MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: Goofy on August 07, 2014, 20:04
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Time for some sunshine in this forum thus I will start-
Positives-
1. Work or set your own hours
2. No 20 year younger boss yelling at me to try to make rank in the company
3. Can drink beer while processing photos- try that at any job and see how long you last
4. Write off expenses (Equipment, travel, food)
5. Be your Boss - Yeah, I yell at myself at times lol!
Let the good times roll (old Cars song)...
8)
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6. Can decide not to work for a few days and still make money- try telling your boss you don't want to work a few days and see if he or she pays you!
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Positive are work for yourself, make money doing what you like, independence, creative expression. Negatives are well covered, but really just amount s to lowering of the positives.
I don't know if positives out do the negatives now so I put 'who cares'.
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I feel working when you want and getting paid when you aren't working are huge ones. Being able to travel anywhere in the world and continue the work is also a huge plus.
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Positive
I have, and will have, something that I like to do during my retirement.
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The recuring income and a motivation to keep taking photos.
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3. Can drink beer while processing photos- try that at any job and see how long you last
And then spend next day(s) at fixing spelling mistakes! (IPTC)
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1. No more "networking" myself to people I can't stand to be within fifty feet of
2. No more cramming onto trains and planes with people lugging laptops and starbucks and evian
3. Not having to pretend I give a sh*t when some suit is banging on about their latest business growth strategy he/she actually copied off some oily shyster on the interweb
4. Not having to shave every day
5. Largely being able to do what I want when I want provided its okay with my cat and the missus
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I feel working when you want and getting paid when you aren't working are huge ones. Being able to travel anywhere in the world and continue the work is also a huge plus.
For me this really is a huge plus. I love traveling and knowing that i could move anytime i want to and just continue from there is a wonderful freedom. You are not tied to one place and job as most people are. :D
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No commuting
No endless client revisions that turn good ideas to mush
Not stuck in an office all day...can work early morning and evenings and go out and enjoy the sunshine
No office politics
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Positives Are Huge
#1 More time with my family! This goes along with going on a shootcation anytime I choose and not worry about getting paid.
#2 I love taking video and stills it never feels like work for me!
#3 I meet new people all the time, work with different models so the job is always fresh
#4 I keyword in my own office space in relaxed attire or in the buff, listening to my own music and podcast
#5 When people ask what I do for a living I have lots of answers to give "Run my own business" "Own my own production company" "CEO of jjProductions" "Visual Artist"
ALL jobs have good and bad so I will take the bad of this job any day over any other job!
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Nilsson? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXZDPO7Ar0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAXZDPO7Ar0)
Or better yet Louis Jordan, the original 1946. Louis Jordan - Let The Good Times Roll—在线播放—优酷网,视频高清在线观看 (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjE5MTE0MTky)
But now I have to leave for a photo meeting, which should yield some photos for Microstock by Monday. Independent yes, totally autonomous, not quite.
Let the good times roll (old Cars song)...
8)
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All these comments are why I love this business! Sure, we want more $$ and other things but the benefits out weigh the negatives hands down 8)
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I love waking up in the morning not knowing what I'm gonna do or who I'm gonna meet. Just yesterday I was sleeping under a bridge, and today I'm on the grandest message board in the world drinking champagne with you fine people.
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I love waking up in the morning not knowing what I'm gonna do or who I'm gonna meet. Just yesterday I was sleeping under a bridge, and today I'm on the grandest message board in the world drinking champagne with you fine people.
Didn't realize Mad Dog 20/20 counts as Champagne 8)
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Waking up in the morning to see you've made money whilst you was sleeping.. I love that :-)
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Let me think... there's uhmmm... no wait... oh yeh, there's.... almost forgot...
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Money, Girls and beer all day and night ;)
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Waking up in the morning to see you've made money whilst you was sleeping.. I love that :-)
Or the flip side of this ... waking up in the morning only to find you didn't make any money overnight. >:( :'(
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It must be just me cause no one else caught it!
Do you feel there are positives than Negatives in this business
What exactly does this say?
Either one word is misspelled or there is one word missing?
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It must be just me cause no one else caught it!
Do you feel there are positives than Negatives in this business
What exactly does this say?
Either one word is misspelled or there is one word missing?
See "Word Crimes" by Wierd Al
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I Love it to do the best work only in my most creative hours ;), and the less work (uploading) in the less creative ones ;)
And all I have dreamed about, like having the best gear, having my own studio, traveling around etc. etc. , I have it now, And I have the time to use and enjoy them ;D
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I love waking up in the morning not knowing what I'm gonna do or who I'm gonna meet. Just yesterday I was sleeping under a bridge, and today I'm on the grandest message board in the world drinking champagne with you fine people.
And climbing to the roof of my house to scream "I am the king of the world!"
