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Messages - MichaelJayFoto
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376
« on: April 16, 2014, 00:08 »
Had the same issue for about half an hour. Seems to be working again now.
377
« on: April 15, 2014, 23:52 »
2012 didn't have GI sales. For me that alone would cut more than 25% of my income. If I were going to drop exclusivity now I would guess the loss would be 90-95% of my income. I think if you only had a 25% drop in iStock income you are doing much better than most. What? My GI Sales started in 2011 with the Vetta files moved over at the beginning of that year. E+ came later in addition. Though, I never sold a lot through GI Sales nor did I have a lot of Vetta files. So that certainly explained why my earnings did not drop as much as for many others who heavily rely on those higher priced collections at iStock. I always said that dropping iStock exclusivity shouldn't mean to upload all your images to microstock. At iStock you have a lot of midstock priced sales, so you need to find a midstock or macrostock agency to replace those. Today I am making more from Stocksy and my macrostock images than I ever did from Vetta.
378
« on: April 15, 2014, 13:32 »
That's true. I should have said according to the poll the average exclusive member on this site who fills out the poll does about 9 times better than the average nonexclusive contributor who fills out the poll. But if you look at the royalty rate and credits per dl difference you would expect that kind of drop. Also if you look at what a lot of exclusives have said when they left you get a similar picture. No, that's not what I've read before I made my own decision. Nor is it what I experienced. It's more like a drop by about 75-80% (so 4:1 or 5:1 if you want to express is that way), and part of that is being compensated by the Partner Program which actually becomes an interesting addition to the base royalties once you got used to the lower pays everywhere. I am currently making about 50% from iStock including the partner program from what I did in 2012 as an exclusive - but only 25% of what I've made in my better years. Everyone is different, though.
379
« on: April 15, 2014, 13:11 »
Also, according to the poll exclusives make almost 9 times more at iStock than they do as nonexclusives. No. According to the poll exclusivity has a 9 times higher number as non-exclusivity when it comes to iStock earnings. It's not a direct comparison of the same portfolio. It's just two different sets of people reporting those numbers.
380
« on: April 14, 2014, 08:28 »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYYWbzUSKDA
Blatant.
Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Now this guy made another $0.0001 from the two ads that were shown when I clicked the link. Scandalous.
381
« on: April 13, 2014, 05:40 »
Oh, thanks for sharing the detailed information. 
382
« on: April 13, 2014, 05:39 »
he said peak of earnings was in november with sum of 1000$.
on photo dune he have 100 images sold, dreamstime 200, canstockphoto 93, other i didnt look, it is not possible that he earned 3000-4000$ overall in one year Some 200+ downloads on iStock make about $200 for me. I get roughly the same amount added through the PP for my images, would be another $200 = total from iStock alone $400. According to the OP that is about 15% which I find reasonable. So that would put the overall income into the range of $2500, maybe add a bit for error tolerance. I'd call that a overall a reasonable claim and wouldn't know why you would doubt that.
383
« on: April 11, 2014, 01:59 »
Facebook is reconfiguring its "sidebar" ads to be twice the size, and with larger size will probably come higher prices...no doubt folding in the cost of using Shutterstock images.
"No doubt"? What do you mean? Facebook will pay higher prices for the images they offer their clients for free to use in the ads? I doubt that.
384
« on: April 11, 2014, 01:55 »
I have never understood why they divided their marketing time, money and attention on so many different agencies that all compete with each other. The internet favors companies with one strong brand...the way the major competitor has been doing it... Has the major competitor? I don't think so: They did not integrate BigStockPhoto into their main site yet. And they launched a new platform for a higher priced offer. Yahoo also keeps Flickr and Tumblr as their own brands. Amazon experimented with a separate brand for clothing and shoes. It can make sense to keep different brands to market different values to different clients. So as long as iStock was being marketed as the "premium site among microstock", it made sense to keep a separate place for the subscription buyers. Now that the strategy for iStock was changed with the price drop last year and subscription offer this year, it might become a different story.
385
« on: April 09, 2014, 11:34 »
Yeah. I know they reject larger series regularly which is counter productive to their image level system. I can understand that, though it means that quite a few of my images will never make it to DT which limits my overall sales potential compared to other agencies. But I also get images rejected for ridiculous reasons - like when I submitted a series of people images and supplied model releases for each single shoot... they said one model release per person would be enough. If that's their minimum requirement, then that's their decision but I think it's pretty ridiculous to reject images from someone who does his paper work, isn't it? And as a consequence - if those rumors about acceptance rate and search position are true - I probably will never get good search positions for my images. 
386
« on: April 09, 2014, 02:12 »
Seriously if you don't have a basic understanding of photography, what makes you think you can sell your images like a professional? Its like someone who just got their drivers licensing thinking they will be in the Indy 500.
I confess I wrote something similar but deleted it because I didn't want to be negative. I still make sales from images I shot whilst I was studying, but they were all shot at 100ISO on tripods with the utmost care/paranoia (college professors can do that to you). There's a lot to grasp and selling stock, despite the peanuts paid, has high standards.
