MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: macrosaur on February 27, 2010, 12:52
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check this out :
http://www.ellenboughn.com/shannon-fagan-asks-whats-your-position-on-global-positioning (http://www.ellenboughn.com/shannon-fagan-asks-whats-your-position-on-global-positioning)
in the comments Yuri says :
"I will bring some numbers to the table. Lookstat. It’s not just as simple as adapting to new waters.
I still shot, but it is not a good market situation we are in. RPI for microstock non-exclusive has dropped from 9.8USD per image per month two years back to 4.5USD per image per month today. I am expecting it to drop to less than 3 USD per image per month this year, at which point it does not make much sense to be producing. I could produce and make money at this RPI, but that would be at a stabile RPI of 3USD per month, not if it keeps going down. Right now I have to produce 11000 images per year to “maintain” my income.
My production is very streamlined and probably uses every technology known to man on how to produce great stock images. We go a long way to optimize for 5% more/better output. That’s 5%, not 50% and still we can’t really make sensible money from it in one-two years from now. It’s not about adapting and changing, it’s about accepting that what we could once make a living from, will be a hobby for the crowd. A crowd that does not care about RPI’s, model fees, overheads….it’s their hobby."
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That's kinda a scary observation by Yuri. But I think we all knew it was coming. The question is what can we do about it.
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He's got 30K images which, at an RPI of $3 per month, should generate about $1M per annum. If he can't 'make a living' out of that then his costs are totally out of control.
It's going to get much worse for him and all the rest of us too anyway __ that much is inevitable. Supply of new images is out-stripping the growth in the market and has been for some time. Whatever our individual RPI's are now in a few years time we will only dream of such figures.
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Yuri's profit margin may be shrinking, but his business model plays a *huge* part in it. The last time I looked, he had *three* studios, *ten* staff members, and took everyone on extended working vacations to South Africa and/or Hawaii.
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Yuri's profit margin may be shrinking, but his business model plays a *huge* part in it. The last time I looked, he had *three* studios, *ten* staff members, and took everyone on extended working vacations to South Africa and/or Hawaii.
it's just crazy how much he's spending.
just for starters, it makes no sense to be based in Denmark, one of the most expensive countries in europe and the world.
plus he has a huge studio, staffers, keyworders, stacks of Macs and PCs, and finally he pays his models.
moving the whole operation in a cheap euro country like Portugal o Serbia or Poland would slash his expenses at least 80%
and taxation is also lower than in northern europe.
Vacations to Hawaii for all the employees ?? That's another crazy thing, no wonder he can't pay the bills.
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But hey, maybe he's just downplaying his real earnings in order to pay less taxes and trying to demotivate his competitors ? Makes sense to me.
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The easy solution for him would be to quit microstock production, leave his portfolio to generate circa $1m for the next year or so and go shoot more lucrative real customer work. I think that's what I'd do.
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I met Yuri last year with the SS meeting in Denmark.
He is a business man and although rpi are low he will find his way out of it maybe start a different business.
Also what I noticed as long as he has that kind of twinkle in his eyes when he talks about photography everything
comes fine.
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That's kinda a scary observation by Yuri. But I think we all knew it was coming. The question is what can we do about it.
Probably stop taking on interns and training to go out and churn out the exact same thing as you.
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Yea production cost might be out of control. I always wondered how some people were able to bookmark that many models and have that much equipment, while I can hardly validate the purchase of a new lens. Now I may have a part of an answer.
There's photographers that might hunt numbers instead profits IMO. I know I do microstock to pay myself things I couldn't afford normally, like restaurant, cinema, some electronic devices and a little fun each weeks.
I have small expectations doing this, but I do hope that the big players keep being successful, it's them who attract all the designers in microstock. I'm sure that Yuri will find the way to stay on track. Actually, why not stopping the production and just let the money come in for the next 6 months or year. That would be 100% profits
But a bad news for all the employees...
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... and, I actually totally agree with Ian Murray:
"What concerns me is that we now have a new type of entrepreneur targeting the hobbyist and encouraging them, really against their own best interest, to enter the micro world. I mean those people who run pro-micro blogs, give workshops, sell books. I have no wish to be personally rude to anybody but this kind of spin-off seems parasitic to me and nothing to do with supporting a creative stock photography industry. It’s about finding positions from which to benefit from crowd sourcing whilst knowing full well the damage that it does both to new entrants and those already within the industry."
They're very chatty over there.
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I always wonder why so many people take what Yuri says to be a reflection on the industry as a whole, his business model is unique to say the least and yet so many people seem to think that if he can't sustain a viable profit it means the end of microstock, if his RPI is dropping it could mean one of many things that relates to how he operates his business not neccesarily the microstock industry.
Every once in a while Yuri will make a statement that makes everyone talk about him and predict the end is nigh, then life goes on until the next time.
I spent a few hours the other day looking at blogs, reading interviews and statements from many of the self proclaimed experts in the stock industry all predicting what the future holds, having read them one thing became blatently clear - it's a business and nobody knows what will happen.
I predict in a few months time we'll all be having the same conversation.
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Does Yuri produce video clips?
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Would be very interesting to hear what other top non-exclusive photographers are thinking about market trends, e.g. Andres, or Cathy Yeulet or Ron Chapple (though Ron wasn't very active in micro last 12-18 months).
Feedback from Yuri is valuable, but statistically it isn't enough to drive any conclusions.
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This is normal!
Yuri needs to know that his style was embraced by many of us, so competition is increasing...
Many people think that money is in his style...
Like in every other business, we will see rise in standards and pricing, hooby will become job, and door will not be open for everyone, only for pros...
First car was a hobby product, now is industry...
First plane was a toy, now that is fastest transportation on Earth...
First photographer was a weirdo, now it is business...
We can expect further professionalization of micorstock...
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Does Yuri work for microstock only? No commissioned work? And his studio is only for his own use?
To me it was alays difficult to imagine making a living solely on micros when your images cost so much. But then if these costs are diluted with other work, it's another story.
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Yea production cost might be out of control. I always wondered how some people were able to bookmark that many models and have that much equipment, while I can hardly validate the purchase of a new lens. Now I may have a part of an answer.
There's photographers that might hunt numbers instead profits IMO. I know I do microstock to pay myself things I couldn't afford normally, like restaurant, cinema, some electronic devices and a little fun each weeks.
I have small expectations doing this, but I do hope that the big players keep being successful, it's them who attract all the designers in microstock. I'm sure that Yuri will find the way to stay on track. Actually, why not stopping the production and just let the money come in for the next 6 months or year. That would be 100% profits
But a bad news for all the employees...
well if we look at the net gain of many big companies (ie : google) it's usually in the 10-15% range.
if Yuri says he can still pay the bills with a 3$ RPI it means when he had a 9$ RPI
he was making huge profits !
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Many people think that money is in his style...
what's so special actually in "his" style ?
same photos were seen decades ago, just not in industrial quantities like he does.
and what's the point of buying nikon D3x and Hasselblads for shooting microstock ?
all i've read so far about that guy was on the line of "look at me ! i'm getting rich
with all those 0.25$ photos sold on micros, i've a huge studio and the latest gear !".
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We can expect further professionalization of micorstock...
be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
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I agree he has more competition now than he ever did before, but it's very possible the style of his shooting is wearing off. To much of the same ol same ol. Who knows.
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I think Ron Chapple just dumped his back catalogue on the micros to give it some new life and then went back to his main business. Very sensible. Unlike Yuri Arcurs.
If Arcurs manages to squander all the dough he has been making through his showy lifestyle it will be the joke of the century. It is possible for normal people to live normal lives on just a few percent of the money he is raking in.
Still, there's no doubt that living from microstock is living on the edge.
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and what's the point of buying nikon D3x and Hasselblads for shooting microstock ?
He didn't have to buy his Hasselblads.
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Quite some time ago Lise Gagne said the reason to use top equipment is to cater to snobbish buyers - those who will only buy images taken with the best equipment. Actually, what she really said is that it 'proves' you're a serious professional, and buyers like that. Technical considerations have nothing to do with it. It's all about image (surprise surprise).
ETA: Lise's also shooting with a Hasselblad these days.
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Quite some time ago Lise Gagne said the reason to use top equipment is to cater to snobbish buyers - those who will only buy images taken with the best equipment. Actually, what she really said is that it 'proves' you're a serious professional, and buyers like that. Technical considerations have nothing to do with it. It's all about image (surprise surprise).
ETA: Lise's also shooting with a Hasselblad these days.
i could agree with this logic but how you call "snobbish buyers" the guys complaining microstocks
are getting too expensive ?
correct me if i'm wrong, but microstock buyers are the bottom of the barrel
compare to the ones shopping at Getty or any other RM.
for the record, i had plenty of sales on Alamy shot with an ancient nikon D50 in 6MP with a cheap Sigma lens, i don't know if they're snobbish enough but i do know i got paid an average of 100$/image and never had complaints of refunds asked.
would i sell twice with a Hasselblad ? i don't think so.
a D90 or a D700 is way more than enough for stock.
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And it will be worst everyday...
I don't want to be rude either, but... all those people who behave like microstock cheerleaders and are trying to refer as many new "photographers" as they can, they don't realize the damage they are doing.
The less competitors we have, the more images we'll sell. It couldn't be easier to understand! It's business.
The only winners with the microstock cheerleaders are the microstock agencies, not the photographers!
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Quite some time ago Lise Gagne said the reason to use top equipment is to cater to snobbish buyers - those who will only buy images taken with the best equipment. Actually, what she really said is that it 'proves' you're a serious professional, and buyers like that. Technical considerations have nothing to do with it. It's all about image (surprise surprise).
ETA: Lise's also shooting with a Hasselblad these days.
i could agree with this logic but how you call "snobbish buyers" the guys complaining microstocks
are getting too expensive ?
correct me if i'm wrong, but microstock buyers are the bottom of the barrel
compare to the ones shopping at Getty or any other RM.
for the record, i had plenty of sales on Alamy shot with an ancient nikon D50 in 6MP with a cheap Sigma lens, i don't know if they're snobbish enough but i do know i got paid an average of 100$/image and never had complaints of refunds asked.
would i sell twice with a Hasselblad ? i don't think so.
a D90 or a D700 is way more than enough for stock.
plonk - referring to any buyers as bottom of the barrel puts you there IMO.
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It's all about image (surprise surprise).
oh really ? i'm afraid it's all about the price nowadays.
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plonk
truth hurts eh ?
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We can expect further professionalization of micorstock...
be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
I thik it's not possible...
You need army of freelancers for that, that mean new generation there of children in middle class with enough money, and lot of free time...
So, when they come into this business, India and China will bring the biggest buyers population in this market...
Track this chart!
http://us.fotolia.com/Extra/SearchByCountry (http://us.fotolia.com/Extra/SearchByCountry)
We have to watch less Hollywood films about evil threat from East (we saw "evil" Russians,now Chinese etc, propaganda) ... :P :P :P
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We can expect further professionalization of micorstock...
be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
I thik it's not possible...
You need army of freelancers for that, that mean new generation there of children in middle class with enough money, and lot of free time...
So, when they come into this business, India and China will bring the biggest buyers population in this market...
i lived in asia many years, there's already millions of chinese with DSLR and fast ADSL.
india is another story, but vietnam is changing as fast as china, same for taiwan, thailand
and philippines.
if they just can make 3-400$/month out of shooting microstock they're already making
more than the average salary of a doctor or an engineer.
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So why they are not already here?
Maybe they have DSLR but they need to work whole day to survive., I think...
Thailand has pics like China, Vietnam is faar behind...
http://us.fotolia.com/Extra/SearchByCountry (http://us.fotolia.com/Extra/SearchByCountry)
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=microstock&cmpt=q (http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=microstock&cmpt=q)
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=sell%20photo&cmpt=q (http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=sell%20photo&cmpt=q)
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So why they are not already here?
Maybe they have DSLR but they need to work whole day to survive., I think...
Thailand has pics like China, Vietnam is faar behind...
[url]http://us.fotolia.com/Extra/SearchByCountry[/url] ([url]http://us.fotolia.com/Extra/SearchByCountry[/url])
[url]http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=microstock&cmpt=q[/url] ([url]http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=microstock&cmpt=q[/url])
[url]http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=sell%20photo&cmpt=q[/url] ([url]http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=sell%20photo&cmpt=q[/url])
that's the million dollar question.
the photographers i met there were either working for newswire services like AP/AFP/Reuters/XinHua
or selling art photography to art galleries or shooting marriages, studio portraits, etc
but don't think they were short of gear.
even the pennyless ones had D70, D90, D300, D3, with half decent lens.
of course they can't afford expensive lens but neither they shoot with kit lens.
never met a single chinese shooting stock so far, maybe they don't even know there's
a stock industry ? the impresion i had was that most of them only shoot on assignment
and think the rest of the world do the same.
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Maybe we see stock the same way ... "shoot it; if it doesn't sell, it must be stock." :P
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What really concerns me is the growing preference for non-photographic imagery. When I do a search for an object I'm thinking about shooting, I very often find the best-selling images are vector renderings, and the trend is growing. I think we're not far from the day when CGI rendered models (of people) will be preferred for most stock shots. All those beautiful well-dressed people in business meetings, in lavish futuristic office spaces - all those handsome, rugged looking doctors in scrubs - will be synthesized. No model releases, no privacy issues, no homely people, perfect teeth, any desired ethnicity, gender and age group. It can't be far off.
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Maybe I am crazy, but I think the fact that Yuri's production model is ultimately proving to be unprofitable is both predictable and welcome news.
The factory folks who have been flooding the micros the past couple of years with thousands upon thousands of cookie cutter images all shot on the same formula have virtually buried the offerings of the rest of us. While at the same time they are running up production costs that are totally unsustainable at micro prices.
It seems inevitable their business model would cease to be profitable for them. Maybe once they move on to greener pastures it will allow those of us with realistic production costs and thrifty business models to thrive.
With respect to the newbies being recruited, I think the barriers to entry are increasing to a point where only the very determined will stick it out.
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Maybe I am crazy, but I think the fact that Yuri's production model is ultimately proving to be unprofitable is both predictable and welcome news.
If there's a business model that still works, it has to be something like this: find someone who already has 2,000 stock images that are selling and have been online for 3 years, and buy them out :)
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What really concerns me is the growing preference for non-photographic imagery. When I do a search for an object I'm thinking about shooting, I very often find the best-selling images are vector renderings, and the trend is growing. I think we're not far from the day when CGI rendered models (of people) will be preferred for most stock shots. All those beautiful well-dressed people in business meetings, in lavish futuristic office spaces - all those handsome, rugged looking doctors in scrubs - will be synthesized. No model releases, no privacy issues, no homely people, perfect teeth, any desired ethnicity, gender and age group. It can't be far off.
