Quote from: gillian on May 22, 2013, 00:00

CEO of Yahoo announces there's no such thing anymore as professional photographers.
oh wow, how is she at qualified to announce this?
and argh, holding such a high global position.

after all she had to leave google because they had no plans to further her career, which in business-speak is a polite way to say they had enough of her BS and told her to find another job elsewhere.

i've no idea either about what she's exactly qualified for.
not a single google product has been launched by her nor she made a name for herself attached to a successful google service and all she's doing at yahoo so far is collecting PR fiascos and alienating her own employess with draconian rules against working from home.

her position is not even high nor global considering how bad Yahoo is performing now compared to the past, by all means it's a small company with no vision and no solid business model, all mouth and no trousers.

why not allowing Flickrs to sell their images as stock for instance, what about prints and upsells for everybody, wow there would be soooo many ways to monetize Flickr but they dont ! and now they've even removed the Pro accounts because they think advertising is where the money is ... Flickr as a gigantic "google images" with ads sticked all over the place and pages that take forever to load.

all i can read around is an army of angry Flickrs leaving in droves and same for the Tumblrs moving to wordpress and rightly so.

and i fell Yahoo's grand plan is just started, they could pretty much buy the NYT now that they've set up offices in their building or even CNN or the whole AOL or who knows, they're in full frenzy now and drinking champagne and this smells of web 2.0 bubble from a mile away.

Got you!

There never was any such thing as a professional photographer. To be a profession there would have to be a regulatory body that governed entrance into the business and ensured standards of proficiency (and behaviour) were met by practitioners.

I don't know of anywhere in the world where you have to be licensed by a professional association before you are allowed to practise photography.

True indeed. The closest thing was the AFAEP in England. Association of fashion and editorial photographers where you had to send in proof of dozens of assignments to become a member. It was never a type of registration or certificate for professionals though.

Quote from: falstafff on May 21, 2013, 23:47

Another quite worrying thought. Maybe Yuri have heard or know something about the future of SS that we do not know?  visiting their own forum its quite clear something is not right and have not been for many months. Many people are truly unhappy.

Its also very true as one poster points out. Many of these prominent members and special portfolios have been looking in to exclusivity for some years now but probably halted by the ongoing IS-Getty troubles. You do not have to go to the heights of Yuri to see this brewing its just enough to watch some other smaller stock-suppliers move and break away.

And SS is still dealing with an influx of ex- IS exclusives. So what does that say?

It all balances each other out in the end. The only thing that happened is that there is a tiny shuffle in the two libraries. I know Sean doenst want to sell his stuff for cents, but he should go talk to SS to get his portfolio on there. Complete the circle that started back in February.

With his experience why should he trust SS more then IS or any other for that matter?  for all you know you might be asking him for a jump out of the frying pan into the fire.
Life in our world is not so green anymore. Nowhere.

Well there isnt really. Unless you turn to the world of  commissioned photography. I do not think uploading to micros or other stock sources counts as being true pro photography.

Quote from: Poncke v2 on May 21, 2013, 06:19

Quote from: sharpshot on May 21, 2013, 06:10

I don't get how Yuri was feeling the pinch earning millions a year?  He was doing great, unless he made it all up for that magazine article recently?  This is just a way for him to make even more money.  That's his choice, I'm sure we all have a price to sell out to Getty

LOL, he is staffing 100 people. He said himself micros where not enough compensation for the overhead he has on the books. Its somewhere on page 1-3 of this thread.

In that article, Yuri was talking about how much he makes in profit, not turnover.  I can't remember exactly what it was, I think he was saying several million.  That's with all the overheads, he could cut them whenever he wanted but I don't think he's doing this just for the money.  I think he wants to see how big he can grow the business and a big cash injection from Getty will help.  I can't think of any other reason why he would want to stick all his eggs in one basket.

Dollars!