Well, there is a difference: Submitting to microstock or making serious money? I don't think we can blame anyone for trying to make a buck after microstock has advertised with "everyone can upload their holiday snapshots" for a decade now. 
387
« on: April 09, 2014, 01:47 »
I'm not an editor nor a really good photographer, so this is just my personal opinion:
While the images mostly look good, I have my doubts if you have a good chance of getting accepted at Stocksy with this selection.
There is just too much in it that looks a bit like random snap shots: The colored chairs, the garage door, the stack of wood, graffiti, the swans, a cat... Quite frankly: Who hasn't shot any of those images? What makes those images unique? In general, there are just too many people walking around with a camera shooting stuff they see. Don't get me wrong, some of those images might even get accepted when you upload them at a later stage but for an application (not just at Stocksy, at every agency) you should focus on really strong images that are uniquely yours.
It needs to be really, really special to make an impression with this kind of images - I like the one with the shovel & pitchfork hooks; the indoor shots with the vintage clock and the picture frames would have been good if they were in one single image but separated they are not strong enough either in my opinion. Images of rooms should show how people live and not just be a "vintage clock in front of a green wall".
Also, I would drop all images where people look into the camera. Stocksy's claim is about "authenticity", non-staged images. Images where the viewer thinks "this is how the people act in their real life and not just because a camera was around". Again: Some of those images might get accepted once you are in but they are not the best to apply with.
Well, I believe there are still some 15 or so images left if you cut the selection by all those mentioned. Maybe go through your portfolio and find 20 or 30 more like those.
Good luck.
388
« on: April 09, 2014, 01:31 »
I am wondering what's the secret to be "successful" at Dreamstime...
My experiences so far are:
1) They rejected about half of my images, far more than all other agencies combined
2) The upload process is even worse than iStock (if you use DeepMeta)
3) The sales are varying month to month but rarely come close to Fotolia as would be indicated from the Poll Results
Still people seem to be uploading (and get approved) lots of images as their total number is not that far from Fotolia or Shutterstock. And for some reason people seem to vote their sales within range of Fotolia.
So is there any secret specifically about Dreamstime that I don't know? Is there something you do different when submitting your images to DT?
389
« on: April 08, 2014, 12:11 »
On smaller agencies I don't think it's worth my time if they reject an image.
At Shutterstock, Fotolia and iStock I consider if there is a way to fix the reason for rejection and try resubmitting again after a short time frame.
However, the number of rejections is very low for me, and the rejection reasons are either easy to overcome or probably impossible. So I resubmit only very few images and don't need any special precautions in my workflows.
390
« on: April 06, 2014, 08:22 »
Thanks for the offer but I have to reject because of family responsibilities. Ten years ago I would have considered it.
391
« on: April 06, 2014, 08:22 »
One month late reporting (or 15 days maybe), Or 50+ days? Make a sale on April 3rd and get it reported on May 27th. Then request a payout and get paid on June 9th... 
392
« on: April 06, 2014, 01:03 »
Of course t has a logic. The client likes this file, no matter if good or bad, and he buys it because he just knows he can't get it cheaper anywhere else. You reply to me without actually reading what I've written: I said the higher price is not justified just because the photographer is exclusive. There are quite a few exclusive images that justify higher prices because they are unique and special. Actually I also believe there are quite a few non-exclusive files that are wasted on cheap sites. But there is also a lot of exclusive content that is just the same as what you can find everywhere else at 10% of the cost. And yes, those customers who are still with iStock, are mostly bigger companies having large contracts with the whole Getty family, so they are not bothered to pay $20 or $50 for an image. But they also have controllers asking why they wouldn't be able to buy somewhere else at a fraction of the cost. Most importantly: We are talking about the buyers that are still left with iStock. Remember the time (a few years ago) when iStock made about three times the revenue as all microstock competitors combined? If you didn't notice, this time is over. iStock got stuck somewhere, they are making about the same or a bit less revenue than three years ago with fewer customers paying the higher prices. But a big chunk of the market went elsewhere and until now there has been no indication that this move has stopped.
393
« on: April 04, 2014, 13:46 »
If you do some searches and then turn on first signature collection, then essentials, it's hard to see a visual difference. When you go to stock.xchng (didn't realize it's now http://www.freeimages.com/) or dreamstime's free site, there's a really clear idea of why the paid photos cost something - look at the comparisons in this search, for example (and ignore the odd difference in the numbers of images in the top paid section vs. the bottom - weird) Yes. I think it has been the biggest mistake in iStock's history to price certain content higher just because the photographer is exclusive with them. An isolated apple is not worth more than a dollar, no matter who shot it. And a second big mistake is the lack of clear indication in searches which content is priced higher or lower. Take the (visually) best exclusive images, place them in a separate top row above the other search content and most customers wouldn't have had the problems with all the raises iStock has done in the past. Just the way you mention about upselling from free to paid content is being presented. Right now the choice for customers is "cheap package with all the regular content" and "expensive package with basically twice the same images, just from different people".
