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Messages - MatHayward
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1776
« on: November 10, 2009, 19:46 »
Like I said, I don't see what's wrong with doing something to prove your point.
I agree completely. If people don't do things to prove their point, others may never even know that a problem exists. Maybe I just get upset seeing tax dollars spent uselessly.
So what did this guy accomplish? What was the terror threat level when he was asking the guy questions? Was it completely out of line to consider the possibility that somebody taking a photo of the entrance to a subway was up to no good? I would much rather err on the side of caution than having our police turn a blind eye to something that raises the hair on the back of their neck. Anyone that sets out to screw with the cops simply to prove a point deserves whatever hassle they get in my opinion.
1777
« on: November 10, 2009, 15:19 »
What an ass-munch. Why would anyone choose to intentionally provoke a police officer? How did he have a hidden camera recording at that exact time? I would guess because he went in there specifically to be confronted by police rather than to take photos.
I sure would hate to be that guy if he has somebody breaking into his house. Somehow I think he would be a little more polite to the cops.
1778
« on: November 05, 2009, 23:53 »
This seems like a semi-desperate act to me. There was a definite cool factor when people were pulled at random from Flickr and I was both proud of and happy for my friends that were chosen. Being selected seemed to me a pretty huge compliment. Now this makes it seem a bit cheap and dilutes the brand of Getty somewhat.
1779
« on: November 03, 2009, 14:30 »
For me it was an above average month. Not my best ever, but pretty close.
1780
« on: October 28, 2009, 14:12 »
I enjoy Jonathan's posts. Also did an internet search on the Red One system.... way outta my league. My business model is: take cheap pictures; sell cheap pictures.
:-)
I don't think I can afford one right now either. Who am I kidding! I can't afford a new pair of underwear right now! The film industry has been using these cameras for major motion pictures (District 9, The Girlfriend Experience) as the resolution for video is 4 times that of HD. Insanity I tell you! Jonathan can correct me if he is reading this but I don't think he's selling his pics on the cheap with these types of shoots. I don't know how much was spent on this particular shoot but it wasn't a solid 6 or 7 hours of production with around a dozen people involved including models. This was a motion shoot but the cool thing about the Red One is that you can pull high resolution still images from the videos. Scary and exciting all at once. The technological revolution is afoot! In addition to learning about the new camera technology I learned a lot about the future of medicine on this shoot. Specifically surgical procedures. Some of the robots used for surgery and the tools for training are even more insane that the Red One Camera technology! I'm going back to my Atari video game system and rotary phone now. Mat
1781
« on: October 28, 2009, 11:36 »
Yesterday I was privileged to get to watch Jonathan Ross and his awesome team during an all day shoot at a very cool medical facility in Seattle. I just wanted to publicly thank Jonathan for the experience. They were using the Red One Camera System which both excites me and intimidates . out of me at the same time. Judging from what I saw in camera I think there was some insanely good stock coverage captured yesterday. If you've never seen that camera being used in person it is a beast! It seems like a rare anomaly to me that someone as established and talented as Jonathan is so generous with his knowledge and is willing to share his experience and teach the likes of me. In the past I have seen him share shot lists with this group, web casts with great information and tips, I've seen him speak at a couple of different events and every time I learn something new. One thing I learned yesterday is that I have a heck of a lot to learn. Doing a high end professional shoot is a heck of a lot of work and they have it down to a science. From a very organized shot list with a tight but attainable timeline, a wide variety of tools, a producer that is gifted with the ability to keep everyone on track, talented, diverse models and the ability to gain access to incredible locations it is no wonder he is as successful as he is. Thanks again Jonathan! You should do this stuff for a living!  Mat
1782
« on: October 23, 2009, 13:28 »
I wouldn't want someone else to determine my prices for me. I can charge up to $200 for my Extended License option but I choose to keep it at $75 so that I have more sales. If the maximum sales price were automatically updated then I would have been forced to go through and manually reduce them.
Yes, but it would be nice if FT would provide a button that would allow us to change the EL price across the board (or for a selection of images).
Having to change one image at a time is not user-friendly at all and very time consuming (especially for those with 100s or 1000s of image).
I agree, that would be a great feature.
1783
« on: October 23, 2009, 11:28 »
I wouldn't want someone else to determine my prices for me. I can charge up to $200 for my Extended License option but I choose to keep it at $75 so that I have more sales. If the maximum sales price were automatically updated then I would have been forced to go through and manually reduce them. Write to support and ask them to change the prices for you if you don't want to do it manually. It will probably take a bit longer but as mentioned above, it can be done.
Mat
1784
« on: October 23, 2009, 02:26 »
I just checked your older images and found that you have all of your EL prices set to $20. The increase in price when your rank increases is not automatic. The image I clicked on at $50 EL must have been uploaded after your rank increase?
You can write to support and see if they will change your pricing for you or since your portfolio is relatively small right now you can make the changes manually. I would assume based on the information you posted that the buyer purchased one of your older pics and paid only $20 for the Extended License.