Quote from: SNP on May 20, 2013, 20:22

Offset is interesting, and has a more editorial feel than what is being discussed. I don't see it being high end or even stock photography primarily. Shutterstock is an intriguing company. It's the one agency I'm really on the fence about. I have argued myself onto both sides. The price per download is so little that it really does feel like an insult when you've been 'raised' in another agency. But, there are a lot of really good shooters out there who make great money on Shutterstock. They have good contributor relations, reaching out by phone and email. I also like what I know of Jon Oringer. But it's not like that matters, except that he is a photographer first and still runs the company. Right now my 500 or so images are all opted out. I'm reluctant to completely close my account at SS though until I've made a concrete decision about whether it's worth it or not. If I do continue to contribute to SS, it will probably be the only sub site I contribute to (other than iStock).

anyways, I heard from someone with more experience with SS. they have me rethinking the decision to stay on SS.

Am I correct that Shutterstock doesn't farm images out like istock does to programs and subsidiary sites? Or do they?

You don't have to put everything on all the sites.
As Gostwyck has said many times, Micro is all about quick and easy files that can sell in large quantities, and this is especially true for sub sites.
Anything that's been time consuming or expensive to produce can go elsewhere.

Sometimes I find conversations a bit funny. Seems to me many consider it weird and strange almost Bizarre to spend time and money on a shoot. Why is that? "micro is all about quick and easy files selling in large quantities". Sure it is but its also a sad fact that its come to that. Scraping the bottom of the barrel that is.

If thats all we can produce no wonder we get crappy buyers for crappy pics. Thats really what we are saying or thinking is it not.

Quote from: falstafff on May 19, 2013, 17:11

Yuri has gone with IS. The Getty corporation looks after IS and pretty much do what they want. Their global turnover makes all the rest including SS seem poor and microscopic.
Well Yuris decision do not seem such a bad deal to me. He has chosen to go with size and money. Had I been given the choice I would probably go the same way. Getty have a proven track history of 25 years, never mind investors and morals on this one. They still have 25 years on the neck. The micro industry has what? nine or ten years? to me that would not be enough.
Thats  me though I am sure the majority here have other thoughts.

No they don't make look others poor, because they are shrinking, loosing against the competition. If this wasn't the case why did they bother buying istock, and squeezing contributors? Anyway, even if that was the situation, it was the same years and years ago, so why wasn't Yuri wit them already?

Its just a figure of speech. On a global scale they can easily afford to lose lets say a billion. Oh it would hurt!  but if lets say SS or another lost a billion.  That would be the end of story.
I am certainly not some sort of a Getty protector, not siding with any of these agencies actually. I think they are just as good or bad  whatever.

Yuri has gone with IS. The Getty corporation looks after IS and pretty much do what they want. Their global turnover makes all the rest including SS seem poor and microscopic.
Well Yuris decision do not seem such a bad deal to me. He has chosen to go with size and money. Had I been given the choice I would probably go the same way. Getty have a proven track history of 25 years, never mind investors and morals on this one. They still have 25 years on the neck. The micro industry has what? nine or ten years? to me that would not be enough.
Thats  me though I am sure the majority here have other thoughts.

Whatever they are doing there or perhaps not doing. They must have done at least something right. Last two weeks have showed an almost 80% increase in income and my portfolio there is by no means a biggie, some 2600 images. I am not complaining.

That sounds good. All I can say then is what someone in their own forum said. Certain portfolios or counties have been singled out to take down period and then it rotates back. Perhaps?

Might as well just leave it and plod on as usual.

Whatever the PP have gone up to. Must say they are doing really well and increasing.

Its like I am seeing Gostwyck write those comments but then the name is different.

Yes I remember him and a few other really staunch die hard SS supporters. Its gone all quiet now. Deflated actually. To be honest. I earn quite a bit from SS, well over a thousand dollars a month but when we finally get a long awaited answer from the SS administration telling us that we are victims of some sort of experimentation or whatever. How can one possibly support that.