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Messages - gostwyck
4751
« on: August 04, 2009, 21:38 »
LOLS __ you two guys really need to get yourselves a life (at least one between you anyway!).
Try to visualise for yourselves a life free of exotic substances and that anal fixation you both seem so obsessed with (always thought it a bit weird that Puravida had the image of a male actor as his avatar).
4752
« on: August 04, 2009, 21:06 »
I'm actually starting to get annoyed at this weird language a few here are starting to speak in.
It happens when people drink/smoke/inject more than they can handle. I assume it's why they both change their forum names every few days too, must loss of memory or embarrassment when they sober up. Puravida/Perusus/whatever, etc has obviously also forgotten how many times he's asked for help on these boards and then thanked everyone for their advice.
4753
« on: August 04, 2009, 18:35 »
------------------------ THE END ------------------------
Starring: - Lisas4 as ... 'The Educator' and 'Big Money Photographer'
This is an entirely fictional account. Any resemblance to a real life person, living or dead, is entirely co-incidental
4754
« on: August 04, 2009, 17:16 »
Just run some numbers yuorself instead of getting all emotional. If he doesnt do it at work, he has do to it off work. Security guards have 8 to 12 hour shifts. 4 hours preparation and uploading/ day , shooting, family life, normal life, 8 hours sleep, mmm, how many hoours does a day have? Sounds not enjoyable to me.
That's why he's only got 1100-odd images on-line (his IS ones are fewer because of the higher rejection rate) after 4 years of endeavour. Most microstock full-timers are producing 100-200 new images per month, probably with an 85-99% acceptance rate depending on agency. Lisa __ it's obvious you know absolutely nothing about our industry. Your half-soaked observations and whimsical nonsense calculations are completely wide of the mark. You are wasting your time and ours because you don't know anything about the subject.
4755
« on: August 04, 2009, 16:10 »
I ask you guys and girls please think abouot it, : whats bad with making big money? What is bad with that?
Isn't it rather true, if the market is changed, so I can make big money, that all of you will make big money as well. Wouldn't this be great.
Or a bit more realistic expressed, would this be a step in a good direction?
There are plenty of examples out there in the world how to archive this. If there is a overproduction of Oranges, the ones that are to many get eliminated. Because putting them on the market would destroy a market and that doesn't help anybody.
The price would go down and medium and small producers will go bankrupt. The big ones that are well diversifyed will suvife and controle the market afterward, to compensate their losses they.....
You seem to be harping back to the 'closed shop' days when the few lucky ones made big money and everybody else got nothing. Now we have a true meritocracy and there many microstockers making 'big money' and lots of others making good money. If your photography skills mean you cannot compete in the market then maybe you'll be the one going bust. Maybe you could start growing oranges instead if you think that is a fairer market?
4756
« on: August 04, 2009, 14:33 »
2. The image was not bought from a microstock site. It was taken from the online portfolio of samples, on my website.
Well surely, on your website, there must words to the effect that you own the copyright, etc? Maybe they thought your 'samples' were free to use as that term implies.
4757
« on: August 04, 2009, 14:07 »
I guess you could direct him to the page on IS (or wherever) which indicates that you are the copyright holder.
Surely his designer must have bought a license already (although I believe should be an EL for use as a logo)?
4758
« on: August 04, 2009, 10:26 »
Excellent!
4759
« on: August 04, 2009, 04:34 »
I'm still uploading there but the site is seriously flawed in several ways, mainly due to the abuse of a few contributors.
There was the issue of some contributors having worked out how to bump their images up the sort order. That was known about by Admin months ago and is supposed to have been corrected but I don't think it has been. There appears to be a huge element of luck in how images perform at StockXpert due to the default sort-order algorithm. The vast majority of my sales at StockXpert come from an absurdly small proportion of my portfolio and most of my best-sellers there are fairly ordinary images which don't do particularly well elsewhere.
Yesterday I was researching how many views my recently uploaded images had had by doing a few searches and sorting them by "Date, descending". I noticed that one particular contributor had somehow managed to upload (and had approved) about 300 images from the same series of a couple of pizzas __ basically their entire allowance of 25-images-per day for 11 consecutive days! Obviously this has just shoved all the images approved before them so far down the search order that they are unlikely to be seen again. Just search for 'pizza chilli' to view them yourselves. IMHO this is crazy and is detrimental both to buyers and other contributors.
