|
MicrostockGroup Sponsors
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - ShadySue
15176
« on: April 22, 2010, 16:47 »
I think a lower volume of 'real', and unusual images will still trump a bigger amount of over-saturated, over-processed ones.. that's in my opinion anyway
While you're entitled to your opinion, the current evidence doesn't seem to back it up. Styles//trends will, of course, change.
15177
« on: April 22, 2010, 14:48 »
I think that the deactivation was warranted. I think the files should not be allowed and they were approved by error.
Let's put a specific example (different than my deactivated photo):
Harvard University buildings
Do you think that you need a release?
There are plenty of images of Harvard on iStock and they seem to sell pretty well. I highly doubt that they have a release. I can not imagine that anyone at Harvard would sign that release, the surely don't need $$$ and the iStock property realease gives you a lot of rights.
I wondered the same about Harvard, and was let off the hook the day I went there by the rain. Hard to say, as I don't know US law. UK law allows buildings taken from public streets or public areas to be in the public domain. I'm now sending all that sort of thing to Alamy as editorial, for all the good it's doing me. I have some earlier 'well known' buildings on iStock from my 350D days. Some people seem to find it very easy to get releases. No-one replies to my requests, with SAEs, for PRs, not even to say, "Get Lost". Other people seem to be able to get them no bother. I've even wondered how the reverse would pan out. Say there was a street on which there was a recent artwork, and you managed to clone out the artwork, and it appeared somewhere, obviously not as a historic print. What rights might the artist have, especially if it were a guidebook or somesuch. Suffice it to say, I'm not playing that game any more either.
15178
« on: April 22, 2010, 13:10 »
Let's say that a photo of statue/building/... that requires property release is approved by an agency without the property release.
If this would result into problem with copyright, who would be responsible? The photographer who took the photo? Or the agency for selling it without the proper rights? I could see both of them being responsible, but who would end up paying for the consequences.
Reason for asking: I had a photo that was deactivated for copyright reasons and it was told that it was approved my mistake. I accepted the decision and moved on. This happened over a year ago. Today I did a search for the same picture and I see almost identical photos for sale by other contributors. Should I inform the contributor/agency?
I would like to hear your thoughts.
You could innocently ask support/whoever is appropriate if your photo was deleted in error, since there are many other images of the same property on the site. However, it might be possible that others have a release; and even if not, it can take over a year for the images to be deleted (I speak from experience). It's all very inconsistent: I uploaded a series earlier in the year. I wasn't sure about it, so uploaded one first. When that was accepted, I drip-fed the rest up over a few days. I can't believe that at least eight different inspectors were involved and they all accepted them. When I queried the one which was accepted, they were all deactivated. There are lots of other similars by the same manufacturer up on the site. Who knows who is responsible. FWIW, I think eventually this will be the issue that stops microstock from taking over the world - there are so many things which are not allowed, and new things being disallowed daily.
15179
« on: April 22, 2010, 13:04 »
Just another example of why starting in microstock today is becoming hopeless. You're forever entombed in a gigantic dusty pyramid of old stuff that buyers want to avoid. The microstocks leave these millions of dessicated mummies in place, to push buyers to higher price tiers in search of something new.
I can't speak for any of the other micros, but buyers at iStock have the option of searching by age, should they want to avoid the older high sellers. However, there's little evidence that many buyers really care, strange as that may seem.
15180
« on: April 22, 2010, 11:00 »
I know what you are saying. The only thing you can do is to go to the different stock image sites and search for exclusive images or exclusive photographers. Too many sites have too many of the same images and after 5 or 6 pages I know what I'm going to see - same old, same old. I feel like I know some of those models by name. I'm not searching for the cheapest image, but the most unique and those are getting harder and harder to find.
On istock, you can go into advanced search and tick to search on exclusive only, then at least you won't see the same images elsewhere. For example, there are 196767 with the keyword 'business'.
15181
« on: April 22, 2010, 02:20 »
Wandering off the Veer issue, but you may need to reconsider your keywording also.
I looked at your image 'Devon Gull' on iStock.
You have listed several incompatible locations (the correct one only should be listed); other words which are irrelevant to the photo like fish, salt water fish, tourism, coastline, and several keywords of the type iStock doesn't like, for example feather and beak (99.% of birds have feathers and beaks: you should only use these keywords if the feather or beak are specific features of the mate.)
