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Messages - macrosaur
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201
« on: March 02, 2010, 18:10 »
DT is a fly by night company.
maybe they outsourced to India and the indians there expect "queen's english" in the keywords ?
202
« on: March 02, 2010, 18:05 »
yes, lots of newcomers in micros but where are they heading with their 50 images collections ?
and how much are they gonna earn from this ?
will it be enough to keep uploading in the long term ?
because actually i think it's getting really tough for newcomers to make money with micros.
203
« on: March 02, 2010, 18:02 »
i'm afraid LV will lose the lawsuit as there's no LV logo in the Hyundai ad.
204
« on: March 02, 2010, 13:56 »
supply and demand are just not going in par.
too many images, and always the same buyers.
SS has 10 million pics now, but have they doubled or tripled their customers ?
i don't think so.
in 2012 SS will have 20 million pics.
who will survive ?
there must be a point where the agency stop submissions and
only accept the very best.
after all they're already refusing sunsets, dogs, and holiday snaps
for the same reason.
205
« on: March 02, 2010, 11:04 »
Does everyone really think its the blogs, forums, and referral links killing the market? I mean really, come on.
Its one thing to vent and just choose yourself as the victim, but then there is the truth.
I thought we had all learned the truth after all these years of complaining.
the real problem is always the same : the buyers have less money than before and many are going bankrupt and closing down. the pie is getting smaller and smaller while production costs are not getting cheaper. amateurs and hobbysts should be booted out from serious agencies. agencies should enforce harder prerequisites to join the market, let's say providing a starting batch of 500 saleable images for instance. this alone would filter out all the crap getting in and leave space for serious shooters. after all many RM agencies do the same, i could list LonelyPlanetImages, AGE Fotostock, Masterfile ...
206
« on: March 02, 2010, 10:58 »
"State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."
Yes, that's why all the key industries were owned by the state and i strongly agree with this politic as in italy and in the rest of EU the privatizations of the last 3 decades have been a disaster so far. it's also very similar to the actual chinese model, which in fact doesn't claim anymore to be socialistic or communist but a "third way" as Fascism was. cars for instance were made by Fiat, Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, etc , not by the state, but the state bought Alfas for police and Lancia for the politicians, same as they do today. trains and railways were made by the state instead as it was considered a key industry.
207
« on: March 02, 2010, 09:58 »
"The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of the State and the Corporation. It is that social system in which the interests of the State and the corporations merge together."
The State makes these laws at the insistence of the corporations that control it, in order to ensure that corporations, such as the owners of Facebook etc, increase their profits at the expense of everyone else and their individual rights. In this age of corporate kleptocracy, you surely didn't imagine that social networking via internet was free!
Have to wonder though; will the products produced in accordance with the new British law be legal in the rest of the EU and the US?
sorry but it's wrong : in italy in the '20s corporations ("corporazioni") were the unions of workers, artisans, doctors, lawyers, etc "corporationism" is the correct name for this, which has nothing to do with the modern mutli-national corporations. all in all it has worked well for a while, it was a sort of third way between outright capitalism and socialism and had its pros and cons, photographers for instance belonged to their "union" setting up minimum prices, pension scheme, etc
208
« on: March 02, 2010, 08:02 »
it's a scam.
and they're trying to do the same in the US.
i'm curious how will the EU deal with this as in the rest of europe there's nothing about orphan works so far.
209
« on: March 02, 2010, 07:14 »
You're nearly right, in both the cases I mentioned it was obvious quality wasn't the deciding factor by a long way, it came down to the simple fact that a buyer wanted an image of something and these were the only ones available, it wasn't so much about exclusivity either the image is (or was I had a quick look and can't find it now amongst the wash of similars!) still for sale.The fish market example has a story behind it, mention the big 'tuna' sale to anyone that's been with Alamy a while and they'll remember, at a contributor event a few years ago Alamy showed the image in question, everybody initially thought it would be in relation to examples of the type of quality they're looking for i.e. we don't want crap like this, but instead they announced it had sold for 35k ish and it was to point out that sometimes the subject matter is more important than the technical quality.