Is anybody actually taking charge of StockXpert? It just seems to be drifting along like a latter-day Marie Celeste.
4760
« on: August 04, 2009, 03:41 »
Yeas, lets extend this sceme from Photographer slavery to Model slavery.
Illustrater will have to work now also for charity.
Cheers, lisa
you are rediculous and childish [/quote] If anyone is being ridiculous and childish Lisa it is you. You need to do some research before wading into a subject of which you clearly know very little.
4761
« on: August 04, 2009, 02:54 »
I have had a huge surge of subs so far this month at Dt. My RPD is 1.14 compared to nearly 1.60 last month and a high of over 1.90 one month.
With the increase in Levels (and sort order placement I think) just consider those sub sales to be money in the bank for later. My RPD for this month is running at $1.72 but that will change as the month progresses.
4762
« on: August 03, 2009, 16:02 »
Steady as she goes for me too. I was up a bit from June and, most importantly, up 28% from July 2008. RPD for July was $1.48 over 300-odd sales (helped a bit by a couple of EL's).
4763
« on: August 03, 2009, 06:48 »
Yes, the change has been hugely significant for me.
In terms of credits earned I peaked in February with an average sale price of 1.22 credits. Since then my sales have risen most months but credits earned have slowly reduced.
Last month (July) I actually had my best month for images sold but at an average sale price of 0.77 credits per sale. It appears to be getting steadily worse too __ so far this month I'm on an average sale price of just 0.63 credits per sale. That's a drop of nearly 50% in 5 months.
4764
« on: August 01, 2009, 16:16 »
Yes, thanks for that Laflor, great post. I think I made most of those elementary mistakes the first time I paid a model!
4765
« on: July 31, 2009, 21:58 »
Hey Gostwyck,
Thanks for the info on the shelf life of your images holding steady on their second year. I don't have that kind of data yet and I am happy to here you say that.
Cheers,
Jonathan
You're welcome. I was quite surprised too. The way prices have been rising in microstock have rendered older data useless in that regard. It seems to me that older images, with most agencies, if they sell infrequently but consistently, have a way of creeping slowly up the sort-order rankings.
4766
« on: July 31, 2009, 21:51 »
Always the last resort of someone with no real argument. It's a conspiracy! There's hidden agendas!
Exactly. I believe the technical definition is "full of *".
4767
« on: July 31, 2009, 21:18 »
Thank you. Much of the value of an image has to do with its use. That pricing model, rights managed, has been under assault for some time now with the move from rights managed to royalty free. I believe it is to the detriment of the clients as well. Microstock images are frequently misused, and the loving couple at the beach can as easily be used to market condoms or a medication for STDs ... and imagine how the owner of the beach resort who used it to market his resort feels when flipping through a magazine and sees the SAME image used to sell STD drugs? Or to see the same image used to promote a competing resort? When downloads in the thousands are required to profit on a microstock image, the probability of it is great. I am a bit surprised more image buyers are not staying with Rights Managed models so they can "know where there image has been." After all the images they use to market themselves are the image by which their customers will percieve them... as well as any other associations with that same image.
Sooooo ... you still avoid the all questions. How much are your images worth (in your own tiny mind)? How much did your mountain shoot cost you? What do you think they should be sold for? Why are you trying (unsuccessfully) to sell them 'for 14c' if you think they are worth 'much more'. Why won't you actually give a direct answer to any questions?
4768
« on: July 31, 2009, 20:18 »
When you answer my questions then I'll answer yours.
4769
« on: July 31, 2009, 19:15 »
You might find this article enlightening. You seem to be lacking information on what photography is worth to those using the images. You will also find other good articles on this site regarding how to determine things such as calculating your cost of doing business....
http://editorialphoto.com/resources/value_of_photography.asp
You can choose to raise your standards of what you are worth, or try to pull everyone else down with you. It is up to you. Not a game I will play and I do speak out against injustice.
Oh for f**cks sake. Stop side-stepping the issue __ that link is about editorial images, nothing at all to do with general stock. I'll ask again. What did that shoot cost you and how much should you be paid for them? (And being as you seem to like shouting to make your point) HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK YOUR IMAGES ARE WORTH? Why don't you just answer the question honestly if you want to 'speak out against injustice'. What a pathetic cliche. I love the smell of burning martyr in the morning. EITHER PUT UP OR SHUT UP.