Mat
1785
« on: October 23, 2009, 02:24 »
I just clicked on one of your photo's and saw you have your EL price was set to $50. Assuming your photo is non-exclusive and seeing your rank is bronze your commission rate is 32% and so the payment should have been $16.
Check your prices and make sure you didn't enter a lower number on the image that sold by mistake. If not, contact support and ask them what the deal is.
Good luck,
Mat
1786
« on: October 22, 2009, 12:13 »
I don't know the answer to whether or not this option is open to existing contributors. I doubt if it is as I don't think it would make a lot of sense from a business standpoint but that is an uneducated guess. You are mistaken as I'm not an employee of Fotolia. I have been a member there since the beginning and had taken an active role in the forum years ago. It (the forum) was essentially un-moderated and got a bit out of hand so myself and another active contributor Christina aka Kerioak from the UK volunteered to moderate the forum. I have always been a glass is half full kind of guy. Lets be honest, pretty much any time any change is made people tend to immediately freak out rather than think it all the way through and view it from all perspectives. Just because it doesn't necessarily benefit me right now doesn't mean it won't in the long run. If more high end, professional stock photographers are recruited to Fotolia that would serve me by increasing traffic from buyers as the FT reputation will continue to grow and pick up more momentum. That is good for me, good for all at FT.
It's easy for you to see a positive side in this Mat because you yourself have benefitted from a similar artificial boost in your ranking and therefore your earnings. I suspect if that had not happened, and you were still a couple of years away from Emerald, then you might have thought differently.
That is definitely a fair point and I can't deny your logic. Keep in mind however that when the criteria for Emerald was switched from 10,000 sales I had somewhere around 9,985 sales under my belt. In my very biased opinion I feel that I have earned the rank of Emerald but again, you make a fair point. I am grateful for the rank crank and appreciate my high commission rate and flexibility with pricing.
1787
« on: October 22, 2009, 11:16 »
Slightly OT.. but has anyone looked at FT on Alexa lately? The line I find interesting is: "Where people go on Fotolia.com: 63.4% - de.fotolia.com"
Is it just a coincidence that Istock has set up shop in Berlin recently... I know the rent is cheap there but I'm thinking that they might have other intentions with the move.
@ MatHayward ... I notice that the one question you're not answering, and that FT is silent on so far is "So what's the word on whether this is open to existing contributors?" I'm not wrong in thinking that you're better connected at FT than most of the rest of us here?
I don't know the answer to whether or not this option is open to existing contributors. I doubt if it is as I don't think it would make a lot of sense from a business standpoint but that is an uneducated guess. You are mistaken as I'm not an employee of Fotolia. I have been a member there since the beginning and had taken an active role in the forum years ago. It (the forum) was essentially un-moderated and got a bit out of hand so myself and another active contributor Christina aka Kerioak from the UK volunteered to moderate the forum. I have always been a glass is half full kind of guy. Lets be honest, pretty much any time any change is made people tend to immediately freak out rather than think it all the way through and view it from all perspectives. Just because it doesn't necessarily benefit me right now doesn't mean it won't in the long run. If more high end, professional stock photographers are recruited to Fotolia that would serve me by increasing traffic from buyers as the FT reputation will continue to grow and pick up more momentum. That is good for me, good for all at FT. Just my .02, Mat
1788
« on: October 22, 2009, 02:00 »
I don't see why people that weren't contributing to Fotolia before wouldn't want to now. There is strong momentum with increased visibility in the market and the commission rate for photographers is so much higher than it is at I-stock. Doesn't I-Stock pay somewhere around 20% commissions? At Fotolia I am getting 55% commission and can charge $5 for XS files and $30 for XL if I want to (though I choose the $3-$18 range instead).
It's not true. Fotolia doesn't pay 55% commission to non exclusive so why you compare it to non exclusive commission at IS?
And dont forget a footage. Fotolia's deal is the worst in this industry. 3,5$ for HD video!
An
My earnings (total and per download) are much, much higher at Istock. Talking about porcentage is useless. Only money in my pocket count.
And now most important point : I just don't trust Fotolia anymore. They can give something today and take it back tomorrow. They change rules (subscriptions, rankings, commissions...). They take back our money too. Recently they took 400$ from Jason Stitt' account.
There is no this kind of problems at Istock. IS is thieves free.
I'm not sure what the commission rate is for exclusive or non at I-stock so I apologize if I misquoted. I was referring to the commission rate I personally receive at FT. What is the commission rate at I-stock? I remember a comparable debate about this last year and I remember being surprised at how much lower the commission rate was at I-stock with so many people vehemently defending them. I agree with you about the money in pocket stat being the most important. For me, I've seen consistent and dramatic increases in activity at FT and I think many others have too. My money in pocket stat keeps going up so I keep on feeling pretty good about my decision to be an exclusive contributor there.
1789
« on: October 21, 2009, 22:45 »
I don't see why people that weren't contributing to Fotolia before wouldn't want to now. There is strong momentum with increased visibility in the market and the commission rate for photographers is so much higher than it is at I-stock. Doesn't I-Stock pay somewhere around 20% commissions? At Fotolia I am getting 55% commission and can charge $5 for XS files and $30 for XL if I want to (though I choose the $3-$18 range instead).
