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Messages - macrosaur
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9 10 ... 13
101
« on: March 31, 2010, 11:44 »
You'll never make saleable images with a P&S in bad or low light conditions, think about inside airplanes,
trains, waiting rooms, the only places where i shoot with P&S but it's just for fun, i never made crisp and sharp
images in these places, even using flash.
they're only good outdoor in optimal conditions but then why not using a DSLR ?
102
« on: March 31, 2010, 10:37 »
"they do all earn over $80k per annum, 2 are uk based and the other in the states."
I'm reluctant to give my exact earnings but it's well over $80k. I'm in Europe, I'm photo's and vectors. I'm in the top 200 iStock sellers, I won't be any more specific than that. I know of a number of people earning more than me.
i'm not surprised. vectors are in huge demand nowadays. what i've never knew exactly was how many vectors one can produce in a week or a day. are they all from scratch or most are variants or old vectors ?
103
« on: March 31, 2010, 10:36 »
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog). Hey! You stole my line! 
Those who "can't teach. teach Gym" - Jack Black in School of Rock 
and if you can't rock you can still roll...
104
« on: March 31, 2010, 08:40 »
P&S have improved dramatically but at the same price of a high-end P&S you can buy a cheap Canon Rebel so what's the point in using P&S anyway ?
i wonder how many people is sending images taken with an iPhone and complaining about rejections...
105
« on: March 31, 2010, 08:39 »
i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting
more photos ?
Those who can't do, "teach" (or blog).
exactly what i think !
106
« on: March 31, 2010, 07:55 »
I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website.
Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's
actually selling.
Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people every day that are trying to make money by selling their "expertise" rather than actually doing it.
i've always been skeptic about workshops : why someone would teach you his secrets instead of being in the field shooting more photos ? photojournalists are doint this more and more nowadays but at least it's understandable as their profession is sinking and they make more money with expensive workshops. the last i've read about was a workshop for 20 students in my city with a well known MAGNUM photographer asking 250 euro/person for 2 or 3 hours, that's a whopping 5000 euro in an afternoon, not bad !
107
« on: March 31, 2010, 07:38 »
They say they accept those old models but then if you submit the images they'll get all rejected.
108
« on: March 31, 2010, 04:46 »
The End of Stock Photography: http://blog.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html
I completely disagree with that article, it's just a marketing spin to sell subscriptions to his "Selling Stock" website. Not to mention he's more famous about what he writes about the stock industry rather than the photos he's actually selling. Would you trust an analyst who's not doing stock full time ? It's complete rubbish, he also claims the iPad is the future and that "paper is dead". I'll say again, anyone exclusive with 4-5000 images on iStock can make a living with it in western countries. Stock is dead only for those with small portfolios.
109
« on: March 31, 2010, 04:41 »
the last i sold was complete rubbish, good luck trying to figure out what buyers need.
No, it's easy to see what "buyers" need. It's hard to know what "a buyer" will need. Eventually, every crappy image will sell at least once. It's just a question of whether you have the patience to wait 50 years for the right buyer to come along. If you're shooting for what a majority of buyers will want, you'll have better luck.
Yes of course you can't know what the single buyer needs, but in general i can tell you what's selling or not, the problem is it's a quite big perimeter if you generically say "pictures of London/Paris/NewYork" ... or "young female portraits". What i'm saying is that it's pretty straightforward to analyze what's selling like hot cakes on iStock as the offering is limited by categories and strict editing, but it's not that easy with unedited collections. If i go on iStock i can see in few minutes what's selling about my city for instance, and get out of the door shooting a set about the same locations, you just can't do that with RM unless we talk about Tour Eiffel and other overinflated subjects. I've the impression RM still exists only to provide the "hard to find" imagery because anything else is already on the micros at discount price. Are you still selling on Alamy ? How is it going ? RF or RM ?
110
« on: March 30, 2010, 18:58 »
i always wondered the same thing ... everybody is saying vectors pay twice or thrice than photos but what if it takes a week to make a single vector ?
111
« on: March 30, 2010, 17:52 »
I like this sort of gathering.
A crowd of microstock photographers showing off their Canon Rebels on the sea shores trying to steal each other's "secret sauce" and calling themselves superPros.
112
« on: March 30, 2010, 17:35 »
No wonder it takes years for people to make a 5000 pics portfolio on iStock when you can do it in a month on Alamy or Getty RM (well, not really).
Maybe that's why Alamy contributors talk about earning an average of $1 per image per year where micro is closer to $1 per image per month. Because you can dump an entire series of hundreds of pretty much the same image on Alamy where on sites with restrictions you're forced to be more selective.
it depends. yes, generic and crappy images will get a 1euro/year payout but you've the freedom of shooting even 100 saleable pics a day if you want. the problem is they'll never sell as it's so random today that you can't really know what's going to sell or not on RM. the last i sold was complete rubbish, good luck trying to figure out what buyers need. on the other side Getty RM is king of the hill but being edited they use to accept only 1/10th of what Alamy takes. it's amazing what's selling on Alamy, it would be interesting to see a unedited RF microstock agency and see how it goes as what Alamy is showing is that there's indeed demand for obscure and hard to find subjects, no matter if they don't look as corny as microstock. back on the subject, there's many on Alamy making a living out of these 10Ks generic and editorial images, every venue should be valued for business, and nobody forbid us to sell on both RF and RM. i think nowadays is easier to get into RM than microstock. the issue is micro pays quickly while RM takes ages to warm up, so it's not surprising all the newbies go on iStock.
