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Messages - hqimages
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151
« on: August 25, 2009, 15:03 »
I am not shocked at all the writing has been on the wall for a while, all the stocksites growth has either stopped or declined as the new markets are no longer there, the only new markets are the digital ones.
It just looks like preperation for newspapers and magazines moving to online subscriptions, you will notice the limitations on use, so it might be warning shot to the media giants that they will not be getting thier content so cheap.
To make this attractive to online users they need two more things, pay-as-you-go and a direct delivery, online users will not go looking for an image or pay for 10 if they need just one, but they might buy one if it was delivered to their blog, browser or application.
David 
That's a really really really interesting idea...
152
« on: August 25, 2009, 15:01 »
Hi All,
20 years ago on a field trip from photo school to a major stock shooters studio I remember one part of advice he offered so clearly. After his speech about his business and educating us on stock he turned to everyone and finished with " Unfortunately it is to late for any of you to compete on this level. The pros have this business sown up and someone just starting out will never stand a chance of making it ". Never say Never.
Best,
Jonathan
lol! How encouraging  Still, us photographers are a stubborn bunch, I think that's why we stick it out in microstock ad infinitum, the more they say it can't be done, the more we want to do it!!
153
« on: August 25, 2009, 09:24 »
Well I don't just have people asking, but now camera shops!!!! One chain of camera shops here seems to be in trouble, and I'm running a promo with them for another client.. but if THEY can't make a living from photography I thought what hope does the freelancer have! Good money in Weddings alright for some people, but again, the market is pretty much sewn up via referrals/personality, so VERY hard for a new photographer to break through (plus every gig involves a totally new client which is costly from an advertising/marketing point of view, repeat custom is preferable).. this camera shop I'm dealing with has an entire FLOOR dedicated to their studio, and they never use it.. it ridiculous, it's as if they just think 'weddings, and family portraits', they can't see beyond that and slowly their hardware business is being undermined by on-line dealerships.. it's very frustrating. All you can do is give some advice and ideas, try and open people's minds a bit, point them in roughly the right direction and the rest is so much up to them.. you can fight new methods, or you can use them to your advantage, and if they don't use new methods to their advantage, there's a very high chance they will die. Even on the radio the other day they were having a weddings feature, and two women were in agreement that camera equipment is so good now there's no need to hire an official photographer, they felt you stand around for too long, it slows down/interrupts the day, and that the photos taken by friends normally end up being the best ones anyway Go figure! If anyone has the secret to this industry beyond working hard which we all already do, it beats me! 
154
« on: August 25, 2009, 08:22 »
Well done good for you
Lets not forget that at times the customer base gets as fed up with the big boys as much as us contributers, so who knows they may start to turn back to the small independent providers for value and the personal touch
Wishing you well
Yeah and from this end, it'll be absolutely GREAT to know exactly who is buying from me, and to be able to email them, maybe get to know them.. it is something you miss out on BIG time with an agency.. fingers crossed I get buyers anyway eh  Thanks!!
155
« on: August 25, 2009, 08:02 »
Good luck to you, I think it is worth it with the pictures you have !
It makes me wonder why Yuri did not go on its own yet 
L
Thanks!! I did wonder that too.. probably as long as he's making money he doesn't have to spend any on a system to sell his own.. but you never know, he might in the future.. it would take a lot of $$$ for him to build a site though, especially if he would be fussy about features, which he probably would be (rightly so) because his brand is so strong, the web site would have to reflect that. There's more pressure on him from his buyers than someone like me in that way, they might expect a lot, but hey, you never know what will happen and what way we will all adapt to keep selling!
156
« on: August 25, 2009, 07:33 »
That 'ignore' button is a Godsend, I love all your guys ideas and links.. thanks for a great chat
157
« on: August 25, 2009, 07:31 »
then build a site elsewhere on the same framework for others to join together as a worldwide community..
Well, then you're just making yet another microstock site, and what good does that do you? Not much and eventual closing if history is any indication.
Stick with your own work and making a niche that attracts buyers. There's plenty of people already out there doing it.
I'm not making anything Sean.. I'm having a nice chat, and sharing ideas, with some people that have very interesting things to say. I don't know why you feel the need to troll every thread on here, I'd prefer if you didn't do it to mine, thanks so much.