I can hardly wait! But personally, as someone who has been doing renders of people for a long time, I think the wait will be several years at the very least before the imagists who submit microstock (that is, do not have access to Hollywood level rendering engines) can produce people-renders which can really pass for the kind of happy-business-people-photo which which does well as micro.
However, in every other area of image - except maybe food and particular locations , Times Square, say - CG should replace photography very soon.
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be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
There aren't any Danish people in China or India ;) .
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Hmm, I wonder if Yuri could stop producing images, close up shop and move to Hawaii and retire on his earnings even at a RPI of $3US? Granted he wouldn't be able to bring everything with him.
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hey nice chat here I am learning! :)
look at the following (stats from DT):
Andresr's account statistics:
Uploads this month: 1,393
Yuri_arcurs's account statistics:
Uploads this month: 38
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hey nice chat here I am learning! :)
look at the following (stats from DT):
Andresr's account statistics:
Uploads this month: 1,393
Yuri_arcurs's account statistics:
Uploads this month: 38
That's because Yuri had a spat with Serban when apparently demanding special treatment over rejections, etc. He didn't upload to DT for about 6 weeks but I think you'll find he has about 2000 more processed images that he can upload there any time he feels like doing so.
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ah ok! I am sure he got plenty of stuff on hold :P
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think the wait will be several years at the very least before the imagists who submit microstock (that is, do not have access to Hollywood level rendering engines) can produce people-renders which can really pass for the kind of happy-business-people-photo which which does well as micro.
Once this becomes possible, someone (or company) with the right software will be able to generate any desired number of stock images at eye-watering speed. That same handsome young Latino guy can be dropped into any number of pre-exising "business meeting" and "confident doctor" setups. Not only can countless variations of these shots - angles, lighting, age, gender, ethnicity, even mood - be generated at the same time, shots can even be produced to order.
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think the wait will be several years at the very least before the imagists who submit microstock (that is, do not have access to Hollywood level rendering engines) can produce people-renders which can really pass for the kind of happy-business-people-photo which which does well as micro.
Once this becomes possible, someone (or company) with the right software will be able to generate any desired number of stock images at eye-watering speed. That same handsome young Latino guy can be dropped into any number of pre-exising "business meeting" and "confident doctor" setups. Not only can countless variations of these shots - angles, lighting, age, gender, ethnicity, even mood - be generated at the same time, shots can even be produced to order.
It's already being done judging from some backgrounds, clouds and settings I see repeated on some sites. Good plan for those who can do it. Save your favorite Sunset and use it over and over. Airplane climbing into the clouds is another. Business people pointing at a chart or the same NASA world map used as a background by numerous individuals. However buyers will soon be looking for something that stands out as different and unique, so there's always room for real and creative shots instead of composites.
People worry too much about Yuri and his business. He'll do just fine even if he stopped uploading anything to micro starting tomorrow. I also think the people with thousands of good images, will do alright without my comments or advise. ;)
Maybe the prize has gotten smaller because the pool of photos has become larger. More variations and access. Sad that the "race to the bottom" in the form of price competition has become even worse as the market has become larger. Return per image per year, is going down for everyone.
Where it's going to be tough is the new people coming in, reading the estimates of $1 a month per photo that used to be a general estimate. Maybe that works for some and some do better, but I don't think it's the future average anymore.
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Save your favorite Sunset and use it over and over. Airplane climbing into the clouds is another.
The clouds and sunsets you see may already not be from photos or real at all, but instead generated by programs like Vue and other CG software.
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Amazing sjlocke, I actually agree with you on something! I have always resented the people who publish books and websites that serve to encourage the hobbyists, causing the micro world to become even more over crowded with contributors than it already is. Really, that's the LAST thing we need.
... and, I actually totally agree with Ian Murray:
"What concerns me is that we now have a new type of entrepreneur targeting the hobbyist and encouraging them, really against their own best interest, to enter the micro world. I mean those people who run pro-micro blogs, give workshops, sell books. I have no wish to be personally rude to anybody but this kind of spin-off seems parasitic to me and nothing to do with supporting a creative stock photography industry. It’s about finding positions from which to benefit from crowd sourcing whilst knowing full well the damage that it does both to new entrants and those already within the industry."
They're very chatty over there.
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Amazing sjlocke, I actually agree with you on something! I have always resented the people who publish books and websites that serve to encourage the hobbyists, causing the micro world to become even more over crowded with contributors than it already is. Really, that's the LAST thing we need.
There are other fields where 'professionals' are being overwhelmed by 'amateurs'. Have you ever listed to a journalist from NYT talk about the impact of blogging? As always - if the market can't separate the wheat from the chaff - or doesn't care to - or people actually decide they like the chaff - there's little a 'professional' can do except try to use his skills to get started in a different game.
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Not only can countless variations of these shots - angles, lighting, age, gender, ethnicity, even mood - be generated at the same time, shots can even be produced to order.
What Stardate are we talking about, approximatively? 8)
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and who gives a crap about the NYT ?
we're all from europe here apart you guys.
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What Stardate are we talking about, approximatively? 8)
Don't you go to the movies? The technology is already here, it's just so expensive that it can only be used on projects that make millions. That will change, and it will happen way sooner than you think.
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What Stardate are we talking about, approximatively? 8)
Don't you go to the movies? The technology is already here, it's just so expensive that it can only be used on projects that make millions. That will change, and it will happen way sooner than you think.
Sure, Sure, and next you're going to tell me film is dead and the manufacturers will stop making cameras and most of the popular 35mm film types. ;)
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After reading the bad news from Yuri i made some calculations and found out...there's no way to discuss the numbers without knowing how he comes to his conclusions. Did he meant a profit of $3 or 4,5 after rent, equipment, etc. and taxes or did he meant a sales volume p.P. ?
At the moment i found out i have a sales volume of more than 5$ p.P. without any deductions.
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After reading the bad news from Yuri i made some calculations and found out...there's no way to discuss the numbers without knowing how he comes to his conclusions. Did he meant a profit of $3 or 4,5 after rent, equipment, etc. and taxes or did he meant a sales volume p.P. ?
At the moment i found out i have a sales volume of more than 5$ p.P. without any deductions.
It's commonly understood that RPI means Revenue per Image per Month.
You calculate it on a monthly basis by dividing income by portfolio size for each agency you contribute to, then sum up the individual RPIs to get your gross RPI.
RPI is a general measure of the income potential of your imagery, and does not take into account production costs.
I have no idea what you mean by "a sales volume p.P." - sounds like you made up this term by yourself.
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be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
Models / architecture / landscapes / lifestyles... in India and China are different from Europe / United States - not better or worse, just different; only studio shots of objects could be exactly the same
So Indians / Chinese photographers are not entirely competitors to us, they will bring nice additions in terms of variety; and this will also attract more buyers to microstock
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be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
Models / architecture / landscapes / lifestyles... in India and China are different from Europe / United States - not better or worse, just different; only studio shots of objects could be exactly the same
So Indians / Chinese photographers are not entirely competitors to us, they will bring nice additions in terms of variety; and this will also attract more buyers to microstock
Talking about cheap mass production with Caucasian models - Russia.
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As I remember, one of the videos from Fotolia Workshop where Yuri was invited, someone asked him how many employees are involved in his business. And if I`m not wrog his answer was: 10 from denmark, 1 germany, 1 from US and 10 from india. So what they are doing from india: keywording, retouching???
I`ll check up for the video to be sure about those numbers that I mentioned above.
Tamas
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Yes, keywording and retouching.
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be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
Models / architecture / landscapes / lifestyles... in India and China are different from Europe / United States - not better or worse, just different; only studio shots of objects could be exactly the same
So Indians / Chinese photographers are not entirely competitors to us, they will bring nice additions in terms of variety; and this will also attract more buyers to microstock
Talking about cheap mass production with Caucasian models - Russia.
Russian pictures and models look very Russian. Buyers will always look for pictures that are suited for the demography they are catering to. I often browse through parenting magazines, and have yet to see a Russian name under one of the children pictures. I guess the Russian kids are just to clean and well dressed to fit into our views of a happy child.
http://www.klikk.no/foreldre/smabarn/article530159.ece (http://www.klikk.no/foreldre/smabarn/article530159.ece) (This one is quite clean compared to many other pictures I've seen)
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So here is the video, wait till 1.46, I was wrong about the german one.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8XmMmSceK4[/youtube]
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What really concerns me is the growing preference for non-photographic imagery. When I do a search for an object I'm thinking about shooting, I very often find the best-selling images are vector renderings, and the trend is growing. I think we're not far from the day when CGI rendered models (of people) will be preferred for most stock shots. All those beautiful well-dressed people in business meetings, in lavish futuristic office spaces - all those handsome, rugged looking doctors in scrubs - will be synthesized. No model releases, no privacy issues, no homely people, perfect teeth, any desired ethnicity, gender and age group. It can't be far off.
It's a very good point, but it's still quite far off. The reason is the time and effort it takes to produce a very good and convincing human being in an environment. It's absolutely possible and fairly indistinguishable from reality, but it takes time and I don't think it's cost effective. It's way more efficient for shooting video though, cause once you create the scene and set it up, you can create a huge amount of footage in practically no time (save the rendering-time which is always decreasing).
We'll see in 10 years or so, things will improve and there might be a turning point where digital stock will become cost effective.
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Maybe I am crazy, but I think the fact that Yuri's production model is ultimately proving to be unprofitable is both predictable and welcome news.
The factory folks who have been flooding the micros the past couple of years with thousands upon thousands of cookie cutter images all shot on the same formula have virtually buried the offerings of the rest of us. While at the same time they are running up production costs that are totally unsustainable at micro prices.
It seems inevitable their business model would cease to be profitable for them. Maybe once they move on to greener pastures it will allow those of us with realistic production costs and thrifty business models to thrive.
With respect to the newbies being recruited, I think the barriers to entry are increasing to a point where only the very determined will stick it out.
Well said Lisa, agree 100%.
It is kind of ironic that it is the 'image factories' themselves who are most to blame for swamping their own market so quickly. It reminds me of the countless times in history that people have wiped out their own food source by greedily hunting or fishing it to excess.
The current microstock market is probably worth something like $4-500M per annum and generating maybe $150M in commissions to contributors. There's plenty a good living to be had from that for many people. In the long term it will only be those who are careful with their costs, efficient in their production and who also have genuine talent who will survive.
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be careful, as the next big thing in microstock could be a sudden invasion of
chinese and indian photographers selling like crazy with very low production costs.
actually i'm surprised it didn't happened already, maybe their english isn't good enough
for keywording ? ???
Models / architecture / landscapes / lifestyles... in India and China are different from Europe / United States - not better or worse, just different; only studio shots of objects could be exactly the same
So Indians / Chinese photographers are not entirely competitors to us, they will bring nice additions in terms of variety; and this will also attract more buyers to microstock
Talking about cheap mass production with Caucasian models - Russia.
Russian pictures and models look very Russian. Buyers will always look for pictures that are suited for the demography they are catering to. I often browse through parenting magazines, and have yet to see a Russian name under one of the children pictures. I guess the Russian kids are just to clean and well dressed to fit into our views of a happy child.
http://www.klikk.no/foreldre/smabarn/article530159.ece (http://www.klikk.no/foreldre/smabarn/article530159.ece) (This one is quite clean compared to many other pictures I've seen)
[/quote
You can recognize Russian child? So, than Yuri is selling only in Denmark?
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You can recognize Russian child? So, than Yuri is selling only in Denmark?
Ethnic Germans (the well selling blond hair blue eye types) are historically spread out over Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, and the Western part of Russia.
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Russian pictures and models look very Russian. Buyers will always look for pictures that are suited for the demography they are catering to. I often browse through parenting magazines, and have yet to see a Russian name under one of the children pictures. I guess the Russian kids are just to clean and well dressed to fit into our views of a happy child.
[url]http://www.klikk.no/foreldre/smabarn/article530159.ece[/url] ([url]http://www.klikk.no/foreldre/smabarn/article530159.ece[/url]) (This one is quite clean compared to many other pictures I've seen)
then try Australia or NZ or Argentina, great places to live and way cheaper than Denmark.
i don't think you'll have any problem finding caucasian or "nordic" models.
p.s.
Russia is too expensive now, and they don't like foreigners but there are 300.000 non-chinese people in Beijing, a crowd of expats
in Shanghai and Hongkong and Singapore and Bangkok.
another option is Canada : living standards similar to the US, and cost of life cheaper than europe.
i mean, however we look at it, europe and especially scandinavia is all about high costs and high taxation.
no wonder our factories are all outsourcing elsewhere.
yuri's business could be a textbook case : 22 employees for shooting microstock ?? 3 studios ??
but maybe his family is rich and he owns the studios, who knows.
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It is kind of ironic that it is the 'image factories' themselves who are most to blame for swamping their own market so quickly. It reminds me of the countless times in history that people have wiped out their own food source by greedily hunting or fishing it to excess.
The current microstock market is probably worth something like $4-500M per annum and generating maybe $150M in commissions to contributors. There's plenty a good living to be had from that for many people. In the long term it will only be those who are careful with their costs, efficient in their production and who also have genuine talent who will survive.
maybe the problem is not there and lies also in the fact that RF images can be used forever unlike RM ?
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You can recognize Russian child? So, than Yuri is selling only in Denmark?
Ethnic Germans (the well selling blond hair blue eye types) are historically spread out over Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, and the Western part of Russia.
Sure but any european can easily spot a german from a slav.
As for "diversity" it's funny to see the supermarkets' brochures in Singapore : they're forced to put malays, indians, chinese, muslims, and the odd caucasian in every graphic design.
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As I remember, one of the videos from Fotolia Workshop where Yuri was invited, someone asked him how many employees are involved in his business. And if I`m not wrog his answer was: 10 from denmark, 1 germany, 1 from US and 10 from india. So what they are doing from india: keywording, retouching???
I`ll check up for the video to be sure about those numbers that I mentioned above.
Tamas
but what are the 10 from denmark doing ?
are they shooting or just photoshopping ?
