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Messages - Fran
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101
« on: February 28, 2010, 12:50 »
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. 
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.
102
« on: February 28, 2010, 05:36 »
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.
103
« on: February 20, 2010, 11:11 »
Or more likely just a copy&paste mistake.
104
« on: February 18, 2010, 14:25 »
is it just me or does DT weight new images quite heavily now in the best match search. The first page is almost totally full of one illustration of the same airplane.
Look for Frankfurt. A page of cars. Annoying.
105
« on: February 13, 2010, 07:25 »
All flashy smiling, very unnatural looking, plastic people. If designers really want those, why not using 3d-renders in the first place?
Production cost, I'd say. It still costs too much to produce realistic renders with people. But it's seriously getting there: wait few more years (5 or 10).
106
« on: February 09, 2010, 02:48 »
Just finished watching the highlights in the UK. Had to spend the morning avoiding the score. Great game, and I wanted the Saints to win, I always back the underdog, being a West Ham United fan, it comes naturally
Go go Hammers!
107
« on: February 04, 2010, 09:53 »
Informative post, thanks. Supposedly the dominant factor nowadays is the keywords actually used when an image is purchased, the sort-order effectively being controlled primarily by the buyers __ which is how it should be.
Can you elaborate on this please?
108
« on: February 04, 2010, 09:45 »
I haven't any sale on every agencies except SS, for a last 24h...
Something happening!
Same here. Might just be a glitch in the sale reporting code.
109
« on: January 31, 2010, 06:48 »
Roughly 600 images (240 on IS).
About 50% increase in royalty compared to Jan2009. About 30% less than my BME. Good overall. Good increase in IS cause i got back to uploading there.
Plan for the future:
- Remove old images from IS
- Increase image quality on IS
- More people shots
- Try to become exclusive on IS
110
« on: January 22, 2010, 03:31 »
I think constantly uploading is good because people find your new images when sorting by 'newest first' then click into your portfolio and download more of your old images, making them more popular in the process, which in turn makes the old images come up higher in the search.
Good point. I'm curious: do you upload on friday? It takes one or two days for an image to get into the DB, which means appearing around sunday and probably getting "less download" thus decreasing Popularity during the week. That's why I try to time uploads on saturday or sunday.
111
« on: January 21, 2010, 10:35 »
Maths is like ancient Chines to me... I just take pictures and I do not fry my brain with formulae... too many problems already to take care of.
My interest here is to discuss SS Popularity, which could be helpful to some of us to understand when is more efficient to upload to maximize return in terms of sales. We can discuss your mathematical attitude maybe in another topic? I'd say that if you are not interested in a topic, you can safely skip it.
112
« on: January 21, 2010, 10:22 »
Shoot more calculate less
Calculate AND shoot.
113
« on: January 21, 2010, 09:22 »
This is pure speculation based on a couple of years of "observing" my images popularity in SS.
From observation the popularity function looks something like:
P = (a * D + b * V) / T
Where:
D = downloads
V = views
T = time
a, b = fixed coefficients
This function is consistent with the following observations:
- A new image getting some downloads from buyers scanning new images jumps up in Popularity (small T)
- If an image doesn't get downloads slowly crawls back in Popularity (increasing T)
- Subsequent downloads will result in an always smaller increase in Popularity (fixed D divided by increasing T)
- Old images' Popularity tend to be very stable (increasing T against a large T is mostly irrelevant)
I don't think any boost is given to the whole portfolio when uploading.
Any thoughts?
114
« on: January 21, 2010, 03:34 »
In another rejected image, I can find nothing wrong. The subject is some glass objects, I think the "artifacts" the reviewer is claiming to see are actually just tiny flaws in the glass.
I try to play it on the safe side and scan every image i submit to IS at 100% and correct even small flaws in the material or skin. If I get a rejection for artifacts and can't find them, I usually resize the image from 24mpx to 12mpx and, more often then not, it goes through fine.
115
« on: January 19, 2010, 03:43 »
Hi Click Click,
I am looking at Micro motion this year. Starting a new stock agency and increasing my Macro RM output. I think all of my RF will go to Micro this year and I have not out weighed the possibility of going exclusive with Istock. So things I wouldn't have considered a year ago have got to be revisited as the market changes.
Still plan on high end RM motion and stills and also looking to go back to commercial work if we have the time. Building the Stock Agency has taken up most of my time this year but we got a bunch of motion done so we can watch the sales this year.
Possibly a new commercial web site to promote us for commercial jobs that cover both motion and stills for the client.
Hope this helps,
Jonathan
Would you share more info about the stock agency you are starting, Jonathan?
116
« on: January 19, 2010, 03:27 »
I'm Technical Director in a videogame company. I make videogames: the most useless job in the world, but that's always been my dream, so, hopefully, I will never quit it.
Outside of that I travel as much as I can around europe, shoot, I take my camera wherever I go.
117
« on: January 18, 2010, 20:21 »
It sounds like you do not believe I am Jonathan Ross ...
If it can help, I have Jonathan on my Facebook and I know almost everything about his kids' football matches Come on guys, no need to argue about this.
118
« on: January 15, 2010, 16:30 »
What about a Sony a900?
I use one with a bunch of CZ lenses and I adore it.
119
« on: January 07, 2010, 05:48 »
my biggest annoyance (I use a mac laptop, but have a PC desktop) is not being able to click a button to 'maximize window' I know there is the little + button but that doesn't always make it full screen. Am I missing something?
I was annoyed the same when I started using a Mac, but actually the button is pretty clever since it maximise the window up to the size where the full content of it is displayed. I started to switch my mindset from "always working in fullscreen" to "work with a proper desktop" and I find it pretty intuitive now. It takes a while to adapt though.
120
« on: January 07, 2010, 05:44 »
and start again 0.25$ from SS, start again white level from FOTOLIA, one level file from DT....
I'm not 100% sure, but I think you can simply remove all images and retain your levels both in SS and FT. No luck for DT obviously, but you should retain your search placement (AR).
121
« on: December 22, 2009, 05:57 »
My goals for 2010 (ambitious version):
- Improve quality and diversity (more macros, some business concepts, more portraits)
- 1000 images online
- 300$ a month
- Start doing videos
- Reach exclusivity level on ISP (just in case in the future I dont have time to submit everywhere)
- Get accepted at Getty via Flickr
Extra photography:
- Go back to UK as Technical Director of another important IP
122
« on: December 18, 2009, 03:23 »
Buon Natale a tutti.
123
« on: December 17, 2009, 03:31 »
When I was 8 and someone asked me what I wanted to do in the future I always answered "Videogames".
I've been making videogames since I started working ten years ago, and I'm still doing it: this is my career and I hopefully will never change it.
Photography has been my passion for the last couple of years, but being me, it means that I try to do it as good as I possibly can.
124
« on: December 14, 2009, 12:02 »
Good news:) they will modify also the image levels in a good way:)
level 1: 0-4 dls (0-4 in 2010)
level 2: 5-19 dls (5-9 in 2010)
level 3: 20-49 dls (10-24 in 2010)
level 4: 50-99 dls (25-49 in 2010)
level 5: > 100 dls (>50 in 2010)
That is VERY good news.
125
« on: December 12, 2009, 17:05 »
I don't think it is that difficult to reach 500 downloads. I don't see why some people are so desperate to go exclsuive.
I'm not in any way talented, so for me it's way hard to reach 500 (about 190 now). I must admit I abandoned IS for a while, silly me. At some point in the future, when I have about 1000 decent images, I would like to go exclusive somewhere.
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