As the others say, work on growing your ports on your existing agencies. And remember that keywords are really important. Think of it this way, if someone did a search on 'fish' or even 'feather', how likely is your image to meet that wish?
15182
« on: April 21, 2010, 14:56 »
But who is it who buys stock? At work today I saw the latest copy of New Scientist in the staff tea room. Opened it and a big ad on the inside of the front cover. I immediatley recognized the three models in one photo - Cecilie, Sophie and Ask. Not too many blond, blue eyed Scandinavians in India or China.
Good point.
And food is different too.
Which is what I meant by "You, however, are in the lucky position of having easy access to most of the subjects currently in greater demand."
15183
« on: April 20, 2010, 19:21 »
All things are driven by the lowest common denominator - and the bottom line is defined by the accountants. They do not care if their images (and profit) come from you or from someone in Burkina Faso (no offense intended).
While a drone in Burkina Faso may be able to photograph some apples on white, I'm pretty sure some subjects are far from their ability.
And I'm perfectly sure that ability and skills is not a problem for some BF photographers, although access to certain subjects may be, as access to other subjects may be for you. You, however, are in the lucky position of having easy access to most of the subjects currently in greater demand.
15184
« on: April 17, 2010, 13:11 »
March earnings have were posted today
thanks for the heads-up
ditto 
Gosh, they can't be very stunning if you weren't even noticing!
15185
« on: April 17, 2010, 08:49 »
Or is the right one a purposeful jab at the left one?
"I want this!"
"On second thought, I want this other!"
That's what they claim. They claim they were making the point that this was only a model, not a real party supporter.
15186
« on: April 17, 2010, 03:13 »
If the image wasn't "good enough", why would the inspector even bother to look at the keywords?
Because that's part of what they're paid to do.
15187
« on: April 16, 2010, 18:52 »
It is probably now possible to run an entire microstock on Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure - for a price of course.
It's just about the only service they don't offer - for the moment!
I think Snapixel uses Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure.
Ah! I bet loads more companies are using Amazon in some way. Earlier this evening, I was browsing Marks and Spencer's own website, but noticed that amazon was being referenced by the pages whizzing past at the bottom left of the Firefox page (where it ends up as 'done'. Don't know what it's called?)
15188
« on: April 16, 2010, 16:26 »
15189
« on: April 16, 2010, 16:24 »
It is probably now possible to run an entire microstock on Amazon hosting and storage infrastructure - for a price of course.
It's just about the only service they don't offer - for the moment!
15190
« on: April 16, 2010, 12:17 »
He/she had the images pasted in above, but it appears he/she deleted them.
I can see the images in the original post.
The deliberate mis-keywording of Thai subjects as Chinese and vice versa is one of my pet hates. It makes about as much sense as labelling something clearly Italian as being 'Swedish'.
According to Sean in the Greek Yogurt thread, ethnicity doesn't matter in keywords. I'd have thought it did (how's that different from describing a beach as Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Meditterranean, except that maybe the beach would be easier found out), but I'm not exactly the expert on models! This girl certainly looks Thai rather than Chinese. Very pretty model. :-)
15191
« on: April 16, 2010, 05:28 »
Actually, if you read the threads in the Help forums relating to recent site problems there are plenty of people complaining of low sales. If you only have an odd sale here and there you're not going to notice changes, if you're a high seller and the site is down for an hour or two, you may well notice the effect more.
The low sales threads have been for the whole month (Easter weekend, Spring break in UK/some of Europe etc), and not just since the outage last Friday, and has been mirrored in other sites. April has traditionally been lower for me, and some others than Jan - Mar, but clearly others have a different experience.
15192
« on: April 16, 2010, 05:07 »
What they should do is stop messing around with Vetta and Exclusive + and get the bloody site working. It's getting 503 errors reported in the Help forums now. FIX THE SITE ISTOCK. There, that feels better.
Actually I do agree with you, all this stuff at the expense of downtime, lost sales and all, its kind of unfair really.
I don't think there have been reports of lost sales. Certainly, mine are within 'normal fluctuation', and that's the anecdotal evidence I'm getting too. Of course, if you've got an instant bestseller lanquishing in the inspection queue from the 6th, its not 'out there'.
15193
« on: April 14, 2010, 05:41 »
I feel your pain.....
For work recently I need a picture of a young woman suitable for a banner image across the top of a skincare related page..
Try searching for 'young woman' and see how much junk you get....
