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Messages - topol
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201
« on: May 07, 2014, 00:44 »
lb for lb MACs are at least twice the price - I'd prefer to spend on CPU and RAM than badges or complete non-essentials like SSDs.
I would hesitate to put SSDs into the non-essential category. The increase in performance is pretty amazing!
I'd agree. I tested the boot time between a HDD vs Hybrid HDD/SSD. HDD was 42 seconds. Hybrid was 20 seconds. I haven't timed anything else but a lot of apps seem a lot quicker to load and run with the Hybrid.
And I'm not sure the price thing is accurate. I always believed this too but when I spec'd out a Dell laptop with similar configuration to a Macbook Pro the price was pretty close. Seems like Apple doesn't make bare bones stuff which is why PC is cheaper on average but not apples to apples.
Of course it's quicker to load. What do you spend your time on, loading or working and is 20 seconds at the start really worth the money? When working it's all in RAM anyway.
It's not much money so that alone would be worth it. Also it would be obvious to anyone with a bit of computer literacy that starting programs and swapping/caching is also hell of lot faster with ssd... because no, it's almost never ever all RAM when working, even if you have a lot of it. It's right there in photoshop, one of the most basic settings to do after install, swap disc / ram usage: edit-->preferences-->performance. Glad I could help.
202
« on: April 30, 2014, 15:34 »
Why is SS so impolitic to deliver a fraudelent bait&switch-site wich spreads also malware with our images?
That crappy PD-site cant drive that much user to SS that its worth to risk such a reputation-damage, or am i wrong?
anyone can link their images. just a fact of life unless they take them off the web.
203
« on: April 11, 2014, 00:32 »
"mikeledray @mikeledray Oct 30 Photography is easy. Even Monkeys can do it! Just had to share!" good. you go boy 
204
« on: April 06, 2014, 18:32 »
OMGPLZWTF
205
« on: April 06, 2014, 04:12 »
Thats the one and excellent reading:)
It just broke things down nicely and made me see the bigger picture. About 5 years ago I joined iStock, uploaded maybe 20 images. I gave up cos I only made $17 in about a year. One of the worst decision I ever made photographically speaking. $17 obviously doesnt pay the mortgage but year on year for the same effort (initial uplaod) this would have been way more. Upload many more images and you get it. The beauty of stock is that its uploaded once and that it. It can earn till you die technically. You only need one $28 sale for shooting and editing that image to be worthwhile long term. All about quality AND quantity!
So any tips on how to get those big money sales? I cant see any way of improving that. I sell loads of smaller images with occasional $28 and $80 sale on Shutterstock. I sold 6 of these in Nov and none last month. All over the place. I did have a $242 image sold of Chicago on Alamy which gave me a warm fuzzy feeling in March. Just takes ages to pay out on Alamy. Over 6 months im finding.
You have very nice images, good quality, but with this portfolio i dont believe you earn every month 400-600$ sorry. maybe in march, was very good month. i dont upload to Fine Art America, hard to believe that in november you earn 1000$.
Yeap, it's bs, his stuff is mostly snapshots, that kind of port hardly makes any money. I don't see the claim for the 1000$ on FAA, that would be really outstanding bs.
206
« on: April 04, 2014, 14:57 »
... Why woudn't SS want to sell as much as possible and keep their customers happy? What would SS benefit from doing this?...
Actaully you are quite off the mark there. SS sells subscriptions - the less you download after that, the better for them. Less downloads actually means higher profit for SS.
That would have been true some years ago. But now they also sell ODs and other things.
OD is still a package, not pay as you go, and the vast majority of dls are subs.
207
« on: April 04, 2014, 13:57 »
... Why woudn't SS want to sell as much as possible and keep their customers happy? What would SS benefit from doing this?...
