arty images;)
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This is bad news, sounds like even he doesn't really see much future in being on this side of crowdsourcing, and he is always been very scientific and right about these things.
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Good luck to him!! he deserves it, the guy is an inovator! always one step ahead.
I think your praise is a bit OTT, from what I've read all he's doing is setting up a site to sell direct to buyers - from what he's written in that link I'd hardly describe him as being an 'innovator' and 'one step ahead' , I and hundreds of others of stock photographers have been doing this for years, if anything I'm wondering why he's dragged his feet over this for so long, although I'm eager and intrigued to see what exactly the site does that has taken him 2.5 years to create, I'm no web designer but what can you do to a stock photo site that is so different to the others?
What I think this does show is that Yuri, like so many of us, has reached the level where the greed and incompetence of the major microstock sites has made him decide to try the direct selling route, I'm guessing the 2.5 years referred to is the time period he's been thinking about doing it but up until now it wasn't financially necessary. I wish him lots of luck, the 100% commission from a sale is very satisfactory!
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I doubt if he will pull out of the micros and I doubt if he will allow anyone else's work into the "YA collection".
It's very unlikely that he has the clout to pull 30%+ of buyers away from all the main micros just to buy his stuff at his site. If he dumped the micros and didn't pull in that percentage then he would lose heavily, particularly as he would incur advertising costs.
If he stays on the micros and direct-sells as well, then if he picks up 4 or 5% of his sales from his own site it would boost his earnings by 10 to 15%, which is a lot.
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Good luck to him!! he deserves it, the guy is an inovator! always one step ahead.
I think your praise is a bit OTT, from what I've read all he's doing is setting up a site to sell direct to buyers - from what he's written in that link I'd hardly describe him as being an 'innovator' and 'one step ahead' , I and hundreds of others of stock photographers have been doing this for years, if anything I'm wondering why he's dragged his feet over this for so long, although I'm eager and intrigued to see what exactly the site does that has taken him 2.5 years to create, I'm no web designer but what can you do to a stock photo site that is so different to the others?
What I think this does show is that Yuri, like so many of us, has reached the level where the greed and incompetence of the major microstock sites has made him decide to try the direct selling route, I'm guessing the 2.5 years referred to is the time period he's been thinking about doing it but up until now it wasn't financially necessary. I wish him lots of luck, the 100% commission from a sale is very satisfactory!
Yes! thats just it! I mean it doesnt take too much brain to figure out that eventually, these sites will kill off themselves, each other or be incorporated into some even more brainless umbrella and he is acting upon that, doing something.
Few years back I did the same thing within the Getty-RM (Stones), I stopped and handled myself, all my heavy industrial material, simply because with all the stuff, agencies they bought and other third-parties it would just become a joke, today Im bloody glad I did, just look at the mess. Had it been left and with the new contract it would probably have ended up as Micro, at TS, biggest corporate dustbin in existance.
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I think he intends for more than just selling his own images. Here is why:
- in his job ad he mentions vectors, although so far he is not really known for his vector skills
- he is building his own framework for the site
- he is hiring former agency employees
All this would be overkill if he only wanted to sell his 40000+ images (which is not really that much for a website) directly to customers.
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^^^It does look that way and I'm sure he knows that if he starts a rival site, the current sites wont like it but unlike most of us, removing his portfolio could really hurt them. It's going to be interesting to see how this pans out. He might have some ideas that none of us have thought of.
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^^^It does look that way and I'm sure he knows that if he starts a rival site, the current sites wont like it but unlike most of us, removing his portfolio could really hurt them.
If he pulls his portfolio from the 8000 sites it is on, I'll eat my hat.
It seems odd to try and cobble together a 3-4 month work from home freelance team, when you could probably go to a nearby development house and get another stock site created.
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maybe lobo will apply in the near future for a job as forum moderator : )
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Good for Yuri. Reading this it does look like he is going to run a traditional micro and use his brand to drive sales. However, I am betting that he will keep his stuff on other micros that's already there and then create an "Exclusive" Yuri collection for his site.
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Good for Yuri. Reading this it does look like he is going to run a traditional micro and use his brand to drive sales. However, I am betting that he will keep his stuff on other micros that's already there and then create an "Exclusive" Yuri collection for his site.
Indeed, he could leave old stuff there and upload his new exclusively from his new site. Though this doesn't make as much sense as pulling it down from other sites. Selling on his own site, while his content is still available elsewhere makes even less sense. Why would he even bother with his own site to get some lousy 5-10% from his site, while he'd have to spend a fortune for promoting his brand new site? And how would he promote it, if buyers could just as easily buy the content on the site where they are already registered, have unused credits, running subs etc. And how would he promote it, how would he try to lure people in if the photos are not going to be exclusive and if he won't sell content from other contributors? It doesn't make ANY sense from the business point of view, not to go through all that, making the site in house, hiring many people...And if he doesn't pull it from other sites, there's no way for him to raise prices, why would anyone want to spend more than on IS, where he has no A/V or even on a sub site, where content is almost free. I bet he'll pull all his content from other sites, have a micro collection, sell the best micro at midstock prices and sell his macro at macro prices.
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If he pulls his portfolio from the 8000 sites it is on, I'll eat my hat...
It does seem crazy. I always figured Yuri's end-game would be to shut down his production, let the employees go, and just sit back and let his images bring in residual income for the next 10 years. Sounds more like he intends to build a company to compete with the existing agencies that carry his work.
Which, if it were me doing it, would probably result in most agencies deleting my portfolios and cutting ties with me. But it's Yuri so who knows what the situation is and what his plans are regarding his future dealings with stock agencies.
Yuri knows the business better than most people, so he has to know that he can't just go out there and try to make another SS or istock or whatever. If he takes on other contributors, I'm guessing he'll have pretty high standards for who he works with. And he'll need to offer buyers something other than just his own images. He'll need some sort of unique angle to attract buyers.
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maybe lobo will apply in the near future for a job as forum moderator : )
And Peebert could come back from retirement to do public relations. ;D
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He has a background as a computer programmer geek. Why do you think he is thinking logic and economy, and not just; "I want my site to have the best code ever written, just because I can"?
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Why would he even bother with his own site to get some lousy 5-10% from his site, while he'd have to spend a fortune for promoting his brand new site?
Because 5-10% could add up to $100,000 a year or more. He might be able to get that on top of his existing income just by techniques such as social networking. It's a low risk strategy with a high probability of significantly boosting his bottom line.
If he pulls out of everywhere else, he immediately slashes his earnings and simultaneously has to find a massive advertising budget to try to draw people into his site. To me, that doesn't even look like a high risk strategy, it's just suicidal.
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This will be very interesting to watch.
Yuri has enough income to create a really interesting stock site. I doubt he will pull his images from the other sites, that is excellent advertisement. But he could start to offer all new images on his own site first and then only send them to the agencies after 6 months or so. This will create an incentive for buyers to sign up to his site and check regularly for new uploads. They could then buy "fresh hot images" that are not yet on the other agencies. He can also offer his own "exclusive" collection for more specialized images or for RM.