The windsor castle prompted the usual debate of how everyone else could have taken a better shot, but guess what - nobody had. Believe me it was not a good shot, but amongst the thousands available it was the only one from that angle and the client (a travel company I think) obviously needed that angle.
You can learn at least two things from this, technical quality isn't always the most important factor to a buyer, and you never know what will sell.
yeah i remember that one with the tuna (or was it a shark ?) and if you look at the images spotted in the forum and published in magazine they're mostly mediocre if not crappy shots. and yet, they sell, as that's what the customers need. it's harder and harder to grasp what's hot selling on RM. i've never sold my favourite images on RM, and often i sell the ones i didn't even wanted to upload. micros are much more informative regarding sales, views, zoom, trends, if we had something similar for RM i could have a bigger picture of the market and shoot consequentially.
210
« on: March 02, 2010, 07:08 »
Every image does not have to be a masterpiece, but it does have to be saleable. I'm here to pay my mortgage, not gain historical significance.
exactly. another famous stock photographer wrote some time ago that his images only need to be "good enough".
211
« on: March 02, 2010, 06:59 »
@Yuri :
Could you tell us a bit more about how your images are selling on RM agencies ?
And what about all the rumours in the Alamy forum claiming you're Alamy top-seller ?
Do you think there's a chance for your portfolio to sell more on exclusive RM like Getty
or you tried already and non-exclusive RF is paying much more ?
212
« on: March 01, 2010, 18:22 »
the price is never related to the image beauty of quality. it's all about the exclusivity, duration, geographic area, and much more. anyone can shoot that Windsor Castle, and you can probably find it on IS as well for 1$, but what they're paying goes much further than the image itself. i would never ever pay so much for a photo, but hey i'm a photographer not an accountant ! 
213
« on: March 01, 2010, 17:21 »
As usual on Getty - 20% ;-)
For example on Alamy he'd get 60% of $65000...
[/quote] yes but i've never heard of alamy selling anything above 10K. big buyers only go to Getty.
214
« on: March 01, 2010, 17:19 »
there's no way back, apart direct selling.
215
« on: March 01, 2010, 17:15 »
Put me in the stagnant category. Despite adding 20% to my portfolio my income is in exactly where it was a year ago, and in sharp decline from where it was in Sept - Nov 09.
but what did you expected ? we "macrosaurs" are saying this since the days of RF and photodiscs. and if you think this is the end or the bottom race wait 1-2 years when IS and SS will have 20 or 30 million images and nobody will make serious money anymore along with new cheaper subscription models and who knows what they have in store. the market decided photography is worth nothing, we must accept this and go forward. RM is still paying the bills for me, because i don't shoot anything buyers can find on micros nor i sell RF apart this new experiment with IS that so far looks promising.
216
« on: March 01, 2010, 17:03 »
What Helix said and others have affirmed.
While he's on a peak, why would Yuri then not lay off his entire staff, continue shooting solo and only submit say 250 photos a month. That's not a very ambitious number but still that will bring a modest revenue, and give the guy some leisure time (have to enjoy that 250 k/annum a little). Surely he remembers how to edit and keyword?
He would not be where he is now,if he was looking for leisure time. It is very interesting that many of you came up with this idea: Yuri stop working and enjoy your money. He is working guy, that is what he does.
artists take long holidays and lots of leisure time, otherwise they couldn't come up with fresh ideas that sell. yuri's work is like a factory assembling industrial products, there's nothing genius or innovative or artistic on it, that's why he doesn't need any stop or holiday break.
217
« on: March 01, 2010, 13:22 »
If the poll is right...so far 14% (14 out of 101) are making over $2000.00 a month which is more then I expected. Despite Yuri's thread gloomy outlook, microstock still look healthy. Who knows, maybe his port are loosing to the smaller ones. Denis
Yes, but the poll only asks what you're making now. It's not so healthy if those making $2000 a month used to make $4000.
and by the way, they could easily spend 1999$ in order to make 2000$. it's like Yuri saying he makes 1 million/year but then admitting he's wasting more than 900K in production costs.
218
« on: March 01, 2010, 09:44 »
Don't worry, the same will happen with microstock : fresh indian, chinese, vietnamese, philipinos willing
to shoot for peanuts and flooding the market.
