So after this turbulant year,  whats your major plans and changes for the coming 2012 ?

Mine:  concentrating a lot more on RM,

          uploading much more to agencies of independant contributors.

           Not standing for anymore nonsense.

I'll continue building my RM and non-microstock portfolio on alamy.  I'll carry on doing timelapses and video clips.  My microstock images production has dropped significantly with every commission cut and that wont change until it looks like the sites are finished lowering them.  I've given up boycotting sites, as there are too many people willing to submit everywhere, so I'm doing the same now.

Every year I have plans to do work other than stock photography but I haven't found anything that I enjoy as much that pays enough.  Hopefully that will change in 2012.

I'm going back to concentrating on my freelance work. I still intend uploading but realise too many eggs in one basket is not a good plan. I've been there before but never learn! I've probably replaced my decrease in IS earnings with an upturn in freelance and will carry on in the same vein next year, as well as looking for new opportunities , such as my new website launching in the new year , showing my work but also selling my own branded products.

I've a long list:

- Get 4x more images on portfolio ( this year I get 10x more ). I've planned 2 years for a "nice" portfolio with regular income. 2012 is crucial year for me.
- Work on a RM exclusive portfolio for Alamy.
- Own domain and site for "marketing" propose, and , if worth, for direct sales.
- Get 2nd dslr body ( 1st quarter ). Start having some limitations with 450D.

And probably will leave 2 agencies during first quarter.

I plan to keep on keeping on.

Always a good plan 

I plan to stop working for my company/boss on Friday 13th January and do fulltime photography.  To start with :  90% stockphotography and 10% commission work, and see how it develops.  Seems to me that Friday 13th is an excellent choice for such a risky step in my carreer  

Hoping to move away from 'general' stock more towards editorial.
GIS has let me find a lot of in-uses which, while technically OK as uses, I'm not happy with. I don't want to be 'supporting' companies who lie in their adverts.
LIS in another thread, look for smaller, more specialised RM agencies - far easier to track misuses. When a file has sold 10 times, but GIS finds upwards of 40 uses, it can be hard to work out which were legitimate sales and which have been lifted from the legitimate buyers. Sometimes it's obivous, but not always.
Hopefully teaching some beginners' classes, but that's definitely unsustainable in a village: you only have a tiny possible 'market', and I've already taught ten people!

Quote from: lagereek on December 20, 2011, 03:28

         uploading much more to agencies of independant contributors.

Do you feel that fellow contributors are able to handle the legal matters relating to your work, in addition to the handling of financial transactions and marketing, as well as their own photography and business?

I plan to keep on keeping on.

Hi Sean!

I dont know mate, but your philosophy. keep on doing what one is doing,  well, seems to be the best one.

merry x-mas and happy new year to you.

Finding a camera that will do the following for me:

1. 50mp or higher
2. Provide its own lighting
3. Key word all my photos automatically
4. Know exactly which markets to submit my photos
5. Able to tell me my RPI on each shot
6. Never out of focus
7. Never any aberration no matter how extreme the conditions
8. Light weight see less that a pound with large lens included
9. Develop photos directly without using Photoshop
10. Upload files via WiFi as soon as you finish shooting- the camera knows exactly what each photo senior editor will accept
11. Never needs batteries for at least five years
12. Memory card can hold at least 10,000 RAW images and cleans the card each time you shoot
13. Displays which markets are hot thus telling me which photos to take each day

Now that is what I want for 2012 a camera that can do this for me...

T

My plan is to only submit images that will sell

Que Sera Sera.

Go with the flow; don't stress; and don't take myself too seriously.  

ED:  spend more time listening to the Blues Station.  

My plan is to only submit images that will sell

I think you meant this tongue-in-cheek, but that is actually my plan.  

In 2011, I focused on increasing my output, but now I'm rethinking that strategy, focusing less on uploading everything I can and more on creating more of what sells, even if I end up uploading less.

I'm in the middle of doing an analysis of what subjects and styles are selling well and what are not.  I am making a list of subjects and styles that I am retiring from my upload routine and will concentrate more on what is actually performing well for me.   It has really opened my eyes to see that certain picture types that I had thought were underperformers are very high earners, and more recent ones that I have been proud of are doing poorly and should be discontinued, as much as it pains me to do so.

Plus, I will be testing some new subjects and styles and performing my analysis on a more frequent basis.   I'm shocked that it has taken me this long to view my results this way and make some tough choices, but I'm excited by the ROI that I expect to see by listening to what buyers want or don't want.  

I'm switching from Stolichnaya to Jameson. 