There is a lot you can do with your own site, but you have to produce enough images to make it interesting. Only the top players in the industry have the quality, image volume and income stream to do this.
My personal guess is he will offer more interesting tools for the buyers. There is a lot missing to make it even easier for the non web designer customer/ office worker to use images.
Interesting times. Competition is good and will keep all the agencies on their toes.
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There is a lot you can do with your own site, but you have to produce enough images to make it interesting. Only the top players in the industry have the quality, image volume and income stream to do this.
Yes, the rest of us could never figure it out. Whatever you do don't click on mine or other poster's signatures. ;D
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I should have added to do it with high income. i was thinking of a site where you invest in your own worldwide advertising, place ads, work with sales people, add new software tools for customers etc...
Obviously anyone can sell from their own site, but to attract thousands of buyers you will need the volume.
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I should have added to do it with high income. i was thinking of a site where you invest in your own worldwide advertising, place ads, work with sales people, add new software tools for customers etc...
Obviously anyone can sell from their own site, but to attract thousands of buyers you will need the volume.
Of course, you are welcome to share the secrets of your million dollar a month business ;-)
I'm trying a kinder gentler me, but sometimes the smart @$$ still sneaks out. ;) Anyway, I'd say it's relative. Increasing my revenue x% a month by opening my own site is a lot different than someone like Yuri increasing his by the same x%. My goal wasn't to make a multi-million dollar operation anyway. It was to actually get paid for all the work I've already put into my stock library. Something more sustainable than having to create thousands of images a year just to maintain the same income. Besides, my stock site is better than Yuri's because it actually exists. ;D
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The name of the game for Yuri is "more channels". Every buyer could go to one site, but they don't. He can very likely create a market for his site, especially if hold holds out "premium" content for exclusive sale at his site. He could also have much more direct feedback from prospective buyers as to what they are searching for and how it's used. That's a problem with microstock- it's hard to get real time data on what people are looking for, and if they are finding it. The downside is the cost of driving traffic to his site, but Yuri is a master of self promotion, so I'm sure he's got plans for that. Good for him, I wish him well.
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Yuri will take contributors to his site, no doubt about it. He may not plan to initially, but he'll soon see the benefit.
The timing of his commitment to the project is depressing, however. I believe it confirms Yuri's agreement with what many of us have feared about the future of iStock.
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Why do you think that this would affect istock?
In the end this will just be another microstocksite and at least for now the content is not exclusive or in any way special to what the other agencies have. istock also has the added benefit of the Getty umbrella to move content around.
It will take years to draw in the buyers and create a solid plattform, if he wants to do more than just sell his own content.
If Flickr started a stocksite...that would worry me. But with Yuri I see no danger for istock. Maybe for the smaller agencies that depend heavily on his content.
Still, it will be very interesting to see what he does.
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maybe lobo will apply in the near future for a job as forum moderator : )
And Peebert could come back from retirement to do public relations. ;D
LOL. Yes. A definite recipe for success.
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guys you are all thinking too much, he isnīt going to open an agency or such.. he is creating the most awesome blog to share, to post videos, to get us occupied while he is shooting 3000 frames per day ;D
seriously thatīs what he is planning to do and I canīt wait to hear from all that bombastic lights and glitter :o
Yuri will save us all from stockruptcy, only exclusives at IS will be ignored (ok one or two will do it, his hometown guys)
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guys you are all thinking too much, he isnīt going to open an agency or such.. he is creating the most awesome blog to share, to post videos, to get us occupied while he is shooting 3000 frames per day ;D
seriously thatīs what he is planning to do and I canīt wait to hear from all that bombastic lights and glitter :o
Yuri will save us all from stockruptcy, only exclusives at IS will be ignored (ok one or two will do it, his hometown guys)
Can I have some of whatever you're smoking?
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guys you are all thinking too much, he isnīt going to open an agency or such.. he is creating the most awesome blog to share, to post videos, to get us occupied while he is shooting 3000 frames per day ;D
seriously thatīs what he is planning to do and I canīt wait to hear from all that bombastic lights and glitter :o
Yuri will save us all from stockruptcy, only exclusives at IS will be ignored (ok one or two will do it, his hometown guys)
Can I have some of whatever you're smoking?
Must be some weed soaked in vodka and then dried out ;)
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Why do you think that this would affect istock?
In the end this will just be another microstocksite and at least for now the content is not exclusive or in any way special to what the other agencies have. istock also has the added benefit of the Getty umbrella to move content around.
It will take years to draw in the buyers and create a solid plattform, if he wants to do more than just sell his own content.
If Flickr started a stocksite...that would worry me. But with Yuri I see no danger for istock. Maybe for the smaller agencies that depend heavily on his content.
Still, it will be very interesting to see what he does.
Until it's launched, none of us have a clue how this could affect the other sites. If it's just another microstock site or a site just to sell his own images, it's not going to have a huge impact but there's always the possibility that he has come up with something a bit different.
I'm sure if someone comes up with a better option for buying and selling microstock images, there will be a big impact on the current sites. Yuri is a smart business person who probably knows more about microstock than all of us here, so I wouldn't be too surprised if he came up with something special.
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Him coming up with a new type of licence that wouldn't give such broad right to the buyers as RF would sure be nice. And that licence being spread around and adopted by all agencies;). At least something should be done for us to get more ELs. Lower print run limits, items for resale quotas etc and it's absurd to me that a buyer can put a photo he payed 10$ for on a billboard, or even magazine/book cover. Sticking to RF, but tightening up when it comes to ELs would be a good start ;)
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Yuri will take contributors to his site, no doubt about it. He may not plan to initially, but he'll soon see the benefit.
The timing of his commitment to the project is depressing, however. I believe it confirms Yuri's agreement with what many of us have feared about the future of iStock.
I suspect he would not. I would say he will prefer contracting photographer's to wok for him on assignement and retaining copyright of their works.
On the other hand, when you contract la crčme de la crčme of developpers, analysts, etc, you'll never have a 100% benefit, you have to pay a lot in wages, promotion etc.
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He's already trying to promote it: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874)
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He's already trying to promote it: [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874[/url])
Hmmm.... using iStock's forums to promote a rival. No doubt he'll be booted off iStock once Lobo notices the post...
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He's already trying to promote it: [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329282&messageid=6410874[/url])
Hmmm.... using iStock's forums to promote a rival. No doubt he'll be booted off iStock once Lobo notices the post...
Or Lobo will get booted for doing it. I mean c'mon, who's more important to IS ;)
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It looks to me from that comment that Yuri's site is just going to be for his portfolio. I presume it would be a bit risky to announce that he's working on a rival site in the istock forum but they aren't going to mind so much if it's just for his portfolio?
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They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will DT and SS, for good business reasons.
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They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will Dreamstime and Shutterstock, for good business reasons.
I see no logic whatsoever in that. It's just another agency he's selling images at. And obviously he's not exclusive (no grounds to throw him out, not that they really need them). And why would they want to loose millions (IS at least)? Illogical from every angle you look at it.