Whoever posted about the professionalism of micro-stock hit the nail on the head in my opinion. It's not a market for amateurs anymore. So many of the big dogs have made the switch. The switchover from macro to micro reminds me of the reluctance to switch from film to digital. It took a while to get the ball rolling but once it did there was no stopping it.
1790
« on: October 17, 2009, 11:16 »
Mat, I am curious and I hope you don't mind answering: what is the % of your sales that are subscriptions? Not in $, but in number of downloads.
Of my most recent 100 sales, 35 were subscriptions. Mat
1791
« on: October 16, 2009, 23:50 »
I am exclusive to Fotolia and have consistent sales with generous revenue month to month. It seems to be getting busier and busier too. I get a 55% commission on my sales and can charge up to $5 for the extra small sized files (these perks come with rank increases) so I am happy.
Mat
1792
« on: October 16, 2009, 13:27 »
Overall: 110
7 Days: 258
Given the fact you are emerald and earn more per download it's no surprise your ranking is high.
Patrick H.
Plus I am exclusive which jacks it up even higher. My rank has actually been slipping though. I was in the top 100 for quite a while. I don't think the rank is based solely on sales though. I've been trying to figure it out for a while but it's still a mystery. Mat
1793
« on: October 16, 2009, 11:28 »
Overall: 110
7 Days: 258
1794
« on: October 12, 2009, 09:09 »
I agree with Life regarding protecting our tails in this regard. The thing I like as far as FT is concerned using the same release for the same model is that buyers can click on the link to see other images of the same model and is taken to a gallery with all different shoots. If this trend picks up and we have to do it everywhere this feature would go away.
1795
« on: October 12, 2009, 01:13 »
I have a wedding photography business and I'm asked at least a dozen times a year to give an aspiring photographer tips on what they should do before they shoot their first wedding which is inevitably right around the corner from when they contact me. I cringe every time it happens because I realize how humongous the responsibility is to do a good job. "Fake it till ya make it" will only take you so far.
The fact the Bride and Groom sued for damages and won frightens me as a concept but clearly they were entitled to a full refund. The award didn't grant them even that. 1450 pounds is what? Around $2,500 American? That isn't super premium prices but it isn't "this is my first wedding, let me shoot it for you please" cheap. I wonder how he put together a portfolio worthy of charging that much.
1796
« on: October 11, 2009, 11:55 »
Stokfoto is right about needing to upload in sRGB to Fotolia (90% of the time I forget  ) or you can get that muted/flat appearance online. It appears you are doing that Peter, so I don't know what the issue would be. Could you post a link to an image of yours on FT along with a link to the same image on a different site so we can see the difference?
1797
« on: October 09, 2009, 13:07 »
Matt,
I am not contrary to the poll the way it is, it's just that people have to clearly see what it means. Indeed, higher numbers say that people can make a living out of microstock. It only doesn't explain if the smaller figures are unsuccessful contributors or people who do not dedicate themselves to it.
That is true, but I think it's a logical assumption that the people making the least amount of money are putting in the least amount of effort. Often I find the loudest critics of Microstock in general as well as specific sites are the contributors with the smallest portfolios. I have always said that Microstock is a very tough way to make an easy living. I consider myself a fairly active contributor. Certainly not near the top but not near the bottom either. I stand by my logic that exclusivity is the smart route as the higher commission and prices I get would require me to quadruple my efforts by uploading and keywording everywhere else to make the same money. I take home a decent amount of money but of course I want more. I'm nowhere near the amount required to do this full time but I put in quite a few hours every week either shooting, editing, uploading, keywording, learning more about photography or spending time in the forums. Clearly there is plenty of money to go around and it appears to me that the public opinion of micros by both buyers and contributors is continuing to swing in our favor and so we should just be at the beginning of a large growth spurt.
1798
« on: October 09, 2009, 11:35 »
You're right guys. It isn't a perfect poll by any means. It could have been 60 questions long to get super specific but I was just interested in a snapshot version to see where the average is. My intent was to ask how much YOU are earning, not how much revenue is being produced from your images grossly. It should have been obvious I was referring to microstock since it's a microstock forum but I know now I should have really spelled it out. Sorry about that.
I do appreciate those of you that answered honestly. There is more money being made on average it appears than I had originally thought.
Best,
Mat
1799
« on: October 09, 2009, 02:15 »
That's a fair point. I just figured 2-5 was an upper-mid range. It's already interesting to see the diverse mix. I'm impressed to see the ratio of photographers in the top two categories.
1800
« on: October 08, 2009, 23:03 »
I am very curious about this. As many of you know, I'm 100% exclusive to Fotolia and love the 55% commission rate on the inflated prices of my images. For me it makes sense. For most of you, I know you disagree. That's OK. Reading the polls and threads about favorite sites has me very curious about the level at which we are all at. I remember there was a large poll that many of us participated in but the numbers were skewed because it was an average system where the top couple of guys made a disproportionate amount compared to the average.
Please take a moment and answer this survey honestly.
Thanks!
Mat
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