Actaully you are quite off the mark there. SS sells subscriptions - the less you download after that, the better for them. Less downloads actually means higher profit for SS. Of course this all have to be kept between reasonable boundaries, because if someone hardly uses his/her sub quota it probably means they are not interested or do not like the site, and they won't buy another subscription. But still: SS is not interested in maximizing downloads at all.
208
« on: April 04, 2014, 02:43 »
With 20 million images to choose from:
Best sellers of photo, illustration, and vector (not including video) from 2012: 13,968
With 30 million images to choose from:
Best sellers of video, photo, illustration, and vector from 2013: 11,340
Hardly a trend that new files aren't selling as well, when the best sellers are such a minute percentage, .004% of the total files vs a higher number .006% for 2012, to start with. It's like saying by counting unused straws you can figure out how many soft drinks are sold at McDonald's.
Relative decline is insignificant, not 20% - more like .002% while choice for customers increased 33%? If you were in business and your competition increased 33% and your market share dropped .002% would you call is suspicious or free fall decline?
Without even including videos for 2012 the best sellers had 20% less sales than the best sellers from the previous year. I don't know if that means best sellers are punished or there is something else at work but a 20% decline seems significant.
Sorry. Not convinced there's anything suspicious going on, or best sellers are being "punished". On the contrary, they seem to be holding up against the competition pretty well.
Is there a concrete definition of 'best seller', that we can know of + a way to check that files pointed out actually do fit the definition? Because if there isn't, this is 100% completely meaningless. Might as well just plant your face on the keyboard and publish it as the year's stats, bit like the poll here 
209
« on: April 03, 2014, 16:16 »
quick, click downarrow on the on above this. I give out prizes for the quickest.
guess I am not interested in amateur models that will melt my pants 
yeah I see this all the time. most men just give up on hot women, later they start to hate them too.
210
« on: April 03, 2014, 16:10 »
Oh, is Topol the art director dude? I vaguely remember that. I've got a Graphlex Crown Graphic and a pile of 4x5 film (and even a 90mm Super-Angulon), so that makes me an artist. I wonder if he would find me some outlets?
Garage sale.
211
« on: April 03, 2014, 15:14 »
quick, click downarrow on the on above this. I give out prizes for the quickest.
212
« on: April 03, 2014, 15:08 »
Enjoy your denial while it lasts. I have files with download numbers that would surprise you and they have been sent to the nether regions. SS purposely killed them and buyers can not find them in searches no matter how many pages they go through.
You will not believe it until it happens to you, but then you are trolling and do not really deserve a rational response. It is too bad that people who are honest about sales patterns are treated with this type of contempt, because it prevents honest feed back that could help other contributors make wise business decisions.
Oh man you are the moses of microstock. "I have files with download numbers that would surprise you" 0? -1? you make yourself a big target, hard to resist  )
213
« on: April 03, 2014, 13:17 »
I think the biggest problem of all is that earnings tend to erode over time, and sooner or later earnings will start to fall faster than you can possibly upload to keep your income as it is.
What that means is that unless you are able to earn much more than the minimum you need to live on, you will need to find other ways to add to your income. If you don't, you will gradually become poorer and poorer as time goes by.
Also, the time it takes to build a portfolio is also time that reduces the value of images. If you are making 10c per picture per month now, by the time you have 6,000 pictures online you will probably only be making 7.5c per picture. Six or seven years from now, when you have 12,000 online, they will probably only be making 5c per file - and another five years on it may only be 3c.
I'm experiencing the opposite. As my files age, the popular ones are becoming even more popular with increasing number of downloads/day as their search placement gets more and more solid. When they start to sell they go from few downloads a week to downloads every day, and when it gets to 2 or more downloads / day, they almost always end up getting 8-10+, 20 downloads every day.... which is logical because every sensible search engine takes it's hints form the customers' actions. So actually when I told myself that this isn't as profitable as it's supposed to be, a whole bunch of files started making a more and more money as they got old enough. This also means that new files coming in to the site have little / no effect on popular files because search preference is coming frome individual image's merits, and the head start those have is actually increasing with time.
