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Messages - bunhill
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526
« on: June 25, 2014, 08:26 »
I'm still for no anonymous accounts and let that be a way that self moderation will work. If you have a grudge against an agency, find somewhere less reputable and less interested in working and earnings. I'd be just fine if all the attacks and accusations towards agencies were gone. Someone start an anonymous forum and let this one be for intelligent conversations about some more like a prefessional business attitude.
It's the quality and expression of an opinion which matters. Not whether a person is anonymous or not. Much of the spitefulness, ranting and negativity tends to be from people who are not anonymous. Three things would improve the forum IMO: 1. Get rid of negative voting. 2. A word limit - to discourage random essays and to encourage better writing. 3. Limit the number of posts in order to encourage relevance.
527
« on: June 20, 2014, 10:10 »
Counting iS exclusive as midstock, my port is hugely underperforming compared to the suggested figures.
FWIW - my average sale price this year is appx $10. Although I do not especially believe that this is a meaningful number. I might have only sold 1 picture.
528
« on: June 20, 2014, 08:36 »
Exclusive contributors to iStock should consider their sales in the Midstock category.
I thought Midstock was just a made up term to describe microstock with higher prices. Does it really exist in any formal capacity?
The way you have quoted that it looks like I wrote it. I didn't. If you read his site he defines his use of the terms. I think his definition of midstock goes back to the piece in which he was extrapolating iStock sales from assumptions derived from credit agency report about Getty corporate funding.
529
« on: June 20, 2014, 05:33 »
Exclusive contributors to iStock should consider their sales in the Midstock category. Non-exclusive contributors would fall into the Microstock category. In general I consider gross license fees that range from $1 to $20 for the largest file size to be Microstock and prices that range from $10 for the smallest size to $250 for the largest to be Midstock.
iStock Exclusive sales include both 'microstock' and 'midstock' prices. But you seem to be saying that iStock Exclusives should put all of their sales in the 'midstock' category. The potential (likely IMO) would be to underestimate the average 'midstock' price.
530
« on: June 20, 2014, 05:20 »
In general, prices and revenue have been declining in the stock photo industry. To a large extent this has been due to oversupply and more and more customers finding the images they need at lower price points.
The first sentence needs qualification. ie whose revenue, measured how and between which specific dates ? The second sentence assumes that the first sentence is correct and then makes then makes 2 further unqualified assumptions. These two sentences alone address 4 main questions for which the answers are not known: Q: Have prices been declining ? A: Over what period of time ? There is no comprehensive data detailing actual sales prices achieved across the whole market. Q: Has photographer revenue been declining ? A: Over what period of time ?There is no comprehensive data. Total photographer revenue ? Per photographer ? Who ? Q: Has agency revenue been declining ? A: At some yes. At others it has been increasing. But there is no comprehensive data. Over what period of time ? Q: Has total industry revenue been increasing ? A: We can only guess. There is no comprehensive data. Over what period of time ? I doubt that this survey will produce enough responses to draw any useful conclusions.
531
« on: June 19, 2014, 06:26 »
I click on Stocksy and get Istock.
parapraxis
532
« on: June 19, 2014, 06:15 »
Curious, that already looks like 16 to me (accepting that youth and old age are subsets of age)
If you read down the log you will see that I revised that list. This was as close as I could get for now: Freedom & Individuality Style, Grace & Beauty Success Health Purity Complexity & Simplicity Progress Trust Quality Power What would your list comprise ? The way I currently see this: there are the concepts which advertisers sell. These I think are always positives. I think that these are what the 10 would be all about. So my 10 (or 14 if you want) would be about trying to approach the subject headings. I am sure that you can see that where I have more than one concept on a line it is because I have not been able to reduce those elements to their lowest common denominator. And then there are narrative concepts - e.g. the themes around which a story is told. Eg - love, friendship, fear, anger, frustration, wealth, happiness, communication, growth, family, journey, the environment etc etc. This list would be much longer. But I am going to guess that it would still reduce to maybe 20. Whether or not we agree with Jonathan Klein it must be clear that this is an interesting, positive and useful thinking process.
533
« on: June 19, 2014, 01:46 »
he's standing in front of a roomful of people whose only job is to come up with ideas, and he's telling them (not to diminish advertising, of course) that there are only 10 ideas in the entire world
No he isn't. You've misunderstood what he is saying.
534
« on: June 18, 2014, 19:04 »
Yes fear gets you attention. That's what I mean about it being the narrative. It's the story. It's a powerful narrative.
But it is very clearly not what you are selling. What you are selling is a concept of trust.
535
« on: June 18, 2014, 18:47 »
Tell that to people who need to advertise life insurance, cars with air bags, and funeral homes.  Having worked on a couple of life insurance accounts, I can assure you we want to sell death...or the fear of death...
I do not believe that you are selling death in this scenario. Or fear. Fear and death in this context are narrative scenarios. What you are selling is trust in the product. I believe that in all cases the sell is a positive. The narrative may be a negative.
536
« on: June 18, 2014, 17:47 »
I think that whilst the narrative can be a negative the sell is always a positive. Here is my final 10. But that might change.
Freedom & Individuality
Style, Grace & Beauty
Success
Health
Purity
Complexity & Simplicity
Progress
Trust
Quality
Power
537
« on: June 18, 2014, 17:32 »
Here are 10 off the top of my head. But at least 3 I think could be further reduced and all of the headings could be better defined.