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What really concerns me is the growing preference for non-photographic imagery. When I do a search for an object I'm thinking about shooting, I very often find the best-selling images are vector renderings, and the trend is growing. I think we're not far from the day when CGI rendered models (of people) will be preferred for most stock shots. All those beautiful well-dressed people in business meetings, in lavish futuristic office spaces - all those handsome, rugged looking doctors in scrubs - will be synthesized. No model releases, no privacy issues, no homely people, perfect teeth, any desired ethnicity, gender and age group. It can't be far off.
That's because most of the microstock photos have that plastic, bleached look, rather than authenticity.
Also you sound like 3D and Vector artists do nothing but press a button to generate images. The truth is there's a lot more work involved in 3D models and rendering than in photography, so I don't think this is viable. And that's without counting the time that takes to master a 3D program(incomparable to photography, imho)
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but what are the 10 from denmark doing ?
are they shooting or just photoshopping ?
Most of Yuri's photos are made by Yuri himself. Last August he said that it's maximum 30% from some shoots that is made by his assistants (i.e. the average nr in his portfolio is much lower). I doubt it changed much since then.
But it's not just photoshopping all these people are doing - it's location scouting, organizing with properties, models, accessories; assisting during shoots, etc. I believe it's 1-2 doing some processing in Denmark, and it's mainly Indian people doing photoshopping for Yuri.
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You can recognize Russian child? So, than Yuri is selling only in Denmark?
Ethnic Germans (the well selling blond hair blue eye types) are historically spread out over Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, and the Western part of Russia.
I'm 50% Italian blood, 37.5% Portuguese blood, 12.5% of an undefined mix of Portuguese+Dutch+(perhaps native). Yesterday a guy at the pharmacy asked if I was of German origin, as I reminded his deceased sister, and they were 100% German blood. I believe that being white and overweight helped him make this confusion. ;D
With all invasions back and forth along the history of the world, it is hard to define your ethnic background. But of course, in China they don't relate with a blue-eyed blonde, but a blue-eye blonde may apper "normal" to all Europe and America, plus some other places (AU, NZ, ZA).
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You can recognize Russian child? So, than Yuri is selling only in Denmark?
Ethnic Germans (the well selling blond hair blue eye types) are historically spread out over Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, and the Western part of Russia.
I'm 50% Italian blood, 37.5% Portuguese blood, 12.5% of an undefined mix of Portuguese+Dutch+(perhaps native). Yesterday a guy at the pharmacy asked if I was of German origin, as I reminded his deceased sister, and they were 100% German blood. I believe that being white and overweight helped him make this confusion. ;D
With all invasions back and forth along the history of the world, it is hard to define your ethnic background. But of course, in China they don't relate with a blue-eyed blonde, but a blue-eye blonde may apper "normal" to all Europe and America, plus some other places (AU, NZ, ZA).
i can spot people's ethnicity as long as they're european.
basically there are 3-4 major clusters, it's no big deal.
americans are all mixed, impossible to spot where they came from.
frankly i can't see how Yuri couldn't make good photos with eastern european
models, they look a bit slav but all in all they can pass for americans unless
you search for the weird ones.
there's plenty of russian female models in fashion magazines and newspapers.
argentina might be a good place for his photos, there are spanish, italians,
germans, russians ... i can't imagine him being short of good looking girls
in Buenos Aires.
i was thinking about moving there ... with 500 euro you can rent a huge apartment
and the food is great, i speak also some spanish, we'll see.
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I'm 50% Italian blood, 37.5% Portuguese blood, 12.5% of an undefined mix of Portuguese+Dutch+(perhaps native). Yesterday a guy at the pharmacy asked if I was of German origin, as I reminded his deceased sister, and they were 100% German blood. I believe that being white and overweight helped him make this confusion. ;D
if that matters, i'm from northern italy and i'm blond and blue eyes.
there's this legend that ALL italians have dark eyes and hairs but it's BS as
a good 10-15% of us are light hairs and light eyes.
the darkies are mostly in the south as they were colonized from greeks,
arabs, etc
people always ask me if i'm french and say my accent is german ... ???
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Most of Yuri's photos are made by Yuri himself. Last August he said that it's maximum 30% from some shoots that is made by his assistants (i.e. the average nr in his portfolio is much lower). I doubt it changed much since then.
But it's not just photoshopping all these people are doing - it's location scouting, organizing with properties, models, accessories; assisting during shoots, etc. I believe it's 1-2 doing some processing in Denmark, and it's mainly Indian people doing photoshopping for Yuri.
to me it all sounds verrrry expensive, especially if he's also paying the models.
we'll see how it goes, and we'll laugh.
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... and, I actually totally agree with Ian Murray:
"What concerns me is that we now have a new type of entrepreneur targeting the hobbyist and encouraging them, really against their own best interest, to enter the micro world. I mean those people who run pro-micro blogs, give workshops, sell books. I have no wish to be personally rude to anybody but this kind of spin-off seems parasitic to me and nothing to do with supporting a creative stock photography industry. It’s about finding positions from which to benefit from crowd sourcing whilst knowing full well the damage that it does both to new entrants and those already within the industry."
I agree the model is predatory. In the beginning the model was not much of a threat because many of the entrepreneurs did not know much about stock photography or digital. It was clear to see that a few used the fake it until you make it strategy. Because the net culture is all about sharing info, they did find many of us who were naive enough to share valuable information with them over the last 5 years and that info could be incorporated into workshops, books and frequent promotional blurbs.
Those of us who were naive enough to share valuable info with one particular business model are kicking ourselves for adding to the industry pain we are experiencing now and are feeling guilty when we see others being taken advantage of. It is quite clear that money is the objective and the rest of us are inconsequential. The SS critique forums have been staked out for some time as a source of income for that business model. First it uses the critique area to beat down the new shooters confidence, then offers carrots of hope for improvement and income, then convinces the new shooters that it alone holds the superior key or info that will lead to success. For a fat fee of course.
They're very chatty over there.
Yes they are
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=77693 (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=77693)
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=78105 (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=78105)
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Most of Yuri's photos are made by Yuri himself. Last August he said that it's maximum 30% from some shoots that is made by his assistants (i.e. the average nr in his portfolio is much lower). I doubt it changed much since then.
But it's not just photoshopping all these people are doing - it's location scouting, organizing with properties, models, accessories; assisting during shoots, etc. I believe it's 1-2 doing some processing in Denmark, and it's mainly Indian people doing photoshopping for Yuri.
to me it all sounds verrrry expensive, especially if he's also paying the models.
we'll see how it goes, and we'll laugh.
Yes I totally agree - Yuri isn't running his business at low cost at all. I am sure costs of Ron Chapple are much lower and I am almost sure costs of Andres are much lower too.
I think it was too easy for Yuri when this market was young; and now it's changing. I am sure Yuri can survive that successfully, but his rather luxury style will need to change. Of course his costs of production are high if he flies models from another countries in business class and lodges them in luxury hotels (http://www.arcurs.com/german-model-eva-marie-tells-her-story-on-working-with-yuri-arcurs (http://www.arcurs.com/german-model-eva-marie-tells-her-story-on-working-with-yuri-arcurs)); and he keeps ten full-time employees in Denmark - but all these is relatively easy to squeeze.
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I'm 50% Italian blood, 37.5% Portuguese blood, 12.5% of an undefined mix of Portuguese+Dutch+(perhaps native). Yesterday a guy at the pharmacy asked if I was of German origin, as I reminded his deceased sister, and they were 100% German blood. I believe that being white and overweight helped him make this confusion. ;D
if that matters, i'm from northern italy and i'm blond and blue eyes.
there's this legend that ALL italians have dark eyes and hairs but it's BS as
a good 10-15% of us are light hairs and light eyes.
the darkies are mostly in the south as they were colonized from greeks,
arabs, etc
people always ask me if i'm french and say my accent is german ... ???
Where from in north of Italy? Just curiosity :)
I'm dark hair and dark eyes, born in the south of Italy, lived 25 years in the north, moved to UK for seven, now in Germany, next? I don't know.
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Remember the saying..."All good things must come to an end"
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When I got to Rinder is the problem for helping people and "we should form a union" I had to leave the thread before I burst a blood vessel. Maybe from laughing and the frustration of futility in debating either of the above.
1) Helping doesn't "help" someone to their destination, it just makes the path shorter. They are going to get there eventually, with or without help. Does anyone really think that some secret society would prevent new people from figuring out what sells and what doesn't? Someone with no talent will always have no talent. (oops, I was looking at my Micro portfolio again?) But someone who gets the idea and shoots for the market, will be fine, whether we say something or not. It's not rocket science or brain surgery! The agency sites offer this information.
2) Microstock Photographers Union... Please help me, I've fallen on the floor laughing and I can't get up! ;D
What is the Independent Photographers Association going to do? Go on strike? HA! People are grubbing for quarters so much that almost no one does anything about abuse. A few have pulled portfolios from offending sites, but the rest just keep taking the level changes, vague credits, smaller and smaller percentages, and jump on every new site that offers a dime for uploads.
3) Referral links, spamming for pennies, and bragging about how to earn money from snapshots or those photos, "sitting on your computer", does more harm than any advise anyone can give. It's recruiting competition! Now please someone point a finger at yourself for recruiting, not blogs or books for information that's provided free on the microstock agency sites, but just organizing it much better.
Want to stop the price decline, commission drop and decreasing income every year?
Stop supporting the parasitic new sites! All they do is offer your work for less, driving prices down, diluting the market and you are competing with yourself.
Stop spamming your referral links! All you are doing is bringing in new members who will make you less necessary, giving the agencies more power because you have made yourself less important as there are more contributors.
Not giving advise is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. By that point, it's too late to change anything.
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1) Helping doesn't "help" someone to their destination, it just makes the path shorter. They are going to get there eventually, with or without help.
Not quite. People who "get it" will find the info and make progress no matter what. People who don't get it will only make progress as long as someone is helping them constantly. And some people won't make progress regardless of the situation.
Stop spamming your referral links! All you are doing is bringing in new members who will make you less necessary, giving the agencies more power because you have made yourself less important as there are more contributors.
Plus I don't know why sites encourage new contributors with referrals. They have enough contributors. They need more buyers. Is IS the only site that gets this?
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It's commonly understood that RPI means Revenue per Image per Month.
You calculate it on a monthly basis by dividing income by portfolio size for each agency you contribute to, then sum up the individual RPIs to get your gross RPI.
RPI is a general measure of the income potential of your imagery, and does not take into account production costs.
I have no idea what you mean by "a sales volume p.P." - sounds like you made up this term by yourself.
This make no sense to me. If i reduce all not best selling Images at any agency i will get a higher RPI but less income. So what helps me to measure my RPI? I measure things like earning p. Image/Earning p. Sale/and some more.
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Not quite. People who "get it" will find the info and make progress no matter what. People who don't get it will only make progress as long as someone is helping them constantly. And some people won't make progress regardless of the situation.
actually it's not that hard ... buy any photography magazine or read some online forum and before
or later you'll hear about macro and micro stock.
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1) Helping doesn't "help" someone to their destination, it just makes the path shorter. They are going to get there eventually, with or without help. Does anyone really think that some secret society would prevent new people from figuring out what sells and what doesn't? Someone with no talent will always have no talent. (oops, I was looking at my Micro portfolio again?) But someone who gets the idea and shoots for the market, will be fine, whether we say something or not. It's not rocket science or brain surgery! The agency sites offer this information.
2) Microstock Photographers Union... Please help me, I've fallen on the floor laughing and I can't get up! ;D
What is the Independent Photographers Association going to do? Go on strike? HA! People are grubbing for quarters so much that almost no one does anything about abuse. A few have pulled portfolios from offending sites, but the rest just keep taking the level changes, vague credits, smaller and smaller percentages, and jump on every new site that offers a dime for uploads.
3) Referral links, spamming for pennies, and bragging about how to earn money from snapshots or those photos, "sitting on your computer", does more harm than any advise anyone can give. It's recruiting competition! Now please someone point a finger at yourself for recruiting, not blogs or books for information that's provided free on the microstock agency sites, but just organizing it much better.
Want to stop the price decline, commission drop and decreasing income every year?
Stop supporting the parasitic new sites! All they do is offer your work for less, driving prices down, diluting the market and you are competing with yourself.
Stop spamming your referral links! All you are doing is bringing in new members who will make you less necessary, giving the agencies more power because you have made yourself less important as there are more contributors.
Not giving advise is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. By that point, it's too late to change anything.
I agree the photographers that have the will, and talent to succeed will build their skills one way or another. The shooters that make true money innately know what will sell and they are widely copied on all microsites. Lots of so called experts do NOT know what sells, no matter how often they may tell you they do. Motivated shooters do not need any "help". For the motivated, photography is a passion and learning and expanding skills is innate. There are many examples of micro photographers here who knew little about photography or micro in the beginning and grew with the business. Many of these photographers helped each other out during the process and that is a commendable.
I do suspect you missed a few key points. The net has a long history of being a place to share info and that is good. However it does not benefit anyone when you share info with a business model that is willing to take advantage of, encourage and mislead those who lack the skill or motivation to succeed in the long run. In these economic times if you suppose that it does not matter that the resources of these people are wasted on pipe dreams you might consider that some of those new shooters have few $'s or resources to begin with and they are desperate to find a way to increase their income. As a consequence their family's go without to buy the OP's recommended equipment, workshops, books etc and those $$$$$'s spent will never bring meaningful returns, not to mention the fact that the sites continue to be flooded with images that would NOT otherwise be generated. Add into it the referral spamming and it is no wonder that good images are buried and incomes are dropping.
I think the union issue is a moot point, I would be very surprised to see a viable microstock union organized in the foreseeable future.
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Where from in north of Italy? Just curiosity :)
I'm dark hair and dark eyes, born in the south of Italy, lived 25 years in the north, moved to UK for seven, now in Germany, next? I don't know.
I'm from Padua but travelled extensively in europe and asia for many years.
next ? back home in asia in a couple months.
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I think it was too easy for Yuri when this market was young; and now it's changing. I am sure Yuri can survive that successfully, but his rather luxury style will need to change. Of course his costs of production are high if he flies models from another countries in business class and lodges them in luxury hotels
i'm afraid that's the only way he knows about running a business.
but the important bit of discussion he was talking about was
the fall of the RPI and this could be the crucial factor soon
for many microstockers.
before or later you simply reach the point where hiring free models,
shooting, scanning model releases, uploading, keywording, etc just
doesn't cover the bills anymore, let alone producing any decent net gain.