That's an interesting result. It may reflect a difference between your portfolio and other peoples. My stuff is mostly LCV but I reckon that the huge competition among HCV subjects probably spreads the sales so thinly that my LCV sales are likely to be as good and the returns from average to decent HCV stuff. Perhaps you have HCV plus exceptional quality. I can certainly see how that would reinforce sales. Indeed, it is the hallmark of the very top sellers.
Nope, nothing exceptional (maybe some...) mostly because I'v been operating pretty cheaply. Mostly just a gal or a two of them, or a couple, amateur / semi pro models, easily accessible mostly public locations. I admit some of the locations are pretty nice tho, and I have a few amateur models that will melt your pants.
214
« on: April 03, 2014, 12:45 »
Over the last year many older contributors have seen as much as a 70% drop in annual earnings as the sites give their files less exposure in the search. Some of them have seen 30% to 70% overnight drops in earnings as the sites make search changes that no longer give their files exposure in the searches.
Shutterstock has publicly stated that "they have not raised prices to buyers for many years and do not intend to raise prices in the future as a long term strategy to gain market share". This is sustainable for them because their volume is far higher than any producer can ever achieve and they use the new contributor boost carrot to bring in higher numbers of new contributors who earn lower royalties.
The sad tactics they use to gain market share has been profitable for them but has reduced our earnings potential by diminishing the value of our files while inflation and the need to increase quality and file numbers increases our annual production expenses.
Even the very high volume HCV microstock factories who receive more exposure in the search via extreme file numbers are seeing eroding returns per image over time. Yuri and other factories talk about this quite often and as a result Yuri built his own site and made other strategic changes to limit his exposure to the model long term.
The common perception that producing high number of images to gain search exposure is misguided and false. Large numbers of good quality very HCV files might bring you increased exposure. However the search most certainly penalizes ports with large numbers of LCV images.
I never ever experienced any 'sudden overnight drops'. Only the regular fluctuations according to season/holidays, etc. I suspect you are taking your hints from certain 'SS forum superstar' contributors, who's portfolios don't seem to be noticed by their fans for actually being a piss-poor collection of photography "don't do"-s. I don't think the search penalizes ports for anything, I think the search simply doesn't do anything to 'ports', becasue it only works on individual images.... regardless of their source. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's extremely unlikely. Just doesn't make any sense.
215
« on: April 03, 2014, 12:31 »
I think the biggest problem of all is that earnings tend to erode over time, and sooner or later earnings will start to fall faster than you can possibly upload to keep your income as it is.
What that means is that unless you are able to earn much more than the minimum you need to live on, you will need to find other ways to add to your income. If you don't, you will gradually become poorer and poorer as time goes by.
Also, the time it takes to build a portfolio is also time that reduces the value of images. If you are making 10c per picture per month now, by the time you have 6,000 pictures online you will probably only be making 7.5c per picture. Six or seven years from now, when you have 12,000 online, they will probably only be making 5c per file - and another five years on it may only be 3c.
I'm experiencing the opposite. As my files age, the popular ones are becoming even more popular with increasing number of downloads/day as their search placement gets more and more solid. When they start to sell they go from few downloads a week to downloads every day, and when it gets to 2 or more downloads / day, they almost always end up getting 8-10+, 20 downloads every day.... which is logical because every sensible search engine takes it's hints form the customers' actions. So actually when I told myself that this isn't as profitable as it's supposed to be, a whole bunch of files started making a more and more money as they got old enough. This also means that new files coming in to the site have little / no effect on popular files because search preference is coming frome individual image's merits, and the head start those have is actually increasing with time.
216
« on: April 03, 2014, 11:47 »
If you think your business model is working better than Yuri's you are way more delusional than I ever thought before.
The factory model looks far more vulnerable than that of the average serious microstocker who does not have huge overheads to cover. In percentage terms, I should think the return on investment for the model Ron describes is much higher than the ROI of the image factories.
