Nice portfolio Amanda1863. Honestly.

As for you removing your files from iStock, I am really curious after having read your comments why you persist in keeping a portfolio at a site that you profess to hate so much. You don't seem to understand that your shots of models on Shutterstock or Dreamstime or anywhere else could very well end up on  "right wing" or radical right political campaign ad, as long as the image is not meant to mislead the viewer into believing this is an actual person that supports the cause as in your thought bubble example.  It is a fine line that requires full understanding before you decide to jump into selling model released images.

Take a closer look at the ELUAs of the other sites you mention.  Not one of them spells out a comprehensive list of exactly what uses are ok and which ones cross the line.  it is all written in standardly vague CYA legal speak.

Now pardon me for not taking your objections seriously as we see that you are a full time exclusive member at iStock heavily involved in the community based on your posts, referrals and battle cage activity. It's nice that you like iStock so much. Just as I like Starbucks. Or as another Joe likes Walmart. It doesn't mean that others have to as well.

You are really curious after having read my comments why I persist in keeping a portfolio at a site that I profess to hate so much? Well, I shall give you two reasons, which I've stated before many times: 1) money: even after removal of my model released photos iStock still generates a solid income payment every month (and that's for not being exclusive), 2) I do not mind my photos of buildings, tomatoes or bees pollinating flowers on there. Stock is not art. I do not feel attached to my work I submit to microstock. It's technically perfect, conceptually useful for designers, yet devoid of any emotional or artistic value. Anything else I've ever shot, I would never upload to microstock, 3) whatever makes you feel that I "hate iStock so much"? I believe that they are over the top, arrogant and bloated company with bunch of inflated egos going about, acting like they are God's gift to the world, not acknowledging the wonderful photographers and illustrators (like yourself) who make what they are. But they do a good job of marketing and attracting buyers, so just like I will criticize Walmart for their arogance and labour practices, I will still buy t-shirts there; similarly with iStock: as long as they keep making me money I have no problems with selling my pictures there. I am a pragmatist. I have embraced microstocks as "the necessary evil" and come out well ahead.

And I understand quite well the reprecussions of having model released shots elsewhere. The point is how admins and others approach their relationship with those who make them money, i.e.: us the photogs / illustrators and the buyers / designers. iStock is without a doubt (and this is proven and can be shown by the number of locked threads, number of bans of members due to criticism, even quality of their customer service responses: which I can provide as well) filled with most blatantly self-important and arrogant staff out there. And this isn't my opinion. I try to keep my interaction with iStock to a bare minimum. I use it purely for making money, not giving a rat's ass about their "community" of moderated sycophants. And here I shall restate the point I made in the paragraph before: I think iStock does a wonderful job of marketing and sales, and I agree with you that they invented a brilliant business model. But I do know from experience that you got to keep up with the times or you will go down into the shits. And this recent issue where several well selling members of iStock (follow their thread and you'll know who they are) withdrawn their model released photos (to the total of about five thousand photos from just six portfolios) in protest / moral dillema illustrates that point clearly. Perhaps iStock can afford to do so with their fleet of exclusives.

While some may like to simplyify it down to "iStock is evil!" some may want to take the time to look at is a sobering example and use it as an opportunity to learn more about the industry.  It will only become a profession is you treat it like one.

I should really find the above quoted bit a little condescending. But I suppose sycophants for all sites will infiltrate the forums, as do the admins. For your information: I do not need to treat it as a profession, as I've been making a living as a full time photographer for quite a long time. PHOTOGRAPHY is my profession, not MICROSTOCK and I suppose that's where we differ. I simply wouldn't feel comfortable putting all my eggs into one basket. Commissioned assignments provide about half of my income, selling through traditional methods (mags, macrostocks, specialized agencies) another quarter. The final quarter of my monthly income comes from microstocks: primarily six agencies that generate a payment monthly and four others that trickle along like a slightly open tap. So as you can see, I'm deeply entrenched in photography, just to restate again: not microstock. And definitely not iStock.