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It's not much of a surprise to me that Yuri is even considering stopping production. Really, I thought he already would have done it by now, or at least reduced his operation down to a 1-man show. At his current rate of RPI decline, he could still live very comfortably off his microstock income alone for a long time.
Hypothetically, let's say Yuri earns $1 million per year currently from microstock, but he spends half of that in fees and expenses. His personal take would be $500,000 annually. If he stopped producing new images for microstock today, at his current rate of decline in RPI (50% every 2 years) he'd be making $500,000 in 2012, $250,000 in 2014, etc. Only he'd be keeping all of it himself instead of paying out a substantial portion of it for his employees, models, equipment, and various other expenses. So really over the next couple of years, stopping his microstock production would have little effect on his take-home income, and it would only really begin to affect him personally in 2013. And even at that point, he'd still be pulling in a very nice income for doing absolutely nothing. In 2016 he'd theoretically still be making a six-figure income from microstock, having not produced a single image for microstock in over half a decade.
Not a bad exit strategy if you ask me. Do nothing for 6 or 7 years and make a couple million in the process. If he has been investing wisely, he's probably already got a nice nest egg set up. So don't shed any tears for Yuri. He could close up shop tomorrow and live very well for a long time off of his 100% passive microstock income.
The writing has been on the wall around here for a long time. I came into this game 3 years ago, and haven't been able to increase my income here for the past 2 despite a steady increase in the quality of my work and the amount of time I invest in microstock. This was always a hobbyist business, although a handful of folks have been able to make into a nice full-time job. But ultimately this thing will degrade into little more than a hobby for all of us.
I mentioned in another thread that I'm taking some time off of microstock production, and it's for this very reason. Five years from now I don't see this being any significant part of my income anymore. Now is the time to figure out my own exit strategy.
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In my opinion the most dangerous thing Yuri did wasn't the training of newbies. He clearly realized these newbies will never be able to compete with him but they will kill each other and some not-demi-god-class microstock shooters. It worked well. In theory it could help Yuri to widen the gap between him and his competition while it helped him to make his name a brand.
But he started an other project and that was the real danger. A few years ago he started to broadcast his success on every channel he accessed. It was great for his ego and his brand but very bad for other microstockers. Now it is going to be bad for himself as well. His success (and his income) magnetized a lot of pros - no wonder, earning 100k per months is a good money for ANYONE! He even tried to involve seasoned pros by offering them a helping hand (Yuri Arcurs Distribution Network). I doubt many of them joined to his network but I am sure many of them started his/her own microstock brand. And these guys can easily compete with him.
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Ah, and one more thing. No one ever raised the bar in microstock as high and as fast as he did. His images are great professional RF stock photos with a high-end camera. They can stand against the traditional RF images... for a fraction of their price. And everyone is trying to keep in line with him - yes, I agree his spot on the list of the most influential photographers is correct. You can see the result in the form of ThinkStock: traditional RF images are going to be offered together with microstock because they can't be sold on premium price anymore.
Do not misunderstand me, I am not blaming him. He is a great photographer and a good businessman. He is a real self made man. Everything he did helped him to be the no1. and no one else could do it. He is unique... but at the same time the tendencies he is describing in his comment were coded in.
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There is another reason why the Yuri Arcurs fairy tale could not last forever. He has a very unique high key style with bleached out backgrounds and perfect models, a bit like Jonathan Ross. You can't open a mag or a business website or you see a "Yuri Arcurs", just like you can spot a "Picasso".
People are going to become tired after a while, since like in everything, there is a fashion in imagery and people get easily bored.
Of course he will have realized that himself some time ago. If he scales down now, and lives off of his images on the shelves for 2-4 years to come, he will probably try something completely different, like RM or assignments.
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Of course he will have realized that himself some time ago. If he scales down now, and lives off of his images on the shelves for 2-4 years to come, he will probably try something completely different, like RM or assignments.
he tried RM already with Getty and Alamy but it seems without much success so far, despite there are rumours he's Alamy top seller nr.1
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traditional RF images are going to be offered together with microstock because they can't be sold on premium price anymore.
RF was already a heresy years ago, everybody knew it would have been a race to the bottom.
Thinkstock is not the end of the tunnel, you'll see.
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besides, Yuri is complaining about falling RPI, not about competition ripping off his "style" or keywords.
he says he needs 1000 new pics a month just to stay on par with the previous earning.
these two factors together clearly show that even lowering his production costs
he must shoot 30 saleable images a day in order to "feed the beast".
how can this be a sustainable business model ?
he also miss another point : many buyers keep recycling the same RF images once they have
a big portfolio of lifestyle/business/etc photos so they end buying up only what they really need
instead of buying all the images as the ones using RM.
another proof that RF was the dumbest idea in the history of stock !
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What Helix said and others have affirmed.
While he's on a peak, why would Yuri then not lay off his entire staff, continue shooting solo and only submit say 250 photos a month. That's not a very ambitious number but still that will bring a modest revenue, and give the guy some leisure time (have to enjoy that 250 k/annum a little). Surely he remembers how to edit and keyword?
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What Helix said and others have affirmed.
While he's on a peak, why would Yuri then not lay off his entire staff, continue shooting solo and only submit say 250 photos a month. That's not a very ambitious number but still that will bring a modest revenue, and give the guy some leisure time (have to enjoy that 250 k/annum a little). Surely he remembers how to edit and keyword?
He would not be where he is now,if he was looking for leisure time. It is very interesting that many of you came up with this idea: Yuri stop working and enjoy your money. He is working guy, that is what he does.
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What Helix said and others have affirmed.
While he's on a peak, why would Yuri then not lay off his entire staff, continue shooting solo and only submit say 250 photos a month. That's not a very ambitious number but still that will bring a modest revenue, and give the guy some leisure time (have to enjoy that 250 k/annum a little). Surely he remembers how to edit and keyword?
He would not be where he is now,if he was looking for leisure time. It is very interesting that many of you came up with this idea: Yuri stop working and enjoy your money. He is working guy, that is what he does.
artists take long holidays and lots of leisure time, otherwise they couldn't come up with fresh ideas that sell.
yuri's work is like a factory assembling industrial products, there's nothing genius or innovative or artistic on it, that's why he doesn't need
any stop or holiday break.
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traditional RF images are going to be offered together with microstock because they can't be sold on premium price anymore.
RF was already a heresy years ago, everybody knew it would have been a race to the bottom.
Thinkstock is not the end of the tunnel, you'll see.
Not. The fact that Yuri's business is becoming unsustainable shows that ther's a limit price to get quality imagery. If prices continue to go down, microsites will be left with amateur shots; maybe some good landscape/travel photos, but almost nothing of what has a production cost and what really attract buyers and sells.
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...It is very interesting that many of you came up with this idea: Yuri stop working and enjoy your money. He is working guy, that is what he does.
I didn't say that. I said he could live well off the passive income for a long time. What he does with that time is up to him. He'd be wise to work on his next venture during that time, so maybe then the microstock well dries up he is already on to something else.
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the funny thing about this topic, is that Yuri just stated a "thing" at Ellen's blog, it is true ok, but why all this fuss about his work?.. You are all saying this and that, just talking right?.. looks like a gossip magazine... :P
are you close friends of him? do you know him? ok some might know, but don't know that much to talk about himself, he isn't here to defend all the things said in this topic.. it is becoming ridiculous!.. if he spends too much or less his its own business, if his style is like a "factory" producing a product etc...! come on..
YEAH, I know I am nobody and I don't know crap about stock and so on, but please give a break to Yuri! (come on bully guys, show your claws and chat around :P)
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When you ask for the attention constantly, you end up getting it.
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When you ask for the attention constantly, you end up getting it.
CONSTANTLY
hi there, I was in I guess just 2 topics in this microstockgroup forum, I am not calling attention!
my problem is that I read a lot and keep it, then... :P
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I was in I guess just 2 topics in this microstockgroup forum, I am not calling attention!
I think he means Yuri...but I could be wrong.
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I was in I guess just 2 topics in this microstockgroup forum, I am not calling attention!
I think he means Yuri...but I could be wrong.
I did . Thanks for clarifying for him.
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the funny thing about this topic, is that Yuri just stated a "thing" at Ellen's blog, it is true ok, but why all this fuss about his work?.. You are all saying this and that, just talking right?.. looks like a gossip magazine... :P
are you close friends of him? do you know him? ok some might know, but don't know that much to talk about himself, he isn't here to defend all the things said in this topic.. it is becoming ridiculous!.. if he spends too much or less his its own business, if his style is like a "factory" producing a product etc...! come on..
YEAH, I know I am nobody and I don't know crap about stock and so on, but please give a break to Yuri! (come on bully guys, show your claws and chat around :P)
What makes you think Yuri isn't here? He knows this forum.
This forum is not a gossip magazine. If you don't like it, why do you keep coming?
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lol I was lost for a moment!
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the funny thing about this topic, is that Yuri just stated a "thing" at Ellen's blog, it is true ok, but why all this fuss about his work?.. You are all saying this and that, just talking right?.. looks like a gossip magazine... :P
are you close friends of him? do you know him? ok some might know, but don't know that much to talk about himself, he isn't here to defend all the things said in this topic.. it is becoming ridiculous!.. if he spends too much or less his its own business, if his style is like a "factory" producing a product etc...! come on..
YEAH, I know I am nobody and I don't know crap about stock and so on, but please give a break to Yuri! (come on bully guys, show your claws and chat around :P)
What makes you think Yuri isn't here? He knows this forum.
This forum is not a gossip magazine. If you don't like it, why do you keep coming?
the problem is yourself, I miss you dude! :)
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This thread reminds me very much of this thread
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/are-things-going-well-in-microstock/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/are-things-going-well-in-microstock/)
2 years ago people said the sky was falling and we are still here today.
Yuri said 2 years ago that things were becoming unprofitable. Either he managed to adapt, things turned around, or things really weren't that bad. Perhaps the 'big production' strategy isn't going to pay off for microstock forever - but there is only a few people who are using that business model. The majority of microstock submitters still produce low-cost images, something that I think will be profitable for a long time.
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the funny thing about this topic, is that Yuri just stated a "thing" at Ellen's blog, it is true ok, but why all this fuss about his work?.. You are all saying this and that, just talking right?.. looks like a gossip magazine... :P
are you close friends of him? do you know him? ok some might know, but don't know that much to talk about himself, he isn't here to defend all the things said in this topic.. it is becoming ridiculous!.. if he spends too much or less his its own business, if his style is like a "factory" producing a product etc...! come on..
YEAH, I know I am nobody and I don't know crap about stock and so on, but please give a break to Yuri! (come on bully guys, show your claws and chat around :P)
What makes you think Yuri isn't here? He knows this forum.
This forum is not a gossip magazine. If you don't like it, why do you keep coming?
Thank you Digital66. Yes I am here. I am here and have been reading most parts. (with a good laugh sometimes). My assistants have been screaming about this post for a three days now. Some post's are worth spending time on and some go out of hand and it is best that I just stay out. This post is one of them, but I will reply anyway.
Money, dropping RPI and profit.
Having profits in the range of 30-50% as some microstock photographers experience is only possible when you choose to stay small... (Shoot in your mothers garage kind of setting, Sean would know about this, he is an expert in staying small and making big profits). When you scale up, profits drop, but revenue increases. The two business models will give you about the same profit in the long run, but the one I have chosen also offers more opportunities, more potential profit when scaling down and more exposure.
Shooting style.
Yes. My style is getting extremely duplicated. I can count at least three or four photographers that have studied my video blog about my studio a little too much and their images simply look like they where taking in my studio. It is unfortunate, but this will always be the case. I shoot in many styles and some picture types you would never guess came from me. If you are a good photographer, you should be able to shoot everything. You may think my style is boring "Ikea looking", blank faces, too bright and you are probably right, but you are missing the point: "The images sell and that is what they where created for, not suiting your artistic fancy. I can shoot much more artistic and love doing so, but I can't make a living from it, not with the overhead and business model I have chosen. This is my choice and complaining about it says more about you, than me.
Spending, lot's of studios, lots of second shooters.
Guys. :) This is part of the scaling and needs to be in place if you want to produce as much as I do today. When you have bought a new studio, it is there and you can produce in it very cheaply. The lights, the backdrops, styling area, is an investment. The way I see it: I am stocking up for a storm, and perhaps you should too.
The time coming will be rough and just as we saw a lot of macro shooters not being able to "survive" when micro arrived, so we will see a lot of amateur micro shooters not being able to survive with the entry of professional micro shooters. (The yuri clones as they are sometimes called)
Another thing to consider is that the non-exclusive agencies have not really raised prices much, such as seen on IS. They are not really doing that across the boarder and that gives us the biggest contributor to the problems we are facing now.
Good luck to you all. Have a great week! Y
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Thanks for the input Yuri. It is good to hear the thoughts and info direct from the source instead of via-via
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If I make video.... Yes. :)
Check it out: http://www.facebook.com/yuriarcurs?ref=nf (http://www.facebook.com/yuriarcurs?ref=nf)
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...It is very interesting that many of you came up with this idea: Yuri stop working and enjoy your money. He is working guy, that is what he does.
I didn't say that. I said he could live well off the passive income for a long time. What he does with that time is up to him. He'd be wise to work on his next venture during that time, so maybe then the microstock well dries up he is already on to something else.
Sorry, wrong quote.
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Or take one contributor at FT, Ioannis Kounadeas, sapphire with 246 images of plasticine man. Amazing.
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@Yuri :
Could you tell us a bit more about how your images are selling on RM agencies ?
And what about all the rumours in the Alamy forum claiming you're Alamy top-seller ?
Do you think there's a chance for your portfolio to sell more on exclusive RM like Getty
or you tried already and non-exclusive RF is paying much more ?
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I shoot in many styles and some picture types you would never guess came from me. If you are a good photographer, you should be able to shoot everything. You may think my style is boring "Ikea looking", blank faces, too bright and you are probably right, but you are missing the point: "The images sell and that is what they where created for, not suiting your artistic fancy. I can shoot much more artistic and love doing so, but I can't make a living from it, not with the overhead and business model I have chosen. This is my choice and complaining about it says more about you, than me.
I have to agree on this one. I am very tired of the "artistic fancy" that I see continually. Are you "great". Are you "pushing the envelope". Listening to your "inner vision". Every image does not have to be a masterpiece, but it does have to be saleable. I'm here to pay my mortgage, not gain historical significance.