158
« on: August 25, 2009, 07:18 »
I think taking just 20% commission would be very generous __ 30-40% would be more likely. He's only got 18k images too. If that grew to 180K and sales grew anything like proportionately then he could probably give up his day-job. Most business people who become wealthy do it by utilising the efforts of others.
I really like his site, he's got a great niche there .Only having his own images means that his buyers will be getting search results that are accurate, only the sort of shots they need for tourist guides for the UK and of a consistent quality. I can understand him not wanting to open the site up to other photographers.
Yeah, and it means he can have a personal relationship with his buyers, that kind of thing goes a long way in today's climate!
159
« on: August 25, 2009, 07:17 »
I just don't think it makes good business sense, 18k is a LOT of images.. I presuming he's not in competition with international brands/sites with millions of pics, he probably sources his clients locally/nationally.. he makes 100% profit on his sales, and probably has absolutely tiny overheads.
The minute you open that up, you have less chance of making a sale on your own work, so immediately you have a pay cut, and then on other people's work you are selling, they have not only increased the amount of hours you have to work to support them, but they also increase your overheads as regards servers, space, programming, legal etc etc etc. So out of whatever, let's say the 50% you make off them, you are working HARDER to make less money.. now if you can get an investor and a team of minimum 5 people to launch an international site, that might work, but again, you probably won't turn a profit for years one and two, especially with the market being a saturated as it is.
It's a different way of thinking, if you sell locally from your own web site, you're making a massive return, with minimum work/output/overheads on your end..
Plenty of stock sites have gone under with 180k images in their database, so it's not just a question of more images=more money..
160
« on: August 25, 2009, 06:51 »
Wow that's a nice success story, thanks for the link I can understand not taking other photographers work onto the site alright, why make 20% on someone else's work, if you are making 100% on your own work.. I can understand that, but I think for me I do also agree that it's a lot of work to create a fully functioning buyers site, with checkout etc, so if I decide to invite contributors, I'll keep the original site just for me, so I can give the address to local buyers, and then build a site elsewhere on the same framework for others to join together as a worldwide community.. The thing is too there are so many legalities involved dealing internationally, ie. Contributors are from all over the world that I want to see the microstock sites evolve further as regards tax registration etc and see how that whole thing plays out, then decide if it's really worth it, or maybe even to accept European contributors only.. anyway it's years off, lol!!!
161
« on: August 25, 2009, 04:12 »
I read an article about this a while back and yeah, I can't believe someone with as deep pockets as google won't treat artists with the respect they deserve.. they are LOADED, and they can't afford an EL? I would say no and I would also send them a nice long rant about the difficulty of making a living as a photographer when BILLION dollar companies won't pay even $50 for an image to re-distribute etc. That's just me though
162
« on: August 25, 2009, 04:06 »
Thanks Lisa, hopefully it all works out, if I come across any unusual legal situation from the way I'm selling I'll let you know! For someone like you, I think you're putting too much faith in the microstock web sites legal teams, I wouldn't let it stop me going out on my own, at least if I were you and had your gallery, I would seriously consider it!!!! I think it would be great for you.. but I'll let you know how it goes for me first anyway
163
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:53 »
So keeping it small is the best way to go! Sounds good to me anyway!
164
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:42 »
Here's the twitter page guys, I literally only just set it up like, JUST! (Great minds etc..) http://twitter.com/photos4designsGonna follow you guys
165
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:39 »
166
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:38 »
I've actually thought about doing this later on when my collection size hits some kind of critical mass. I think the real trick to success with a photo site is:
Searching Options
If you look at all the top agencies, you'll notice that as you go from number 1 on down, the search engines become less and less sophisticated in control. For starters, you might wanna try emulating shutterstocks take on it with a keyword elimination box, that alone is very powerful in narrowing results accurately. I'd also look into search or categorizing by "feeling" and "concepts" rather than just subjects, that seems to be one of Getty Images techniques, and they have some very interesting ways of searching their collection.
How did you setup that site? Was it a template or something?
Good luck with it!