Out of interest does anybody know how these folk are getting their images onto the sites, for the past three years the scaremongers have been shouting 'look out the Chinese are coming' I'm just wondering in they're doing a sponsored walk or something on their way to hand deliver their images to iS and SS HQ.
china is a different beast. for starters it's not easy to receive foreign payments with chinese banks like ICBC and BoC. when i was living there i kept my european bank account and opened up also a HSBC one in HongKong otherwise it can take weeks or month to receive money from overseas. secondly, i've never met a single chinese photographer aware of the stock industry. said that, indians and philipinos are well aware of stock, speak good enough english, and have decent internet connectivity. i'm afraid it's only a matter of time before the indians enter microstock by the front door. they're already active in any possible outsourcing and IT/ICT services, as well as data mining, keywording, spamming, scamming, blog farms, MFAs, fishing, affiliate marketing, etc
219
« on: March 01, 2010, 09:37 »
Just curious, how much did the photographer take from the $65.000?
As usual on Getty - 20% ;-)
For example on Alamy he'd get 60% of $65000...
Anyway, regarding 'lottery' it is not enough paid to photographer in this case and it is obvious how Getty earns money.
An RF image wouldn't sell for $65k, so it was RM, and that's either 30% or 40%.
of course it's RM but not just because of the price but because the buyer needs worldwide exclusivity.
220
« on: March 01, 2010, 08:45 »
Don't worry, the same will happen with microstock : fresh indian, chinese, vietnamese, philipinos willing
to shoot for peanuts and flooding the market.
True but are the indians, chinese etc. to blame? Or the governments who promoted consumerism to the level it is today?
I definitely wouldn't blame the people that can keep their costs low.
it's just a matter of production costs : in these countries you can live fairly well with 300$/month. all they need is a 500$ Canon Rebel and they can make a few thousand microstock images and make a decent salary. and written and spoken english by indians and philipinos is more than enough for keywording as far as i've seen. first they start with providing outsourced keywording and uploading, then they'll proceed making the photos as well.
221
« on: March 01, 2010, 08:08 »
The supply continued, and jobs were now lost to offshore staffing companies for pennies on the dollar. If we cant work that cheap, someone can. Here we are today.
Don't worry, the same will happen with microstock : fresh indian, chinese, vietnamese, philipinos willing to shoot for peanuts and flooding the market.
222
« on: March 01, 2010, 06:39 »
i don't know if 65K is getty's price or the photographer's 20%.
i should find the old thread on Alamy forum but if i'm not wrong the 65K was the photographer's cut so
the image can easily having been sold for 3-400K $.
it's not surprising as the licence must have been for worldiwde distribution, commercial, any media, any size, etc
still cheaper than hiring a bunch of elephants at your local zoo and pay an artist to come up with some ideas.
in my opinion it's just crazy, no one in the IT industry gives a rat's ass about Accenture anyway but hey
these guys have deep pockets in their marketing department...
223
« on: February 28, 2010, 19:25 »
besides, Yuri is complaining about falling RPI, not about competition ripping off his "style" or keywords.
he says he needs 1000 new pics a month just to stay on par with the previous earning.
these two factors together clearly show that even lowering his production costs
he must shoot 30 saleable images a day in order to "feed the beast".
how can this be a sustainable business model ?
he also miss another point : many buyers keep recycling the same RF images once they have
a big portfolio of lifestyle/business/etc photos so they end buying up only what they really need
instead of buying all the images as the ones using RM.
another proof that RF was the dumbest idea in the history of stock !
224
« on: February 28, 2010, 19:19 »
traditional RF images are going to be offered together with microstock because they can't be sold on premium price anymore.
RF was already a heresy years ago, everybody knew it would have been a race to the bottom. Thinkstock is not the end of the tunnel, you'll see.
225
« on: February 28, 2010, 19:18 »
Of course he will have realized that himself some time ago. If he scales down now, and lives off of his images on the shelves for 2-4 years to come, he will probably try something completely different, like RM or assignments.
he tried RM already with Getty and Alamy but it seems without much success so far, despite there are rumours he's Alamy top seller nr.1
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