BTW, John Lund elucidated on the post this morning:
http://www.johnlund.com/2010/03/revolution-in-professional-photography.html (http://www.johnlund.com/2010/03/revolution-in-professional-photography.html)
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Every image does not have to be a masterpiece, but it does have to be saleable. I'm here to pay my mortgage, not gain historical significance.
exactly.
another famous stock photographer wrote some time ago that his images only need to be "good enough".
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The majority of microstock submitters still produce low-cost images, something that I think will be profitable for a long time.
Yes, but the point is that profitability will probably reduce markedly and personally I don't think that that point is necessarily so very far away. Growth in earnings, for those with sizeable portfolios, has been largely fuelled by increases in prices and when those slow down, as inevitably they must do, then earnings are likely to fall.
I've been uploading at a fairly steady rate for over 5 years. In 2008 my earnings were 57% up on 2007, in 2009 I was 22% up on 2008 and so far this year I'm about 11% up on the same period in 2009. On those figures it is not exactly inconceivable that this could be my last year of growth before decline sets in.
Obviously as my portfolio has grown then the proportion of new images has a smaller effect but the real problem is that the % of the total libraries is always reducing. Unless you are able to substantially increase output and/or saleability then growth will eventually stop and then reverse.
I'm sure I'll remain profitable, in so far as the images will sell for more than they cost me to produce, but the question is for how long that profit will remain high enough to live off.
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The majority of microstock submitters still produce low-cost images, something that I think will be profitable for a long time.
Yes, but the point is that profitability will probably reduce markedly and personally I don't think that that point is necessarily so very far away. Growth in earnings, for those with sizeable portfolios, has been largely fuelled by increases in prices and when those slow down, as inevitably they must do, then earnings are likely to fall.
I've been uploading at a fairly steady rate for over 5 years. In 2008 my earnings were 57% up on 2007, in 2009 I was 22% up on 2008 and so far this year I'm about 11% up on the same period in 2009. On those figures it is not exactly inconceivable that this could be my last year of growth before decline sets in.
Obviously as my portfolio has grown then the proportion of new images has a smaller effect but the real problem is that the % of the total libraries is always reducing. Unless you are able to substantially increase output and/or saleability then growth will eventually stop and then reverse.
I'm sure I'll remain profitable, in so far as the images will sell for more than they cost me to produce, but the question is for how long that profit will remain high enough to live off.
Great insight! Completely agree!
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I still shot, but it is not a good market situation we are in. RPI for microstock non-exclusive has dropped from 9.8USD per image per month two years back to 4.5USD per image per month today. I am expecting it to drop to less than 3 USD per image per month this year, at which point it does not make much sense to be producing.
I read on your facebook page you're building a new 6,000 sq. foot studio. How does that jive with the statement about "it does not make much sense to be producing". Is the studio for more assignment work?
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Thanks for replying to this thread Yuri. I see you agree with Gostwyck's assessment, as I do also. In fact I may already have reached the point of stasis because my sales in Feb seemed to match my sales in Feb 09 almost to the dollar.
As Sean noted, you have built a new studio. Are you planning to branch into other areas of photography or stay mainly in micro? With your reputation and resources it seems like you could easily branch into high-end commercial assignment work. What photographic endeavors do you see yourself pursuing in the future to retain your profitablity?
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Some of the successful stock sites were founded by photographers, seems to me that a logical progression would be for him would be launch one. It likely would be run very well and have lots of buyers flocking to it. I’d certainly join.
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Yuri and Lisa and all others who already have reached the point of stasis are blaming the microstock industry (it is over saturated, it is not good business model anymore etc.). But, the fact is your monthly production is not enough to enlarge your portfolio for even few % anymore, your portfolios are too big. So we get this picture that microstock is going down, because we appreciate their opinion. But, that is just maths, it is logical.
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Yuri and Lisa and all others who already have reached the point of stasis are blaming the microstock industry (it is over saturated, it is not good business model anymore etc.). But, the fact is your monthly production is not enough to enlarge your portfolio for even few % anymore, your portfolios are too big. So we get this picture that microstock is going down, because we appreciate their opinion. But, that is just maths, it is logical.
I can't speak for Yuri, but in my case I am not "blaming" anyone or anything. I am simply describing a phenomenon that is happening to me and speculating on the reasons for that.
I find this forum very useful in that we can compare all compare notes about what is happening with our portfolios and with the various sites. Unfortunately there seems to be an increasing number of posters who want to accuse people of "blaming" "hating" and "whining". These sorts of accusations are not productive to the conversation and should be kept out of it.
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No, no, Lisa. It is my bad English. I really like your work and you being here all the time. Please do not get me wrong. It was more like a question.
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No, no, Lisa. It is my bad English. I really like your work and you being here all the time. Please do not get me wrong. It was more like a question.
Sorry I misunderstood you Dook. To me "blaming" has a negative meaning.
The tone around here has turned nasty lately and I guess I was being defensive...
Thanks for clarifying :)
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It is my mistake I should stop posting, since I do not speak English well. But I will be here, reading. Sorry. :-X
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It is my mistake I should stop posting, since I do not speak English well. But I will be here, reading. Sorry. :-X
You speak English fine. Misunderstandings happen. Please continue to post!
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At my own lower scale I've been reaching a "plateau" several times. I mean my sales keep growing for some time, and they stay at one level for a while even though I continue supply. Then I improve in some area, and sales start to grow again until the next plateau.
Such plain periods is a part of my personal development as microstock photographer and are much less related to the state of the industry.
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This forum is not a gossip magazine.
It is. And now and then, it's also Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (http://bit.ly/yOUgh). ;)
It's wonderful to be here
It's certainly a thrill
You're such a lovely audience
We'd like to take you home with us.
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Maybe I am crazy, but I think the fact that Yuri's production model is ultimately proving to be unprofitable is both predictable and welcome news.
The factory folks who have been flooding the micros the past couple of years with thousands upon thousands of cookie cutter images all shot on the same formula have virtually buried the offerings of the rest of us. While at the same time they are running up production costs that are totally unsustainable at micro prices.
It seems inevitable their business model would cease to be profitable for them. Maybe once they move on to greener pastures it will allow those of us with realistic production costs and thrifty business models to thrive.
With respect to the newbies being recruited, I think the barriers to entry are increasing to a point where only the very determined will stick it out.
It would be nice to think his business model isn't panning out and he'll leave the game for the rest of us to play, but he seems to have something else up his sleeve. He's stated that he might start giving his images away for free. That doesn't seem to make sense, but it does if you're extremely ambitious and do extensive research like Yuri does.
Blogging is now the bigger game, and he's done his homework. Nothing beats the word "free" for SEO. If he can bring traffic to his blog for free downloads, he could make a whole bunch more money off his blog than he ever made doing photography, and with much less overhead and physical work. I stumbled on one blog that wasn't giving anything away for free, just her random writings about her fairly mundane life. She had enough traffic to secure just one big name advertiser and now pulls in 120K a year. Imagine what Yuri could make if he were giving away free photos and writing about business in general. And what would that do to others shooting similar images and trying to sell them the traditional way? I actually thought about pooling several photographers into a blog and giving away free photos a few years back. Even that long ago blogging was generating enough advertising money that it made sense.
Aside from learning illustration because it's lots of fun, I've also turned to blogging. If you're on twitter you'll find there are hundreds of blogging gurus handing out advice because it is growing so rapidly and is so profitable. Those turning to blogging do need a LOT of images, but they don't need good quality images, nor are they at all impressed with the snob factor of high end equipment. In fact, they want photos that help break up blocks of text without overpowering the text. If stock agencies are smart, they'll keep this in mind and adjust their reviewing standards accordingly. IS made a brilliant move with Vetta to keep the price point high on quality work, while lowering the price on "good enough" photos to feed the blogging market. It just doesn't make sense to me to pour thousands of dollars into camera equipment when I can blog for the same income with just my computer and a keyboard. That's not even necessary now. Sites like Helium are planning on selling their writing as stock to bloggers. That's quite an indicator of where the next big market is.
As for Andres and some others in his league, there's been some posts made by him and others that they're so fed up with the games of microstock that they're thinking of going strictly RM. That could be frustration speaking, but it's certainly social networking in action. You can't just put up a portfolio and promote it on sites like this any longer. You've got to twit and tweet and have a fan page on facebook, do the hokey-pokey, then turn yourself about. It's all very exhausting from my perspective, and the game plan will probably change all over again by this time next year!
You're very right in stating that it's an unhealthy practice encouraging hobbyists to enter the game. It dilutes the market, lures them into buying more equipment than they need, and in general doesn't do anybody much good.
There are some things that never change, like the more things change the more they stay the same :-) If you're in it for the money, then the money has to be your focus at all costs. If you're in it because you love photography, then don't sweat the changes and enjoy the ride. You'll always come out on top, so long as you know why you're doing what you're doing and would do it for free if you had to.
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As for Andres and some others in his league, there's been some posts made by him and others that they're so fed up with the games of microstock that they're thinking of going strictly RM. That could be frustration speaking, but it's certainly social networking in action. You can't just put up a portfolio and promote it on sites like this any longer. You've got to twit and tweet and have a fan page on facebook, do the hokey-pokey, then turn yourself about. It's all very exhausting from my perspective, and the game plan will probably change all over again by this time next year!
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote above, but I've read similar things being said in several places recently.
Do you mean that people should promote their micro portfolios via social networking sites?
I'm just wondering - if you are attracting people to buy your photos via your website of facebook/twitter etc, why would you allow a micro site to take a big percentage of the income? That's why I sell on agencies -so's I don't have to do it. If buyers find me by my own promotion, I want 100% of the income.
But like I said, I've read several people recently who say they promote their portfolios all over, so I'm clearly missing something.
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The majority of microstock submitters still produce low-cost images, something that I think will be profitable for a long time.
but the real problem is that the % of the total libraries is always reducing. Unless you are able to substantially increase output and/or saleability then growth will eventually stop and then reverse.
I'm sure I'll remain profitable, in so far as the images will sell for more than they cost me to produce, but the question is for how long that profit will remain high enough to live off.
Hi there Gostwyk
I wholly concur with this, for me I have had to treble production of images since I started. As a bench mark I make sure I have 100 accepted on SS per week, with other agencies taking what percentage of that they will ( or I am able to upload as in IS). I have done this for four months, and yes my revenue is increasing every month, not a lot, but an increase nevertheless. Naturally you have to factor in time etc, but currently it is still a workwhile use of it.
With such small growth the lost of StockXpert was a hit, but I still increased by a small margin in February.
I am not sure how long this wil be sustainable, so I can do one of two things. Shoot more sellable images or increase output again. I'm no David Bailey (famous British photographer), so option two looks good. Here I run into the proverbial brick wall. Yes, I could up to 150 per week, but at what cost? I am already working 10 hours a day, six days a week on micro and trad agencies.
If the UK editorial market hadn't been squeezed by the economy I would not have entered Micostock, but times change and we must change with them.
For me the final answer will always be more hard work and an eye out for new markets. I'm a grafter rather than an businessman with insight, and on current figures my only growth (trad / own agencies / Alamy / Overseas agents etc) is Microstock.
Musing over it's back to the daily quota.
Oldhand
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Excuse me guys but ...
BLOGGING free images ??
Twittering ??
If this is the future you better grill burgers and fry chips at mcdonalds.
You've no idea how much time it takes to really promote a single site
in all forums, social networks, newsletters, mailing lists, blogs, and newspapers.
It takes AGES and the more you give out for free the more your readers will
expect from you, GIVING NOTHING BACK apart a click-thru-rate of barely 1%
on your ads and buying the odd e-book if you can write one.
120K from blogs ? yes if you're in the world's top 10 blogs, but if not...
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If you're really desperate then by all means switch to Flickr and sell directly, or Photographer's Direct.
I mean, the ONLY reason to join an agency, any agency, is for them to bring us the buyers.
If they don't, we better find the buyers ourselves and sell the pics at 100 or 200 $ each.
Sheila Smart in the Alamy forum is very successful at this, she sells everywhere, macrostock, microstock, flickr, fine-art galleries, word of mouth ...
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I wholly concur with this, for me I have had to treble production of images since I started. As a bench mark I make sure I have 100 accepted on SS per week, with other agencies taking what percentage of that they will ( or I am able to upload as in IS). I have done this for four months, and yes my revenue is increasing every month, not a lot, but an increase nevertheless. Naturally you have to factor in time etc, but currently it is still a workwhile use of it.
With such small growth the lost of StockXpert was a hit, but I still increased by a small margin in February.
I am not sure how long this wil be sustainable, so I can do one of two things. Shoot more sellable images or increase output again. I'm no David Bailey (famous British photographer), so option two looks good. Here I run into the proverbial brick wall. Yes, I could up to 150 per week, but at what cost? I am already working 10 hours a day, six days a week on micro and trad agencies.
If the UK editorial market hadn't been squeezed by the economy I would not have entered Micostock, but times change and we must change with them.
For me the final answer will always be more hard work and an eye out for new markets. I'm a grafter rather than an businessman with insight, and on current figures my only growth (trad / own agencies / Alamy / Overseas agents etc) is Microstock.
Musing over it's back to the daily quota.
Oldhand
That's an impressive output Oldhand, I'd be happy if I could maintain 100 new images per month but that's down to laziness on my part.
However I do think that volume production is becoming an increasingly pointless exercise. All that really counts is quality and it is only going to get harder. Whatever your subject matter is your images need to be amongst the very best out there (and have the luck to be noticed by the buyers too) or they will simply become swamped and disappear down the sort order.
Four years ago my monthly sales ratio at Istock was slightly better than 1:1, i.e. I sold a few more images per month than the total number of images in my portfolio. Nowadays my ratio is a third of that (0.32:1). I'm sure I'm much better as a photographer and my understanding of stock has increased hugely too but even so I'm losing ground and quickly. If the rate of decline continues, in another 4 years I might be down to 0.1:1 __ I'll need 10,000 images to sell 1000 per month.
In my view the only realistic solution is not to work harder but somehow find a way of working smarter. The lower the level of either skill or investment at which you operate the easier it is for others to compete directly with you.
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Maybe I am crazy, but I think the fact that Yuri's production model is ultimately proving to be unprofitable is both predictable and welcome news.
The factory folks who have been flooding the micros the past couple of years with thousands upon thousands of cookie cutter images all shot on the same formula have virtually buried the offerings of the rest of us. While at the same time they are running up production costs that are totally unsustainable at micro prices.
It seems inevitable their business model would cease to be profitable for them. Maybe once they move on to greener pastures it will allow those of us with realistic production costs and thrifty business models to thrive.