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I haven't worked more the 4-5 hours this summer. I have a quite few series piled up, but I just can't get myself to do it. Two people wanted me to shoot their wedding but I just told them to effoff. Shooting weddings really is the pits of photography. I wandered around in nature (it's really world class beautiful here in my home town), rode my mountainbike in the mountains, been hanging out with one of my fav models in cafes, restaurants, travelling with my pals to even bigger mouintains in the alps, worked out so much that I'm actually gaining back my old shape when doing chinups was just basic... most have been rotting in some office most of that time, watching the sunshine peeking in thru blinders
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Finally a ray of sunshine in all the doom and gloom that this forum normally had :P
I'm surprised no one mentioned the thrill of seeing your pics in print or on famous websites 8)... Hell its even better if someone else calls you and tells you of this
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Best of this business; Micro can be your "real "job complement... you can be forever in your confort zone...
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It must be just me cause no one else caught it!
Do you feel there are positives than Negatives in this business
What exactly does this say?
Either one word is misspelled or there is one word missing?
oh, making more money than most English teachers is another positive... 8)
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what about the bad sides? 280 $ = 1000 sales a month of 0.28cent if u want to earn a decent sallary you need 10k sales a month i don't know what about you but with 100 sales from 400 images a month 100$ wont do much here
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i shoot , then i eat.
i think that's a positive :D :D :D
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i shoot , then i eat.
I think that is called hunting.
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i shoot , then i eat.
I think that is called hunting.
;D ;D ;D
ok, i hunt ... christmas cake, veggies, fruits, spices, seafood, etc... 8)
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i shoot , then i eat.
I think that is called hunting.
;D ;D ;D
ok, i hunt ... christmas cake, veggies, fruits, spices, seafood, etc... 8)
Me too- Safeway, Costco, Walmart are my favorite hunting grounds... 8)
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Never thought I would have my own studio,
Never thought I could earn money while sleeping and dreaming of my next shoot
Never thought I could be able at any time of the day to walk 10 feet and while working being able to hug my children in any moment of the day
Never thought I could work and have fun and do something creative and artistic with my wife
Well I could go on and on with positive thoughts about microstock but I am sitting on the toilet and should go to bed love you guys you are really great
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Never thought I would have my own studio etc
well said. really,
frankly for those who can earn full-time MS , i cannot see anything other than positive.
for even as a part-time ms photographer :
- paid off 2 DSLR bodies and lenses
- bought my studio Alien Bees
- paying for my new camera and 2 new lenses
- to be away from the winter harsh weather and be in the tropics and yet still collecting passive income from existing portfolio.
- work whenever i wish eg 2am to sunrise, is pretty much what i like to do
and you don't have to wake up and commute to work, or dress up.
and definitely much like the other stock (market), you have to see it as a long-term investment,
and the future earnings of passive income. something anyone who is closed to retirement would
love to have, IF they can do that.
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Having served in the U.S. Army for many years - getting up a 4am (0400) to run 5 to 9 miles in a forced company and than work till around 8 pm and come home completely drained- plus Saturdays if the Colonel or General wasn't happy with our work during the week. This doesn't even include going to war - I won't talk about it in detail for personal reasons.
So this business is heaven to me. I've already paid of all my equipment and making pure profit now in less that 3 years time. 8)
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Finally a ray of sunshine in all the doom and gloom that this forum normally had :P
It ain't gonna last long :)
The industry is still relatively healthy, but only as long as you're an agency.
No matter if prices are stable and sales are growing a little, due to the actual oversupply and saturation we will all need to produce more and earn less.
Now, the issue is about how much more and when, not about "IF".
As i see it, only stock factories or photo collectives have any chance to stay in biz 20 yrs from now.
many will diversify and many others will leave for greener pastures, no other options at the horizon.
There will be also further M&As and consolidation among agencies and therefore a further grip on our fees.
Well it's already a semi-monopoly anyway.
Said that, yes it's definitely a great job compared to being yet another corporate drone enslaved into a cubicle perpetually watching his back from blackmailing and office politics.
I think the moral of the story is that there's never been such a demand and acceptance for photography like today and before or later in one way or another there will be a way to monetize it and grab a small slice of the pie.
Actually we might even give away our photos for free and then making money indirectly with merchandising or whatever, that's what a couple friends of mine are doing successfully with their music studio and their bands .. it's awful but they have survived the MP3 revolution, piracy, and all the doom and gloom, i could many further examples in other industries if that matter ... it's a tough time for everybody and WW3 is about to start, we must be prepared for the worst.
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what about the bad sides? 280 $ = 1000 sales a month of 0.28cent if u want to earn a decent sallary you need 10k sales a month i don't know what about you but with 100 sales from 400 images a month 100$ wont do much here
400 image sales netted me a lot more than $100 depends on things like EL's and higher value sales :)
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Anyway for me the positive is that I got to appreciate having less.
Not worrying about nasty office politics stupid rules and the simple joy of not having to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning and driving an hour to work and waiting for the clock to tick off the slow seconds to lunch breaks and home time.
