Hi Yuri,

 All the best to you and your new venture.  Some people are asking if you will make money off this endeavor but isn't that how our system already works?  Schools make money they are a business and their teachers and staff get paid. The student hopes to achieve the ability to take that knowledge and apply it over their own career. Art Center in Pasadena will set you back six figures, is that wrong? They also have the highest placement for high end well paid photographers compared to any other school available, maybe you get what you pay for sometimes. If I was younger and just starting out I would so be all over this kind of opportunity, to learn from the best in a structured environment with real hands on application, marvelous.
 Leaf I feel made a great post as well as Mat both supportive of your efforts to increase your business model.  Once again all the best to you and your future and to the lucky 15 that get the job. I think that will be your most important part of the project, finding the true 15 that have that X factor and can apply what you show them and even take it to another level. I will be watching out for updates please keep us informed of the growth.

All the best,
Jonathan

Hi JS,

 Can you tell me how to see what images a photographer has in Vetta and TAC. I am not quite sure how to find them on the Istock site. I can find them on Getty but not Istock. Thanks for the help, that goes to anyone that can help this feeble photographer.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 A few of us did it in Macro we built Blend Images as a co-op and we built Cultura images as a co-op. It can be done but it is very hard. To find the right 20 people or so ( the more owners the tougher it gets ) is not easy and those people have to put a lot of their revenue into running the company, they have to choose a CEO to represent the company and completely trust that person and the board that is voted in to run the daily decisions that must be made.
 There are so many levels of trust that it truly takes a real team and building a team that focuses on the companies success as apposed to their own is hard to find. How many photographers do you know that are going to share half their revenue to run the company possibly more depending on the infrastructure until it starts producing significant revenue? How much do you plan to advertise and then be able to add contributors to the co-op as 20 photographers do not a strong collection make.
 It can be done but it takes great commitment and trust, that is hard to find in a large group. Dissension is always at the door and it must be run and operated by true professionals in business management. Voting those people in and keeping the faith as you shovel money into the fire to build the company is not for everyone. But it can be done.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 I have seen my sales drop in RF Macro but that was in the past. My Macro RF has leveled out for all new work that is submitted. RM is still very strong, people that have been in  the market for a long period will tell you that the numbers have fallen a great deal over the past 6 years and they have but I look at percentage of return to cost of production rather than just the return. I see 800% return over 4 years at this point in Macro and I have seen Micro return 300% over the past three years.
 One difference is I pay more for each Macro shoot than a Micro so my returns are much higher in Macro than Micro. If I spend 50 dollars per shot for Macro and return $400 over 5 years that is considerably more than if I spend 15 dollars per image in Micro and then the cost of uploading and key wording adds another $5 to each image ( outsourced and not needed for Macro ) making production $20 dollars creating a much smaller percentage over the images life span.
  I can still produce more images in a day for Micro but not enough to offset the difference in return and I enjoy taking more time and creating strong images rather than what I create for Micro, the need to appeal to a mass audience also forces me to make images far more vanilla. In Macro I don't have to worry about the image being as vanilla so I have a lot more fun and creative freedom.
 The other thing we have accomplished this past year is to cut our Macro production in half to $25 an image running a much leaner machine while still being able to produce large amounts of pertinent content. When you have a minute you might want to look at the entire industries numbers and see where RM, RF and Micro fall in how much annual revenue they each make you might be surprised to see where RM sits in the order, especially when you consider the pie is being sliced by a much smaller group of photographers. Just my 2 cents.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi Everyone,

 I have two portals through two different agencies I am co-owner of. One is http://www.blendimages.com and the other is http://www.culturaimages.com they have both been accepted as TAC providers. I still have to split what I get with the agencies so it's not quite as good as being exclusive but I want to see some data on the sales there so when I get some time I will be adding a few hundred images to see what's out there.
 Any contributing photographer with either agency can be represented in Macro RM/RF and TAC if anyone has an interest please feel welcome to contact me they are both very strong agencies and I would be happy to help make some introductions.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 I was sent this by a friend and found it interesting reading so I thought I would post it here since it is related to the sales of imagery. I hope you find something useful.

