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Messages - FD

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1676
Off Topic / Re: Photo Tips for Our Website
« on: January 20, 2010, 00:31 »
The company I work for (AWAI) does photography workshops and creates products to help people learn to take and sell better photos as stock (as well as fine art and editorial).
That's great. Check my portfolio, sales, and especially some editorial at DT.
We occasionally send small groups of people to far corners of the globe along with a professional photo instructor to show them how to take photos they can sell.
I'm living part time in a far corner of the world, tropical, lush and exotic. On my island, I shot all the waterfalls there are to see and those landmark landscapes can be found in major publications. Moreover, we have colorful ethnic muslims in the mountains, sunsets a galore and curved palm trees over white sand. I have good news for you. You can leave the professional instructor at home and I will be the guide and the instructor. We have urban and studio light boxes available too. So you can save on your staff.
Right now we're looking for video tips for our e-letter and products.
If you have a tip to share with our hobbyist/beginner photographer readers -- on anything from taking great landscapes to getting natural shots of models to depth of focus to developing stock concepts... pitch the idea to us.
I don't pitch but I do sell. What are your rates?

Update:
Quote
YES, please send me a copy of The Lazy Mans Guide to Stock Photography. In this new, downloadable report Ill learn the Lazy Mans Way to sell my photos to stock photo agencies in as little time as possible. Ill learn:
    * How to make over $1,200 a month selling my photos online
Plus, Ill have the chance to earn a check for $100 (details on page 24) when I use this guide to upload just 15 photos to the stock photo agency of my choice.
And much, much more
Please charge my credit card just $29.95 for this downloadable e-book and instructional videos.

Why o why have things to be so predictable?

1677
I can't find HusaKarl5 at Dreamstime, can anyone help.
You revived a thread of more than a month old. Better watch the dates.  ;) The DT account was removed (of course).

1678
You are all putting too much effort into this. Just sue the b@tch and Flickr, since they can know this isn't genuine stuff with all his Ferraris. You are all far too friendly. In a while, he will take it down, and then start all over again, under another nick. Flickr will just smile. They won't smile if a microstockers guild comes up with several infringements in a row, asking damages.

My last infringement was on the website of a (ultra left) political party during Belgium's last general elections. I just wrote the guy that I requested 10,000 euro in damages. He quickly took the image down, adding a note why I reacted that "sour". Of course I was in no position to sue him, but I sure raised hell with his competitors.
Proof was gone though.

1679
Off Topic / Re: Need your help-what text on my business card
« on: January 19, 2010, 14:30 »
change 'interested'  to 'interests'  :)
I wonder if the OP is Filipino. I often get PM's that people are "interesting" instead of "interested" (in a model shoot) in the Phils.  :P

1680
123RF / Re: Editorial on 123RF
« on: January 19, 2010, 14:22 »
and not forgetting Picturenation here in the UK (once they are back online)
They won't. And if ever, current street scenes will look like archeology.  ;D

1681
Will we in a few months, be talking about deleting our portfolios from the agencies with the lowest prices so we preserve the higher prices?
Let's hope! :)
This evolution has been predicted here a couple of years ago. I don't think stock agencies will be very cooperative on scraping by robots, as the reaction of SS to Lookstat showed. But anyways, having this in mind, I already decided not to upload to a couple of new agencies that play the price competition game. I'm always amazed people jumping on bandwagons that give less.

1682
123RF / Re: Editorial on 123RF
« on: January 19, 2010, 11:44 »
Images which are sold elsewhere as RF/RM commercial
Looks like they want exclusivity on editorial. >:(
No, they mention commercial, not editorial.

I don't think I will upload my editorial to them. First of all it all needs rekeywording and their sales don't justify that. I had too many rejects lately of 5DII images that were even accepted at iStock. Support told me they got more stringent on their image requirements. That's fine: another Crestock then = low sales, too selective. I can't bother to rekeyword and then have 50% rejected.

1683
I round up 10 designer friends that use micro. I go buy an image and we all split the cost 10 ways. Then I post it on my flickr site so my buds can go download it. Makes perfect sense to me. What might cost $10.00 for each person now costs $1.00.
This scenario doesn't make sense. He can better distribute it by email or put it at a closed website with registration. Many of those around. What we see here is just the top of the iceberg I guess. Actually, if we ever need a microstocker's guild, it's to address these kinds of issues. We could deal with Flickr in a more organized and powerful way then.

1684
I would like to volunteer for them in a logistical/admin position. They pay for all your living expenses and return flight.
Yes that's why their overhead, like in all the ngo "charity" industry runs so high. They attract a number of freebee adventurers.
I had one experience with MSF once years ago in a high poverty area (Mindanao). The guy (a country fellowman) drove around in a luxurious 4WD with a private driver and his girlfriend to make inventories of equipment in local hospitals. (Of course the driver needed a separate hotel room). I told the guy I could gladly do that inventory for MSF at 0.1% of the cost on my motorbike, but he really pissed me off when he called my (then) partner a "native". We were off speaking terms when I called his Antwerp girlfriend a "native" too.  ;D

1685
I tried Chrome in the beginning but I found it didn't execute Javascript totally compliant. IE is a PITA for a designer since it still renders CSS in a non W3C compliant way. Firefox is my workhorse and I love the many plugins, like spellcheck and adblock, although it can be very memory hungry (not to say leaky). IE is fine now and then to try a site in a "virgin" way, without all my cookies and passwords.

1686
BBC News
Quote
The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.

The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems.