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They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will Dreamstime and Shutterstock, for good business reasons.
I see no logic whatsoever in that. It's just another agency he's selling images at. And obviously he's not exclusive (no grounds to throw him out, not that they really need them). And why would they want to loose millions (IS at least)? Illogical from every angle you look at it.
It's perfectly logical. Why would you want to be funding the same guy whose goal is to take away your customers?
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They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will Dreamstime and Shutterstock, for good business reasons.
I see no logic whatsoever in that. It's just another agency he's selling images at. And obviously he's not exclusive (no grounds to throw him out, not that they really need them). And why would they want to loose millions (IS at least)? Illogical from every angle you look at it.
It's perfectly logical. Why would you want to be funding the same guy whose goal is to take away your customers?
funding?? : O They are making money on his work, taking most of the sale value. Taking away customers? He's already got files (and a lot-lot more files) on sale cheaper elsewhere than IS f.e. Does he want to make the most money with his shots? Yep. Would he want buyers to go to the palce where he gets the most money for his shots? Yep. Did competing sites advertize themselves with his shots already? Yes. Did all of that ever get the buyers to go to just one certain place? Nope.
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They won't mind him direct selling his own work but if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out. So will Dreamstime and Shutterstock, for good business reasons.
I see no logic whatsoever in that. It's just another agency he's selling images at. And obviously he's not exclusive (no grounds to throw him out, not that they really need them). And why would they want to loose millions (IS at least)? Illogical from every angle you look at it.
It's perfectly logical. Why would you want to be funding the same guy whose goal is to take away your customers?
Exactly, we're on the same page;)
funding?? : O They are making money on his work, taking most of the sale value. Taking away customers? He's already got files (and a lot-lot more files) on sale cheaper elsewhere than IS f.e. Does he want to make the most money with his shots? Yep. Would he want buyers to go to the palce where he gets the most money for his shots? Yep. Did competing sites advertize themselves with his shots already? Yes. Did all of that ever get the buyers to go to just one certain place? Nope.
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You seemed to miss the part about "if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out" in the statement, which implies drawing in other contributors to directly compete and take business from existing agencies.
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run out of weed.. actually I feel kind of lost now ;D
Yuri on PNG! he forgot to say that on that video no way..
"here we have everything, that picture you want, the small video you wonīt notice on tv and now even the PNG for your business presentations" ;D
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Re. Sean Locke's comment...
Yes, selling his own work is one thing but trying to set up a full-scale agency is something else altogether.
A new Yuri Arcurs agency that was having to meet all its costs itself would probably struggle to survive and, if it did, would take many years to become a major threat to the others. However, if he was being paid a million bucks a year by his rivals that money could subsidise rapid development of the new agency. making it a threat to the main players much more quickly.
It's basic common sense for the established sites to stop funding him if he tries to challenge their business model.
I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies. If he pulled out of iStock tomorrow I'd bet that 90% of his sales would simply transfer to other black diamonds/diamonds. Isn't he just shooting the same stuff as most of the rest of them?
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You seemed to miss the part about "if he sets up an agency in direct competition to iStock then they will throw him out" in the statement, which implies drawing in other contributors to directly compete and take business from existing agencies.
so? the same applies...
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I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies. If he pulled out of iStock tomorrow I'd bet that 90% of his sales would simply transfer to other black diamonds/diamonds. Isn't he just shooting the same stuff as most of the rest of them?
Laflor will have the time of his life! ;D
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If he pulled out of iStock tomorrow I'd bet that 90% of his sales would simply transfer to other black diamonds/diamonds. Isn't he just shooting the same stuff as most of the rest of them?
I think only Lise stands out (or better said has significantly different style of shooting is far more creative etc), most of the rest do the same, some (those that made most of their sales before 2008 and still mostly sell those bestsellers) just don't meet his quality.
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I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies.
You've hit the nail on the head, it always makes me (and I'm sure Yuri himself) laugh when I see someone comment about how this or that site would react if Yuri did a certain something or other.
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we are all talking a lot and know "little/nothing" but it sure looks like he is planning something which might be an agency which he talked about at IS forum
imagine if he goes that way and plan to include contributors.. what would he pay? 50%? everything around that will make other agencies quite upset.. no? that it just the competition right? I am saying this because I think the majority will join his agency and perhaps with his will and success it might be big after some time/years, IS ainīt that old and as some say here and there sales arenīt raising and buyers arenīt that happy too, not going to talk about contributors
other agencies wonīt notice at first but for sure they will be "afraid".. or am I hallucinating??
gotta leave that cheap weed 8)
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imagine if he goes that way and plan to include contributors.. what would he pay? 50%?
Why would you think that? You've never seen him champion "your" rights for higher royalties. He's about making money which is why you all love his business model, so he would probably not pay more than he has to.
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sorry... I love his business? show me where I said that..
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Why don't we wait and see if this is a site just for him before we start arguing over how much commission he should pay us :)
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Why don't we wait and see if this is a site just for him before we start arguing over how much commission he should pay us :)
donīt ruin the fun and place a bet ;D
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sorry... I love his business? show me where I said that..
Royal "you".
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sorry... I love his business? show me where I said that..
Royal "you".
ah ok! now more serious why do you think he posted that on the forum? sometimes we talk too much.. ;D
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Businessman Yuri posts when it benefits his business. Nice guy, but doesn't chitchat for fun.
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I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies.
You've hit the nail on the head, it always makes me (and I'm sure Yuri himself) laugh when I see someone comment about how this or that site would react if Yuri did a certain something or other.
+1 ... Yuri got something like a symbol or idol for many photographers but he is a) not the only one with huge success and b) contributing just a veeery little percentage of the whole database of a big agency...as such, in the perception of us comparing ourselves with him as individuals he is a monster of success, but in the whole image of the stock business world he is a tiny fraction as many others...even if he contributes the same volume as 10 other fulltimers (40000 pics to 4000) it is not a huge deal.
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I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies.
You've hit the nail on the head, it always makes me (and I'm sure Yuri himself) laugh when I see someone comment about how this or that site would react if Yuri did a certain something or other.
+1 ... Yuri got something like a symbol or idol for many photographers but he is a) not the only one with huge success and b) contributing just a veeery little percentage of the whole database of a big agency...as such, in the perception of us comparing ourselves with him as individuals he is a monster of success, but in the whole image of the stock business world he is a tiny fraction as many others...even if he contributes the same volume as 10 other fulltimers (40000 pics to 4000) it is not a huge deal.
I think one of the things Yuri has gotten right is the realization that the world of stock is rapidly becoming about "content flow" rather than just static content. In much the same way that other media companies have to continually refresh content, a lot of the stuff that seemed so great 5 years ago is starting to look a little dated. In another 5 years it will look like an archival collection. Yuri has the resources to be on top of new looks, styles and concepts, as well as new media like video, which is going to be the big market of the future. And, it's a whole lot harder to make it work. He can recycle best selling concepts with current fashions and environments. A great deal of the "volume" in microstock today results from the inability of contributors to only submit the best shots from a shoot, instead of every image that was in focus. Thus the huge amount of new content that sinks to the bottom of the sludge pile. Yuri may have a small footprint in numbers, but it's an outsized footprint in quality, IMHO.