It's based on Drupal, with a lot of custom coding, I wouldn't try it at home unless you are a web developer to be honest! It took I'd say a few months to build, lots of local testing, and then even more testing when it went live, I actually think the testing took as long as the building of it.. but it's done well, it's lightweight for the functionality.. I'm using the Flickr api to pull my thumbs and previews for my stock images.. there's a LOT going on there actually, but if the bones of it hold up, which they seem to be doing quite elegantly, it's something I can use to develop a second 'communal' site from a long distant way in the future I must develop the search too, it's such a big project getting that right alone, I have no deadline, I'll just have to keep working on it as much as possible over the next year! Ps. Jonathan I emailed that site to see if I am suitable for membership, what a resource, it's really brilliant, thanks for the recommendation!
167
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:32 »
Lets do a bit of viral promotion, via Twitter & Facebook.
I have tweeted this link to my 100+ followers, maybe a few more tweets and RT's may connect with a buyer or two, we can but hope.
http://bit.ly/4BmVcF
David
* blush omg, why am I so embarrased, lol!! Thanks David, that's dead nice of you, I'm mortified but grinning!! Thank you!! lol!
168
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:18 »
I'll check that out, thanks Jonathan!!
169
« on: August 24, 2009, 14:02 »
My hat's off to you, Hillary.
I will anxiously watch this thread and am sending all the luck I can your way! Brilliant idea, gutsy move- I REALLY hope it works out for you!!!
Katrina
Hi Katrina, thanks!! I need the luck I'll take that one
170
« on: August 24, 2009, 13:35 »
When can we start submiting
lol!  Well, you know, I thought about that.. I really did, and then I thought of all your guys images taking away from my own, and I wanted the stage What I might do in the future though, if this model works (we're talking two years minimum down the line), is set up an etsy type conglomeration of sellers, not on that site though, on a new one, where you have sales of prints, downloads, maybe calenders and cute things too.. I would do it so that when the buyer downloads the image, you get emailed all the sales details along with me, as if you really are running your own shop, I might even charge an annual fee, like flickr, and then if someone buys something, the money goes directly to your paypal each time, and you manage the customer yourself.. Anyway lot's of idea's but baby steps, c how this does first 
171
« on: August 24, 2009, 13:21 »
it's not something that concerns me one bit, and I'm not quite sure why it concerns you?
I don't care in the least what you do with your licensing terms. You're right in that there are quite a few sites out there with the samely worded terms:
http://tinyurl.com/kktugw
Like I said, good luck!
Good. And thank you.
172
« on: August 24, 2009, 13:10 »
Fotosearch copied my license the cheek!! In fact Sean, there is a generic 'guide' image license provided by a friendly solicitor that has already done the rounds, so I'd imagine many stock web sites have pulled from that particular experts wording, and tweaked/had it looked over by their own solicitor to fit within their own sales ethos. Apart from the bigger web sites (corporations) that I'm sure have their own legal team to word these things from scratch etc, anyway, it's not something that concerns me one bit, and I'm not quite sure why it concerns you?
Hi Lisa, thanks for the message, I have an excellent solicitor on hand who is a personal friend, and I also have an expert legal contact that specialises in copyright law to ask questions to free of charge.. as it stands, the reason I have my pricing at 10 is to prevent mis-use before it happens.. if you want to make a quick buck on someone's images, best to pay 1 or less and re-distribute etc at will. So, I'm hoping it won't happen, but if I do find my images mis-used in the future, I'll cross that bridge and I will pursue it legally.
The only web site agent I have heard of to date of actually legally pursing downloaders who are not abiding to license agreements etc is SS. It is not common practice to chase these people with the aim of acheiving compensation on other web sites at all, in most cases it seems an offender, for example, someone stealing images and uploading them to another site as their own work, they simply have their accounts deleted, but I have yet to hear of the photographer getting the 'download' money back from that web site (bar compensations made by ss having chased mis-users directly).. so, I have more faith in myself to make sure I'm compensated for illegal usage, than the majority of the web sites I used to submit to tbh!!
173
« on: August 24, 2009, 10:36 »
I wish you all the luck in the world. The website looks great and I really admire what you're doing.
Please keep us updated!
Aww thanks so much, it's really nice to see so much support!! And I will for sure, either way, I'll let you guys know!
174
« on: August 24, 2009, 10:06 »
I'm result 5 in google for 'food images for commercial use'.. if nothing else I should get a job in search engine optimisation for some other stock site if it all goes belly up for me
175
« on: August 24, 2009, 09:50 »
lol! Cheeky Looks good, thanks for the links!
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