I spoke to a friend who works on producing a daily tv show and they always buy images from macros since it's more clear and defined licensing terms and they can be sure of quality.

That's odd.  The license is just as "defined", and I think we've all seen there's some pretty bad quality on macro out there.

hopefully lots of shoot, upload, repeat.

For 2012 i plan to change my DSLR (3 years is enough ) and open my personal studio.

I am seriously thinking of moving away from microstock. For some reason I expected micro agencies to become more professional and respectable as they grow, but now I realize that this business model just doesn't allow for that. You can't provide the same level of service to customers spending 10 dollars that you provide to someone spending 500; when your business is volume sales, you can't possibly pay reviewers enough to have consistent reviews; your strength in microstock business is in the size of your library, not in it's quality. I spoke to a friend who works on producing a daily tv show and they always buy images from macros since it's more clear and defined licensing terms and they can be sure of quality. I suspect it is like that with many other organizations. Microstock has its competitive strength in cheap pricing but it also brings limitations.
Not that I would pull completely my port or anything like that; I'd probably be still submitting to micros but my focus is going to be with the macro agencies.

Know what you mean,  unfortunately, the quality isnt much better within the macros. They have had no choice but like the micros, accepting quite mediocre stuff, just as "fill-ups", etc. Few years back, if you sent in 50 files to the Getty-RM, you would be lucky to get an acceptance of 5 or six,  today, they are far more liberal in accepting.

See, the IS, rule of accepting files as long as they are technically sound, is so detremental its unbelievable and just creates tons of totally irrelevant material in every corner of the search.
Right now, Getty is promoting images from their Flickr-collection?  thats how basic its become.

1) go surfing
2)travel
3) convince myself that I'd be better shooting specifically for microstock instead of uploading travel photos
4) upload travel photos.
5) work to fund 1 & 2

I never did aquire a taste for Islay wiskeys...
I like the simple ones.

I gonna try work harder in 2012

3) convince myself that I'd be better shooting specifically for microstock instead of uploading travel photos

This is the most difficult part. I was once convinced that I had to travel for stock, and it didn't actually work from a purely financial point of view (staying at home scanning cardboard backgrounds is much more profitable, albeit less fun). Now I'm convinced that I must do stock as an excuse for travelling and it's working much better. Sometimes a simple change of perspective can solve a lot of problems.

get more serious about microstock, don�t have any dream plans of creating RM collection or other, I just want to be more focused and taking it seriously, shooting more travel than studio (but so far studio looks a lot more relevant in terms of revenue)

I need to step up and work (hard) something like 5 to 8h a day instead of 8 or less per week

Quote from: qwerty on December 21, 2011, 03:15

3) convince myself that I'd be better shooting specifically for microstock instead of uploading travel photos

This is the most difficult part. I was once convinced that I had to travel for stock, and it didn't actually work from a purely financial point of view (staying at home scanning cardboard backgrounds is much more profitable, albeit less fun). Now I'm convinced that I must do stock as an excuse for travelling and it's working much better. Sometimes a simple change of perspective can solve a lot of problems.

if i had a goal it would be more travel - and photography helps pay some of the costs for that;  it also earns money when i'm traveling, so it's always been a longterm project.   i've done  this for over 35 years now, and experimented with each new opportunity.  for most of the 90s i used scanned slides as the basis for computer gamesand puzzles, as RM sales started to decline.

for travel photos, I've found the key to be large volume, and shooting with both traditional travel and MS in mind.  profit is less important than liveability and lifestyle, but still allows for Lagavulin over ripple

Quote from: lagereek on December 21, 2011, 03:33

Quote from: RacePhoto on December 21, 2011, 02:32

Quote from: aeonf on December 21, 2011, 00:52

Quote from: ProArtwork on December 20, 2011, 19:52

I'm switching from Stolichnaya to Jameson. 

A big step forward!

Already went from Highland Park to Ardbeg, (still both are perfection) and then later in the evening, Black Grouse.

In the photo world, just put the S90 up for sale and ordered a G12. Gave the S a year and it's very nice, convenient size and all, but options and features and the lens on the G series makes it I had a G6 and it was a little on the large side, and silver. Now the G12, black, is smaller and has what I wanted, remote trigger for time lapse, no mirror, and added benefit, 720p, can I make stock video now? Did you know B&H has them for $379, free overnight shipping? Until Dec. 31st.

Come on fellas!  lets show a bit of balls, hey,  have a bite of Lagavulin!  that will put hairs on your chests.

