Hi - take Corbis and Getty out of the equation for a moment - law to themselves.

I live in the UK, the umbrella organistion of picture libraries and agencies is www.bapla.org. Have a look at their site, and search for an agency by category, E.G - Travel, North American. This returns 23 results. Of these names like Pictures Color Library, AA, Travel Library, Travel Ink all stand out. You would have to look at the web sites of all these agencies, which will give you info on how to submit a test selection of images, and what there stance is on exclusivity.

Next step, head over the CEPIC.org, and look at other individual countries using the same method.

Another idea, there is a link somehere on Alamy that lists all the agencies they deal with in different countries - some may be good for you.

Choosing a good selling agency is key, a bad one will be like submitting to a ninth rate micro, a good one like hitting gold at Istock. Sorry I can't come up with specific name's - too many people read this site!

Rgds

Oldhand

Ah, so you're just a walk about street shooter.  Got it.  I don't think you'll find huge success with that on the micros, especially as you don't have releases.

Hi there  -I'm shoot for editorial stock - open a newspaper with a travel supplement, that's my market. People on beaches, landmarks, resorts, street scenes, gondolas, the lot. There's not a lot to plan here, your in Paris, it's a sunny day, off you go.

Big problem if microstock was my sole income, 99% of them would need a release.  What I am saying is the same principles of shooting can still apply to Micro. I have no plans on being Yuri 2, different league, but on my current stats there is still good money in this game.

From Yuri Arcurs website - Eight Secrets from the World�s Top Selling Photographer

"7. Be overly productive
My senior assistant, who is a photojournalist, came up to me the other day after doing a backstage report for a Danish rock band and said: �I don�t get it at all�all these other photographers were just sitting around with their cameras and talking�and I know this for a fact because I saw them doing it through my viewfinder�.

My assistant saw this whole concert through his camera and took over 1300 RAW files in three hours with his 1Ds. I don�t care how much talent one has; it takes pictures � and a lot of them � to get great shots.

Shoot like crazy, especially if you have a limited time with the models or at the location."

We all have widely different methods - Ideally I'd take every sterotype of model with signed release forms to every major city in the world.

There's an article by Jack Hollingsworrth on Microstockdiares where you can pay $4,000 or so, and accompany him on a cruise shooting in numerous cities. Yes, he has got models arranged, but even without them there is more than enough scope to take enough great pics to keep you uploading for a very time.

Bottom line, speaking as a humble unelected representative of traditional photograpers, to make money in micro you should be able to upload 50+ sellable pics a week and still have a day job.

Hello again, sorry for the late reply. If I can answer some points relating to my post...

LisaFX

Thanks for the explanation. 

I do this FT too, but there is no way I could produce 100 images a week of the type of images I do for micro - model released lifestyle shots.

My experience is the opposite of yours.  Actual image capture is only a tiny fraction of my working hours.  The majority of my time is spent post processing and keywording, uploading, arranging and story boarding shoots, securing props and models, tracking sales and payouts, etc. 

Post processing, captioning and uploading is the easy part, I use Fotostation to caption multiple image batches, send them all to a folder, and they are extracted by FTP to all the outlets I sydicate to. On mico's you have to categorize, with Alamy  fill in the rest of the fields,with the rest that all the work is done when they are sent. Yes, if you have to source props etc, it's time consuming. Sales and payouts, micro is straightforward, it's the ones who don't pay and you have to invoice who are a pain. For the type of material I shoot, the time consuming part is getting the pics themselves.


Dook Thank you for this info.
"People pics go to alamy, other editorial outlets. "
Can you please tell us what are other editorial outlets, if possible?
I'll touch on this in a moment!

gostwyck

I might come back with about 7000 images of which maybe 200-300 will eventually be uploaded.

The most productive (highly successful) microstocker was probably Hidesy in her hey-day. Incredibly she averaged 6-7 new images accepted every single day for nearly 3 years although she admitted in an interview that she normally worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to achieve it. That equates to about 200 images per month and, by doing so, it gave her by far the largest portfolio on IS. The idea of any individual being able to consistently produce quality stock images at double that rate makes no sense to me.

There's no way you can fly from the UK to Vienna and back in one day for �50 either (or virtually any other continental destination) __ I wish you could.

We are talking UK ryanair flights here - booked as far in advance as possible. No business surcharges for early or late, sometime, yes I stay overnight, usually on an airport lounge floor. You can get from England to Barcelona, Girona, Venice, Lyon etc for 1 pence per way with their best offers, tax adds up to just over �50 --00.
 
I would shoot 50 pics in the Uk airport, lounge, passengers, departures, baggage, taxis etc, same in spain on landing. Head on a bus to Las Ramblas, over a mile of every variety of life possible. Don't forget to shoot every bank sign you see or famous store logo. On to the Sagrada Familia, tourists, plaza, architeture, statues etc. Then a quick hike to Barcelona's football ground, stadium interior and exteriors, trophy cabinet, football training pitches, Japanese tourists with camera's. Them back to the main city square for more people shots, local taxi's, buses - don't foget the Spanish McDonalds on the corner - the list goes on. Back for your flight, sleeping tourists at the airport, Easyjet plane on runway, sneaky pic of security guard or policeman.

