Seems that if you say you're an artist, and you do the right brown-nosing and self-promotion, you might strike it lucky and end up with work worth millions. Much of what gets lionised as art just comes off as silly in its desperate eagerness to be novel.

I agree this is the case...probably more than I'd like to think. in this case, I certainly agree. other than great lines, I wouldn't recognize this photograph as anything remarkable. in fact, it's quite flat. maybe it's being ironic. I really liked the Cindy Sherman photo that was the previous record holder. attaching monetary value to art will always be a sketchy business, pardon the pun.

I'm a big fan of Jackson Pollock's work....and he's another classic example of an artist people mock, stating they could spill some paint and call it art too. I see order in his work, consistency and intent. I think it is very deliberate chaos.

inspections definitely seem stretched out lately...even for exclusive

if things are so great as an independent, why all the effort to convince exclusives that we're willfully walking the plank? relative to past years, downloads are either down for many of the longest contributing artists, or they've stopped growing as they had. But income and dls are up for some of us middle of the road contributors who sell a moderate volume, upload diverse content regularly.  sales aren't down for everyone, quite the contrary. I'm on track to have a record month again for downloads and income and I know a number of diamonds who are better performers than me, whose sales have also really picked up over the last two months.

it's an incorrect assumption that dls should increase at a regular rate with portfolio growth. more important is the rate of growth of the entire collection:rate of growth in your portfolio. new content being uploaded has to be competitive. there's a lot of good imagery in a collection of 10M. Some longtime contributors have rested on their laurels uploading very little new content and riding sales on bestsellers for too long. or compete with themselves by uploading the same concepts and scenes year after year with different models.

Quote from: SNP on November 07, 2011, 14:47

I realize actually saying that out loud will be met with cynicism here

Well no cynicism from me but you don't need an agency to be proud of your work etc. after all an agency is just an agency and it's obvious that some agencies take advantages of the lack of self-confidence from some of their contributors.

thank you. it's not about self-esteem. Obviously I'm proud of my work, independent of agencies I work with. but I wouldn't place my work with any agency I wasn't proud to be associated with. iStock exclusively represents me an an artist globally. that's not a superficial relationship and it is an association I am proud of. I do wish TPTB would remember that at times too. 

Absolutely right, Baldrick. Over the past year I've chewed wryly over every one of the points you make. Unfortunately, when I started out in 2006 I rose rapidly through the iStock canisters, giving me a bigger early incentive, and I was rejected by Shutterstock at my first attempt. At this stage the golden handcuffs of exclusivity are pretty tight. I'm sure I've done at least as well as being independent, probably considerably better, but I'd certainly feel more comfortable if I'd paid that insurance premium.

I think a lot of exclusives feel this way. I like the simplicity of working with one agency, and I'm generally proud of being an iStock exclusive. but, the last two years have left me feeling frustration and significant concern about the direction things are going. I'm dependent on the income now and I don't believe it's better to be independent. I still think iStock are the industry leaders in many respects. That's proving to be both good and bad for contributors. I have often commented that I think contributors who started early on have it even worse. You would have enjoyed rapid growth and success in the early years, plateaus and then drops in download numbers as the collection has grown exponentially, not to mention the tides of change that keep threatening to drown suppliers.

Having invested everything in a company that communicates less and less with us, and which heavily prioritizes its interests over ours is increasingly unsettling.

my sales this week are consistent (stretched across most hours of the day, and steady). download numbers are better than last year even, not just income. I'm surprised how good November is turning out on the whole, despite days here and there that are bad.

re: iStock's search: iStock's search capabilities are amazing these days. despite the odd technical hiccups, which occur everywhere, iStock's search allows you just about any combination of parameters to find images you're searching for quickly at various price points. say what you will, but iStock's search is probably the best search in the business right now, the CV notwithstanding.

cute. way nicer than the form rejection letters publishing houses send out :-)

I agree. but legally I don't think they'd have any problem with it. anyways, we agree that it was unethical and it has clearly signaled the direction they're willing to go in. and the price they are paying for it is distrust, and in some cases contributors pulling their assets. it's about reaching targets and the best way to reach their targets is reducing payouts to contributors. until a good number of major contributors balk at these actions, nothing will change.

back on topic...sales are up and down, but more up than down. last week was fantastic. this week started off slow, but by Tuesday night was chugging away. Today is very good, well above average for this time of day.

