It may be an "art" thing but I can't recall much smiling in work by the likes of Nan Goldin, Mary Ellen Mark, Alec Soth, Rineke Dijkstra etc.....and personally, I like it that way.

Imagine if the great painters of history had painted everyone grinning and making peace symbols.

What?

It's a question: Whether something written and signed in a contract necessarily trumps existing legislation and / or legal protections.

Personally I doubt that it necessarily always would.

I've never heard of it called charm in the UK, but I've never heard of a lot of things.

It's called charme in France. The same style which Britain calls glamour.

menus and firmware are terrible in pretty much any brand i've used so far, i don't think Sony is the exception.

The D700 Nikon I used to use had a reasonably good menu system. And, more importantly, once set up all of the important controls were available without looking via buttons and dials. The interface was a definitely improvement vs the Canon DSLRs which I had used previously.

These days I am very pleased with my Fuji X-E1. Bought used (mint) for less than half what it would have cost new. The menus are neat and logical. And it has proper dials and a built-in EVF  (today I prefer using an EVF vs either a prism, a rangefinder or a viewfinder). The 35mm f/1.4 (also bought used) may very possibly now be all of the lenses which I need. Although I also have a 60mm + plus a draw full of manual primes which I might use one day.

I fully expect to buy an X-E2 used if and when an X-E3 is launched. The X-E2's virtual split screen manual focus area is something I want. I think the car analogy above works well today. Might as well let someone else pay to drive it out of the garage / take it out of the box for the first time.

many people are locked into Leica and Apple because they joined a "cult".

Visually aware people also often appreciate good industrial design. eg - a beautifully designed a lens with a characteristic aesthetic - or the look and feel of a menu system.

(One of the things I hated about the Sonys which I briefly used earlier this year was their ugly and poorly thought out menu systems which reminded me of Windows / Fisher Price. And the fact that the design of the physical interface often resulted in me accidentally changing the ISO).

just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich

As I have tried to explain in my previous post, there can be an issue with new keywords being added to hierarchy. Especially if this results in mapping being changed. The problem is that it can mean that existing images in the library end up effectively orphaned. Because CV hierarchy changes are not adequately communicated to people with existing images which may be affected.

it said corrosion, not water spots.

If the coating is metallic then would that not potentially be liable to corrosion ? Water + metal = corrosion potentially.

Anyhow the on-going story to date according to well known Leica expert Brian Sweeney seems to be that the IR layer comprises Schott S8612 glass which has previously been known (apparently) to be subject to humidity affected corrosion.

Worth noting that at least one of the companies selling isopropyl based cleaning solutions guarantee that correct use of their product will not cause damage. That could end up being a show-down between insurance companies !

bad keywording and spam is THE reason why sites like Flickr or Instagram will never be possibly a competitor to stock agencies and same goes for most of the PODs.

The social media (including Flickr, Instagram and similar) already are competing with and taking business from stock agencies.

Today many companies and organizations barely bother with their websites. The bulk of their client facing activity is now via Facebook. And much of the content which they use is stuff which the staff and clients ('friends') have shot and shared on their iPhones. The social media has directly and indirectly reduced the demand for content - especially for the sort of low cost content which microstock used to be about. Simultaneous these organizations have in general significantly reduced their printed output - eg documentation, media etc.

In this example the direct recommendation (share, like etc) replaces the need for keywording. The ubiquity of Facebok, especially in a business context, post dates the financial collapse of 2007/08 and the world recession which followed. Back then many more companies (even small businesses) still thought they needed an old fashioned website - and someone to build it for them. That is a lot of business which does not exist anymore.

I could easily have a few 1000 More Images there But, stock is  {To Me} about cost effectiveness ... I can do Hundreds an Hour at 123,P5,SS and DP.

Yesterday I sold a file at Alamy for $250 (10 year editorial book licence). I get 50% of that. So $125 NET. I would have to make 500 subscription sales at SS (I'm not there) to earn $125 and the US govt would tax me 30%. My average NET return per download in 2014 at Alamy is currently appx $45. (Yes I know that not all microstock sales are subs).