With respect to the newbies being recruited, I think the barriers to entry are increasing to a point where only the very determined will stick it out.
It would be nice to think his business model isn't panning out and he'll leave the game for the rest of us to play, but he seems to have something else up his sleeve. He's stated that he might start giving his images away for free. That doesn't seem to make sense, but it does if you're extremely ambitious and do extensive research like Yuri does.
Blogging is now the bigger game, and he's done his homework. Nothing beats the word "free" for SEO. If he can bring traffic to his blog for free downloads, he could make a whole bunch more money off his blog than he ever made doing photography, and with much less overhead and physical work. I stumbled on one blog that wasn't giving anything away for free, just her random writings about her fairly mundane life. She had enough traffic to secure just one big name advertiser and now pulls in 120K a year. Imagine what Yuri could make if he were giving away free photos and writing about business in general. And what would that do to others shooting similar images and trying to sell them the traditional way? I actually thought about pooling several photographers into a blog and giving away free photos a few years back. Even that long ago blogging was generating enough advertising money that it made sense.
Aside from learning illustration because it's lots of fun, I've also turned to blogging. If you're on twitter you'll find there are hundreds of blogging gurus handing out advice because it is growing so rapidly and is so profitable. Those turning to blogging do need a LOT of images, but they don't need good quality images, nor are they at all impressed with the snob factor of high end equipment. In fact, they want photos that help break up blocks of text without overpowering the text. If stock agencies are smart, they'll keep this in mind and adjust their reviewing standards accordingly. IS made a brilliant move with Vetta to keep the price point high on quality work, while lowering the price on "good enough" photos to feed the blogging market. It just doesn't make sense to me to pour thousands of dollars into camera equipment when I can blog for the same income with just my computer and a keyboard. That's not even necessary now. Sites like Helium are planning on selling their writing as stock to bloggers. That's quite an indicator of where the next big market is.
As for Andres and some others in his league, there's been some posts made by him and others that they're so fed up with the games of microstock that they're thinking of going strictly RM. That could be frustration speaking, but it's certainly social networking in action. You can't just put up a portfolio and promote it on sites like this any longer. You've got to twit and tweet and have a fan page on facebook, do the hokey-pokey, then turn yourself about. It's all very exhausting from my perspective, and the game plan will probably change all over again by this time next year!
You're very right in stating that it's an unhealthy practice encouraging hobbyists to enter the game. It dilutes the market, lures them into buying more equipment than they need, and in general doesn't do anybody much good.
There are some things that never change, like the more things change the more they stay the same :-) If you're in it for the money, then the money has to be your focus at all costs. If you're in it because you love photography, then don't sweat the changes and enjoy the ride. You'll always come out on top, so long as you know why you're doing what you're doing and would do it for free if you had to.
Well there is a point to my plans and you are getting closer to it. You will see in 6-8 months from now. Your observations are more knowledgeable than I think most people here will realize. Free you say.... and yes... the concept of free is very interesting in my eyes. :)
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About building another studio.
Yes I am building another studio. Pricetag: 300000USD. That is not a whole lot in my eyes for what I am getting. And when storm hits, or if it does, I can hide away in my studio and shot away at no cost :)
Y
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Well there is a point to my plans and you are getting closer to it. You will see in 6-8 months from now. Your observations are more knowledgeable than I think most people here will realize. Free you say.... and yes... the concept of free is very interesting in my eyes. :)
You'll forgive me if I don't applaud efforts to lower buyer's expectations further, won't you? Of course "free" images for buyers wouldn't necessarily raise traffic when you're trying to sell services to contributors, so... we'll just have to wait and see, eh?
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@Yuri :
Dear Yuri,
Reading that the world's microstock top seller is openly talking about FREE images is frightening.
As a long time RM shooter i'm really wondering where the RF is heading :
as if 0.25$/download wasn't cheap enough, are we really reaching the point where images will be
available for free in personal web sites surrounded by advertising banners or paired with discounts
and monthly subscriptions ?
p.s.
I didn't want to be rude in the other blog (Ellen Boughn), it's just pure curiosity, after all it's you
making a lot of hype about your sales stats so please forgive me if i pushed the wrong button.
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I think the future of ALL stock will not be in trying to license "Intellectual Property" - but in how one gets to access and download it. There are major issues with IP, I sugguest you read up on arguments for abolishing it.
Imagine finding the image database of your dreams with the most powerful, turbo charged search engine ever with features like drawing out the image you want to find, similar image searching use Tin Eye Technology, etc... - except you can only run a few free searches a day, then you gotta "pay to play" with it.
Now thats the future of stock.
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Will the magical stock fairy be filling this 3rd party search thing with content?
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In the end, it's what makes you happy:) I know it sounds corny, but it's true. If running production company with big staff and expenses and focusing on making money is what makes you feel good about yourself, that's cool. This doesn't mean it's the only way to stay in business and enjoy what you're doing. Myself, I get kicks out of making money out of thin air. Although I do have expensive photography equipment and a studio (mostly to go there and hide away from my family:)), I get the most thrill from finding something to shoot that doesn't cost me much at all. For lots of my images my ROI is close to infinity:) Which kinda bit me in the butt this year now when it's time to pay taxes....should have spent more money on business;-)
And yes, return per image will diminish as libraries go bigger and there is more competition. But is this really big news for anyone? It's kinda obvious. In industry's early days a good photog with 500 decent images could make a very good income. Of course it wasn't gonna last forever! To be competitive these days in microstock is the same as to be competitive in any other maturing industry. It requires lots of work, research, time, investment. The industry is maturing. The bubble is over. But it doesn't mean there will be nothing to gain for those who chose to stay.
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Will the magical stock fairy be filling this 3rd party search thing with content?
You see why Yuri's statements are dangerous ?
Because as soon as he opens his mouth there's a crowd of believers and disciples
foaming from their mouth in awe.
Yuri mumbles something about "free images" and in a flash people will start
talking about direct selling, web sites, SEO, adsense, CJ, Amazon, DoubleClick, CPM, CPC, CPA, etc
I think it's all rubbish and if this is the model for the future i better get a job
grilling burgers at my local mcdonalds.
Stock photography was born as RM and will die as RM.
RF and micros are just a passing fad, a heresy, and soon they'll show their real face
and their real hidden goal : screwing photographers and destroying the stock market.
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In industry's early days a good photog with 500 decent images could make a very good income.
yes and no.
you can do it nowadays as well if you're represented by serious agencies with rich buyers.
what about Getty Images, Robert Harding, Corbis, LPI, Alamy, AGE, Masterfile, Blend Images, for instance ?
there's plenty of pros making this full time, some have 500 pics, other have 50.000, and yet
they're not starving counting their 0.25$ downloads.
there can be no long-term plan with microstock, and Yuri's recent statements only confirms this
obvious fact.
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In industry's early days a good photog with 500 decent images could make a very good income.
yes and no.
you can do it nowadays as well if you're represented by serious agencies with rich buyers.
what about Getty Images, Robert Harding, Corbis, LPI, Alamy, AGE, Masterfile, Blend Images, for instance ?
there's plenty of pros making this full time, some have 500 pics, other have 50.000, and yet
they're not starving counting their 0.25$ downloads.
there can be no long-term plan with microstock, and Yuri's recent statements only confirms this
obvious fact.
Yes, Yuri is the entire microstock industry and none of us ever have more than a few $0.25 downloads a day :)
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Stock photography was born as RM and will die as RM.
RF and micros are just a passing fad, a heresy, and soon they'll show their real face
and their real hidden goal : screwing photographers and destroying the stock market.
I find this statement funny, and kind of ironic.
You could restate it like this:
"COMMERCIAL photography was born as ASSIGNMENT WORK and will die as ASSIGNMENT WORK.
RM, RF and micros are just a passing fad, a heresy, and soon they'll show their real face
and their real hidden goal : screwing COMMERCIAL ASSIGNMENT photographers and destroying the ASSIGNMENT COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY market."
There's always someone pointing a finger at you man. Thats life.
Stock photography will continue, too many sound free market reasons for it to be here, but it's look and business model will be very different in the coming years.
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there's certainly space for both RM and RF and Assignments but why only RM should pay the price for it ?
i've nothing against microstock selling cheap images and hiring hordes of Flickrs but i've certainly something
to worry about when they start selling editorial travel and invading the RM market with images priced 100x times
less.
and please tell me, who's stopping micros from selling RM at 10$ ?
or istock selling editorial RM with a 100$ monthly fee ?
because i'm afraid this is the strategy they're already cooking up for us.
the getty bean-counters can't spot the difference between RM or RF or CC or Freeware, all
they know is iStock is now their top selling market and they're ready to kill the whole
RM market if they can squeeze 1$ more with iStock and Thinkstock.
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Will the magical stock fairy be filling this 3rd party search thing with content?
I'd imagine they would be doing searches, for a fee, through all the agencies.
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Will the magical stock fairy be filling this 3rd party search thing with content?
I'd imagine they would be doing searches, for a fee, through all the agencies.
I think his point was that without the content producers there would be nothing to search through...
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Will the magical stock fairy be filling this 3rd party search thing with content?
I'd imagine they would be doing searches, for a fee, through all the agencies.
I think his point was that without the content producers there would be nothing to search through...
I'm assuming this is aimed at my idea of a pay search engine. This really isn't a radical idea, and it could be enacted today if an agency really wanted to do it. The key point here is this:
They would be selling something you can't just download and give to your friends. It's pretty easy to control who can log into secure accounts these day because of things like ISP numbers, so even "account sharing" could be effectively controlled.
Ideally, I see an agency with two search engines, one is the "crappy public search" - anyone can use it and download for lower fees - the other is the mega power search that you have to pay extra to use. Make the freebie lower cost search less appealing, and I bet people would be willing to pay extra for a vastly more powerful search engine. Tin Eye already limits the number of searches you can do for free, so obviously some companies are moving towards this concept that you can only reliably sell things you can actually control. Once you release images into the wild, existence of intellectual property laws or not, you've just lost control of that image. Suing every Tom, Dick, and Harry over usage terms can quickly become an unprofitable thing, even with a Tin Eye like service helping you find content being used, Tin Eye can't find stuff NOT online, and theres also no saying if Tin Eye can search for images inside of ZIP files, especially encrypted ZIP files- which is how I suspect many images get passed around.
Anyhow, back to the pay for play search, it could be just like the current model, only featuring higher subscription and credit fees - the search engine being the INCENTIVE to pay more money. I really believe the future is selling access to power search tools, and you can already see how the agencies stack up in order of industry dominance. The top agencies have the best search engines. It's not hard to see this trend. There is one downside though, some of these power search tools would require more human input to achieve - you can only automate so much data entry and have so good a search experience. Sometimes you need that "human touch".
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Most people wouldn't pay, they would stick to the free search engine. That's what experiencie tells. Paying customers would be maginal, if they see that exactly the same that costs money, can be got by free.
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Most people wouldn't pay, they would stick to the free search engine. That's what experiencie tells. Paying customers would be maginal, if they see that exactly the same that costs money, can be got by free.
Just to clarify, the free search doesn't mean free download in my example. It just means lower prices, but you get less in terms of services etc...
Judging by the reaction from the Thinkstock search engine, among others at major sites, I bet people would be willing to pay for a search engine they know is extremely powerful, especially if they can take it for a test spin. You could also make more content available via the pay search, and only a smaller fraction inside the free search, plus non downloadable teasers of whats inside the pay search area. In essence you make it more like a club you wanna belong too because it offers things actually worth buying that make life easier for the stock buyer.
Why do you think people pay more to go to Disney Land and not just save the money and go to the more local amusement park, both have roller coasters and cotton candy. It's the experience.
I should point out that Agency Access uses a business model similar to the one I'm proposing, you pay nothing for a freebie 3 day trial, you pay a lower base fee for 1 year access to their database, more to use their email campaign management, and they offer other services ala carte on top of everything - but the bottom line is they are charging for entry into the services.
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Disney parks and other parks offer different things. Disney ffers their popular characters, and bigger and better atracttions.
The right example would be paying much more (I assumed you meant paying nothing) to enter directly at DisneyWorld, or paying way less to support a queue. The queue would be long.
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Most people wouldn't pay, they would stick to the free search engine. That's what experiencie tells. Paying customers would be maginal, if they see that exactly the same that costs money, can be got by free.
Just to clarify, the free search doesn't mean free download in my example. It just means lower prices, but you get less in terms of services etc...
Judging by the reaction from the Thinkstock search engine, among others at major sites, I bet people would be willing to pay for a search engine they know is extremely powerful, especially if they can take it for a test spin. You could also make more content available via the pay search, and only a smaller fraction inside the free search, plus non downloadable teasers of whats inside the pay search area. In essence you make it more like a club you wanna belong too because it offers things actually worth buying that make life easier for the stock buyer.
Why do you think people pay more to go to Disney Land and not just save the money and go to the more local amusement park, both have roller coasters and cotton candy. It's the experience.
I should point out that Agency Access uses a business model similar to the one I'm proposing, you pay nothing for a freebie 3 day trial, you pay a lower base fee for 1 year access to their database, more to use their email campaign management, and they offer other services ala carte on top of everything - but the bottom line is they are charging for entry into the services.
People are not used to getting into amusement parks for free. People are used to getting search for free.
They wouldn't pay unless they were forced to. Meaning, if Google, Bing, and Yahoo all started charging, and there were no other decent options, people would reluctantly pay.
And even if you managed to come up with a decent pay search, the next Google will come along and give it away for free.
Same thing with newspapers. Why pay for newspapers when it's free online? Very few newspapers are making a successful transition to online payment including the premium ones.
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Anyhow, back to the pay for play search, it could be just like the current model, only featuring higher subscription and credit fees - the search engine being the INCENTIVE to pay more money. I really believe the future is selling access to power search tools, and you can already see how the agencies stack up in order of industry dominance. The top agencies have the best search engines. It's not hard to see this trend. There is one downside though, some of these power search tools would require more human input to achieve - you can only automate so much data entry and have so good a search experience. Sometimes you need that "human touch".
I don't see anyone paying to search when the same content is everywhere. Maybe an epiphany will come while I'm sleeping as to why this would make any sense.
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Anyhow, back to the pay for play search, it could be just like the current model, only featuring higher subscription and credit fees - the search engine being the INCENTIVE to pay more money. I really believe the future is selling access to power search tools, and you can already see how the agencies stack up in order of industry dominance. The top agencies have the best search engines. It's not hard to see this trend. There is one downside though, some of these power search tools would require more human input to achieve - you can only automate so much data entry and have so good a search experience. Sometimes you need that "human touch".
