41 downloads in the set so far, after being on sale for three weeks or so.

Despite the negatives, the set is making money.

WHOA!  Let's try to be positive please peeps...

Yes, I agree with all the comments.  Yes, the composition of many of these pictures leaves much to be desired (and I certainly wouldn't want my name associated with them).  Yes, the quality appears to be poor, with stray arms and legs everywhere, bad lighting and even umbrellas and reflectors visible.

BUT (and it's a big BUT)..... at least dotshock has made an EFFORT; he's gained access to a gym, organised six girls to do the modelling, shipped all his lighting kit there, and then spent three hours and countless days trying to produce a professional quality set of truly stock images.  That's a lot of thought and effort, so for that he gets 100% brownie marks.

The set isn't going to sell well, and in due course dotshock will be asking himself all the right questions.

But at least he's TRIED, and from that he'll learn important lessons.

I'm not convinved that there is an increasing 'bias towards exclusives'.  Yes, of course the exclusives are going to get preferential treatment, and they deserve to do so.

The 'disappointments' expressed by Yuri and Lisa and others, with stagnant or declining sales and income, is probably nothing other than 'dilution'.

Istock's library has increased in size by 100% over the past year.  Any photographer who has NOT increased their portfolio by the same percentage will be getting reduced exposure.

Lisa, you say you've increased your portfolio by 50%, so it's axiomatic that your exposure is diluted by 25% which is very close to your reduction in sales.  With 1 million new images being added each year, you are going to have to add 1,000 pictures in the coming year just to 'stand still'.

The same goes for all of us.  Of course it is easier to keep a small portfolio 'ahead of the game', but with a large portfolio it is possible to reach a point where sales and income simply cannot 'grow'.

This dilution effect defines the maximum revenue available to any contributor.

I follow Hidesy's portfolio with interest simply because I have met her and her advice prompted me to start contributing to microstock a year ago; her portfolio has increased from 7,000 images to 10,000 over the last year but her monthly downloads have not improved (and appear to be in decline), so even a black diamond exclusive will hit a ceiling eventually.

This, incidentally, is also probably why Yuri's income has stopped increasing.

Yes, you're right there sharpshot.  At present the 5D appears to be the 'perfect' instrument for microstock in terms of quality and price.

I don't think it makes any sense to go beyond that, unless one wants to contribute to the RM agencies of course which is a different kettle of fish.

I certainly don't think Yuri's strategy of changing to Hasselblad makes any sense at all for microstock.

If Nikon launch a '5D equivalent' I'd buy it immediately, but the prospect of that looks like being a year or more away.

Under iStock's present 'best match' system, a non-exclusive is limited to four pictures in the first 100 results of a search, whereas an exclusive is entitled to eight.

After the first 100 search results both non-exclusives and exclusives have the same 'chance'.

This system gives exclusives 100% more 'exposure' in the first 100 results of any search.

Whether this results in an improvement in sales depends very much on the commercial viability or otherwise of each individual portfolio, which is why some photographers will see an immediate improvement and others will not.

Mark, be careful not to confuse Megapixels with Megabytes.

Same problem here.  Must be a systems thing.

A very good book sharpshot, and worth reading several times.  Sadly I believe he ended up blowing out his brains in a public toilet, which just goes to show that owning a mansion with a 50ft yacht parked outside doesn't necessarily bring happiness.

Ichiro I can assure you that I never make any comments nowadays without thinking things through thoroughly.  And certainly not when it comes to financial markets.

It is a matter of degree and interpretation, as I'm sure you will agree.  YingYang would have us believe that most bear markets are short and sharp.  I suppose it depends on how you define a bear market.  Technicians will tell you that a bear market is a drop of 20% or more.  Others will quote the peak to trough prices.

A different view is 'how long does it take to recover one's losses' and if you study financial history on this basis you will get a different picture.

Imagine that a man has $500,000 in his pension fund in 1969/72 and is looking forward to a comfortable retirement.  By 1975 his fund has fallen to $250,000 ($150,000 if invested in the UK at the time) and his enjoyable retirement is destroyed.  YingYang tells him the bear market has 'ended', but for that man the bear market will only end when he recovers his loss, and that is something completely different.