My best selling image there has only 7 sales and has earned me, I think, appx $115 NET. My best earning image there has 1 sale and has earned me appx $130 NET today. Now this is obviously peanuts compared with iStock/Getty combined (or I am guessing SS) where an image which performs well will earn many thousands. But this was not an image which would ever have sold well enough to work as microstock.

I would estimate that appx none of the images which I upload to Alamy will ever make anywhere even vaguely near 500 sales. Does that mean that I should not upload to Alamy ? (Personally I find the process of uploading and keywording to be easy - and it helps me to focus on whether the image actually has any useful narrative).

I agree that it is all about cost effectiveness. That image I licenced yesterday for $250 was a second or third choice selection - what I mean is that it is not one which I initially picked out. That tells me that I need to focus my mind better on what the images I sell tend to have in common. Because I should have spotted it. And I should be shooting more images like it.

I am not arguing against microstock. I have massively enjoyed iStock over the years and have learned a lot from the experience. It's just that I think that some images and subjects work as microstock and others can work really well at Alamy. I think that microstock is cost effective for images which have the potential to sell in volume.

Maybe SS should move their head office to a mail box in Delaware if they are complaining about New York taxes!

Or Alberta maybe. Calgary for example has a combined corporate rate of appx 25% - it's known for its business friendly, low drag, 21st century approach to competitive corporate taxation.

:-)

I cannot think of any reason why an online company would be in New York - apart from Wall St etc

However, this does not apply to everyone. It depends on the specifics of the treaty between the US and your home country. Some people will be required to get an ITIN number, others do not need to. But that seems not to be a decision made by Getty/iStock but by the IRS based on the tax treaties. (for what it's worth, I am based in Germany, so that's all I can talk about in this regard)

I think but may be wrong that some aspects of the technicalities have been even further simplified by the US:

I believe that the issue with respect to whether or not you need a US tax reference code depends upon whether or not your home (tax residency jurisdiction) issues you with a unique tax code which is recognized internationally by the IRS as a TIN (tax identifier number).

I believe that those people in countries which do not issue a recognised TIN may today need a US EIN (employer identifier number) rather than the old ITIN. This would apply to people in countries with a tax treaty.

According to Lobo at the iStock forum, those of us in non-treaty countries should be able to complete the tax interview without needing a TIN or equivalent US code. Completing the tax interview should then mean that we will only be taxed on US sales.

Amazon via Google has a certain amount of usefully up to date and pertinent information about the tax interview and withholding taxes - since this also relates to people selling Kindle content. The Amazon documentation goes some way to explaining the thinking behind the tax interview process.

One thing I now understand as a result of reading more is that from the IRS perspective there are two aspects to this: yes - on the one hand they may want to know whether we are in a treaty country and if so which one. On the other hand the interview is also about them determining whether we are US citizens (including US citizens abroad) ... and therefore US tax payers. One aspect of the interview as it applies to non-US citizens is for us to demonstrate that we are not US citizens perhaps living abroad. The 'interview' is as much about that as anything else.

@Sharpshot: surely it makes sense for all of us to complete the tax interview and minimise our US tax liabilities. As Lobo has pointed out - even people in non treaty countries will then only be taxed on US sales. Also - do UK citizens even need to get a ITIN EIN ? Isn't the UK issued 10 digit UTR going to be enough (and if not is it really such an issue having to get an EIN ?)

many others get away with making profits all around the world without paying taxes on those? They only pay taxes to the IRS for profits they actually made within the US.

When Shutterstock announced their quarterly results in November, one of the issues which they specifically talked about was the relatively high level of taxes that they are currently paying despite, they said, 70% of their business being done outside of the US. This is something which investors have commented on previously.

I wondered at the time whether that implied that they were looking at relocating some of the business outside of the US. Or can anyone here think of any other ways in which they could reduce their tax liability whist remaining solely based in the US ?