No emails of BS to be sorted through no crappy bosses swinging by spouting "I have an opportunity for you" which translated as "They caused or have a problem and they want you to sort it out because they can't be bothered"
No corporate speak:
i.e. by proactive blue sky thinking we can empower co-workers to utilise synergistic techniques thinking outside the box to stretch the envelope blah blah blah :D :o
Now I work in a "client-based research media time-frame" :D 8)
http://sweary.com/business-buzzword-generator/ (http://sweary.com/business-buzzword-generator/)
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I keep expecting to see "old thread alert." This must be a topic from 2008. All these posts sound like things I would have written then, but not now.
Back then, I was so excited to have stumbled upon something that seemed to promise financial independence. I calculated that in a few years I'd be able to leave the day job and enjoy all the wonderful plusses described so joyfully in this thread.
But today? I've woken up to accept that these are unsustainable dreams. Thank God I didn't give up the day job. Everyone hits the wall eventually, then you start making less and less, and you see the dream slipping further and further away. It's a simple financial equation detailed in another thread. On average, the moment your rate of portfolio growth slips behind the rate of total image growth offered by the agencies, you start making less and less. Then it becomes harder and harder to pour so much work into this knowing you'll still be making less money than you made a year ago (or two or three years ago!), despite being better at this, understanding more about what customers want, etc. Factor in the big agencies changing their searches, creating services that drive our returns lower (Dollar Photo Club), and growth is simply impossible.
I wonder how many new contributors this thread has convinced to start competing with us? Yes, that's a selfish thought. I don't want my situation to become even worse, having to fight for dwindling downloads with an ever-growing pool of new microstockers. But I'm also trying to open their eyes to the reality of this business. Newbies can start out making some sales and do the math like I did several years ago, thinking if they produce a certain amount each month they'll reach that magical moment of leaving the day job. But the wall WILL come down on everyone, and the dream evaporates. It's a crushing moment, spirit-breaking and dream-shattering. Everyone needs to know that moment comes for us all.
Microstock veterans tried to tell me this when I was a wide-eyed newbie several years ago, but I scoffed. My work was in high demand, I argued. I would buck the trend because I figured out what customers wanted. I had found several underserved niches. I would be the exception to the rule. Ha.
So for me the positives outweighed the negatives for a few years while I lived the microstock dream so full of hope. Now it's almost all negative, and I feel chained to a dream I know I will never achieve. Still working the day job then coming home and slaving away to grow my port size in the hopes of maintaining the shrinking extra microstock income my family has come to rely upon and thought would keep growing well into the future. Today, microstock is an abusive spouse I know will continue to beat me, but I can't afford to leave.
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MR Cat, what sites do you sell?, it seems that most of them earns from 0.28$-2$ eather way lets take the higher end 2$ per image you need at least 1500 images sold per month to have a normal income
for now i got 400 images on 8 microstock sites, they sell but like everybody say for cents
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MR Cat, what sites do you sell?, it seems that most of them earns from 0.28$-2$ eather way lets take the higher end 2$ per image you need at least 1500 images sold per month to have a normal income
for now i got 400 images on 8 microstock sites, they sell but like everybody say for cents
I got a lot of cents sales but the larger values start to appear such as $57 from one agency lots of $28 sales and Alamy where you can still get high value sales (but not often).
I found that once my portfolio got over 600 images the high value sales started to appear more often which makes a lot of a difference to income.
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can u elaborate more? the only one that got me more then 2$ in sales is alamy as u said and it was only once:)
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I feel thankful i found this business. No more stupid boss, no time constraint, no stress, be on holiday for the whole month and still earning the same, and of course seeing your name sited on privileged websites and books.
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I love to travel and my photography pays for this and much more. Right now, if I switch out the calendars hanging in my office each month, I can see one of my travel photos on the wall more than half the year and realize that the photos I would take simply for the love of photography can make me money.
Sure, I shoot other stuff for stock as well but for me the biggest positive is knowing that I can make photos that people appreciate, that aren't just stock-y, and still license them as stock.
Stock photography is only part of my freelance income, and I wish it could be a larger percentage, but despite the fact that illness and injury have slowed me down, my stock photo income is still increasing, so on the whole I'm optimistic, though more about the entire stock photo industry which includes direct licensing, RM, traditional RF, and microstock.
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As i see it, only stock factories or photo collectives have any chance to stay in biz 20 yrs from now.
many will diversify and many others will leave for greener pastures, no other options at the horizon.
yes, and we keep forgetting that many photographers of the same genre or many experienced photographers who have been trained in the same line of work before they became ms photographers, can also become factories when they pool their work together as an entity.
instead of trying to create division and think selfishly , this latter attitude prolongs an agency taking advantage of contributors while the same agency consistently announces annual windfalls
and in the same breath having photographers consistently reporting shortfalls.
so long contributors in-fighting persist , like crows over road kill carrion,
we won't see a change in agency's attitude towards those who made them #1.
thus, as u pointed out, the only viable alternative is to go coop or form your own factory with
your colleagues of similar expertise.