Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on August 04, 2013, 15:54

It's interesting that one of the leading "people-pic" guys puts up 40 or 50 quite similar shots of the same model from the same shoot, whereas I generally restrict myself to four or five images from my culinary shoots. With that sort of output per shoot, portfolios of 50,000 to 100,000 images are a bit less impressive than they look at first sight. Especially if you have a factory of producers handling the processing and uploading.

composition is probably the key ingredient of stock photography, it's laughable that many agencies are hellbent against "similars", many buyers need more space for the copywriting, others are ok with the subject filling the frame, and then again i could use different DOFs, different lighting, color or B/W, you just can't have it all with 3-4 images at all.

Spread 50 sales across 50 images with similars and you could kill the search ranking of every one of them. The occasional buyer might search 10,000 images to find the perfect one but most of them will make do with something in the first 100 results.

Believe it or not it happens also for some famous painters,

'twere ever thus.

The Song that Never Ends

Quote from: Albert Martin on August 08, 2013, 02:16

Well, Good Luck Yuri!

As you all can see the right side here under 'microstock poll results' it is more than clear that being iStock exclusive gives you more earnings than compared to all other places combined together.  It clearly states 335.3 if you are exclusive. So, Yuri knows his math. It is obviously more easier to go with one agency than spreading your portfolio through all of them.

Nevertheless, mobile phone photo selling platforms are risk. Who dares wins - so Yuri I wish you luck in your business venture.

I, amongst the rest will stay with lower earning majority of this industry and avoid to become part of Getty/iStock machinery. At least we need to have some opposition to them - So I am there!

I don't think its clear at all that istock exclusives make more than non-exclusives.  Yuri obviously thought being non-exclusive was more lucrative up until his meeting with Getty.  None of us know how much they offered him to go exclusive.  I don't think he did it just on the maths and he has obviously done a deal, as he is the only exclusive to still have tens of thousands of images on several istock rival sites.

I'm sure exclusivity will suit some people but I think the best time to do it was a few years ago and now is probably the worst time.

I also think that the majority of Istock exclusives at MSG are high enders and (here by in large to speak on behalf of IS) skew the results.  I would venture to guess that most GAP's (generally accepted photographers) exclusives just upload and don't actively participate in forum discussions.  I see by in large that MSG in general has a wide breadth of contributors, from beginners to experienced, most of whom are not exclusive to IS. This is to say that I personally believe that the numbers in the polls are more accurate for non-exclusives than for exclusives simply because of the breadth of responders and number of data points.  Just my opinion, of course.

54
iStockPhoto.com / Re: yuri arcurs is IS exclusive
� on: May 18, 2013, 01:31 �
Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri

80 days after and Yuri's portfolio is still selling at DT (we talking about 11.42 weeks)

A You can disable all files approved more than six months ago at any time. You are allowed to disable 30% of files uploaded in the recent six months however 70% must be kept online for six months from their approval date. You can disable the remaining 70% after six months pass. Once the files are disabled, nobody is able to view/access them, except for you. The files will remain in our offline database for 12 months until all liabilities (refunds, potential copyright infringements, etc) concerning them are cleared off, then they are automatically deleted.

The account cannot be closed until the above requirements of the contract expire. Accounts with activity (license/download) cannot be deleted, as they can be referenced internally in regards to past licensing. However, they can be blocked from public access. More account closure details can be found in our Terms and Conditions.

"Professionals" would have planned appropriately, to be able to meet the requirements as needed.

Quote from: luissantos84 on August 08, 2013, 09:05

54
iStockPhoto.com / Re: yuri arcurs is IS exclusive
� on: May 18, 2013, 01:31 �
Hi Guys.
We have found a good distribution partner (Getty Images) for the kind of content we produce. We will be removing all images from microstock doing the next few weeks. Microstock, especially subscription sites, are not suited for the kind of high production cost images we produce.
Best Yuri

80 days after and Yuri's portfolio is still selling at DT (we talking about 11.42 weeks)

Come on Luis, why wax on this when you know the drill. http://www.dreamstime.com/faqs-detail-2

I am a contributor, how do I close my account?

A You can disable all files approved more than six months ago at any time. You are allowed to disable 30% of files uploaded in the recent six months however 70% must be kept online for six months from their approval date. You can disable the remaining 70% after six months pass. Once the files are disabled, nobody is able to view/access them, except for you. The files will remain in our offline database for 12 months until all liabilities (refunds, potential copyright infringements, etc) concerning them are cleared off, then they are automatically deleted.