394
« on: April 04, 2014, 13:42 »
This theory originates from Susan who has posted world time charts, sales and points where she claims her port is turned off for 12 hours at a time. I don't see, watching the computer as proof, and it could just as well be that they only do processing at certain times, not when the country in question is most active. It's her theory, based on personal observations. I wouldn't even say that this couldn't be true. But then for totally different reasons: There are photographers whose style is just "typical" for a certain region, be it Europe, Asia or North America. Then the search engine would learn "European buyers are not downloading these images" and as a consequence would sort them down. It wouldn't be something personal nor meant to keep someone from earning as much as they could, it would be because buyers in parts of the worlds just don't buy that kind of stuff. There definitely is regionalization of content and search results. It's very hard to manage and master but given how much effort Shutterstock puts into mastering their search engine, I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing it better than other places.
395
« on: April 04, 2014, 13:33 »
No sales at all - Zero - today the slaughter appears to be greater than anticipated, getting ready to go Haha, here we go. You can't seriously draw any conclusions right now. It just can't be that all customers decide to switch to subscriptions within one day. 1) Any reasonable customer will first use up their existing credit package before changing to subscriptions 2) Many customers will stick with credit packages because even $199 is not something many customers will pay just because they need two images 3) iStock has not made a public announcement, not even started any marketing. Most customers will not even have noticed the new subscription model Given all these I would not expect that even something in the range of 1% of downloads made on iStock today would have been through the new subscriptions. Sorry to say but you just have some bad luck on a Friday which always is a bit slow.
396
« on: April 04, 2014, 11:03 »
And your assumption that SS sells images to make money is wrong. They sell subscriptions and other packages - Hoping & Knowing you won't use the entire allotment - that's how they make money. Actually every time someone downloads an image they lose money actually make less money. Ok, that is another way of looking at it and has some "logic" that could be used to come up with ideas... but to achieve that kind of "success" they would have to hide all content that the customer might download, making it impossible to find something matching the customers needs. They don't win by hiding "image1" if the result is a download for "image2". And in the end the overall experience needs to be good enough to make customers renew their subscriptions if possible, right? So I still go with "we don't care which image gets the download, we only care if the customers gets what he wants in the shortest time possible" as the most reasonable goal for any agency and how they structure their search results.
397
« on: April 04, 2014, 10:54 »
The massive chocolate rabbit doesnt make a lot of sense on the small plate. Even if this was a normal image, with that kind of table setting, would probably get a rejection.
The massive chocolate rabbit on the small plate is the whole point of the image. I'd used miniature items to achieve that look. That said, your point is well taken. Evidently I failed to properly communicate the concept in the final image. I do appreciate the feedback.
Yes, I agree, the image looks "odd" like it's badly composed from different images. If you had shot that not isolated but on a table, it might have been accepted. But "floating in space" it just looks like the elements do not really match. Good luck.
398
« on: April 04, 2014, 10:45 »
There has been often speculation about iStockphoto and their searches. Because iStock pays different percentages to different people there is some reasonable explanation why it would happen. Though I never bought into any of those speculation because in the bigger picture it doesn't make sense. The main target of all selling companies is to make customers buy something, and to deliberately keep a product hidden that they might want to buy to "save" money just doesn't make sense.
It makes even less sense for Shutterstock as they don't have different collections and even the difference between the top three of their four earning levels is less than 20%. Saving 5 cents by excluding an image that might otherwise sell would be rather stupid.
399
« on: April 04, 2014, 08:01 »
I have about 800 - 1000 stock photos on all major agencies. My earnings is about of >100 $ / month. The time that I spend for photos is very short because, unfortunately, I must go to a "classic" job that I don't like it to much but the salary is more consistent (600 $). In March, on SS with my 800 images I sold more than 100.
Do you think that it deserve to make only stock pictures and, let say, in 4 -5 month, if I will produce more and more similar images like I did till now, I'll rich my actual incoming from job? I think it's important not to forget that "making money from a job" is not the same as "making money on your own" in several aspects. I don't know the systems in your country but being an independent business usually means you do not only have to consider replacing your employment income but also consider: Taxes, insurance, pension plans, health plans etc. In most countries you would need to earn about 50% more from being self employed than from being employed. You also need to consider that while you have been buying your equipment from "spare money" in the past, you will have to consider this as investments in the future, with the need to refinance each new camera, lens, light, prop and travel from the money you earn. The point here is that as long as you treat stock as a "hobby" on the side of an employment, every cent you earn is "additional income". Once you become a self employed stock contributor, all those "income" turns into "revenue" and you might need to make double the revenue to achieve the same income at the end. Good luck with your decisions.
400
« on: April 04, 2014, 05:58 »
This has happened with isolated images in my past two submissions. I've been cropping them pretty tight with the understanding that customer don't want to pay for a lot of null space. It's a simple thing to add some back and even compose them in accordance with the "Rule of Thirds", if that's what they really want, but it seems a bit silly to do that with images designed to be raw material cut outs for someone else. Has anyone else been getting rejections like these lately? I wonder if you could show us a sample image. Otherwise it would be hard to make any meaningful statement why they might have given you that reason. It's most likely not because they want you to add more white around the actual image.
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