I don't see anyone paying to search when the same content is everywhere. Maybe an epiphany will come while I'm sleeping as to why this would make any sense.
The same content could be elsewhere, but can you find exactly what you need in just a few seconds? That's the difference, if you don't think that matters when people select an agency to buy from, your just not paying attention. You also gotta expand the mind a bit more and imagine search technology that goes way beyond just looking for keywords. Imagine custom search brains for each client you buy for - just load in their search brain and it'll tailor the results based on the preferences of the clients previous searches. Theres TONS of ways you can make searching for content faster, and more enjoyable.
A BIG thing to remember is the quality of the database your searching. This is a big issue for things like google to jump over - if your database is lacking in quality information to pull from when searching, your results will suck. I've searched google images in the past, and have been pretty disappointed with the results (tons of irrelevant results), it's a very overrated search to be honest, because it can't totally control the quality of database input, thats why. Istocks controlled vocab, as much as contributers hate it, is a great example of fine tuned database input. Is it perfect? No, but over time it'll get better.
Another thing to point out, exclusive content. I'm not against it, in fact I think its a good idea for an agency and makes a lot of sense. What does not make any sense are draconian contracts that practically hold you hostage as a photographer.
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Yury said here: The time coming will be rough and just as we saw a lot of macro shooters not being able to "survive" when micro arrived, so we will see a lot of amateur micro shooters not being able to survive with the entry of professional micro shooters. (The yuri clones as they are sometimes called)
This supports my earlier conclusion:
Every hobby where the money spinning, leading to the professionalisation, and transition into the industry ...
One day leading agencies will receive only professionals or most talented photographers, not everyone with good isolations without overfiltering...
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maybe something got lost in translation but Yuri clearly said that he expect RPI to drop to 3$ soon making his business almost unsustainable.
if he can't sustain it, what about the non professional microstockers ?
you know why he's avoiding any comment about RM ? because he already decided to go RM full time.
just wait and see...
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Yep, free RM. :)
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if he can't sustain it, what about the non professional microstockers ?
We non-pros don't care about sustainability. We have the income from what we are pros in to aid us in ruining the business for you ;).
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RPI of 3$ per month is quite good for me...! :P
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RPI of 3$ per month is quite good for me...! :P
I typically see an RPI of about $3 - $4 per month, and it's actually been slowly rising not falling. My only real cost is my time, so I'm happy. But if I were someone with significant overhead like Yuri or anyone with a studio, I'd be looking for a Plan B.
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Hi All,
Thanks Yuri for coming on and settling this thread a bit. I just got to read it and I read from start to finish every post that was made. It is was surprising how the transition from Yuri bashing and people seeming to know his future business plans were pretty wacky at first.
I think he answered everyone with the 1 million a year right now. He could quit tomorrow rent his studios and live off what he is going to make over the next 5 years for the rest of his life.
That many images and no debt as well as investment in property I think Yuri is a classic example of a very smart business man. He loves what he is doing or he wouldn't still do it. I have lost huge amounts of revenues in Macro RF because of the inclusion of Micro but I still do it because I love it and adjusted to the changes. Done correctly it still makes an incredible income and a pretty awesome way of life.
One person mentioned, whatever makes you happy. I think that was the best thing said on this entire thread, follow what makes you really happy with an intensity and passion and you will usually always be content.
There is no doubt that sales will eventually fall for everyone on an RPI basis in stock, it is basic math like someone else was stating about maturation of your collection. You cannot sustain the same RPI as your collection grows unless you continue to increase your production numbers in relation.
I would like to think I know Yuri a little and I wouldn't begin to try and second guess his next move except to say it will be well thought out and tested in detail. He will play the game till it's not fun anymore, that would be my assumption. It seems to me he is still having fun.
Also thank you to someone for mentioning my work in this link as " the same style " ( can't remember who said it ) please remember that work you see is built for the Micro market and it is selling really well because I am reasonably new to Micro and did some studies before ever producing for the market.
Over time if I don't keep feeding the beast my sales will also drop in Micro. Check out my web site to see some of my other styles you will see quite a difference. As Yuri was explaining a good photographer can shoot whatever his mind can create if he has the talent and the understanding of light and how to capture it
I would say diversification in future markets and spreading your business to other branches of the tree will produce the most fruit. Good luck to everyone and I hope we all can make a million a year in returns.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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there's another way to make more money with micros and is for ISTOCK to raise more buyers.
istock's CEO wrote his mission for 2010 is to increase istock's business 50%.
now, are they really investing millions in promotions and marketing or will they get this 50%
more by screwing their contributors even more ?
because to me, the second options sounds more realistic, correct me if i'm wrong....
agencies are more and more unable to find buyers and to sell our images.
i think Yuri is thinking about a hybrid solution, selling RM while giving few cheapes
away with micros, low-res, and adding workshops and video on top of it.
but he clearly stated he's after RM prices, not RF, so the cash $ must come from somewhere
that isn't just IS, SS, Fotolia, etc
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Because as soon as he opens his mouth there's a crowd of believers and disciples
foaming from their mouth in awe.
Ha. Ha. Too true.
This just in. Yuri says you should eat oatmeal for breakfast and brush your teeth in a circular motion. Sorry, I couldn't resist. The guy does great work and I respect him and all that he has accomplished, but I don't get the obsession.
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I have one word for all those worried about competition, people writing books to encourage others to enter the business and other somewhat irrational fears that the marketplace will decide that microstock will cease to make money. If you really want to have something to worry about, consider the following. It isn't smart business people like Yuri or newbies or more amateurs or more pros entering microstock it's: Flickr
PS "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future and it won't have anything to do with selling ancillary products or links. I predict that it will drive all models from RM to micro. I'm not prepared to reveal what that might be as it is in its infancy and not worth getting all riled up about. And NO I won't be making money because of it or promoting it or anything.
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I have one word for all those worried about competition, people writing books to encourage others to enter the business and other somewhat irrational fears that the marketplace will decide that microstock will cease to make money. If you really want to have something to worry about, consider the following. It isn't smart business people like Yuri or newbies or more amateurs or more pros entering microstock it's: Flickr
PS "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future and it won't have anything to do with selling ancillary products or links. I predict that it will drive all models from RM to micro. I'm not prepared to reveal what that might be as it is in its infancy and not worth getting all riled up about. And NO I won't be making money because of it or promoting it or anything.
there's an interesting discussion about selling on Flickr in the Alamy forum :
http://www.alamy.com/forums/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=7511&p=1 (http://www.alamy.com/forums/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=7511&p=1)
i always wondered why Flickr doesn't provide any built-in function to sell photos as RM or RF
o any hybrid licence, they would make milions in my opinion, but i also understand that's
not what Flickr was designed for.
the scary thing is there are big clients already browing Flickr for images.
first of all, we should ask ourselves WHY are they spending time there instead of macro agencies.
are RM agencies to blame for being too strict in their editing ?
too much arrogance from their editors in picking up "what's selling" ?
because Flickr is clearly showing buyers are sometimes more than happy
to pay for images hardly found on Getty & friends.
i always thought agencies were wrong in their idiotic selection and tastes,
always pushing for the same artificial stock crap over and over, i'm not at all
surprised client enjoy some weird and creative photo from time to time,
especially if they can deal directly with the author and eventually
get a good price.
but my impression is it's not just about the price, but about something
else, about pictures that would be rejected by QC but that are great
nonetheless.
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I'm no more at Flickr, but, when I was, all I got was requests to use my images for free and crediting me (with some exceptions where they ofered ludicrous prices) and adding that, of course, they would need the image without the watermark (that was apparent and difficult to remove). So, Flickr is the best place to give away your images or to get them robbed.
And, as a buyer, and seeing the growing amount of people posting with their names images that they don't own, I wouldn't use a Flickr image in my life. Go and use an image that results being from Getty, and you'll receive soon The Letter.
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Flickr is a great tool if used wisely. I get many requests from Flickr users to get my watermark-free images, and in reply I attempt to sell them the pics at reasonable prices, based on intended use. Somewhere between half and two-thirds of the time, this results in sales. Additionally, I get asked if I will do freelance work, which in several cases has generated repeat business, creating customers who come back to me multiple times.
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Creative Commons now has a new license called cc+ that allows for a third party entity to license the images for a licensing fee. I'm not at all surprised that some people are generating work and licenses from Flickr as stated here. Some photographers use cc designation on their very low res images on Flickr and then charge for the higher res when they are contacted by someone interested in using the image.
And yes, Flickr has some wonderful work that hasn't been driven by what sells. I've said for a long time that the copying of the best selling images is what was damaging rf long before micro entered the scene. The same thing will have impact on micro as those looking for creativity will search outside those venues. I know I do on occasion.
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And, as a buyer, and seeing the growing amount of people posting with their names images that they don't own, I wouldn't use a Flickr image in my life. Go and use an image that results being from Getty, and you'll receive soon The Letter.
Exactly. Also, there are no quality or release guarantees. Basically, you've got a huge unedited pool of everything. I can't imagine most serious buyers want to take a risk like that. Or maybe it's worth it if you're doing something on the cheap-cheap.
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Or maybe it's worth it if you're doing something on the cheap-cheap.
I'd say most microstock buyers are people looking to do something on the "cheap-cheap" and it isn't a derogatory term. If there's growth to come in microstock, it will be in the small business arena... companies starting out as the global economy improves... companies without creative staff or even knowledge of how to put ads together... they'll search for images online and many of them will stumble into microstock and decide the prices are right. I'm trying to build as large a microstock portfolio in preparation of this, as well as increase my visibility in Flickr as quickly as possible, to take advantage of the rise in small business entrepreneurship that a global resurgence will surely bring. I'm fine with dealing in small transactions because I believe the volume will be there (my recent experience is proving this).
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Quote: And, as a buyer, and seeing the growing amount of people posting with their names images that they don't own, I wouldn't use a Flickr image in my life.
But there's an ever-growing number of people who will ONLY use Flickr because they're unaware of the alternatives and/or unwilling to explore them. The smart photographers will find ways to turn these people into customers.
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but my impression is it's not just about the price, but about something
else, about pictures that would be rejected by QC but that are great
nonetheless.
Flickr can really prove the lack of market knowledge on the part of agency reviewers... I've had photos become very popular on Flickr after being rejected at the agencies... those "inferior" shots have found paying customers.
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Deleted post: modified below.
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I'm no more at Flickr, but, when I was, all I got was requests to use my images for free and crediting me (with some exceptions where they ofered ludicrous prices) and adding that, of course, they would need the image without the watermark (that was apparent and difficult to remove). So, Flickr is the best place to give away your images or to get them robbed.
And, as a buyer, and seeing the growing amount of people posting with their names images that they don't own, I wouldn't use a Flickr image in my life. Go and use an image that results being from Getty, and you'll receive soon The Letter.
I agree, I have found my images over and over again stolen and featured in new accounts at flicker. I found quite a few of them in accounts that have been chosen by Getty.
Who would risk using those images, bloggers and people who do not have much to risk in the first place.
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I have one word for all those worried about competition, people writing books to encourage others to enter the business and other somewhat irrational fears that the marketplace will decide that microstock will cease to make money. If you really want to have something to worry about, consider the following. It isn't smart business people like Yuri or newbies or more amateurs or more pros entering microstock it's: Flickr
PS "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future and it won't have anything to do with selling ancillary products or links. I predict that it will drive all models from RM to micro. I'm not prepared to reveal what that might be as it is in its infancy and not worth getting all riled up about. And NO I won't be making money because of it or promoting it or anything.
" "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future"
Where will this leave the non "market leaders"?
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And, as a buyer, and seeing the growing amount of people posting with their names images that they don't own, I wouldn't use a Flickr image in my life. Go and use an image that results being from Getty, and you'll receive soon The Letter.
Exactly. Also, there are no quality or release guarantees. Basically, you've got a huge unedited pool of everything. I can't imagine most serious buyers want to take a risk like that. Or maybe it's worth it if you're doing something on the cheap-cheap.
I'm now using Flickr more and more when sourcing images on the free-free for school lessons. They have the huge advantage of being real and unstaged. Often I couldn't source usable images on e.g. iStock (too stylised, too generic) even if it was possible to purchase there. What I don't understand is why people put images up there without watermarks, if they don't want them to be avai;able under a cc licence.
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Deleted post - I guess I've been hitting quote rather than modify. Is there any way to delete these posts?
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I have one word for all those worried about competition, people writing books to encourage others to enter the business and other somewhat irrational fears that the marketplace will decide that microstock will cease to make money. If you really want to have something to worry about, consider the following. It isn't smart business people like Yuri or newbies or more amateurs or more pros entering microstock it's: Flickr
PS "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future and it won't have anything to do with selling ancillary products or links. I predict that it will drive all models from RM to micro. I'm not prepared to reveal what that might be as it is in its infancy and not worth getting all riled up about. And NO I won't be making money because of it or promoting it or anything.
" "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future"
Where will this leave the non "market leaders"?
Where they are now.
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but my impression is it's not just about the price, but about something
else, about pictures that would be rejected by QC but that are great
nonetheless.
Flickr can really prove the lack of market knowledge on the part of agency reviewers... I've had photos become very popular on Flickr after being rejected at the agencies... those "inferior" shots have found paying customers.
That's not at all surprising - friends who work in printing assure me that over 99% of the time, you don't need the quality demanded by e.g. iStock, e.g. the printing process itself would wipe out miniscule faults or artefacts. The most asked-for pics from my personal website are a series of unique content which iStock rejected for 'flat light' (my main rejection reason). If I were doing them now (the chance of catching it again would be miniscule, apart form being over 1000 miles away) with my 5D2, I wouldn't even consider micro for them, but that's another story.
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exactly.
i've plenty of RM images that would never pass istock's QC and yet they sell and they're very nice shots.
it's simply ugly to search something on micros and finding the same stuff over and over because their
QC doesn't allow anything slightly different from their submission guidelines.
