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Author Topic: Yuri admits he's losing money !  (Read 59197 times)

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« Reply #75 on: February 28, 2010, 12:50 »
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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.


donding

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« Reply #76 on: February 28, 2010, 13:00 »
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Remember the saying..."All good things must come to an end"

RacePhoto

« Reply #77 on: February 28, 2010, 13:07 »
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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.

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #78 on: February 28, 2010, 13:17 »
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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?
« Last Edit: February 28, 2010, 13:21 by PaulieWalnuts »

« Reply #79 on: February 28, 2010, 14:10 »
0
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.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #80 on: February 28, 2010, 16:31 »
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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.

« Reply #81 on: February 28, 2010, 16:33 »
0
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.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2010, 16:50 by gbalex »

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #82 on: February 28, 2010, 16:41 »
0

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.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #83 on: February 28, 2010, 16:41 »
0

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.

helix7

« Reply #84 on: February 28, 2010, 17:24 »
0
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.

« Reply #85 on: February 28, 2010, 18:06 »
0
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.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2010, 18:26 by NitorPhoto »

« Reply #86 on: February 28, 2010, 18:25 »
0
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.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2010, 18:33 by NitorPhoto »

« Reply #87 on: February 28, 2010, 18:53 »
0
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.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #88 on: February 28, 2010, 19:18 »
0

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

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #89 on: February 28, 2010, 19:19 »
0
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.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #90 on: February 28, 2010, 19:25 »
0
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 !
« Last Edit: February 28, 2010, 19:27 by macrosaur »

« Reply #91 on: March 01, 2010, 14:02 »
0
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?  


Dook

« Reply #92 on: March 01, 2010, 14:48 »
0
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.

macrosaur

    This user is banned.
« Reply #93 on: March 01, 2010, 17:03 »
0
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.

« Reply #94 on: March 01, 2010, 17:13 »
0
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.

helix7

« Reply #95 on: March 01, 2010, 19:10 »
0
...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.

« Reply #96 on: March 01, 2010, 19:26 »
0
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)
« Last Edit: March 01, 2010, 19:28 by luissantos84 »

« Reply #97 on: March 01, 2010, 19:46 »
0
When you ask for the attention constantly, you end up getting it.

« Reply #98 on: March 01, 2010, 19:49 »
0
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

« Reply #99 on: March 01, 2010, 19:51 »
0
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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