Well, that's it for me. It's 5 in the morning. Sun shall be up soon, so I better get my camera ready for the golden hour.

I guess where I'm confused is that the tokens aren't meant as rewards but are gifts - but everyone is complaining how it's not good enough gift. If I gave a gift to someone and they turned around and complained it wasn't expensive enough - or wasn't good enough, I would be insulted. LuckyOliver doesn't have to give you jacksquat for uploading images - but they do it as a gesture of goodwill. I guess, in my opinion, to complain about getting something for free is like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I think you completely missed the point Amanda. As a FT designer and a PT photographer you'll earn your 10 tokens and use them all up with a smile on your face. As a FT photographer with ZERO design skills, abilities or interest, I have a couple hundred tokens sitting in my account now. I'm not against them, but I appreciate them as much as I could appreciate a bottle of Evian water by a pristine waterfall in Amazon or a blowjob being an eunuch (hopefully this won't offend anyone). They're NICE, but we (the photogs) who will ultimately make Lucky Oliver millions of dollars if they play their cards right, would like a way to use them up somehow.

Bryan: an idea for you mate. Create a marketplace with photo-stuff for us to trade our tokens in. Sort of like a frequent flyer system. Real token value = $1, so go at full value to trade in for Lucky Oliver branded stuff (t-shirts, baseball caps, mousepads, camera bags say LO t-shirt would cost 15 tokens) and use half value (as frequent flyer programs do) for various photographic stuff (hmm... Canon Digital Rebel 400 XTi at $899 would cost 1798 tokens). Guys like Phil Date will end up having 3000 tokens in their account pretty soon. I'm sure Phil (and I suppose he'll support me on this) would rather have some kickass Alien Bees lighting system or a Noctilux Leica lens instead of... 3000 tokens?

Anybody here posting their photos @ crestock??? If so, they just emailed that they'll be announcing their new marketing strategy on August 30. I wonder why the wait? 

WHATEVER!

This is not directed at you Boylet but at Crestock themselves. They've been "creative" and been doing "marketing" for a year now. They have all these "awesome" articles on "featured" photographers and "photographic" techniques. And guess what? Their top photogs (like Logos, Dolgachov, Dashek, etc... you know the "big" guys getting thousands of downloads per month on other sites) have about 30 downloads TOP in the last year. So pardon me for being a bit sarcastic, slightly sceptical and highly ironic. But until these guys actually do some work, I'm not going to submit a single photo to them.

New thread. Among all the agencies we submit to there are thousands of photographers who have their websites linked. Other than your own website (which most on here have in their proflie), list three of your favorite stock photographer websites for us to peruse. Here are my three choices:

1. danwilton from iStock - www.danwilton.co.uk - something to be said about simplicity. I just love the photoblog style of this site. Very little information given, but I suppose for an exclusive reviewer on iStock he doesn't need that much exposure.
2. scubabartek - my-walkabout.com - very clear and informative, but the galleries are a bit of a mess. I learned about Stock Exchange and Big White Box from this site.
3. abu - http://www.bubutim.com/ - another iStock exclusive. My favourite photog out there. I have absolutely no idea, how . he achieves these colours in his photos. Beautiful gallery out there.

I just looked at my microstock graphs I keep track of, and realized that Fotolia is soon going to reach it's first $100 worth of earnings (not including referral and upload reward program), which means, that in $7.00 it is going to pass Canstock for all time earnings (yes I am still waiting for my first payout at canstock). 

Bloody hell. These two sites cannot even be compared. I'm standing at $25 at Canstock and I've been there since last year. I have already clicked three payouts out of Fotolia and are on the way to the fourth.