"harsh shadows" being the most stupid QC rejection reason.
what if i like harsh shadows ? what if i did it on purpose ? what if buyers love it ?
and what if i like de-saturated images, selective focus, artistic blurring ?
no, you can't, because getty thinks so.
and the funny thing, if you submit the same pic to getty RM chances are they'll be glad
to accept it and sell it.
i see plenty of fresh and creative images on Flickr by complete amateurs using a 90$ point & shoot.
the only agency recognizing this is Alamy with its non-edited collection.
the drawback is 90% of the alamy collection is junk but it's the price to pay
if you want to store photos you can't find anywhere else.
the big problem of flickr is the lack of decent keywording but i'm sure the pros there
knows how to deal with it.
it's certainly a heaven for thieves but if this is the problem there's plenty of designers
removing watermarks from istock and SS thumbnails, it's a 2 minutes work if you
know about layers and alpha channels, not to mention there's plenty of stolen
RM and RF images on torrents and P2P.
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I have one word for all those worried about competition, people writing books to encourage others to enter the business and other somewhat irrational fears that the marketplace will decide that microstock will cease to make money. If you really want to have something to worry about, consider the following. It isn't smart business people like Yuri or newbies or more amateurs or more pros entering microstock it's: Flickr
PS "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future and it won't have anything to do with selling ancillary products or links. I predict that it will drive all models from RM to micro. I'm not prepared to reveal what that might be as it is in its infancy and not worth getting all riled up about. And NO I won't be making money because of it or promoting it or anything.
" "Free" actually will have excellent financial rewards to market leaders in the future"
Where will this leave the non "market leaders"?
Where they are now.
With all due respect that is a rather ambiguous answer. It is hard to imagine a potential upside for the collective whole when highly visible and high volume submitters are offering images for free. I can imagine that it might have the potential to drive lower volume competitors out of the market!
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lower volume photographers are already out of the market unless they produce exceptional images
or are specialized in obscure niches.
if i was a buyer i wouldn't know where to start.
there's simply zillions of photos around, and dozens of very good agencies, and to top it off you've Flickr, Photoshelter, SmugMug, and the 1000s of single photographers selling from their own sites, then finally the art galleries, art sites, auctions, ebay, and who knows what more.
it's just overwhelming, before or later it will be very hard to get noticed in this ocean
of photos.
how's gonna be in 10 years if Flickr has already 1+ billion images and Alamy 18+ millions ?
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FYI, Flickr passed the 4 billions mark at the end of last year....
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lower volume photographers are already out of the market unless they produce exceptional images
or are specialized in obscure niches.
if i was a buyer i wouldn't know where to start.
there's simply zillions of photos around, and dozens of very good agencies, and to top it off you've Flickr, Photoshelter, SmugMug, and the 1000s of single photographers selling from their own sites, then finally the art galleries, art sites, auctions, ebay, and who knows what more.
it's just overwhelming, before or later it will be very hard to get noticed in this ocean
of photos.
how's gonna be in 10 years if Flickr has already 1+ billion images and Alamy 18+ millions ?
I agree and those exceptional and specialized niche images are getting harder and harder to find because there are so many images. We have little control over how deeply they become buried.
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Hi All,
Thank you Ellen for your input. I don't think I can add anything to your perspective, it seems very on target. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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I think that was the best thing said on this entire thread, follow what makes you really happy with an intensity and passion and you will usually always be content.
Yes, that's by far the best advice on the thread.
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I think that was the best thing said on this entire thread, follow what makes you really happy with an intensity and passion and you will usually always be content.
Yes, that's by far the best advice on the thread.
yes but can we also say that it's frightening to read on Ellen's blog that the president of the Stock Artist Alliance (SAA)
is selling microstock ?
i was thinking the SAA was a reputable organization, now SAA and all the big guns in stock are going
microstock for part of their portfolios.
Sanger and Lund adding pepper telling us about SEO and diversification, as if this wasn't the same stuff
heard since 1996 in any internet marketing forum or workshop.
i've the impression nobody really knows where the market is heading, they're all waiting for either
the sudden crash of Getty RM or the sinking of iStock or something in between.
there's just maybe no magic trick nor magic receipt.
i shoot travel, i will keep shooting travel.
i know i could make 10x more shooting models like Yuri or Sean Locke.
but it's not my style nor my cup of tea.
as Ellen rightfully said, you must do what you love.
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lower volume photographers are already out of the market unless they produce exceptional images
or are specialized in obscure niches.
if i was a buyer i wouldn't know where to start.
there's simply zillions of photos around, and dozens of very good agencies, and to top it off you've Flickr, Photoshelter, SmugMug, and the 1000s of single photographers selling from their own sites, then finally the art galleries, art sites, auctions, ebay, and who knows what more.
it's just overwhelming, before or later it will be very hard to get noticed in this ocean
of photos.
how's gonna be in 10 years if Flickr has already 1+ billion images and Alamy 18+ millions ?
Modern humans began replacing Neanderthals around 45,000 years ago you need to see that your time has passed. You should just cut and paste your repititious spew because you do nothing but repeat yourself. You need some new material to stay fresh and funny. 1 billions image on flickr isn't microstock.
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so are we "macrosaurs" really on the way to extinction ? ;)
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Selling on Flickr is possible, and for good money I might add, but so is getting assignment work.
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Not really bothered about Yuri losing money. He should have seen it coming in a niche market (as far as the majority of his images are concerned) which he and others have saturated. Anyway, I'm sure he's savvy enough to head in a new direction.....but like most organisations so intent on growth, when you take your eye off operating expenses it has a tendency to bite you in the arse down the line. Then you get the knee-jerk reaction of redundancies and relocation of jobs to low pay countries. Greed is not good.
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Anyone with a brain could have seen this coming. Search my original posts on this subject well over a year ago. The right thing to do is stop uploading and start going independent. In fact, just to increase your chances go back in time about a year and start making preparations then. :D
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This could be a reason Yuri's losing money ;)
http://rising.blackstar.com/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-success-in-microstock.html (http://rising.blackstar.com/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-success-in-microstock.html)
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The logic is sound... with these sorts of things your greatest advantages comes when you happen to arrive at the beginning when the business is young.
Out of curiosity, are there any newcomers of the last year that:
A: Have cool and original stuff
B: Are motivated
...that have seen any success like the original guys back in the day?
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Thanks Sean for that read. Not very exposing a lot of new facts but I have to comment on the following:
...He had read that the average lifetime return of an accepted microstock image is about $14 for Arcurs, but more like $2 for the average photographer. ...
I hope a few full-timers can chime in here but I would have left microstock a long time ago if my average return per image would be $14.
I can only imagine that an image factory is "able" to achieve such low results by producing so many images that their downloads are spread out across their entire archive.
Across all sites I contribute to (including very low earners like Crestock, Scanstock, 123RF and Canstockphoto) I average at $25 return per image.
Why even adjusting colors of an image not to mention retouching it if you are epxecting $2 of lifetime earnings??? These are very funny numbers. I find that hard to believe.
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Thanks Sean for that read. Not very exposing a lot of new facts but I have to comment on the following:
...He had read that the average lifetime return of an accepted microstock image is about $14 for Arcurs, but more like $2 for the average photographer. ...
I hope a few full-timers can chime in here but I would have left microstock a long time ago if my average return per image would be $14.
I can only imagine that an image factory is "able" to achieve such low results by producing so many images that their downloads are spread out across their entire archive.
Across all sites I contribute to (including very low earners like Crestock, Scanstock, 123RF and Canstockphoto) I average at $25 return per image.
Why even adjusting colors of an image not to mention retouching it if you are epxecting $2 of lifetime earnings??? These are very funny numbers. I find that hard to believe.
He is talking about earning per month, not over lifetime
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The logic is sound... with these sorts of things your greatest advantages comes when you happen to arrive at the beginning when the business is young.
Out of curiosity, are there any newcomers of the last year that:
A: Have cool and original stuff
B: Are motivated
...that have seen any success like the original guys back in the day?
Yes there are, have a search on http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/ (http://istockcharts.multimedia.de/) and you can find them. Buyers might look at the files with the most downloads first but if they can't find what they want, they seem to look at new images as well. The new people that produce something a bit different still have little competition and can get decent downloads.
Anyone copying Yuri is going to have a hard time because there are so many people already doing that.
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In the RM stock world, yes I can understand high production costs, I mean many of us way back used to have horrible stock-costs when we supplied Image-Bank and Stones, etc, these were the tranny days, I know Art-Kane for example had modeling costs far more then anybody today BUT ofclourse an RM image also fetch a hell of a lot more money.
You get a good 10 years in any business venture and in the Micro world? well we have had our time, etc, now its time to either wrap up or just persevere hoping?
I still cant see the why its a must to invest such vast amounts, such incredible overheads in Micro? its a penny pinching world but with high costs.
Maybe its time to slow down and boot a few guys.
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Hmm __ yet another badly flawed article by an 'expert' who doesn't really understand the subject of which he writes.
Quoting average lifetime earnings for a microstock image of $2 (or even $14 for Yuri) is clearly absurd. Yuri would have to be uploading about 110K images per year to make his supposed $1.5M income, and that's assuming that each image generated it's entire income within one year. If he is making that sort of income from his portfolio of 30K images then each image has to be generating about $50 per year which is obviously much more realistic.
I doubt that Yuri has stated that '80-90% of buyers sort search results by downloads'. I'd think it much more likely that an agency's default sort order was the most used by buyers. Certainly the effect of best match changes on individual contributor's sales seems to suggest this. The author also doesn't appear to understand that new images are constantly appearing and some of them will be displacing images at the top of search orders. It is no more self-perpetuating than the best-sellers book lists at Amazon.
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This could be a reason Yuri's losing money ;)
[url]http://rising.blackstar.com/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-success-in-microstock.html[/url] ([url]http://rising.blackstar.com/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-success-in-microstock.html[/url])
Thanks. Always wondered why best sellers kept selling.
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I wouldn't say microstock industry is going down. I think it's more the fact that total number of images on every agency is going up as well as total number of new contributors.
If one has 3000 images in portfolio, and manage to put online 30 more images every week, that means he/she made portfolio bigger for 1%
In the mean time, shutterstock has little over 11 000 000 images, and it's sytatistics says they added almost 100 000 images this week, which is again, very close to 1% ( I guess "this week" means in last 7 days, because it's still tuesday)
So, portfolios of big guys have the same exposure like several months before.
In the mean time, small contributors (around 300 images in port.), like me, experience growth in sales, because if a small contributor increases his/her portfolio for 30 images weekly, he automatically makes portfolio (and it's exposure) at least 10% bigger.
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Yes but the problem is: Micro is all about quantity before quality, they rely on that lets say out of 100 new contributors, 99 will be happy-snappers, getting nowhere but then you got that one left, who might be able to supply and get somewhere, its all about quantities. This is the reason, no one is infallable in the micro world, they loose a big-shot, no problem another will come tomorrow, hence we have a Micro world with lots of relevat images and gazillions of totally irrelevant stuff.
The RM industry is a lot more careful, they know that its photographers is their lifeblood, their life-support and if you loose one its no garantee at all there will come another, why? because they edit out quality way before quantity.
If the Micro industry die, it will be their own doing or shall I say greed, rising prices, changing and destroying search-engines, pages after pages of irrelevant material.
End product is, buyers will tell us all to bugger off. period.
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I wouldn't say microstock industry is going down. I think it's more the fact that total number of images on every agency is going up as well as total number of new contributors.
If one has 3000 images in portfolio, and manage to put online 30 more images every week, that means he/she made portfolio bigger for 1%
In the mean time, shutterstock has little over 11 000 000 images, and it's sytatistics says they added almost 100 000 images this week, which is again, very close to 1% ( I guess "this week" means in last 7 days, because it's still tuesday)
So, portfolios of big guys have the same exposure like several months before.
In the mean time, small contributors (around 300 images in port.), like me, experience growth in sales, because if a small contributor increases his/her portfolio for 30 images weekly, he automatically makes portfolio (and it's exposure) at least 10% bigger.
Yes, but it will not last long. If you produce 30 images weekly you will double your portfolio in 3 months and it is not going to be 10% anymore. In one year you will start complaining how your income is not growing up like it used to do.
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I wouldn't say microstock industry is going down. I think it's more the fact that total number of images on every agency is going up as well as total number of new contributors.
If one has 3000 images in portfolio, and manage to put online 30 more images every week, that means he/she made portfolio bigger for 1%
In the mean time, shutterstock has little over 11 000 000 images, and it's sytatistics says they added almost 100 000 images this week, which is again, very close to 1% ( I guess "this week" means in last 7 days, because it's still tuesday)
So, portfolios of big guys have the same exposure like several months before.
In the mean time, small contributors (around 300 images in port.), like me, experience growth in sales, because if a small contributor increases his/her portfolio for 30 images weekly, he automatically makes portfolio (and it's exposure) at least 10% bigger.
Yes, but it will not last long. If you produce 30 images weekly you will double your portfolio in 3 months and it is not going to be 10% anymore. In one year you will start complaining how your income is not growing up like it used to do.
yes
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This could be a reason Yuri's losing money ;)
[url]http://rising.blackstar.com/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-success-in-microstock.html[/url] ([url]http://rising.blackstar.com/there-are-no-shortcuts-to-success-in-microstock.html[/url])
Sidebar: On his own site, Jim Pickerell is charging to read this article (http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2210 (http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2210)). He even has a very short article by leaf up there (http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/author.aspx?author=TDO (http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/author.aspx?author=TDO)).
Charging money to read a blog? Definitely out of step with the mainstream, to be sure.
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Wow. Just caught up with this thread. Now I understand exactly what I need to do.
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Sidebar: On his own site, Jim Pickerell is charging to read this article ([url]http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2210[/url] ([url]http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2210[/url])). He even has a very short article by leaf up there ([url]http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/author.aspx?author=TDO[/url] ([url]http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/author.aspx?author=TDO[/url])).
Charging money to read a blog? Definitely out of step with the mainstream, to be sure.
Yeah, you can find most of the things on his pay to read site somewhere else. Not sure why he does that.
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Do you think buyers - some of them - search for Yuri's images (or other top producers) preferably? Because they like the style and/or quality?
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Hi All,
I think Jim probably does what he does because he is one of the best and has a track history that stretches decades. In many cultures the people value the knowledge of those that have experienced a great deal on a particular subject. Like a good college there are quite a few people teaching in their prime years, their knowledge has a great deal of time invested. You can learn about law from a book or some young new lawyer but I would prefer Harvard.
Best,
Jonathan
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Hi All,
I think Jim probably does what he does because he is one of the best and has a track history that stretches decades. In many cultures the people value the knowledge of those that have experienced a great deal on a particular subject. Like a good college there are quite a few people teaching in their prime years, their knowledge has a great deal of time invested. You can learn about law from a book or some young new layer but I would prefer Harvard.
Best,
Jonathan
Ditto