Best,
Jonathan

http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/07/04/how-stockbroker-andrew-peterson-aka-thomas-hawk-smeared-photographer-jay-maisel-in-andy-baio-copyright-row/

Hi Microbius,

 No, I wasn't dragging an image to the bar that sounds so cool. Thank you for explaining it to me I am just sitting down with my Sunday morning coffee and will try what you said. Thanks again for steering and old boat on the right coarse.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi Sadstock,

 Just wanted to show my appreciation for your efforts. Well done and thank you for sharing.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 I want to take a minute out to share a section of a blog from a very good friend of mine. He has been making cutting edge stock photos for 25 years and this is part of his take on sharing. Thank you John Lund for all you have shared with me over the years, you are a true professional.


Staying Under The Radar Isn�t The Answer
One thing I have learned over the last twenty years is that staying under the radar isn�t the answer. The courage to share your process (within reason), to get your work out in front of everyone, and to rise above those very reasonable fears of seeing your work, ideas and techniques stolen in so many ways, brings with it rewards that cannot be denied. Do you think the benefits Chase Jarvis gains from sharing his world online out-weighs the risks of being copied and the threat from competition that is enhanced by the information he doles out?

The Benefits of Sharing
In my own experience the benefits of sharing have been enormous. The rewards have ranged from free gear (I was once given a $45,000.00 Leaf Digital Back on the condition that I share my results with the camera at trade shows�duh!), to important contacts (in the long run more important than gear), free film, and all manner of opportunities. If I hadn�t been open to sharing I would never have been invited to join Blend Images as a founding partner�probably the biggest opportunity in my career. The latest reward for putting my work and ideas out there is in the form of traffic to my website that continues to increase weekly. Yes, I get ripped off all the time, but my rewards are definitely greater than my losses.

best,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 Worst month at Istock yet. Every month keeps dropping like a stone as I add new images. My other agencies are all performing up to expectations with Fotolia starting to out perform Istock, Istock now down almost 70% in the last three months. I was at 20,0000+ credits at the end of the first 3 months into the year now I am at 22,264 going into the 6th month. What is up, 70% drop? Glad to see the other agencies are holding.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi Steve,

 That is interest news thanks for sharing. Can you tell me what kind of numbers some of the exclusives at TAC are making. One thing to measure is if they are being highly edited then the RPI would have to be much higher to make up for the difference in image acceptance rate. I am not trying to debate here just trying to get a handle on all the different replies I have been getting on TAC numbers. Some numbers would be great help, no need to share any names. I am very interested in any data related to the collection.

Thank you,
Jonathan

Hi Lisa,

 It is short for "The Agency Collection " at both Getty and Istock. Getty's editing is take just about everything Istock is still doing the no more than 80%. One thing nice about adding to the TAC collection is you do not have to be exclusive as a photographer only the content has to be exclusive. I would guess in the future they might try to change this to fit the Istock photographer exclusivity but for now there are options to avoid being an Istock exclusive and still add your content into TAC through third party Macro agencies.
 If anyone is interested in learning other ways of getting your content into TAC please feel welcome to drop me a PM.

Best,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 Even if my Istock sales had not tanked three months ago I would still be shocked that a professional service of their magnitude would answer a customer with such a smug reply. This is very surprising. Yes, one more month that makes three where my Istock sales dropped to half what they were at the beginning of the year and I have been adding new work at the same rate as always.
 I am quite sure why this is happening to the photographers I believe it has to do with the point system they put in place. Now they move us around the best match in relation to how many credits we are earning in order to keep us from making the same or even a higher percentage next year. This is just my opinion but I have felt this way since the set the new system in to place and why the set the system in place. Just my opinion based on nothing but pure guesstimation.

Best,
Jonathan


Best,
Jonathan