That fill's all my cards - if rain had been forcast I'd have stayed at home. Careful planning it's manageable, just like jumping on a train to London - Big Ben, Palace, Thames, Underground ete.

SJlcoke

Are these 100 planned out and executed shots, or are you just walking around shooting anything that moves, like most of what is on Alamy?  I can't imagine you are scheduling locations and models in foreign countries every 3 days.

I play to my strengths, digital ones!. Have camera will travel. No, I don't plan specific shots. I would have a general route in mind, and check out the local postcards for the best viewpoints etc. It was Hannibal lector who said we covert what we see, although I think he was quoting the bible. Our first sense is sight, everything has potential.


stock shooter

I�ll keep trying for Masterfile and Corbis and slowly submit to Getty but Micro is paying the bills and without it I wouldn�t be a photographer.

Getty and Corbis are the biggest earners, but what about the other traditional outlets? Have a look at CEPIC or PACA, every country has numerous agencies, all can be approached. Every agency does it, look at Alamy, they have agents in many countries. Say I have 100,000 travel pics, maybe 5,000 would be suitable for micro, 100,000 for Alamy. Alamy are just one trad agency, pick an agent in every European country and ask them to represent your material. Corbis and Getty are the cream, but all the smaller agencies are making money that have not been bought by them. Every pic I take goes to in excess of 30 outlets - only 7 micro's. 100 pics per week X 30 - that's 3,000 pics going on sale every week. (I'll ignore micro rejections here - they are the pickiest of anyone I deal with)

Funny world really, macro die hards say micro is devaluing them, the rot started when digitial camera's came along. Suddenly you didn't have to have a darkroom and suppy pics by print or scanned from neg. Alamy latched on early, thousands of amateurs with good quality camers,  we'll take them. Now Alamy are themselves a big agent, and complaining about micro's. That's because micro's have latched on to an increasing awareness by photographer's that they don't need to be Robert Capra to sell a picture.

To sign off, let's go back 15 years. English football (soccer) - best seller for pics in UK newspapers by far. End of the season, a top club would change it's sponser on their shirt. Rat's, my entire library's suddenly out of date. All clubs play pre season friendlies, packed to the hilt with sports photographers wanting newly signed players wearing new kit's with sponsers. No ruthless editing here, we'll send out 50 pics of that �10,000,000 signing, on the ball, running, warming up, waving at crowd, tackle, heading etc. Next we'll develop the negatives in a hired room near the ground, and send the lot to the newspapers over the next two hours.

It's a high throughput darkroom concept, large volume. Look at any big sports match today, there will be 50 snappers there fire-wiring from pitchside to their office, office - caption and edit in minutes, then send them out for the next days newspaper. Apply the same principles to Micro.

As a trad photographer, were I to take up micro full time, that's what I'd do. Shoot in high volume, and process at speed. Coming from a live event news background helps!

What you must remember, every one of you good folk, is that you are on a level playing field with Getty in  a lot of respects. You can produce material of not significant difference to them, they key is finding people to sell it.

Evening to all

Oldhand

Hi there - interesting post indeed!

I run a small traditional agency dealing with travel images. Alamy and their 16 million and counting images has seen my market disintegrate. I hedged my bets about 18 months ago and stated with mico.

I could not care less about the old devalue macro rubbish - the customer pays what they want, and I have to earn a living.

I stopped accepting contributors for traditional licensed images - they got frustrated when we did not sell enough, and spent more time shooting my own pics rather than representing other photographers.

Bottom line for me, 18 months ago income was 100% macro, 0% micro. It's now around 60% macro, 40% micro - trend continuing.

Aplogies of the anonymity, it's because of those macro competitors left.

People still approach me to represent their material at macro level - I send them to Alamy (myself as well now) and micro, trad earnings are drying up for small agencies rapidly.

Best way to make money in this game, high volume shooting of sellable pics distributed to Alamy, micro, last few big trad agencies left. Note the high volume, not the Istock 15 or 20 a week,-  hundred minimum.

Rant over,

Oldhand

Hi there - best tool around if you can get hold of it is Fotostation. Lot's of pro's use if for batch editing large numbers of images. you can add, append rename etc etc.

It's very simple to use, however it is a bit costly.

Just a thuoght

Oldhand

Hello there  - quick question, would a client send the pics on a CD to you, say 250 at a time? On there would have to be all model release details and depending what they are shooting info on what the pic is if it a particular flower, building, beach etc..

You'd then have to caption the lot in full and upload to maybe eight sites,  probably with upload restrictions as is Istock etc depending on your clients acceptance rate / canister level.

All this for say 30 cents a picture?

Would a slightly better idea be that a client uploaded all of ther own images to the sites by FTP. They send you an email it's all finished, and you log in to all their accounts and with copy and paste finish off the captioning there. Slightly unweildy, but it would probably be just as quick.

Finally, skirting over the login details, don't some sites alredy offer this kind of service?

Good luck with it