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Jeez! if IS, would throw him out, they lose half their value ( well almost), reputation and credibillity, revenue, etc, etc. I think under the circumbstances they better treat him with silk-gloves, he has got followers! and at the moment the Getty/IS constellation is suffering from the change of life, I dont think they can afford any more ill repute.
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exactly my opinion - there would be a lot of talk in the press and such. That would be good advertising to begin with - good for him, bad for others. In no time many buyers would know that he had his images on his own site. So they would at least have a look. If the site is good, they might stay there. And thatīs the importance of Yuri for the agencies. While many of his countrymen (some of them even shared his studio it seems) might stay exclusive on istock, they may as well follow him to his new agency. And then the whole "Yuri-Style" might move. Lise has great images, no doubt, so has Sean and others, but sometimes people are looking for a certain style and there arenīt really many people with that style who are not to some extent related to Yuri.
And Iīm not sure if Yuri does that all for business purposes - of course he is a clever businessman - but he also loves what he is doing plus he loves the success, plus he loves the publicity (just look at the videos he is doing - either he is a great actor, or he just loves his work/achievement - well, and has every right to do so). He might do that just for the fun of it, or perhaps to show some agencies that he doesnīt swallow all of their moves. The "announcment" seems to come at a very certain time. And - it seems he can afford it. He could easily retire by now.
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Jeez! if IS, would throw him out, they lose half their value ( well almost), reputation and credibillity, revenue, etc, etc. I think under the circumbstances they better treat him with silk-gloves, he has got followers! and at the moment the Getty/IS constellation is suffering from the change of life, I dont think they can afford any more ill repute.
Lol! Another couple of people caught up in the cult of Yuri! Didn't iStock say that it pays out at least a couple of million dollars a week? Yet Yuri's iStock sales total shows he can't have earned that much in the five or six years he has been there, let alone be taking more than $1million a week. So if he quit AND took all his sales with him, it would still only cost iStock a fraction of one percent of their total business. How do you square perhaps 0.1% of sales with almost half the company's value? And the impact on their credibility and reputation etc would be about the same at the impact on their bottom line.
As far as I can tell (and I don't really pay any attention to what he does because I operate in a completely different market) Yuri has identified the biggest selling sector of stock, analysed exactly what it is that makes pictures in that genre desirable, and churns it out in huge quantities and at a quality level that is at least as good as anyone else's, while relentlessly promoting himself. It's a brilliant strategy but it's not one intended to produce anything particularly unique or irreplaceable.
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Jeez! if IS, would throw him out, they lose half their value ( well almost), reputation and credibillity, revenue, etc, etc. I think under the circumbstances they better treat him with silk-gloves, he has got followers! and at the moment the Getty/IS constellation is suffering from the change of life, I dont think they can afford any more ill repute.
Lol! Another couple of people caught up in the cult of Yuri! Didn't iStock say that it pays out at least a couple of million dollars a week? Yet Yuri's iStock sales total shows he can't have earned that much in the five or six years he has been there, let alone be taking more than $1million a week. So if he quit AND took all his sales with him, it would still only cost iStock a fraction of one percent of their total business. How do you square perhaps 0.1% of sales with almost half the company's value? And the impact on their credibility and reputation etc would be about the same at the impact on their bottom line.
As far as I can tell (and I don't really pay any attention to what he does because I operate in a completely different market) Yuri has identified the biggest selling sector of stock, analysed exactly what it is that makes pictures in that genre desirable, and churns it out in huge quantities and at a quality level that is at least as good as anyone else's, while relentlessly promoting himself. It's a brilliant strategy but it's not one intended to produce anything particularly unique or irreplaceable.
Yes but its not just a question of money, is it? as nataq, above says, its the reputation, doesnt look too good, does it, to part or even make an enemy of the worlds most prolific photographer?
Besides, I dont see why his new venture in any way would hurt IS, and in Gettys case, well if you live by the sword, you have to suffer the sword, simple as that really.
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As far as I can tell (and I don't really pay any attention to what he does because I operate in a completely different market) Yuri has identified the biggest selling sector of stock, analysed exactly what it is that makes pictures in that genre desirable, and churns it out in huge quantities and at a quality level that is at least as good as anyone else's, while relentlessly promoting himself. It's a brilliant strategy but it's not one intended to produce anything particularly unique or irreplaceable.
Iīm usually not the cult type of guy, but Iīm also not envious. I respect people - especially if they achieve something I havenīt. No matter if itīs because of talent, effort or whatever.
In regard to quality: he is shooting with some of the best equipment available. Sure equipment alone doesnīt make a good picture, but at least it adds to the quality youīd have to admit. So I honestly think his work is better than most others (not all). One element would be flash recycle times - if you can shoot multiple frames (per sec) when shooting with models you might much more easily get the right timing than shooting one every 2-3 seconds. Using professional models too adds to the quite long list, so does knowing the market and competition.
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I think people also wildly over-estimate Yuri's importance to the agencies.
You've hit the nail on the head, it always makes me (and I'm sure Yuri himself) laugh when I see someone comment about how this or that site would react if Yuri did a certain something or other.
I'm very far from being an Arcurs groupie, like some people I know that are on the verge of considering his poop a "sacred relic" ;D but if his importance to the agencies he's in is probably less impressive than most people think it is, there's the fact that he still impacts a lot of the contributors that supply the agencies.
I have no idea about what Arcurs plans are - and don't care much abut them either - but him setting up an agency with all the influence and credit he has among other contributors could in fact impact the agencies.
He's in a position in this business that no one matches. The proof of it is that for many years I've read countless appeals to him to set up an agency, to make a stand against falling commissions, etc. Can you name any other individual micro contributor that has had those generalized personal appeals? I can't...
So, his influence is actually not on the agencies, it's in the base of the agencies it's contributors, whom well organized could seriously damage - not to even to say destroy - some of the agencies in the current business model of regular falling commission rates with fraudulent and dishonest arguments.
I still think there's more than room for a well managed and well funded major micro agency that pays their contributors at least 50% of the sale. For example, Alamy (a Traditional agency) pays 60% to contributors, gives away millions for cancer research every year and still keeps profitable. The famous "unsustainable" argument of iStock and other copy-cats to reduce commissions is simply fraudulent.
And Arcurs is the only one in the position to create such agency and mobilize a huge amount of contributors, especially after all the start-up failures we've been seeing in the last years which undermined contributors confidence. The question is, is he interested in managing a bag full of cats like micro contributors are :) and make his reputation a little more fragile?
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While I think Yuri will take on contributors, my hunch would be that it's going to be invitation only. Top talent that can expand the range on offer. I certainly don't think he'll play by the established "rules" of the business - it's time to innovate. That said, it's anything but clear whether he has the vision to succeed. His announcement, on second look, has holes you could drive a truck through. Namely, you don't attract the best professionals on a freelance and part-time basis.
