Quote from: Anita Potter on September 26, 2011, 18:58

This place is like crack and I need my daily fix 

I haven't tried crack but I'll take your word for it.

lol

My mistake, I thought we included our login for the gauge thingy, but I just checked and it is username only. In any case, great work getting msg back up so fast, cheers

best match is all over the place, as always. last week I had two BDE, then yesterday and today sales are slow, for me anyways. I think the only thing consistent these days about sales on iStock, is that they aren't consistent. each month finishes okay to good on the whole so that's the number I'm keeping an eye on. the daily stats are enough to drive you crazy.

I'd sell.  45,000 in my hand would be too tempting to me against the possibility of maybe making more and maybe not.  

+1

Quote from: SNP on September 22, 2011, 18:29

...but it's enough of a possibility to worry me in an already saturated industry.

Think about the numbers. Even if all 15 'students' were to able to produce a massive 1000 new images per month each, for all of the supposed 36 months of the exercise, it would still only amount to about 500K in total. That's not much in the greater scheme of things over 3 years. How much would that all cost in terms of models, sets, etc? Far more realistic would be 100 new images per month per student in which case it is only 50K images over 3 years. That's no real threat at all unless they happen to compete directly with your own subject matter.

maybe.

I wouldn't scoff too much at the "no photography experience required" bit...just go back four or five years and look at the earliest files from some of the biggest microstock shooters. people can and do learn very quickly.

I'm thinking this can only be bad for all of us

yeah, "brick wall" produces weird results..."money" produces good results....though I notice the minority of V/A files in many of my searches by best match. interesting.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 22, 2011, 08:04

Someone once told me that hookers make great models. Lots of acting experience, turn up on time and do exactly what they are told.

True enough __ it seems to have worked for Gauguin and Van Gogh anway. The Pigalle area of Paris was full of 'models' back then.

lol. if we see anyone missing an ear, we'll know they took your advice ;-)

so this is the big Nikon fall announcement? that's a major disappointment.

The only "editorial" worth doing is street scenes - or generic events like a Highland Games which represent something more than just the people pictured. Neither celebrities nor news events have any microstock value, the former because their agent will gladly flood publishers with free pictures, the latter because any window for sales is probably already shut before it's online. Shooting major sports events could easily lose you money because last month's football match is already ancient history and fans have already posted another two hundred pictures of the same teams since then. If your overall rank is affected by the average sales per image, then 1,000 easy-to-get editorial non-sellers sitting in your portfolio might push all the rest of your portfolio down a page in the search. I've disabled almost all my DT editorial because of that.

I've all but stopped uploading editorial (temporarily, maybe not) on iStock....not sure what I'm planning on doing, I'm just not worrying about it right now and trying to get back to the creative content I also really enjoy producing. I'll still shoot editorial for me and for other agencies where I'm selling as RM. but I don't see an exciting future for iStock editorial contributors.

I'm not fueling anything. and I stand by my comments. but you're entitled to your opinion. cheers.

Quote from: SNP on September 19, 2011, 17:29

years ago I probably would have argued that iStock doesn't do special deals with hand-picked contributors. but then I saw the speed with which contributor Elena Vizerskaya was brought in, downloaded, made exclusive and boom--all in a very orchestrated fashion.....I love her work, that is beside the point. and theoretically I don't have any problem with superstar contributors being brought in to boost traffic etc.

So you didn't believe istock had special deals with contributors until Elena Vizerskaya turned up and rose quickly? Yeah, right.

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone referring to "questions and concerns within the community" about her and her career at istock. But there seems to have been loads of "rumbling" about her where you've been since she became an outstandingly successful contributor within a very short time (or rather "brought in" and "made exclusive" in a "very orchestrated fashion").

You've suggested multiple times in this thread that she is getting some kind of special treatment, of course without forgetting to mention often enough that her work is excellent. This is exactly how nasty rumours about people start to spread, and I'm sure you're aware of how inappropriate it is to act like that against a fellow contributor. Yeah: "kindness is a wonderful thing".

I don't want to get caught up sniping at one another, so let me request that you go back and read my comments. within every comment I clearly state how good I find her work to be. and since I don't know who you are, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you weren't in the forums on istock when this came about. there was indeed a lot of commenting on this. you may also note in my first post that I stated I don't theoretically have a problem with bringing in superstars and promoting them as part of our collection. what I do have a problem with is preferential treatment and selective bending on rules. and FWIW, I don't blame those who benefit from the rules being bent. I blame the agency for operating using double standards.

@Sean: your post surprised me. do you really feel iStock's rules are the rules? I don't anymore. the rules are less than consistent these days.

Interesting thread and topic... Ive had pretty bad sales for September, quite unusual and I think Ive pinpointed the cause:

 (Bad Karma)^2 [(Microstock Model) (Bruce Leaving) (Getty)] + (Higher Prices)(Economic Crisis)
_________________________________________________________________________________ = iStock '11

                         [(Bad Word Of Mouth)  (Best Match) ^3] - (Redeemed Credit System) ^2

nice, I love it :-)