Canstock has the slowest approvals of all the microstocks I submit to, and worst of all, they have THE WORST REVIEWERS of all. I constantly get rejected for copyrights, just to have it resubmitted directly to the admins and have it reapproved. Their reviewers are complete morons. They reject things like city names, words like parking or restaurant in foreign language, etc. Recently had a 6000 year old structure rejected due to copyright... sigh... I want to quit the site, but I'm not at a payout yet, so I'm doomed to sticking with them until I reach $50 (if ever...)

LOL! If you earn money its not a hobby anymore i pay taxes since 15years for my hobby
I'm not a UK resident but just think about it you have to declare your income thats the same in every country i know. if you spend more money on cameras than you earn then you probably don't have to pay taxes but you still have to declare it.

Or you can just be a tax dodger

I'm very divided. On one hand I absolutely HATE iStock for everything they stand for: lowest commission in the industry and ripping off the photographers, the Walmart of microstock, long queue, blatant favoritizm, arrogant admins that don't give a crap, completely useless scout... Reasons to hate iStock are hundreds. There is just one reason I like it, but it is a valid one. Even with the 20% commission, slow growth in portfolio it is STILL the best selling site for me that brings me a solid payout every month.

Sigh... what to do, what to do...

iStock as usual is being ridiculous on the pricing. $5 for small video which would cost at least $39 at Shutterstock. Really, honestly: can ANYONE be tempted by a $1 download for a video?

How do you get your pictures sold if you are at the end of the search because you just started and haven't sold any pictures.  You can be an awesome photographer but if your picture doesn't come up on the first few pages because your ranking is low because you haven't sold anything yet then there is not way you will sell a picture and your ranking will stay low. 
So I guess it sucks 

No, it doesn't suck. Alamy has 5 million photos in its database. You can still sell pictures. Just as a new amateur photog you won't sell much: most likely nothing. I've sold several thousand photos through microstock so far and two through traditional agency methods. Those two sales netted me $199.50 each. The most I've gotten through microstock for a single sale was $100 for a special license request through iStock, but the average sale nets me 50 cents. Anyways back to traditional stocks: even pros don't sell much there. My friend sells an average of 1 picture for each 100 in his portfolio per year. With a 2000+ photos he gets 2 sales a month. BUT... with Alamy's pricing, he can get as much as $1500 in commission for a single sale! There was just a photo he's sold taken on Santorini for which he's gotten $950. With RM sales I could do with one or two sales a month.

Can someone explain the ranking?  How do I know what my ranking is?  How do I change my ranking?

Ranking: how good you are. How do you know: by having some pictures sold. How to change: by being a good stock photographer.

Fotolia's customer service has gone to shits last month. They take forever to answer ANY messages nowadays.

Back to the topic: I have all my Extended licences set to $40 on Fotolia so at bronze that's $14 to me. Quite a bit low if you ask me. At Big Stock, I refused most Extended license options except for the ONE piece license (the one that allows reselling, but pays you PER item). I mean they are absolutely ridiculous: $20 to you for UNLIMITED reprints of postcards? $7 for up to a 1000 calendars (limited???)? Can you imagine how much dough you can make selling a 1000 calendars? I can, because I've done it before: for each calendar I netted $7. Not that I sold a 1000, but still. $7,000 possible profit and of that $7 going to the provider of art/graphic? Dreamstime prices are great, I wonder how many Extended Licenses they're selling. iStock's WERE good, now they've become Walmart. 123RF: great, $99, you get $49.50

Hi guys. We entered the deal with our eyes wide open. We have put into place an agreement that protects Fotolia and the photographer. I think it is better to have a secure deal than to have nothing. Nothing would have stopped Template Monster from coming to Fotolia and purchasing an extended license. At least now they are monitored and we are able to get a better deal for our photographers.

In any case if the deal goes bad we can and will pull out.

Chad Bridwell
Fotolia.com

So explain to us Chad: everytime a template is sold with our picture we get paid a web-level commission (from 1 credit)?

Yeah, I don't think Gagne will win. She's an official iStuck admin, so this would be favoritism in the extreme. I would like a newish person with a smallish portfolio win as well. Mainly ME