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While I think Yuri will take on contributors, my hunch would be that it's going to be invitation only. Top talent that can expand the range on offer. I certainly don't think he'll play by the established "rules" of the business - it's time to innovate. That said, it's anything but clear whether he has the vision to succeed. His announcement, on second look, has holes you could drive a truck through. Namely, you don't attract the best professionals on a freelance and part-time basis.
Will it be a factor of who has the best isolated tomato or apple on white? ;D
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Jeez! if IS, would throw him out, they lose half their value ( well almost), reputation and credibillity, revenue, etc, etc. I think under the circumbstances they better treat him with silk-gloves, he has got followers! and at the moment the Getty/IS constellation is suffering from the change of life, I dont think they can afford any more ill repute.
I'm surprised to hear that from you. This would be seen as just doing business sensibly, and truly, the gap would be filled in by others (not really my style). I was just looking at his companies recent IS uploads, and it's all just businessmen on the bright backgrounds with computers and stuff. Someone else said that maybe his new business model is just churning out recycles of old content to keep it fresh. Maybe.
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The Guys a Genus and him walking out of Isock if it ever happened would be the last thing they would need right now.
Nobody does it better ..... a tad Jealously out there perhaps ;)
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For istock, losing Yuri would mean losing 8000 (out of seven milion or so) files. There are other factories, exclusives, that have much more files and can upload much more weeky. Similar style. While Yuri produces nice and very stock oriented work, I think that should he open a new agency with outside contributors, he wouldn't last at IS.
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You may all be surprised.
I am willing to bet our dear Sean makes more money then him (NET!).
His worthyness to the varius MS sites is highly overated (with all due respect to YA).
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You may all be surprised.
I am willing to bet our dear Sean makes more money then him (NET!).
His worthyness to the varius MS sites is highly overated (with all due respect to YA).
thatīs just going WAY OT :P
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Very interesting. Go Yuri!
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You may all be surprised.
I am willing to bet our dear Sean makes more money then him (NET!).
His worthyness to the varius MS sites is highly overated (with all due respect to YA).
Indeed, Yuri has 50 employees, 4 studios (if I'm not mistaken), he's a factory. Although he makes so much more in royalties, he has expenses that dozens of times bigger than Sean's. Those are 2 totally different approaches to stock, although results are almost identical (not just in terms of quality but also in the looks of the photos, I could never tell the difference if they used new models).
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The Guys a Genus and him walking out of Isock if it ever happened would be the last thing they would need right now.
Nobody does it better ..... a tad Jealously out there perhaps ;)
He is a genius, but primarily a business genius, not a photographic genius. He's outstanding at what he does but his photography is not original in any way. What is original is the way he has analysed stock photogaph and turned the production of high=value photos into a science. He's the Henry Ford of microstock. He didn't invent the motor car, he invented high-volume production of a very basic but extremely usable product and marketed it brilliantly.
I might be a bit jealous of his youth, energy and self-confidence but not of his pictures, business or earnings.
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You may all be surprised.
I am willing to bet our dear Sean makes more money then him (NET!)...
Love to start my week with a good laugh. Thanks for that. :)
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You may all be surprised.
I am willing to bet our dear Sean makes more money then him (NET!)...
Love to start my week with a good laugh. Thanks for that. :)
He's talking about net. Yuri has so much expenses (50 employees, 4 studios etc) that I really doubt he makes as much profit as Sean. His overall earnings are of course much, much higher, perhaps even 10 times higher (don't forget macros and he makes or at least did make most on FT),
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You may all be surprised.
I am willing to bet our dear Sean makes more money then him (NET!)...
Love to start my week with a good laugh. Thanks for that. :)
He's talking about net. Yuri has so much expenses (50 employees, 4 studios etc) that I really doubt he makes as much profit as Sean. His overall earnings are of course much, much higher, perhaps even 10 times higher (don't forget macros and he makes or at least did make most on Fotolia),
Thanks for saving me the trouble. Bot everyody knows the difference between income and profit :)
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While I think Yuri will take on contributors, my hunch would be that it's going to be invitation only. Top talent that can expand the range on offer. I certainly don't think he'll play by the established "rules" of the business - it's time to innovate. That said, it's anything but clear whether he has the vision to succeed. His announcement, on second look, has holes you could drive a truck through. Namely, you don't attract the best professionals on a freelance and part-time basis.
Will it be a factor of who has the best isolated tomato or apple on white? ;D
I was just working on the perfect cheeseburger and investing in some fake ice cubes for perfect cocktails. Now you've ruined my whole master plan by exposing the new improved best isolations of overdone subjects. :D I was just dreaming of the cheeseburger PNG that would let me retire and work on every variety and color of tomato sliced and diced. ;)
What's missing from this thread is unsustainable if Yuri leaves, some of the agencies will be approaching this reality. People can try to rationalize how unimportant one contributor is, but the fact if the matter is, he's also the best selling and brings in the largest percentage of profit for the agencies. If you were in business selling anything and your largest profit source left or stopped buying from you, it's going to hurt. No way around it.
What I'd like to see? Yuri drops all outside agencies and goes interdependent. Let the shoestring agencies that survive on his sales, go away, so we can have stronger, solid, reliable agencies. Then of course the biggest problem for me personally is the race to the bottom, to pay the lowest commissions and sell for the lowest prices, because of the FBN agencies, competing on price alone. If they go away, maybe the big ones will raise licenses to something respectable.
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I was talking today to a bigtime microstocker and he said Yuri was talking already last year (on a MS convention or whatever it was called organized by IS, if I'm not mistaken in Ireland) about going going completely RM. Of course he can't sell his old stuff as RM, but according to that all the work from now on will be RM. So he could pull all his stuff from the sites and sell it in the RF section of the site, or leave it there and enjoy his slowly decreasing MS earnings for many years to come.
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Sigh... Of course he could sell it RM (but let's not start that one ;) ).
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Indeed, you best keep your fingers crossed, so you can take a piece of the action when he's gone;)
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jbarber873 said it right.
Having had the opportunity to work with Yuri in the past on one of our photo sites, I can honestly say every single image was perfection. Great composition and quality.
Yuri has such a huge client base that even if he did pull out from every agency, he would succeed. His clients know him and would follow to support him, even if it meant paying more per image.
Good for Yuri and I hope he makes even a bigger mark in this industry than he already has.
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Yuri has such a huge client base that even if he did pull out from every agency, he would succeed. His clients know him and would follow to support him, even if it meant paying more per image.
Unfortunately, training quite a few people to do exactly what he does, pretty much guarantees that buyers will still find what they are looking for where they currently shop.
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Yuri has such a huge client base that even if he did pull out from every agency, he would succeed. His clients know him and would follow to support him, even if it meant paying more per image.
Unfortunately, training quite a few people to do exactly what he does, pretty much guarantees that buyers will still find what they are looking for where they currently shop.