50c does not buy a dollar.  Only a dollar buys a dollar.

If you examine history on the basis of how long bear markets took to regain previous losses you will see what I mean.  Is the Nasdaq in a bull market from the lows of 2003, or is it still down 60% from the top?  Is the glass still half empty?  It depends on your point of view.

Sharpshot I have not called a top to this market.  Indeed I believe we have a higher peak to come in the period 2010/12 (probably 2012).  But in the final distribution phase of a long bull market the majority of stocks start to fall well before the final peak in the indices.  Not all assets peak at the same time.  It is likely that Banks, Brokers and property have already peaked, but that doesn't mean the indices cannot make new highs.  It does mean that more people are losing money than making money.  What we are seeing now in financial markets is just a hint of bigger problems to come (this is my view, lunacy or not).

Has anyone seen the news that Jim Rogers has left America, sold all his assets and moved to Singapore?  Is he a lunatic?  Or simply one of the most astute money managers of modern times.......

"As time passes your investment dividends will keep multiplying.  By the time you reach your 40's or 50's, you will be financially set for life.

Like I said I don't know what your future plans are, but I've started to invest early.  It's amazing to see an initial $10,000 USD investment grow to over 60 million dollars over 70 years at places like Edward Jones and such."


This is very unlikely.  VERY unlikely.  The US stock market is approaching a peak in a long bull market that started way back in 1906.  All the impressive numbers put out by marketing people are based on a bull market that will NOT be sustained.  The cracks are already showing by the sub prime problems, which are only the tip of the iceberg.

In a long bull market spanning generations, people forget the true realties and live life with their heads buried in sand.

Haven't you noticed the Japanese market?  Peaked in 1990 at 39,000 and now, nearly twenty years later, it is still down at 14,000.  It is not likely to regain that 39,000 peak for at least another twenty years, perhaps longer.

Financial markets can have very long periods of zero or negative returns, and people have forgotten that.  There is a rude awakening coming, and has already started.

Historically, periods of fifty or sixty years of zero returns in stock markets are not uncommon.

I'm not convinced that a 5% reduction in revenue over the last four months is yet a 'trend'.  The last three months have seen a big shift to seasonal images, and as far as I'm aware you don't have those in your portfolio Yuri (except the disco/gig series).

People with a big seasonal emphasis in their portfolios will see a drop in the next three or four months, so their experience will be the opposite.

I agree that subscriptions (at these prices) devalue a photographers work and are not good for the long term.

I don't think Microstock has reached saturation (in fact I think it is still in its infancy), but it is possible for a photographer to reach saturation, as sharply suggests.

I noticed recently that Hidesy (at iStock) has just uploaded her 10,000th image.  A year ago she had 7,000.  But she still seems to be selling about 8/12,000 pictures a month, so although she's increased her portfolio by nearly 50% her sales over the past year appear to have stagnated.  It's possible that as she now uploads new work, her work of four years ago has become 'old' and drops out of the equation.

The same thing might be happening to you Yuri; the whole world is aware of your move to Hassleblad, and buyers 'might' prefer to buy those new images instead of your older ones, so you are 'working to stand still' (but at higher costs).  Sometimes publicity doesn't help the bottom line.

The good thing is that microstock prices are continuing to rise at 20% per annum or more, and I expect that to continue for the next five years, so even if sales remain constant, income should rise.

A photographer of your quality and experience Yuri should be taking on bespoke corporate client projects in the $150,000 and above budget range.

Well everyone has their own opinion, and that's fine.

My opinion, FWIW, is that undercutting prices and then taking 70% isn't 'supporting' Featurepics at all; what it's doing, if anything, is screwing them into the ground.

If people genuinely want to see Featurepics succeed, the only way of doing so is to charge higher prices so that FP gets at least some sort of decent income from each sale.  At lower prices, FP is left with 30% of 'not a lot' and after the costs of web site, technology, servers, wages etc, there is probably nothing left for 'marketing and development'.

Good decision Dan.