Won't disagree that you might make a higher percentage but haven't you always argued that the money was the most important part? 90% of $600 compared to 30% of $1,000,000?
Sure, the factories are aiming at much higher rewards than most of us here. Though I would say the ROI would be more like 300% of $600 compared with 30% of a million, the problem of scale that Gostwyck mentions.
But once you commit $1m to a business you are going to be in serious trouble if a search match change slices 40% off your income because you still have to service the debt. So your return could flip from 30% of a million to minus 10% of a million. The guy with a $600 investment going from $500 return to $300 return is not likely to find himself in difficulties.
If I had started at Yuri's age I might well have tried to build something grander and to achieve a far higher cash return than I have but at my age the sort of return that guarantees never having to do "proper" work again is fine. And the factory owners have to work, they have wages to pay, tax forms to fill, shoots to organise, equipment to order, meetings to hold, appointments to keep... the factory owners must be primarily company administrators, which I don't want to be, while their photographers are entirely wage-slave employees, which I don't want to be.
So it's also about philosophy, ambition, objectives, age. Although the value of an agency to me is all about how much money drops into my account at the end of the month, the value of the business model is about a lifestyle choice. If you offered me $500,000 a year, guaranteed, as long as I worked 10 hours a day, six days a week, as a photo factory administrator my reply would be no, it's not worth it. I prefer what I've got.
It's very very unlikely that so eastern european small scale teams would operate, especially start an opertaion like that based on debt, loan. They don't seem to realize, but that's pretty much a 'western world' privilege. In poor countries like Ukaine, you simply don't get the loan and that's it. You have to be profitable almost immediately or you can pretty much just F-off.
217
« on: April 03, 2014, 11:40 »
all I have to saw is wow 427,000 images 
I suspect they are buying photos from naive and poor, but reasonably talented hobby photographers en masse.
218
« on: April 03, 2014, 11:36 »
Thanks, but it's not what I meant.
I know, but my business model is working, Yuri's isnt. I dont have his overhead. I make a small profit. I am sure he makes a profit too, but his overhead is millions so he needs millions. So his business model isnt working for microstock. Thats what I mean.
The microstock model is also working if you adapt to it. You cant start with 5000 dollar shoots and sell them for 25 cents. But if you start with no cost, just shoot landscapes and use family as models, as I did, then it does work.
You don't have a business model, you have a hobby.
219
« on: April 03, 2014, 05:54 »
This does not make you a better stock photographer.
Did I say it does? You need to recheck, the conversation was about something else... But now that you mentioned it, it does. Coming form a graphic artist background obviously gives you a head start at producing graphic artist compatible images. 'Art director' sounds very nice and also art classes etc... but I know many so called artists and art directors that create stuff that looks like crap. (I am in advertising for over 15 years and working 10 years as self employed also working for big company's like Peugeot and Audi) I am not saying you make crap but stating you are an art director or artist does not mean you are very good and better in judging work. And if you were you would be able to outsell the others here since you have commercial and art skills. One of my friends is trying to get a job teaching art and painting. She thinks she is really skilled but her work looks like my 9 year old son made it. But she did 'art classes' and all that and thinks she is really great. I didn't do 'art classes'. I went to the applied graphics department of an art university. The output of the the ad industry is mostly crap. that's not new. The marketing people clients employ are usually so thick light bends around them, and their taste in visuals is of a back alley pimp. A good art director would know what to create and would know the marked and should be able to translate this into commercial images. But again... I am NOT saying your work is crap. But I also think that it sound a little bit like you are trying to look important. If your sales numbers could back this up you would have a point.
You just wrote few sentences ago it doesn't make you a better stock photographer. Bit of a self contradiction.
220
« on: April 03, 2014, 02:33 »
If there are 50 votes, 49 for $0 and 1 for $2500 the poll would show 10. With any of the low earning sites it only takes one person to drastically throw off the results.
the problem is that people who basically make no money at a site, most likely just forget about it and forget to poll too, leading to nonsensical results.