Perhaps he'll rehire them and surely they can make more being exclusive at his agency, than from the pathetic percentage IS pays;) (I've heard of only one of his ex assistants and he's at IS)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
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Unfortunately, there are a few folks that are jealous of Yuri, mostly I sense from some upper echelon exclusives that are probably bitter that he has flown by them as an independent with only a portion of his portfolio. These folks are quite obvious in that they will try to knock everything that he does.
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Lol, don't try to read too much into other people's posts... :)
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Unfortunately, there are a few folks that are jealous of Yuri, mostly I sense from some upper echelon exclusives that are probably bitter that he has flown by them as an independent with only a portion of his portfolio. These folks are quite obvious in that they will try to knock everything that he does.
Yeah they always make me laugh, they're so pathetic! ;D
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
It is compared to a fair 60% (like on Alamy for instance). That's a 50% jump in earnings!
BTW, how do you know he's getting 40% anyway? Because he said so in the forums? :)
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Well at least there's 1 thing Yuri can't lay claim to, I'm sure his Blog is not the top Google search result for 'istockphoto pricing filter' ;D
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Yeah, well, you've got to throw me that bone, at least. ;)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
It is compared to a fair 60% (like on Alamy for instance). That's a 50% jump in earnings!
BTW, how do you know he's getting 40% anyway? Because he said so in the forums? :)
In life some of your neighbors will always have a greener grass then yours.
I find 40% fair, but I don't really care about percentage since my bank doesn't accept percentage as a deposit. They do accept dollars though.
Look at how everybody loves SS and they don't even know what percentage they pay...
I would take 5% of 1,000,000 over 100% of 10,000$ any day.
Regarding Laflor. I don't need him to tell me he is in the 40% range. he has ~7,000 downloads a month which means ~700,000 RC's a year.
Slowly catching up to Sean :)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
It is compared to a fair 60% (like on Alamy for instance). That's a 50% jump in earnings!
BTW, how do you know he's getting 40% anyway? Because he said so in the forums? :)
In life some of your neighbors will always have a greener grass then yours.
I find 40% fair, but I don't really care about percentage since my bank doesn't accept percentage as a deposit. They do accept dollars though.
Look at how everybody loves Shutterstock and they don't even know what percentage they pay...
I would take 5% of 1,000,000 over 100% of 10,000$ any day.
Regarding Laflor. I don't need him to tell me he is in the 40% range. he has ~7,000 downloads a month which means ~700,000 RC's a year.
Slowly catching up to Sean :)
You're right in everything, except for the fact that IS is loosing it's market share, according to the reports it's already no. 2 and if Yuri's customers would follow him and if he got some new ones, than higher royalties would be just one of the reasons why Laflor and the rest that worked with Yuri would earn more. I'm sure Laflor would just leave something that's going great for him, but he could wait until some stats got revealed and just upload his whole port at the mean time on Yuri's site (but of course not making it live). Then like a flip of a lightswitch, he'd jump boat and get more and get some respect and fair treatment from the agency.
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I recall Sean saying long ago that factories that train their own potential competitors were shooting themselves in the foot.
Does Sean actually compete with the blue-rinse handshake crowd? If not, I doubt if he cares how well they do.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
OK but so are all of the top 10 (except for Lise). Can anyone spot any difference between Yuri and Sjlocke? I sure can't, they both do, the stuff you mentioned above, boring, unoriginal, uninspirational stuff, you get tired of looking at in a few minutes. The same lighting, fake (american looking models) with cheesy toothy smiles that almost blind you (their teeth are whiter than tiles in my bathroom). I've never ever saw a photograph in their ports, that I thought of "wow that's original" or "they must had really have fun shooting that". They are producing images like mindless automatons, I could never do that (and I don't care if I deprive myself from tons of money - if I had the necessary, talent, skills etc that is)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
Sure, thats what I'm saying, but what's with all that talk about unique? It's nonsense. I always had a rasied eyebrow when I read stuff like that on the infamous shutterstock forums, certaib ppl telling newcomers to be 'unique'. If you go for sales in micro, being unique is out of the question.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
Sure, thats what I'm saying, but what's with all that talk about unique? It's nonsense. I always had a rasied eyebrow when I read stuff like that on the infamous shutterstock forums, certaib ppl telling newcomers to be 'unique'. If you go for sales in micro, being unique is out of the question.
Not sure about that, Elena is doing pretty well being really unique. She's not earning millions, but she enjoys her work and people look at her stuff with their jaws dropped on their desks. That would be much more important to me and I'd rather be the kind of photographer (and graphic designer) she is than Yuri for instance.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
Sure, thats what I'm saying, but what's with all that talk about unique? It's nonsense. I always had a rasied eyebrow when I read stuff like that on the infamous shutterstock forums, certaib ppl telling newcomers to be 'unique'. If you go for sales in micro, being unique is out of the question.
Not sure about that, Elena is doing pretty well being really unique. She's not earning millions (but she still makes a decent living), but she enjoys her work and people look at her stuff with their jaws dropped on their desks. That would be much more important to me and I'd rather be the kind of photographer (and graphic designer) she is than Yuri for instance.
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I've never ever saw a photograph in their ports, that I thought of "wow that's original" or "they must had really have fun shooting that". They are producing images like mindless automatons, I could never do that (and I don't care if I deprive myself from tons of money - if I had the necessary, talent, skills etc that is)
If they gave a hoot or even two about making other photographers "wow" about their work, we wouldn't be talking here - we'd all be buddies on flickr.
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OK but so are all of the top 10 (except for Lise).
I don't know. I can't be bothered to look at their stuff. I do what I do and it doesn't make me rich but it keeps me going.
As for Lise (Gagne). I've seen her shredded over exactly what the source of her inspiration was. The difference between her and Yuri is that she was in mico first, so she had a whole industry to "inspire" her, Yuri came later so he narrowed down the search to a particular market sector.
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Slovenian what are you actually doing? I remember you saying you are like a exclusive at IS? Why are you always talking about other?
everybody does what they want, what on earth you know if people love doing or not?? happy or boring or sad??
I hate people that judge other without knowing, it is just STUPID and believe you arenīt going anywhere with this talk
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I've never ever saw a photograph in their ports, that I thought of "wow that's original" or "they must had really have fun shooting that". They are producing images like mindless automatons, I could never do that (and I don't care if I deprive myself from tons of money - if I had the necessary, talent, skills etc that is)
If they gave a hoot or even two about making other photographers "wow" about their work, we wouldn't be talking here - we'd all be buddies on flickr.
True, but not completely, proof of that is Lise, which I probably already mentioned a few times lately. Proof that you can do both, sell big time and be creative, at least sometimes and do what you want to do and not be a slave to the buyers (then it's no different to have a job where you are a modern day slave at least that's how I look at it)
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Slovenian what are you actually doing? I remember you saying you are like a exclusive at IS? Why are you always talking about other?
everybody does what they want, what on earth you know if people love doing or not?? happy or boring or sad??
I hate people that judge other without knowing, it is just STUPID and believe you arenīt going anywhere with this talk
OK, I'll pretend I understand what you're saying (and it's not just your poor English, it's your poor logic as usually).