4770
« on: July 31, 2009, 18:39 »
THEY STILL AREN'T SELLING FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH! THAT IS THE POINT. Again, I'm sorry you consider the worth of your work and yourself worth so little. I honestly cannot understand why you would defend your right to get screwed. Can you? ?
What are your images worth Mark? How much did that shoot on the mountain cost you in time/money and how much should they be sold for?
4771
« on: July 31, 2009, 18:21 »
All I am trying to do here is get a few people to open their eyes. How many of you honestly believe your work is only worth a quarter or so? How many of you think those downloading your work for peanut SHELLS are then willing to turn around and price their work the same?
OPEN YOUR EYES FOLKS. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU ARE WORTH THAT LITTLE? This post isn't about how great my image is. Not at all. It is to illustrate the point that for sums of money that do not really justify a hobbiest spending the time to keyword the photos, microstock is demanding professional quality. This is having a dampening effect on the entire industry, it needs to be addressed.
I'm going to have to let you in on a little secret Mark .... sometimes microstock images actually sell more than once and the average commission is actually many times higher than you are suggesting. It is about time that you opened your eyes to reality rather than trying to overstate your case with misleading figures.
4772
« on: July 31, 2009, 18:10 »
See my earlier post, these guys are finding it less than a picnic now too... $40,000 to produce 2000 new images in three months and have NO INCREASE in sales is not exactly the right direction!
Yuri knows he went a bit over the top on his production costs on that one. I think he just assumed that his sales graph would just keep growing upwards at the same rate forever but of course it doesn't quite work like that. He also once paid someone $2000 to drive around for some weeks as a 'location scout' and the guy didn't actually find anywhere suitable. Yuri loves spending money and, fortunately for him, he can afford to do so. Most of us have to be much more careful. Microstock is about efficiency in every area __ production costs, time, equipment, everything. Funnily enough most other industries that operate in a competitive marketplace are like that too. Your general whine about microstock is not an unusual one from people that have been earning a living from photography for some time. I get the impression that you/they think that they should be able to spend whatever they feel like on a shoot, as if it were of no consequence, and the buyers should be forced to pay enough to cover those costs and a hefty margin on top. That would be nice but it's not necessarily going to happen in a world where the buyer has choices and there are many other photographers. I could do a shoot like yours for no more than $100 and it would take about a day including post-processing. If you happened to live close to suitable terrain and had a willing partner or buddy to model then it would cost virtually nothing other than time. Hopefully I'd get 10 or 20 images out of it and even on microstock I'd expect them to make a few $100's over the next year or two. Each month I analyse how much the images I uploaded one year and two years earlier have earned. It is surprisingly high and, contrary to popular opinion, the second year's earnings very closely match the first year. Like everything microstock is going to be whatever you want to make of it. As far as I'm concerned if I keep control of my costs then it pays pretty well and gives me a lot of freedom.
4773
« on: July 31, 2009, 16:22 »
I do know some guys are making extremely good money at microstock... Well ... look and learn from them and you'll be making good money too. Simples.
4774
« on: July 31, 2009, 16:10 »
The concept and composition of the image is good but, for my money, not particularly well executed. The image is exposed for the sky leaving the subject and the foreground somewhat underexposed. A fill-in flash would probably have helped quite a bit.
If it had been a landscape view (or at least if the subject had below the skyline) then the use of a graduated ND or double exposure would have been needed to cope with the contrast between the sky and the mountains.
Your website portfolio has some great stuff so I'm surprised you can't see the significant flaws in that shot. Jonathon is right about the glasses and a smile would have been better too __ microstock is largely about brightly coloured happy images. I'd have considered that image 'borderline' and expected some agencies to accept it and others to reject it.
You keep banging on about '14c' but I'm with 7 agencies and none of them sell for that low. I average just a bit under $1 per sale.
4775
« on: July 31, 2009, 10:17 »
I, on the other hand, expected such crap from that member. He's obviously anti-iStock exclusivity. But note, when I took him to math school in another post after he incorrectly computed what I said, he shut up and did not post again in that thread for whatever reason.
You didn't take anyone to 'math school' you numpty. I didn't reply to your pitiful drivel as you are too thick to bother with.
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