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Messages - Black Sheep
101
« on: May 30, 2011, 08:08 »
And then one comes across news like this  http://www.popphoto.com/news/2011/05/cindy-sherman-print-sells-39-million-auction-highest-ever-photograp. I know I mixing apples and oranges, but still, it makes sentences like the one in the subject pretty absurd
That photo is awful from any point of view, but hey this is "conceptual photography" therefore anything goes. Maybe i'm getting old but i can't see any clear concept on it, they sold it for millions just because it's been shot by Cindy Sherman, the bidders couldn't probably give a crap about the photo itself, all they know is that they can make money on it. I'm not still an expert but to me it looks like basically a Ponzi scheme, where the loser is the last one buying the product, probably a gullible collector or somebody overseas money laundering a few millions.
102
« on: May 30, 2011, 08:03 »
I'm scratching my head as well about what is fine-art and how to enter the fine art business.
We all hear about these crazy multimillion dollars sales but as a matter of fact galleries are flooded by crap that has nothing to envy to the crap sold for crazy prices and yet they're worth nothing.
In the last few months i personally went on a tour of the major galleries in my city and frankly was unimpressed by what i've seen there, instead the shock was to realize how many bloody awful images were sold for thousands of dollars.
It's both a bubble and a mafia, as any art dealer will tell you there's no clear rule about how an artist can make a name in the market and then grow the value of its collection over time : both galleries and art critics must agree the specific artist can generate value and then the gallery bet on him organizing a sale etc but at the end of the game buyers and collectors have no linear logic on why they prefer artist x to artist y or z, moreover they only buy as an investment, with the hope that they can make a fat profit after a few years, and when the artist dies the value increase as it become something interesting for collectors too.
In most of the cases the quality of the images is absolutely non important, and often the most expensive shots are terrible, grainy, and look to be shot with a broken Polaroid !
Long story short, i'm carefully assembling a book to present to my local art galleries and at least gather up some feedback, time will tell.
103
« on: May 30, 2011, 07:51 »
[quote author=PaulieWalnuts link=topic=13437.msg202942#msg202942 date=1306757854
If macro is too expensive for buyers to justify paying, and micro is too cheap for contributors to justify creating, what's the solution?
[/quote]
As far as i'm concerned i'm running a business and therefore raising prices are only a welcome news to me.
As for the solution that's the million dollar question : my travel images are not selling good on micro RF but are
selling decently on macro RM, road signs and street shot sell fine on micro RF but never sold once on macro RM,
ethnic portraits never sold good neither as RM or RF but i have OK sales with calendars and merchandising,
bizarre photos taken around with my mobile photos in low res make some tea money on my blog with advertising,
i'm studying how to enter the fine-art market but so far haven't got any brilliant idea (never say never).
104
« on: May 30, 2011, 07:45 »
And sorry, but no one is going to buy a photo of a piece of paper or an apple for RM prices.
And this is why Getty is shuffling images around. 10 years ago they probably could have sold an apple for RM prices. Not today.
With the new agreement they tried to take total control over moving images between RM and RF. Contributors went nuts. Problem is that some of those contributors probably still have RM apples and Getty understandably wants to cull RM to unique high value images.
Your apple comment is about supply/demand and perceived value. An apple image is simple so it should be cheap. The problem is when an image has a room full of expensive models shot at an expensive location. Should that be as cheap as the apple?
If macro is too expensive for buyers to justify paying, and micro is too cheap for contributors to justify creating, what's the solution?
I fully agree with Getty. RM should be left dealing with images that are hard to or expensive to shoot. Anything else should go microstock, especially apples on white background. I mean it's 2011 and still life images are way oversupplied. Sorry for people shooting apples on white background but the value of such images is rightfully next to zero nowadays. There must a justification for RM commanding high prices otherwise Getty would shoot itself in the foot. Contirbutors going nuts means nothing to Getty, they are kept by the balls anyway whether they stick to RM or they move to micro RF. We must accept at the moment only a small bunch of photographic subject can still be sold at high prices. Too many micro photographers flooded the market copying famous RM shots and this almost killed RM and it's killing RF as well.
105
« on: May 30, 2011, 05:52 »
Photography is being devalued in any department nowadays, only fine-art sold in galleries is still making good money.
Getty RM might fail sooner or later, their prices are often unrealistic considering the fall in demand and the actual oversupply.
Their idea of moving RM pictures that haven't sold in 3 yrs into ThinkStock or IS is great, as that's the only way to clearly differentiate their collections.
106
« on: May 30, 2011, 05:03 »
Talking about rock bottom prices, what can be more rock bottom than monthly "all you can eat" subscriptions ?
And about designers, the average commercial Fonts are sold for 50$, so what's the problem in paying
50$ for a photo instead of 0.5$ ?
Designers are scared of losing customers if the price is too high, photographers are scared of losing sales if the prices rise too much, clients have a wide choice of cheap designers working for peanuts and on top of this there's a ton of youngsters working for free or for "vanity", it's just a buyer's market nowadays, we're powerless.
107
« on: May 30, 2011, 01:47 »
That is iStock's customer base but it seems to be a customer base that the company now resents and wants to be rid off. Perhaps Getty's attitude towards iStock is being driven by this false belief (which seems to prevail among the old school shooters) that iStock's customers used to pay well, need to get back to paying up they way they did in the good old days, and have no reason to complain about things going back to "normal".
The problem with microstock is they are selling too good material at too low prices and now they realize they're shooting themselves in the foot. It's a good thing that IS is raising prices as that's the only way to get back on track and make IS a sort of "midstock" while moving the crap on ThinkStock.
108
« on: May 30, 2011, 01:44 »
And sorry, but no one is going to buy a photo of a piece of paper or an apple for RM prices. If it bothers you to sell your stuff at microstock prices, you have a choice. Don't do it. Sell only RM.
Times are changing. My last RM sale on Alamy was a wopping 15$ and i heard people having 5$ sales on Getty RM for web-sized images !
109
« on: May 29, 2011, 23:11 »
Anything British.
Just kidding. You never know what will sell there. Since Measures is back up and running, you can look at what people are searching for. My first sale there was just a garden hose rolled up beside a house. Got $60 (my cut) for textbook image. That shot would have never ever made it to a Micro site.
Me too, it's simply unpredictable on Alamy. My last sale was a shot of a bank, poor lighting, poor framing, poor keywording, and yet it sold (15$ my net cut). My best images instead never made a sale nor a single zoom.
110
« on: May 29, 2011, 23:09 »
It's hard to see how can one get a decent return on investment traveling in expensive european cities like London or Stockholm.
The most dangerous place in my opinion is still south america and especially Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
Plenty of people there who would kill somebody for a DSLR.
111
« on: May 29, 2011, 21:57 »
I'm of the opinion IS search functionalities are crippled this way exactly to push their agenda of giving more vibisility to Vetta and agencies images.
It's not a bug but simply a business plan and they've certainly no intention to "fix" it, they're rightfully trying to re-educate buyers into paying fair prices (while screwing photographers, but that's anotherpart of their master plan).
112
« on: May 29, 2011, 21:53 »
If buyers complain rising prices are unsustainable for their business then how can it be sustainable for photographers considering IS is eating up to 85% of their sales ?
It's simply astounding to read professional designers complaining that 10$ is too much for a photo.
Clients like these should better head to Flickr instead of using microstock.
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