I think you are missing it. I have had that and Talisker, love them both. Alligator from Ardbeg? Find some and see. (sold out in the UK from what I've seen?) Ardbeg Alligator, cask strength, 70cl / 51.2% Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky. If your local store has it, try some of the special release Ardbeg. Supernova is very nice too.

All of the Islay and Northern Highland scotches make that lowland stuff taste like waste water. 

Can't remember trying any waste water; what's that like?   

- Switch from scotch to moonshine
- Cut back on submitting to micro so I can...
-- Spend more time on macro RM/RF and test smaller agencies
-- Diversify and start selling images outside of stock
-- Start doing video and illustration
-- Finish my home studio

  As a wise person once said somewhere on these boards, always listen to PaulieWalnuts!

Quote from: aeonf on December 21, 2011, 00:52

Quote from: ProArtwork on December 20, 2011, 19:52

I'm switching from Stolichnaya to Jameson.  

A big step forward!

Already went from Highland Park to Ardbeg, (still both are perfection) and then later in the evening, Black Grouse.

In the photo world, just put the S90 up for sale and ordered a G12. Gave the S a year and it's very nice, convenient size and all, but options and features and the lens on the G series makes it I had a G6 and it was a little on the large side, and silver. Now the G12, black, is smaller and has what I wanted, remote trigger for time lapse, no mirror, and added benefit, 720p, can I make stock video now? Did you know B&H has them for $379, free overnight shipping? Until Dec. 31st.

You could use this to make time lapses with the S90 http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/S90, I use it with the S95 and it works well.  Having a spare camera is useful for time lapses, you might want to do two of the same scene from different viewpoints.  The video from the G12 shouldn't be used for stock, I asked on the Pond5 forum about video from the s95, that's almost identical.  They said it has too many compression problems.  I suppose it's the equivalent of using too low a jpeg setting for stills?  The video looks good to me but I trust the people that know much more about it than I do.  You can do a search by camera used on Pond5 and I can't find any accepted with the G12.  Pond5 are more lenient than the other video sites I use.  It's a shame because I would like to use a compact for video.

Attila, I'm so sorry for what you and your country are going through. Things like this have a way of putting many things into perspective. I wish you safety and healing.

In 2012 I want to spend less time in forums.

I am the smallest fish in this pond, but here's my 2012 plan:

I won't do microstock unless I see an an image I actually like - aesthetically -  that won't cost me anything to produce.   IS has essentially ended for independents.  New sites like GL, that like my stuff and pay fair commissions, aren't making any sales.  SS is increasing, and DT is still there, but it isn't enough to repay any significant time spent.  I'm not spending any more time chasing hot new sites, getting approved, having best sellers rejected and filing appeals, getting a few sales and then nothing.  

I have a small opportunity to start selling some cards and prints and I'm going to focus on that, instead of on microstock.

I am linking to Joe Konrath's resolutions.  He has them all in one post, going back to 2006.  Konrath is a writer, and his industry has seen so many changes that parallel those that photographers are going through.  Many of his reslolutions could apply specifically to us.  It's a long post, he goes from being surprised how much he makes e-publishing, to making 20 times more the next year and then he of course experiences downward trends (all at the same time we have experienced the same waves in photography).  http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/12/konraths-resolutions-for-writers-2012.html

LOL, maybe I should write a book in 2012 about a frustrated photographer?

Karin, I like the way you are thinking.  You go girl!

Edit my travel images, most of which are still untouched... Put them as RM of course.

Also trying to engage some friends who like photography in going out together to shoot. We are probably going on a guided night walking tour at downtown Rio, in which there are some good photo opportunities.

Pretty simple plan for me this year: travel the world, upload photos, do some more timelapse, and hope for the best!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and lots of sales in the new year

As I said last year:

1. Keep breathing

2. Enjoy work and life
Smiling Jack

^^I have a similar plan, I haven't uploaded since Nov anyway, so at least my new ULs didn't go totally to waste (I got at least a few DLs, I wouldn't get any if I uploaded in the last couple of weeks). As long as best match stays like that, I'm gonna withold my ULs.

Thinking of going back to painting where I can live in blissful introversion and ignore other peoples opinions.

Coming down to the wire here with a little over 12 hours to go if I'm going to have my list finalized by midnight...  Most of my goals are still general - increase portfolio, expand to other venues, etc.  I'm a big believer in having my goals be defined and measurable so that's the part I'm still fine-tuning.  I plan to map out more specific goals in how I plan to increase my portfolio - adding people images, numerical goal to achieve, etc.  Definately on the list is to upgrade from my 30D - looking forward to seeing the successor to the 5D MkII - that may be the one.