Microsoft say the security hole can be shut by setting the browser's security zone to "high", although this limits functionality and blocks many websites.

However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe.

Speaking to BBC News, Graham Cluley of anti-virus firm Sophos said the warning applied to versions 6, 7 and 8 of the browser.

"This is a vulnerability that was announced in the last couple of days. Microsoft have no patch yet and the implication is that this is the same one that exploited on the attacks on Google earlier this week," he said.

1687
Off Topic / Re: Do you have a life away from microstock
« on: January 16, 2010, 15:03 »
Spying sucks.  Too many travel restrictions after you retire.   :P
The same goes for Popes. Although they never retire. They just die on the job.

1688
Software - General / Re: iTag IPTC freebie
« on: January 16, 2010, 14:58 »
Does is copy keywords from an existing file of our choice?  I love that in Exifer.

Exifer once ruined a series of my photos writing the metadata back. Since then, I stay far away from any undocumented amateur programs that want to meddle directly with my photos. I just wrote my own script to quickly tag and reorder/spellcheck my tags. For actually writing the metatags into the images, I only trust Irfanview. Of course, the vested commercial programs from Adobe should be bug-free too.

1689
Off Topic / Re: Do you have a life away from microstock
« on: January 16, 2010, 10:36 »
I used to be a spy but for the moment I just try outsourcing between East and West. On my many travels I took snapshots that amazingly, sell well. For the moment, I just shoot handshaking people with headphones behind light boxes. One day I plan to be Pope. In the mean time, I'm a Flemish Independence fighter but as for now, I'm writing a lifestyle comedy book together with an American society writer.

I'm not sure about the Pope thing though.  ;)

1690
General Stock Discussion / Re: moodboard anyone
« on: January 15, 2010, 13:21 »
I was accepted a couple of weeks ago but I'm not sure yet when to upload. If their upload system is faster than iStock, then it's fast enough. I don't have any problems with the iStock system upload using Deepmeta.

1691
Dreamstime. Upload 3 at a time at most, and wait for the result. Read the rejections carefully. Don't upload in a rush because you will ruin your acceptance ratio.

Only join Shutterstock when you have no less than 100 salable images ready. You will get a high exposure on SS as a new uploader and it makes no sense to waste that on a portfolio of just 20 pictures (LSD72's argument).

When you feel confident enough and your acceptance ratio both at SS and DT is > 70%, apply at iStockphoto.

1692
General Stock Discussion / Re: death to categories
« on: January 14, 2010, 17:52 »
I think it was Achilles some time ago that said that categories do attract some buyers. He claimed to have data to sustain that position. The majority of my sales on DT is by the keyword n/a. That means the buyer found the image by visual search in similars, or by browsing categories.

1693
Microstock Services / Re: PhotographerShots.com
« on: January 14, 2010, 14:47 »
If your hosting is asp and microsoft sql
That might be a problem. On any hoster I saw (I'm currently with Hostgator) you have to chose upfront what server you want: Linux/Mysql or the other thing. I'm not sure you can mix both, although I saw asp in the control panel.

1694
iStockPhoto.com / Re: pathetic "controlled vocabulary"
« on: January 14, 2010, 14:42 »
In principle, CV is the way to go for any agency. It doesn't take that much time on IS if you use DeepMeta. Occasionally I have a tag that isn't in the CV, like "emo", a particular taste of "goth" or "gothic" (fashion-lifestyle). I just leave it there, and it's accepted.

1695
General Stock Discussion / Re: I can't win for losing
« on: January 13, 2010, 16:16 »
I sometime feel like I sell things to ghosts and the agencies are the gods who make the link between them and me
Like the Gods talk thru the flight of birds and the intestines of animal sacrifices, so does the Buyer talks thru Sales. What does please the Buyer, that he purchaseth. Blessed be thou Buyers.  ;D

1696
Why use the proprietary PSD format? TIF is open format, lossless too, and has about the same size. I have to admit I use zipped TIF (which is more compact). For photos, why should you save layers?  The flat TIF is enough, unless you do illustrations.

I save: the original CR2, the untweaked JPG from cam, and the final TIF with all the edits. From there I can generate the JPGs for upload. I save on external disks, at least 2 copies. On average, I obtain 30 Gig per month like that, that's one extra 1TB disk per year. Considering the price of disks, that's peanuts. 

1697
Microstock Services / Re: New small stock at www.fotoroad.net
« on: January 12, 2010, 12:16 »
Royalty Free subscription of celebrities/editorial; cost for buyer 0.50$. Yield for the photographer (at 50%): 0.25$. I expect a huge influx of Getty red carpet photographers.  ;D

1698
123RF / Re: 123 / Inmagine?
« on: January 12, 2010, 12:10 »
I can't be regularly on the MSG because of the DNS? issue, but 123RF works fine here. I could log in and had to cry about my earnings for January.  :o

1699
General Stock Discussion / Re: Microstock Image Prices Now
« on: January 10, 2010, 18:12 »
One idea is they could make one flat price for a Micro image at any size. $10 bucks would work for me.
The current price range in stock is unsustainable in the long run, period. Some type of shoots will disappear from in the long run, since the return doesn't cover the costs. What might stay are left-overs from assignment shoots, but that's only true for a small minority of professional photographers. The amateurs will keep uploading their glorified snapshots.

1700
My favorite's the Nikon 24-70mm F/2.8 for anything involving people.
I'm using the equivalent Canon on the 5DII but I found it a bit short for portrait (Full Frame).

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