Years ago, someone I knew, gave every guest a disposable camera and said, shoot what you like. So about 100 photographers, doing what we see now on social media sites. Personal viewpoints and fun. I'm sure they had someone professional do portraits, if that's what they wanted.

Back in younger days, I'd shoot a candid wedding collection, give them the film and wave goodbye. Now I can't even stomach that.

Why weddings make me cry. Band $2000 to play schlock music, photographer who works for some name guy, is handed a camera and told he's a professional. (paid an appearance fee, the name gets the big money) People get blurred shots for an over-priced agency name, hired gun. Wedding planners and catering and ballrooms. If they hire a DJ, it's the same as a band. Hired spinner, the agency gets the meat. Someone gets $50 to play the program, the owner gets $200 and up for owning the name. Flowers? Dress, suits and tuxedos.

Hey it's a racket and license to steal, why not make photography the same. Kick em while they are weak and steal their wallet.

OK you can see, I'm not in favor of wedding photography or the inflated prices.

By the way, OP, yeah kick in the ass isn't it? Years of work, school, quality and experience and replaced by an iPhone or P&S. Same happened to real estate, except the high price listings. Agent or broker will drop by, snap some shots and off to the listing. I knew a guy who made his professional living as a real estate photographer. Not anymore.

But newspapers are dying and the integrity and quality of the photos, isn't what it used to be. Papers across the country were in competition for best photos and awards for best photography. Now an iPhone. How Sad.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 02, 2013, 13:17

Quote from: Xanox on June 02, 2013, 13:16

Quote from: tab62 on June 02, 2013, 12:25

I am seeing this happen to wedding and family shots as well- a lot of my coworkers are hiring 'Uncle Ben' or some Craiglist guy/gal for $50 to do a full family shot and $175 for wedding shots. They aren't using an iPhone but instead a Canon rebel or a fancy point & shoot claiming it's as good as the 1D/5D Canon or D800 Nikon.  Signs of the times changing...

they will soon regret it when one day they will see some other friends' wedding photos shot by a Pro for 2-3000$.

Do you think so?
I've never ever heard anyone say they wish they'd spent more on wedding photos. Most people are like me and feel they spent far too much!

Just makes me glad I have diversified over the years to the point where I am at now. No doubt though this will be affecting some of my former colleagues, who I feel for.

I noticed its illustrations that get bought... now all we need is the first photograph sale ! 

Congrats Pilens !!

Already done. Sold my first photo last weekend

Congrats pling! Great feeling isn't it!?

List of site elements that need correcting for fully responsive design: (if anyone else finds any, please add them! Please note this is all from looking at my Retina iPhone4 so will be different perhaps to iPad - can someone with an iPad make similar checks to add to this list?)

1. Header - All elements, including search box (REMOVE the image/blog drop down?) and search button
2. Menu - Need a responsive menu that doesn't have to be added in the footer of the theme. See an example on my other site http://www.microstockman.com on a mobile device and you will see what kind of a floating menu we could have. Also on my iPhone for some reason a large "Menu" word appears above the menu as a h1 tag I think. Ditch it.
3. Latest images, similar images & featured images widgets - center the images on screen, currently they are in a single column off center on all widgets.
4. Search results page - similar to number 3, images need centring as they are all in a single column
5. Search results page (http://thpstockphotos.com/?s=tree&post_type=image ) - networked search results completely messed up, images overlapping each other, bunched up, squashed etc, author avatar and drop down not displaying nicely. This display needs a lot of work.
6. Image page - Author picture needs padding & centring when it falls under the Photographer Info drop down
7. Networked members widget & Page (http://thpstockphotos.com/symbiostock-network/ ) - avatar displays odly under the drop downs
8. Symbio Network Directory page (http://thpstockphotos.com/symbiostock-network-directory/ ) - Author bio text overlaps each authors avatar badly, some avatars too big (user uploaded wrong one I'm guessing?) which throws off layout completely.

9. Not just a responsive issue, same on desktop, but when a ZIP file is available, the brackets around the Price Heading ( ( $US ) ) get screwy and one drops down to the next line. Can we just ditch the brackets all together?

10. Layout issue on desktop and mobile - http://thpstockphotos.com/search-images/new-zealand/ (choose a phrase or keyword that no-one else has to see the result) the images overlap the Symbio Extended Network box at the bottom

Only one check per site? These places are rip-offs.

If you want to sense if dublin core is working or not, its on the image page that it kicks in:

http://www.clipartillustration.com/image/3d-green-fibonacci-pattern-abstract-sciencemathematicsenvironmental-concept/

If someone hasn't used up their 1-shot on that website, maybe you can see it at work in the above link - or not.

ah of course, its not finding it on the front page cos its not there! Doh! Hopefully someone can try the image page, but I'm sure itll work.

Any thoughts Leo on finishing off the responsive side of things?

Yep, insite search needs addressing.

Also, I'm reposting this bit from another thread about SEO and selling direct...

This just makes getting Symbiostock PROPERLY responsive even more important.

Yep, it's almost there already, Leo's done 99% of the work, but there a couple of things that need doing asap.

On an iPhone (tested 3GS, and 4 models) the search bar in the header is never size adjusted properly, its not responsive.

see here for an example - http://www.woorank.com/en/www/thpstockphotos.com - gives you a visual of how it looks on iphone and iPad.

The mobile menu implementation needs improving. We need the mobile menu to work WITHOUT having to put the menu in the site's footer which is very ugly.

Really think this needs to be counted as a bug or similar, as the site is so close to being good on a mobile device but just misses the mark in a few crucial areas. Mobile is the way of the future, so we gotta get this right.

oldladybird contacted me on iStock sitemail and got some id numbers for files so that IT could look into it. Haven't heard back, but it was only a day or two ago.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing your experiences cthoman, really appreciate it.

Would love to hear others thoughts too on the subject.

I know others have mentioned it before, but might be worth mentioning again - perhaps we need to get an Extended License option up and running soon too. Would hate to loose a buyer just because they WANT to spend more money on a better license but we don't have it available!

When logged in as an admin, when you look at other peoples (clients) user profile, it still shows up the "Symbiostock Profile and Extended Network Info" section at the bottom of each user, but with the Admin user's details listed in the fields.

The clients can't actually see those fields, only the admin, but its pretty confusing to see your admin details listed underneath a clients user info.

yeah not a big fan of this. Seems those in locations (such as me in Australia) other than the US and Europe (where the VAST majority of buyers are from) will lose out, as my images wont be as 'relevant' as theirs.

hmm, thanks for checking. Annoying having new images there that I can't make available for sale!

My ( very limited) understanding is that google "rewards" sites that have verified authors on google+

I think this will be useful if you plan on using blogs etc., to drive traffic to your site, and then onto your store.

If you just plan a stock store...maybe not useful, but no harm.  If you are having an interactive site ( blog etc., ) as well as the store then worth the effort.

If anyone knows more or has a better understanding PLEASE correct me.

Glenn

That (the bolded part) was sort of my understanding, and the reason I was looking into it. Especially with the newest Google update it seems Google are rewarding any Google related site more than others from what I have read.