The account cannot be closed until the above requirements of the contract expire. Accounts with activity (license/download) cannot be deleted, as they can be referenced internally in regards to past licensing. However, they can be blocked from public access. More account closure details can be found in our Terms and Conditions.

sorry but I believe you haven't read it properly, actually I have said it before in this topic, Yuri doesn't have a single file uploaded in the last 6 months (about 1k files close to 6 months, looking at ID number), all other were approved before that period

p.s: you got my minus

Quote from: Ron on August 08, 2013, 09:39

Why would he? If they told him it was ok not to worry about it, then there is no need to plan for that. He jumped ship and Getty accepts the fact that he is an exclusive contributor selling his images on several different stock agencies whilst paying him royalties as an exclusive. Why would we blame Yuri? Its Getty who needs to enforce that, not Yuri.

I would guess a "professional" who has his images tagged "Only From iStock" would have taken steps to ensure that is true, so as not to tarnish his "professional" label.

that is why professionals deal with professionals

A You can disable all files approved more than six months ago at any time. You are allowed to disable 30% of files uploaded in the recent six months however 70% must be kept online for six months from their approval date. You can disable the remaining 70% after six months pass. Once the files are disabled, nobody is able to view/access them, except for you. The files will remain in our offline database for 12 months until all liabilities (refunds, potential copyright infringements, etc) concerning them are cleared off, then they are automatically deleted.

The account cannot be closed until the above requirements of the contract expire. Accounts with activity (license/download) cannot be deleted, as they can be referenced internally in regards to past licensing. However, they can be blocked from public access. More account closure details can be found in our Terms and Conditions.

why could IS allow contributors still having massive files on other sites to be its ex memeber?thats totally unfair to us

Quote from: sobm on August 08, 2013, 22:28

why could IS allow contributors still having massive files on other sites to be its ex memeber?thats totally unfair to us

Agreed. But if there is one thing that is glaringly obvious about Getty, it is that they couldn't care less about fairness to (most) contributors.

Exactly

Quote from: sharpshot on August 08, 2013, 02:47

Quote from: Albert Martin on August 08, 2013, 02:16

Well, Good Luck Yuri!

As you all can see the right side here under 'microstock poll results' it is more than clear that being iStock exclusive gives you more earnings than compared to all other places combined together.  It clearly states 335.3 if you are exclusive. So, Yuri knows his math. It is obviously more easier to go with one agency than spreading your portfolio through all of them.

Nevertheless, mobile phone photo selling platforms are risk. Who dares wins - so Yuri I wish you luck in your business venture.

I, amongst the rest will stay with lower earning majority of this industry and avoid to become part of Getty/iStock machinery. At least we need to have some opposition to them - So I am there!

I don't think its clear at all that istock exclusives make more than non-exclusives.  Yuri obviously thought being non-exclusive was more lucrative up until his meeting with Getty.  None of us know how much they offered him to go exclusive.  I don't think he did it just on the maths and he has obviously done a deal, as he is the only exclusive to still have tens of thousands of images on several istock rival sites.

I'm sure exclusivity will suit some people but I think the best time to do it was a few years ago and now is probably the worst time.

I also think that the majority of Istock exclusives at MSG are high enders and (here by in large to speak on behalf of IS) skew the results.  I would venture to guess that most GAP's (generally accepted photographers) exclusives just upload and don't actively participate in forum discussions.  I see by in large that MSG in general has a wide breadth of contributors, from beginners to experienced, most of whom are not exclusive to IS. This is to say that I personally believe that the numbers in the polls are more accurate for non-exclusives than for exclusives simply because of the breadth of responders and number of data points. Just my opinion, of course.

Yup. I reckon that the IS exclusive figure could be quite skewed too by small numbers of  large volume accounts.

I still dont unserstand why yuri accurs  came to this forum...to promote his new venture? We supposed not to make any benefit out of it,actually the way I see it after reading his posts is that our days as full timers microstockers are numbered, that only him and a handfull of photo factories aregoing to survive,he brings here bad news.
 Thats the way I see it and I still dont understand why still are many people following him and praising him.
Please let me know in which way his new ideas and ventures could be more than the last nail in our coffins.
The only thing, with all my respects,I can from it is that he betrayed all his for many years policies and way of conducting his business in general.
Becaming Getty kind of exclusive contributor contradict his prior spreaded theories.

A few years ago the average exclusive was making $30,000 per year (or $2500/month) so lots of exclusives now have their income under represented in the poll.

Where do you get that figure and how are you working it out?

When iStockStats was working (preRCs), for a long time I was always around position 1880-5 in downloads. That was among all contributors, not just exclusives, and at that time there were said to be IIRC something around 4000-5000 exclusives. So I'd say that put me a bit above the average for exclusives for downloads. The top people would be earning much more, but some of the top downloaded togs were indies, just like now.
I can assure you that as an apparent 'average' exclusive at the time, I was earning quite a bit less than half of that.

So, where are you getting the 'average exclusive was earning $2500pm' figure from? No doubt a very few at the top were earning more than that, but I doubt very much if even the 'average earned by exclusives' was anything like that.