113
« on: March 30, 2010, 16:40 »
Sorry, couldn't resist  After all this discussion is a bit improductive : there's a physical limit on how many images you can produce, upload, and keyword in a day or a week or a month. The bottleneck in microstock is certainly the upload limit, correct me if i'm wrong but it's ridicolous that an exclusive on iStock is limited to 50 files/week. It's a dirty trick to avoid being flooded by contributors and to avoid letting them realize that the life of a RF photo in microstock is much more short than in RM. No wonder it takes years for people to make a 5000 pics portfolio on iStock when you can do it in a month on Alamy or Getty RM (well, not really).
114
« on: March 30, 2010, 16:36 »
Bayern vs Manchester United : 2-1
115
« on: March 30, 2010, 15:57 »
there's nothing we can do.
if you've still 6MP images you can forget about it, only sharp portraits will pass QC, anything more complex will get rejected with disdain.
after all any other RM agencies ask for minimum 12MP photos so it shouldn't come as a surprise.
with 800$ you can buy a 18MP like the Canon Rebel 550D.
116
« on: March 30, 2010, 15:54 »
it's the highest honour for this forum to have people like me onboard
117
« on: March 30, 2010, 14:32 »
in my case they rejected mostly images with trees or crowds with skyscrapers.
of course a 6MP bunch of trees looks like sh.. when resized to 18MP but they never
had any problems months ago.
118
« on: March 30, 2010, 14:27 »
I've been banned probably a dozen times in that forum but i think only 2 or 3 times i received an email from the forum admin telling me to f.. off. What's your nick there? Micromaverick? 
nahh i've quit that forum once and for all after the last ban. they're not worth of my time.
119
« on: March 30, 2010, 11:48 »
I've plenty of old 6MP images that were all passing thru QC like a breeze until november or december, now they're rejecting everything apart pin-sharp human portraits or images with big sharp subjects.
Anything else goes to the bin and they also ley you wait a week or more to tell you failed QC because of "SoLD".
As i'm now shooting 12MP and 18MP i couldn't care less, i'm afraid i'll thrash those oldies and keep shooting higher-res images.
In any case it would have been polite for Alamy to at least write in their blog that from now on the minimum acceptable is 12MP, they made me waste a lot of time for nothing.
120
« on: March 30, 2010, 11:43 »
I've been banned probably a dozen times in that forum but i think only 2 or 3 times i received an email from the forum admin telling me to f.. off. It would be funny to discover i wasn't really banned but just a victim of a technical issue  Well, nevermind, that forum is becoming very very boring and it's always the same 5-6 guys ranting and raving on the same old topics.
121
« on: March 30, 2010, 07:50 »
Anyone can run a microstock site, the problem is finding the buyers and locking them in.
122
« on: March 30, 2010, 07:47 »
You can live on $20k after taxes, insurance, business expenses and everything else?
NOT in america and not in western europe but you can do it in many many other countries. years ago i spent one year in Beijing with a budget of just 6000 euros all inclusive including trips to Tibet, XinJiang, Sichuan, and other interesting areas and yet i felt rich compared to the chinese standards. my conclusion ? it's not the third world being cheap, it's the west being overpriced !
123
« on: March 30, 2010, 07:37 »
Just to clarify my statement but heres a reasonably educated guess, I think its time to but some figures to this thread...
1. Someone shooting photographs only as a good hobbyist with no stock research, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week 20k
2. Someone shooting photos, or/and creating 3d/vectors as a good hobbyist and researching and creating saleable images, approx 2000 images online, 8/16 hrs a week 40k
3. A full timer, either a good photographer with good lights and probably a full frame camera and good lenses (or a longer time spent in photoshop!). Or a good 3d/vector artist fulltimer, 80k plus a year.
anyone with 4-5000 pics on iStock alone can make a living in western europe. same for anyone having 20-30.000 unedited pics on Alamy RM or 3-4000 on Getty RM.
124
« on: March 30, 2010, 07:31 »
As always it depends where you live!
there's plenty of super cheap countries to live. vietnam, laos, cambodia, as well as china, india, philippines, and indonesia. it's not easy to get a permanent residence there as photographer but it's fairly easy to get 6-months visas and rent a nice apartment with a decent internet connection. living there can be as cheap as 3-400$/month all inclusive, central location, fairly big apartment, taxi, eventual western food, etc otherwise there are many serviced apartments providing monthly rates, you have a 30-40sqm apartment with seaview, fridge, table, double bed, toilet, balcony, kitchenette, ADSL or wi-fi, etc, last year i stayed in Bangkok for just 200 euro/month for instance and had no problem uploading and keywording. eastern europe is another option : Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Serbia, but they're getting more and more expensive nowadays. argentina and brazil are also interesting destinations and cheaper than eastern europe.
125
« on: March 29, 2010, 09:13 »
the big question remains ... how should we react ? and will Getty or iStock move a finger
against these sites or just say thank you for the feedback and good bye ?
they always knew there's a ton of pirated image packs on the net, it can't be a shocking news for them.
on the other side, if the agencies are really "representing" us it would be fair to expect
a bold move from their legal department and especially from Getty.
did anyone wrote already to iStock and Getty ?
any news ? any reply received ?
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