I'm not suggesting it was noble in the least, nor am I implying agreement with any of it. but the promise was regarding canisters, not royalties. technically no promise was broken. separating royalties from canister levels was pretty slick....and it made the direction they're taking very clear. at least we know where we stand now and that the game is one of semantics and distrust. we're not the community we were. business is business and that's how contributors need to think too.

@pauliewalnuts: it's the same argument for buying locally produced food and products. people will always focus on short-term savings and instant gratification profit versus development and sustainability. we don't think in terms of the environmental and economic impact of outsourcing...we see the cost savings first. when I was just out of university and working my first corporate job, the issue of outsourcing was just coming into the foreground...specifically regarding call centres. then it was outsourcing training and skill development. then marketing materials and programming...and so on. that was 17 years ago and here we are now in a world where most of us buy goods produced in China, assembled at home so that they can slap on a Made in USA/Canada sticker and no one is the wiser.

I know I'm oversimplifying it, but it all comes down to how we consume. consumers run the world.

I could not get past the 1m.30 seconds mark. What a ***** bag. If that guy was (is) one of the so-called execs running iSP no wonder they've gone down the toilet. Saying that, he probably comes over x10000 times better than Lobo would have. Everything seems so much clearer now.......

classy

Quote from: SNP on October 26, 2011, 19:00

but I suspect he's terrible at interviewing in Italian too.

Yeah probably because he is German ;-)

rofl...my mistake, I wrongly assumed he was Italian being in Milan. same comment for German then.

Quote from: SNP on October 26, 2011, 19:00

in particular, he emphasized how well beyond the competition iStock is in terms of revenue. you can deny that all you want. doesn't make it untrue.

How do you know that? What evidence do you have that there is any truth whatsoever in that statement? Because Kelly said so? How would he know how well other agencies are doing and what they're paying out anyway? Does he have a sizeable mature portfolio with them all? Even if he did actually know the truth (which I doubt) do you think he'd blurt out how badly IS are doing in a softly-softly 'interview'? Especially when you consider it all happened on his watch and he got fired because of it. How naive can you possibly be?

At the time of writing I have so far today sold a pathetic 9 images on IS for a paltry $9 or thereabouts. On SS I have sold 73 images and made $88 __ with the same portfolio. Yesterday I made almost exactly the same on each site but only because of a rare chunky EL on IS. The day before it was $49/32 in SS's favour. SS is spanking IS's bottom and pretty much every day the gap is growing. Whether you like it or not all the evidence I have suggests that IS is slowly (rapidly?) dying because they have pissed both their customers and their contributors off.

Just 'cos Kelly says so doesn't make it true.

no evidence gostwyck. just consistent reporting over the years from people far more in the know than me. I realize we live in a culture of crooked CEOs and greedy corporate *insult removed*. and those stereotypes exist for a reason. I know that Getty's track record is mottled, and that's probably being kind. but I know what I've seen, I trust those contributors who've been around much longer than me, and I believe the overall data provided to us at events, otherwise they were bold-faced lying. these are decent people I'm talking about. I agree, however, that assuming the numbers are FABULOUS--that doesn't mean contributors are benefiting. their share of the pie keeps getting bigger and bigger, ours smaller. I also won't stand idly by and have my work stuck in programs I don't wish to participate in. so far exclusives still have the power to opt out. we'll see how long that lasts.

you'll see it however you wish. it's either true or it isn't and I have zero proof one way or the other.