1. I'm not exclusive. Not even sure what you mean by why am I always talking about others, it's a thread about Yuri and his, supposedly, new sales channel and everything it involves.
2. Because I don't think anyone is happy loading the conveyor belt at a factory and this is very similar to what they're doing (a bit of sarcasm or even cynicism)
3. without knowing what? Everything there's to know is what you see in their ports, buyers buy it the same way. Do you think they go out for a beer or what? :). Be careful who you direct stupid at, because I see often you don't get what ppl say, so I'm skipping your posts since they don't make any sense except for failed attempts of humour.
4. I didn' t come here to fight, but I have to respond to the post directed at me with such tone.
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OK, I'll pretend I understand what you're saying (and it's not just your poor English, it's your poor logic as usually).
wow.. you are polite! have a nice day
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OK, I'll pretend I understand what you're saying (and it's not just your poor English, it's your poor logic as usually).
wow.. you are polite! have a nice day
And STUPID ;)
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OK, I'll pretend I understand what you're saying (and it's not just your poor English, it's your poor logic as usually).
wow.. you are polite! have a nice day
And STUPID ;)
that does mean you ARE.. you have just done a thing that I think it is STUPID! hope you are following my poor English
and I can add one more thing.. how can you say that Yuri, Sean donīt have a creative picture?? please take a minute or two and think!
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
Sure, thats what I'm saying, but what's with all that talk about unique? It's nonsense. I always had a rasied eyebrow when I read stuff like that on the infamous shutterstock forums, certaib ppl telling newcomers to be 'unique'. If you go for sales in micro, being unique is out of the question.
Not sure about that, Elena is doing pretty well being really unique. She's not earning millions (but she still makes a decent living), but she enjoys her work and people look at her stuff with their jaws dropped on their desks. That would be much more important to me and I'd rather be the kind of photographer (and graphic designer) she is than Yuri for instance.
Dunno who she is, but I have my doubts. Ppl in micro have a tendency to call some postcard shot with a grungy texture overlay hiper-super-peta original.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
OK but so are all of the top 10 (except for Lise). Can anyone spot any difference between Yuri and Sjlocke? I sure can't, they both do, the stuff you mentioned above, boring, unoriginal, uninspirational stuff, you get tired of looking at in a few minutes. The same lighting, fake (american looking models) with cheesy toothy smiles that almost blind you (their teeth are whiter than tiles in my bathroom). I've never ever saw a photograph in their ports, that I thought of "wow that's original" or "they must had really have fun shooting that". They are producing images like mindless automatons, I could never do that (and I don't care if I deprive myself from tons of money - if I had the necessary, talent, skills etc that is)
I completely agree! Every now and then I have to push myself towards those commercial Photos because automatically I get bored by my own shots and can`t resist the desire of producing some stuff I really want to express....maybe this is originality, I don`t know and I don`t care.
When you produce those commercial microstock shots it is just plain work. Automated and boring. Sad that the Stock world offers only possiblities to commercialize this kind of work instead of making it more tenting to produce originality.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
Sure, thats what I'm saying, but what's with all that talk about unique? It's nonsense. I always had a rasied eyebrow when I read stuff like that on the infamous shutterstock forums, certaib ppl telling newcomers to be 'unique'. If you go for sales in micro, being unique is out of the question.
Not sure about that, Elena is doing pretty well being really unique. She's not earning millions (but she still makes a decent living), but she enjoys her work and people look at her stuff with their jaws dropped on their desks. That would be much more important to me and I'd rather be the kind of photographer (and graphic designer) she is than Yuri for instance.
Dunno who she is, but I have my doubts. Ppl in micro have a tendency to call some postcard shot with a grungy texture overlay hiper-super-peta original.
At least slightly above some postcard shot with a grungy texture overlay, wouldn't you say http://www.istockphoto.com/search/portfolio/5767540/?facets={%2225%22%3A%226%22}#a80ef49 (http://www.istockphoto.com/search/portfolio/5767540/?facets={%2225%22%3A%226%22}#a80ef49) ?;)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Has ever been anything even slightly unique about Yuri's work? It's as generic as it gets. The ligthing 'style' hardly changed an inch in like 7 years or smthng, and it's almost exactly the same lighting that has been used for some stock before micro, and is used by 39456243856798 other ppl for microstock, regardless of Yuri. That's how he wanted it since he started to chase sales. It's so production line stuff that I have hard time telling whether he is a good photog at all, I can just kinda suspect reading between the pixels that he is very good. I always wondered why he never-ever takes a break from the bubbegum stuff to shoot something insiparional, would be ineteresting (or maybe it happaened I just missed it?)
He has said quite openly that he subjects big selling genres to intensive analysis and reproduces all the elements that sell best, including the lighting. If you are a business you don't change a winning formula. The only problem is that he himself has become the best-selling genre so he becomes trapped in his own style.
He's probably only a "good" photographer in his technical ability. He has no interest at all in originality. But maybe he is right. Maybe photography is a purely technical medium where everything original was done decades ago and all we can do now is copy.
Sure, thats what I'm saying, but what's with all that talk about unique? It's nonsense. I always had a rasied eyebrow when I read stuff like that on the infamous shutterstock forums, certaib ppl telling newcomers to be 'unique'. If you go for sales in micro, being unique is out of the question.
Not sure about that, Elena is doing pretty well being really unique. She's not earning millions (but she still makes a decent living), but she enjoys her work and people look at her stuff with their jaws dropped on their desks. That would be much more important to me and I'd rather be the kind of photographer (and graphic designer) she is than Yuri for instance.
Dunno who she is, but I have my doubts. Ppl in micro have a tendency to call some postcard shot with a grungy texture overlay hiper-super-peta original.
At least slightly above some postcard shot with a grungy texture overlay, wouldn't you say [url]http://www.istockphoto.com/search/portfolio/5767540/?facets={%2225%22%3A%226%22}#a80ef49[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/search/portfolio/5767540/?facets={%2225%22%3A%226%22}#a80ef49)[/url] ?;)
Not really : / I'v seen that, I still have the same opinion: a few are very nice, motsly terrible kitsch. But this is exactly what I'm talking about: women with butterfly-fairy wings, and other 'flowig' stuff on their backs or birdies flying arouns them f.e.... does anyone seiously think thats original and unique? : O You gotta be joking. Thats the most overabused kitsch theme in the universe.
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^^Now ur exaggerating;). There are a few "women with butterfly-fairy wings, and other 'flowig' stuff on their backs or birdies flying arouns them f.e.", but they represent a very small percentage. Of course everyone has a different view of uniqueness (which she is, I can't find a similar port at any MS agency), I'm curious to know what or who you find interesting (not challenging you or trying to prove you wrong, I'm just genuinely interested;)
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Unless he's got a special deal with IS, his percentage is 20% as a non-exclusive.
