my 7 day is 1746/ overall 2813 - aboyt same as has been but sales are lowest in 4 mon

i heartily agree that the foto review is seriouslt flawed --  i'm down to 1-5% from previous 50-70%, all with images SS & dT  sell readily.  i've just  about given up bothering t submit new stuff to FT - mostly i do it while waiting for computer to do some other image processing wrk

steve

i've got about 3500 images in my database now -- i use excel.  my main fil lists each image b date, number, desc and keywords

there are columns for each MS site.  for new images i submit everything to all sites but IS.  and mark the column yellow.  if accepted, that goes to green, if rejected for a technuical reason, i noite that otherwise i just note it wasnt accepted [toosimilar, not stock, etc].  so i have an immediate view of what's been accepted where.

the reason for tracking rejects is that over time, as MS come & go, i need to upl to new sites, and often then resubmit to previous sites if it was something correctable or arbitrary.  i then have other wks that do actual tracking of upl, dl, sales by month, and create ongoing charts, so i always have a quick picture of what's happening.

the only thing i dont have is a tracking of sales by indiv image, because there'
s not a simple way to automate that, and on some sites it's really timeconsuming to get the info.

hard to tell from the image you posted -- is it still sharp at 100%??? looks like some of the white hightlights might be blown -- for me, it 's a great image - well composed & good contrast between the gree n& the b/w -- for first submissions MS sites get really techinical though.

 re image uniquemess, it's not so much whther there are other images of this species but rather of all butterflies in general, since most buyers probably dont care about the particular species.   it doesnt make a lot of sense, so it's just one of the hurdles you need to get past -- you might want try a less well covered area if you can on your first submission.

steve

Right now I spend more cash on gas than I earn.   If you guys take off you costs from your monthly earnings. How much you get? 

It doesn�t matter really, but since everyone seems so obsessed with earnings, you should be equal obsessed with costs

 it helps provide the 15-20 weeks of travel i do every year.  i'd done RM stock since the 70's and started selling digital images in the early 90s - those sources have decreased dramatically and MS is starting to replace them for me. 

it took me 6 mo to break $500 on SS going from 300 - 800 images in my portfolio.  i'll be over 1000 in the next day or so.

my  rate is much lower than $1/image/mo, which i knew going in, since my areas of interest are travel and nature, and i rarely have model releases. 

steve

...
Make sure the image has a clear point of focus, do not crop or resize, shoot at the lowest ISO, avoid heavy shadow or high contrast shifts, and if in photoshop if you need to do anything more than a slight tweek then that image should not be part of a submission

A stock image is often used as a part, a design element, so you are the photographer not the artist in this case, if the designer wants a crop they will do it, do not try to provide the finished shot, think of copyspace and allow some space around the subject, the key is also to keep it simple.....

true, but unfortunately reviewers will reject images that follow every one of your suggestions -- i'm sure we all have images that were accepted by most MS and then rejected by 1 - that argues both for submitting to multiple sites, AND submitting a wide range of quality material, not just your best.


re cropping etc - while it's good in principle, there are reasons to crop -- eg i have many shots of penguins, but you cant see them in thumbnails, so i've cropped a few images that highlight one bird.  often sites take both versions.  by judicious cropping you can make your images stand out during a quick review of thumbnails.

finally, for many sites, esp'ly SS, post processing really helps -- SS and several others really seem to like oversaturated colors -=- just browse the pictures of trees, and l;andscapes and you'll find many colors that never existed.  i've had much better results since discovering this -- eg, i resubmitted a set of golf course images with the greens popped and they were all accepted, while the initial versions weren't.

steve

Of course, if I knew a lot more about html, flash, etc... I would prefer to build my own site from scratch.... but my knowledge is very limited in website construction.  Not to mention...  who has the time.  As it is,   my gallery is still infinitely small here and I have nothing set up for client use yet....   lots of work maintaining your own website/gallery. 

 
of all the recommendations here [lots of good choices tin the above messages], the ONLY solution i would NOT recommend is building from scratch! there's no way an individual could achieve anything like what's already available without spending way too much time.

i've been amazed at the opensource projcts that are avaialble - even more amazing is the support forums for these projects.  you do need some knowledge of web design and programming, but when i installed Gallery 2.0 i had never done any php programming and my javascript was minimal.  Most of the features you add and modify do not require any programming.

steve

down a 20% after 3 month run of bme

SS   36%
IS   11%
DT   20%
FT   12%   bme
BS   11%
123    9%
    

agreed,  over the last month, after about 300 upls of images on multiple other sites, crestock has taken 25, sold 1.

i've tried repeatedly to find out why these were rejected, but only get boilerplate responses, and after having to click on each rejected image individually, you only find other canned and arbitrary messages.