�If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.�

In stock photo my only firm plan is to re-start uploading after several months break; and to continue shooting. Other than that I have some ideas but not plans.

And I plan to escape from miserable Belgian winter on vacation in 6 weeks.

I will continue on as a tortoise  (tortoise and the hare fable), as I have since 2005.  Very small but growing port (>400), but a very good return. 

For 2012...

1) keep on learning and trying out new perspectives (pole aerial photography and underwater photography).

2) buy the Nikon D800, the first  'pro' level NIKON camera to offer 1080p 30fps  (the D5100 has it now, but is not pro level (weatherizing and such) and it would be too frustrating for me with it's deep level menu system, since I am familiar with Nikon's other pro bodies (D3x, D3, etc) so I can learn video.  I still haven't decided on an editor for a PC machine.

3) I've always treated microstock like a business from the getgo, using an accountant for earnings, depreciations, etc.  In 2011, I became 'more' business like by forming an LLC for my photography.  But the next big step up is doing a proper WILL (hey it's New Year's resolution time, right?) beyond the hastily scribbled napkin my kids have which really isn't legal or helpful to them.  It was very disturbing to my son, who was 'forced' to do a will as part of deployment in the military, that his parents didn't have a will.  And you know, he and his sister are right.  So tonight, my husband and I are going to do a rough draft tonight (using guidance from an excellent NOLO book0, have it looked over by a lawyer and finalize by the end of January 2012. It will include my photography LLC (and thus the microstock agencies I submit to as well).

4) Work on my 'new' website, my current one is very clunky... and I'd like to start blogging as well.  So far, I have the domain name and bought a WordPress theme.  I keep reading about how important it is for photographer's to get involved in Social Networking (FB, Twitter), and but I don't think it is as important for stock photographers... however, I might want to explore selling from my own website, so I may experiment with that... I have resisted joining FB so far...

5) I will eventually do photography full time after I 'retire' from medicine.... but that could be another 10 years, so I am learning, contributing, and growing along the way, enjoying it all...small tweaks are worth exploring also... For example, I just ordered a Kirk tripod collar for my old Nikkor 80-400mm VR (yes, slow, hunts, etc), and will see if I can extract more sharpness from it on my new backup Nikon D7000.  I read that Live View focusing may be superior to the regular AutoFocus, so maybe there will be new life for an old beloved lens...  little things like this are enjoyable to check out.  It would be a useful for travel, and who knows when if ever the AF-S version will happen.

Best of success to all in the coming year.

I am small fry here, and mostly doing this to pay for gear, but here are my goals:

Start uploading again after a 4 year hiatus with microstock.  I logged into all my ports at the various sites and found a nice little sum of $$ which was surprising as I only have about 30-40 files online.  That got me all geared up for getting this started up again. 

I was GOING to go exclusive with iStock as I don't really have the time for uploading to multiple sites due to my day job and back in 2007 they were where the biggest $$ came from.  I deleted all my ports at SS, DT, FT and the now-defunct StockXpert.   THEN I took a look at what was going on at IS, and decided to keep uploading to SS at least until IS gets their proverbial cr*p together.  I actually can't even apply to be exclusive right now due to their website issues.   Ah well, my new (VERY SMALL) port at SS is starting to get a few DL's, so we will see how it goes over the next couple months. 


Sarah

My plans for 2012 have changed  a little. Now i plan to photograph more people... my first real competitive model :

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=885118&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1#id=92633854

Dropped five micro agencies last night�picked up two new traditional (non-exclusive) agencies in the last two weeks.  Revenue is looking great � licensed an editorial image day before yesterday for $92.15.  It was an image I tried to upload to Shutterstock over the summer that they rejected for poor captioning (I think a period or a dash was off in the dateline somewhere).  It will be in a textbook in Canada for the next 3 years (and my trip to take the image is paid in full).  Gotta love the rights managed market.

I may be completely out of the micros before the end of the year if things keep going like this.

Same here! dropped 4, agencies few months back. Now I am active and uploading to only 6 agencies. The RM and RF, markets have trebbled for me during 2011 and I intend to work them a lot more.

Which ones did you drop lagereek?

123, Zoonar and Panthermedia. Nothing wrong with 123, exept for their automatic editing program, which is dreadful, unfortunately, because I was actaully earning quite well there. Zoonar, well that eas a joke and a half. Panthermedia, because they insisted on PRs, just for general corporate scenes which were unrecognizable anyway.