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^^Now ur exaggerating;). There are a few "women with butterfly-fairy wings, and other 'flowig' stuff on their backs or birdies flying arouns them f.e.", but they represent a very small percentage. Of course everyone has a different view of uniqueness (which she is, I can't find a similar port at any MS agency), I'm curious to know what or who you find interesting (not challenging you or trying to prove you wrong, I'm just genuinely interested;)
ohh you gotta be joking again. fairy women (or men) with wings a rare unique image? Women with flowing stuff + textures + lots of PP is just a current overcrowded fashion in image theme, deviantart is swimming in it. I like this. It's not super original because he is inspired by paintings, but very few ppl do stuff like this imho.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsyd/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsyd/)
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But we're talking about MS, not flickr, deviantart etc ???
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pretty much the same applies
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I like this. It's not super original because he is inspired by paintings, but very few ppl do stuff like this imho.
[url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsyd/[/url] ([url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsyd/[/url])
Oh, god, that is such a rip-off of the "Dutch Golden Age" artists' style! It's no more original that Yuri. The only reason very few people do it is that it isn't "high commercial value" stock. Of course, in technical terms (reproducing the lighting etc) it is very good indeed but it is completely devoid of artistic vision.
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His "pathetic" percentage (Laflor) is 40%. not that bad if you ask me.
And with all due respect to Yuri's work, he is no longer unique and has many clones today that don't fall from his quality IMO.
Unless he's got a special deal with IS, his percentage is 20% as a non-exclusive.
But he is an exclusive....
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pretty much the same applies
No it doesn't because those images are not being sold on MS, therefore they're not even important when we're talking about originality and creativity in ms ;)
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Lol, I wanted to check how far my new images (approved over 12h ago) have fallen under "women" on SS. And I just saw Yuri dumped approximately 450 photos. That's a bit more than I managed to upload in a year. Nice to see just how much I get outclassed or better said "outnumbered" :). If I did upload so many similars I could have uploaded thousands, but that just didn't seem like a good idea to me even on SS (and I really don't have the time nor the will to pp that much, for a few extra $, that you get from the average-worst shots of the series)
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Ppl in micro have a tendency to call some postcard shot with a grungy texture overlay hiper-super-peta original.
LOL certainly some truth in it
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Almost all of the creative imagery I have ever tried to upload got rejected for 'not suitable for stock' or something similar (of course much of my artwork gets funny looks from the art geeks, as well).
I don't really want to sell it for $2 a pop, anyway.
Maybe some of those photographers you are talking about shoot the more formulaic stuff for microstock and make artwork solely for galleries or personal work or whatever. That is certainly what I decided to do almost right away (but I came from a fine art background first then stock, not vice-versa). Like I said, I don't want to almost give away stuff that comes from the heart, but also can't afford to spend a ton of time on images that have very little use for 99% of microstock customers. And, it just plain keeps me sane to separate the two (commercial & art) portfolios.
I haven't looked enough at other photographers' work (or googled them) enough to tell anything more than if they can make a decent stock image, so maybe they do, and maybe they don't have other styles in different worlds. But the fact that the people you named are so prolific in the stock world makes me wonder if they have time for anything other than stock photography (eating, sleeping, long walks in the park, etc.).
I have seen a few microstockers who have impressed me with more artistic commercial work. It makes me think that there may be a place for more creative work in MS. Because it really does get boring making photos that look like an example in Kodak's old "Taking Better Pictures" guide.
IDK, food for thought. I found the path this thread deviated onto interesting.
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... photos that look like an example in Kodak's old "Taking Better Pictures" guide....
They are generally far too overexposed for that. : )
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Almost all of the creative imagery I have ever tried to upload got rejected for 'not suitable for stock' or something similar (of course much of my artwork gets funny looks from the art geeks, as well).
...Because it really does get boring making photos that look like an example in Kodak's old "Taking Better Pictures" guide.
IDK, food for thought. I found the path this thread deviated onto interesting.
Therefore I started my own Project, I simply got terribly bored ... www.artshader.com (http://www.artshader.com)
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Almost all of the creative imagery I have ever tried to upload got rejected for 'not suitable for stock' or something similar (of course much of my artwork gets funny looks from the art geeks, as well).
...Because it really does get boring making photos that look like an example in Kodak's old "Taking Better Pictures" guide.
IDK, food for thought. I found the path this thread deviated onto interesting.
Therefore I started my own Project, I simply got terribly bored ... [url=http://www.artshader.com]www.artshader.com[/url] ([url]http://www.artshader.com[/url])
Are you sure you actually started it? :)
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And a search for "Vintage Car" brings up a woman in black boots, in a modern artsy restroom. Vintage? Which is the first word. Glad to see that the site has NOT fallen into the trap of relevant keywording. ??? :D
Almost all of the creative imagery I have ever tried to upload got rejected for 'not suitable for stock' or something similar (of course much of my artwork gets funny looks from the art geeks, as well).
...Because it really does get boring making photos that look like an example in Kodak's old "Taking Better Pictures" guide.
IDK, food for thought. I found the path this thread deviated onto interesting.
Therefore I started my own Project, I simply got terribly bored ... [url=http://www.artshader.com]www.artshader.com[/url] ([url]http://www.artshader.com[/url])
Are you sure you actually started it? :)
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thanks leaf! :)
his page is open and everybody can open it and check that out, I wasnīt trashing nobody, I only found it interesting once it was "potentially" related to this topic
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coming in here and and talking about how unoriginal MS is the dumbest thing in the world. The name of the game in Micros is volume business where pennies add up. To appeal to mass consumer market, you make it as generic as possible to attract the different buyers in different markets. stop hating and get a clue about how to be successful in this business
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coming in here and and talking about how unoriginal MS is the dumbest thing in the world. The name of the game in Micros is volume business where pennies add up. To appeal to mass consumer market, you make it as generic as possible to attract the different buyers in different markets. stop hating and get a clue about how to be successful in this business
I am sure that isnīt directed to me but I feel a lot of anger inside of you ;D whatīs the problem?
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coming in here and and talking about how unoriginal MS is the dumbest thing in the world. The name of the game in Micros is volume business where pennies add up. To appeal to mass consumer market, you make it as generic as possible to attract the different buyers in different markets. stop hating and get a clue about how to be successful in this business
I am sure that isnīt directed to me but I feel a lot of anger inside of you ;D whatīs the problem?
Just keep reading what i wrote and maybe you will undertand. but i doubt it
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coming in here and and talking about how unoriginal MS is the dumbest thing in the world. The name of the game in Micros is volume business where pennies add up. To appeal to mass consumer market, you make it as generic as possible to attract the different buyers in different markets. stop hating and get a clue about how to be successful in this business
I am sure that isnīt directed to me but I feel a lot of anger inside of you ;D whatīs the problem?
Just keep reading what i wrote and maybe you will undertand. but i doubt it
thatīs polite, I will read all your posts and then we will talk :)
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i tend to over react ;)
sorry for the angry post but its really refreshing from time to time and the anger is outside of me now so no more anger inside ;D
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Oh come on, it's obvious. It's totally uncreative, what Yuri is selling (and mostly all top MSers). That's why he's not shooting anymore, he has 14 photogs shooting for his brand. He said so last year in Dublin. He got bored doing this generic and cheesy stuff.