221
« on: April 03, 2014, 02:29 »
Hmmm, that's very curious. Stacey was a very active participant in the Stocksy community. I'm quite surprised she left without explanation. Anyone know why...?
A gag order... nice, huh?
222
« on: April 02, 2014, 16:45 »
You are a very arrogant individual, one who infers that he/she is far more educated and experienced than the masses who choose to be a part of this forum...
Yes, out loud: I am actually 100% sure of that. Last time I checked this wasn't exactly a high art academy board. But you are welcome, raise your hands: how many have taken years of classical/contemporary/applied art classes, drawn/painted hundreds of portraits, figures, nudes, done posters, billboards, annuals, you name it, anything since photoshop (and the rest) 1.0? Of course this is arrogance to you, what else could you say.
. You make COMPLETELY UNSUBSTANTIATED statements in here that we are all STUPID, yet you are the mighty engine of success. Your rhetoric essentially states that if we micro stock contributors had your level of expertise, we'd all be successful. Have you returned from fantasyland yet?
What does this delusional rant has to do with my posts? Did I say anything about success in micro or it's relation to expertise in art? You don't need any of that to be successful in micro... and yes I insist: running around claiming that these things like a balancing elephant montage or a handshake shot is his/her idea to be safeguarded from concept thievery, does make them look extremely stupid * 100000000000... but that's not everybody. I'm sure there are many people here that get same amount of laughs out of these originality claims in micro. Here are some caps from me too : It's STUPID
Just check SS forums, people going in there all up in arms about their "idea getting stolen" then others just keep posting the link after link after of "his idea" often from decades ago. How can someone be that stupid? Quite amazing.
I have (answer to the above bold text)
Well that makes 2, and I'm quite confident that's about it here.
223
« on: April 02, 2014, 16:42 »
Always said the poll is useless. Arbitrary clicking, no control, no check, no nothing, fantasy results.
224
« on: April 02, 2014, 16:39 »
You are a very arrogant individual, one who infers that he/she is far more educated and experienced than the masses who choose to be a part of this forum...
Yes, out loud: I am actually 100% sure of that. Last time I checked this wasn't exactly a high art academy board. But you are welcome, raise your hands: how many have taken years of classical/contemporary/applied art classes, drawn/painted hundreds of portraits, figures, nudes, done posters, billboards, annuals, you name it, anything since photoshop (and the rest) 1.0? Of course this is arrogance to you, what else could you say.
. You make COMPLETELY UNSUBSTANTIATED statements in here that we are all STUPID, yet you are the mighty engine of success. Your rhetoric essentially states that if we micro stock contributors had your level of expertise, we'd all be successful. Have you returned from fantasyland yet?
What does this delusional rant has to do with my posts? Did I say anything about success in micro or it's relation to expertise in art? You don't need any of that to be successful in micro... and yes I insist: running around claiming that these things like a balancing elephant montage or a handshake shot is his/her idea to be safeguarded from concept thievery, does make them look extremely stupid * 100000000000... but that's not everybody. I'm sure there are many people here that get same amount of laughs out of these originality claims in micro. Here are some caps from me too : It's STUPID
Just check SS forums, people going in there all up in arms about their "idea getting stolen" then others just keep posting the link after link after of "his idea" often from decades ago. How can someone be that stupid? Quite amazing.
Hands up those of you that did this then lowered yourself to microstock?
Believe me whoring away at ad agencies is not a classy thing at all. Especially nowadays with this disgustingly bad taste all over everything. Last time art director, graphic artist was a 'noble occupation' was about 20 years ago at best.
225
« on: April 02, 2014, 16:14 »
Good change. On a side note it looks like Stacey Newman is no longer with Stocksy? http://www.stocksy.com/staceynewman
Yep, she jumped out rather suddenly.
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