i'll leave what's there for awhile but even with the relatively simple upl porcvess it's a waste of time.

steve

here's a quote from sen leahy's site

What this bill does not do is create a �license to infringe.�  In any of the above instances, if the users do not conduct a good faith search for the copyright owner, those users are in the same boat they are in now when it comes to infringement.  This bill does not change the basic premise of copyright law:  If you use the copyrighted works of others, you must compensate them for it.  As an avid photographer, I understand what it means to devote oneself to creative expression, and I applaud anyone with the talent and commitment to make a living doing so.  Orphan works are too important to our families, our communities, and our culture to go left unseen and unused.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/042408e.html

i quickly read the executive summary of the 127 p copyright office doc  http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf  and it seems in line w leahy's remarks

basically, this law HELPS copyright holders while making it easier for legitimate use of prphaned works -- there is NO mandatory registration req.  and i couldn't find anything to indicate we'd LOSE existing copyrights.

under the new law, a user MUST do  reasonable search -- if they use a work after that, and the actual copyright owner later appears, they are STILL subject to a fine.  what's changed is you can no longer sue for the hundreds of  thousands of dollars [but that was never available without registering in the first place].


the 1976 copyright law was passed in part to bring the US into compliance with the rest of the world under the Berne convention that grants copyright automatically on creation and prohibits mandatory registration.  even the current treaty-hating administration isnt proposing to reject the 1976 law.



Steve

Just my opinion, I do not claim to be a master or even one of the greats. However, I do aspire to be, and I hope that history will remember me in that way.
But I was born an artist. Whatever the medium, from crayon as a child to camera and computer as an adult, I found inspiration in life, and created art.  You can teach someone to have a more artistic eye, give them a little peek into the way you see life around you, show them how things make you feel, but I believe that the greats are born, not made.  That does not mean someone can not learn to be technically correct, to study composition, and to be quite wonderful.
But to shoot a photograph just because you knew that was the way it needed to be shot, because it felt right that way, well, that's a gift that no one can learn.

but of course, we have to take this on FAITH, since it's unfALSIFIABLE - anyone who posts here and says they learned photography is immediately accepted as someone who had an innate [unrecognized ] gift!

art is a CULTURAL artifact, CREATED by society, and LEARNED by its members.  some people are more adept than others in exploiting this meme, and again, it's a mix of nature/nurture, but gimme a break from the 'i waS BORN WITH IT' selfpromotion we're seeing in this thread


steve

..., indeed I had words repeated, in the composed keywords.  I had "white" in "white card", "white person" and simply "white".  But BigStock accepts composed keywords, doesn't it?
 

yep, this looks like a new warning - if you use iptc, then you need to use BOTH composite and single word keywords, since each site has a different policy.  if BigStock starts getting picky, it'll just mean a few more not accepted.  they could easily prohibit duplicates thru software if they reALLY cared - they obviously already are checking FOR dupes.

s

On the other hand, I come from a family of artists, (published and commercial)
Father - artist,
Mother - no so,
daughter one - artist,
daughter two - no so,
daughter three (me) - artist. 

I am talking about the ability to paint, draw, the fine art stuff. The daughter that is not an artist visually takes after the mothers side of the family, where as the two daughter that are artists look like the father side. Coincidence?  I say genes.

Then again...
My husband - musician,
Mother (me) good ear, can't play an instrument to save my life.
Our Son... picked up guitar,(acoustic & electric) piano,trumpet,sax,flute, etc etc, at the age of 14, (self taught) no lessons, no interest before, never picked up an instrument prior, is 16 now and is writing his own lyrics and music, doing solos in front of large audiences, utilizing tracks of the many instruments he plays and making CDs. His talent is natural.

Too much coincidence here - I say genetics. My son was exposed to (and enjoyed) art way more than music.

Regards
Penny

coincidence is unfortunately discounted way too much -- your anecdotal evidence is useful, but not demonstrative, much less conclusive -  were none of these people exposed to music and art as they grew up?  did none of these people take any lessons, do any study to improve on that initial interest?

the nature/nurture debate continues, but it's rare to find any talent/aptitude that can really be ascribed mostly to genes. 

it's especally iteresting t consider something like photography which didnt exist 200 years ago -- what selective pressures could there have  been to select for an aptitude that had no selective advantage?

s

if that were true, why then are all MS agencies so concerned [rightly] about copyright and model releases?   

yes, photog owns the copyright, but the agency has the right to sell the images and they are the seller in this case -- the MS is the one who takes the customers money, and deals with any problems. 

in the US, this can effect your taxes -- royalties like these are treated differently from direct income [eg,  you dont pay social security taxes on royalties].

so, in re piracy, it is both the photographers AND the MS who are responsible

steve