The results of "one young woman only" sorted by best match aren't bad on iStock. If you want something more specific, you can 'search within', though sometimes that gets hairy.  }]}&oldTextDisambiguation={%22language%22:%201,%20%22maps%22:%20[{%22tag%22:%20%22Young%20Women%22,%20%22language%22:%20%221%22,%20%22choices%22:%20[%221_148817%22]}]}&abstractType=1023&filterContent=false&order=7&perPage=100&showTitle=true&showContributor=true&showDownload=true&text=%22one%20young%20woman%20only%22]http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&oldtext=%22Young%20Women%22&textDisambiguation={%22language%22:%201,%20%22maps%22:%20[{%22tag%22:%20%22Young%20Women%22,%20%22language%22:%201,%20%22choices%22:%20[%221_148817%22]}]}&oldTextDisambiguation={%22language%22:%201,%20%22maps%22:%20[{%22tag%22:%20%22Young%20Women%22,%20%22language%22:%20%221%22,%20%22choices%22:%20[%221_148817%22]}]}&abstractType=1023&filterContent=false&order=7&perPage=100&showTitle=true&showContributor=true&showDownload=true&text=%22one%20young%20woman%20only%22(Doubt if that link will work. 
15194
« on: April 14, 2010, 05:37 »
15195
« on: April 14, 2010, 04:32 »
Personally, I don't see the point in leaving non sellers online. I'm only in my second year but I've already begun weeding out some of my newbie mistakes.
Yesterday i earned almost $5 with the first sale of a file which went up in 2007. This happens regularly enough that the only images I deactivate are either ones I've reshot or old ones which wouldn't meet the new requirements about needing MRs. Also, I've had ELs with very-low selling images - I'm guessing that the buyers were looking specifically for low sellers. Your choice.
15196
« on: April 13, 2010, 06:40 »
gray area.
what if the photographer keyworded and captioned the image saying the man was turkish instead of greek ?
who's to blame in that case ? no agency check keywording nor i think is fully responsible for that.
I've never heard that keywords are some sort of contract. They are descriptive and interpretive.
Separate issue, but I don't see anything in the model release which would allow you to describe someone as e.g. Turkish rather than Greek, English rather than Scottish, American rather than Canadian, whatever. I wonder what rights a model would have over a photographer who assigned them wrongly. I know, it would be different in different countries, probably a lot stricter in the UK than the US, for example.
15197
« on: April 12, 2010, 17:08 »
They really should allow us 2 to 3 weeks worth at once...but will they do that? It's like cell phone plans where you lose unused minutes...maybe we should be allowed to carry over unused slots? Will they do that...not likely!
Argh, I wonder how they will deal with their 15 images/week upload slots....
There seems to be a backlog with the queue just now, especially for exclusives, so I wouldn't think they'll roll over, but who knows?
15198
« on: April 12, 2010, 14:24 »
Was it thrilling?
Breathless at least!
15199
« on: April 11, 2010, 05:58 »
I recently came across some images of mine on products, magazines and books....
Simple question before i start searching were the image was sold ...
- Does publication in a book requires an EL license ?
- Does publication in a magazine (Top Gear) requires an EL license ?
- Does the use of an image on a product requires an EL license ?
In case of publication, does the name of the photographer needs to be mentioned... or site image purchased.?.
What I do know is that none of the images were sold with an EL license.
Patrick H. The first question is from which agency was an image bought. Then you have to read the t&c for that agency. For example, at iStock, publication in a book or magazine doesn't require an EL if the print number is under 500,000, which is a large print run in the UK, but presumably not in the US. At iStock, image on a product, not necessarily (I questioned this when I discovered that photos of mine and other iStockers were being used on cards in an educational game) (up to 499,999 impressions). However if the actual photo is the product, e.g. postcards, greetings cards, posters, mouse mats etc, then yes. Other agencies will have their own t&c. FYI, iStocks EL requirements are at http://www.istockphoto.com/license_comparison.phpHopefully someone else will be able to tell you about the other agencies, though presumably they're easy enough to find on each site.
15200
« on: April 10, 2010, 10:44 »
The man in the photo did not apparently have an agreement with the photographer, but Axelson said the case of mistaken nationality was also a factor behind his decision to sue.
If a release was signed, "mistaken nationality" is probably not something you can sue someone over.
"did not have an agreement with the photographer" might mean 'no MR'.
|
Sponsors
Microstock Poll Results
Sponsors
|
Show Posts