Freedom & Individuality
Style, Grace & Beauty
Success / Failure
Health
Complexity & Simplicity & Purity
Progress
Age - youth and old age
Quality
Power
Sex
Fear?
Anger?
Life?
Death?
Love?
Optimism/Pessimism?
Faith?
I was really hoping you had the definitive list, because Google as I might I can find no reference to the Hegarty quote or even reference to any quote that boils down all ideas or concepts to a list of ten.
I don't have a definitive list. But isn't that what this conversation should usefully be about. Remember that this is not about coming up with all narrative scenarios. It's about the key concepts which an advertiser might try to communicate as a sell. I reckon 10 is too many. Ironically I do think that sustainability should be on the list. But I think it probably comes under some other broader heading. And I cannot imagine any advertiser wanting to communicate a message of death per se. Anger, death, fear etc are not messages IMO - rather, they are narratives. For example an advertiser does not want to communicate death as a message. It's going to be used in a narrative about some other concept. Ditto fear, love, anger, frustration etc etc. Eta: I suggested age - but that isn't a selling point either. It's a story. But I think trust should be on the list. I think advertisers sell trust.
538
« on: June 18, 2014, 16:59 »
Here are 10 off the top of my head. But at least 3 I think could be further reduced and all of the headings could be better defined.
Freedom & Individuality
Style, Grace & Beauty
Success / Failure
Health
Complexity & Simplicity & Purity
Progress
Age - youth and old age
Quality
Power
Sex
539
« on: June 18, 2014, 16:17 »
Then why don't you discuss the intellectual merit of what he said, rather than taking umbrage at us taking umbrage?
Ok. As an adverting creative, in what ways do you disagree him about it being possible to normalize the concepts down to, say, 10 key messages / themes ? And why do you find that insulting ? (10 seems a lot already. I think I can get to maybe 6 off the top of my head).
540
« on: June 18, 2014, 15:35 »
Maybe they weren't image creators?
Everyone is an image creator today.
541
« on: June 18, 2014, 14:59 »
Well, I went back and suffered through the entire video, watching from the POV of an advertising creative, and I can't count the number of ways he insulted his audience (advertising creatives). From insisting everyone in the world communicates through images while writers making up half the creative department, to his statement that there are only ten concepts (really? What are they?), to telling advertising people at Cannes, who represent the most creative in the industry, that they need to go beyond cliches, to thinking photographers are more interested in having the glory of their work being published while payment is an afterthought...all I can say is wow.
Thanks for summing up so well.
IMO Shelma is choosing to interpret the talk in such a way so as to take umbrage. As are several other posters. I am quite certain that the audience did not view this with such negativity. It's really disappointing that the intellectual merit of what was said is not being debated here. IIRC John Hegarty made a similar point in Creative Review in the late 80s about concepts reducing or normalizing to fewer than 10. I think he said 8 but I cannot find the quote at the moment.
542
« on: June 18, 2014, 13:49 »
But then when he talks about "crowd sourcing" it is clear he doesn't get it. What makes you say that ? What does he say specifically which makes it clear that he doesn't get it ? What is there to get anyhow ? Doesn't everyone get it ? ETA: I mean "didn't" of course. A decade ago. It's no longer news. He shows really famous images that have earned a lot of money, but he doesn't know the name of the artists. The name of the artist is in big letters up the side of the image on the projection screen. Besides which the name of the artist is not relevant in the context of the point being addressed. He belittles "cliches" without appreciating the very hard work that goes into creating them. I don't believe that he belittles the clichs. I think he just acknowledges that there are clichs. That seems fair enough to me. There are clichs in editorial photography too. We are all sick of clichs. ETA: I mean, who does he think will be the artists that will shoot the "authentic" images that he is looking for now? The random hobby amateur sending holiday snapshots or the sucessful "cliche" artist that has been earning thousands of dollars a month? "Authentic" is just a style. The people that know how to communicate visually will shoot any style, as long as it brings in the money. As is pointed out in the blog post I linked to above, very soon all images uploaded to the internet are likely to be available for some form of licensing. -- I cannot help but think that sometimes people are outraged about everything to do with Getty, no matter. Well that's fair enough. But IMO the positive person's takeaway from something like this would be around looking for the useful information. For example - he said, slightly polemically, that there are only 10 concepts which matter. Isn't that interesting and worth discussing ?
543
« on: June 18, 2014, 07:29 »
I can't even bear to click on the video to hear what Klein has to say. Ugh.
To be fair though - he always speaks very well and it's a good talk. Even if you disagree with him it is interesting to understand the message he is communicating. Somewhat related to this talk, there is an interesting new post at the Thoughts of a Bohemian blog entitled The New Photo Agencies. One of the points made is that sooner or later all online photos are going to be available for licensing in some form or another. the barriers between pros and casual photographers are going to completely vanish ( they already are being erased) because for the first time, all images will be available for licensing in one way or the other. That's absolutely correct IMO. Much of that content is already free. That's the competition.
544
« on: June 16, 2014, 12:49 »
Getty Drops Placement Fees For RM Photographers Choice
?
yes that was announced a while back.
I've not seen this anywhere aside from your link. The Getty site still states a $50 fee:
My link not his/hers. No connection. I have not seen it anywhere else either. Hence my question mark. I wondered whether anyone else could add anything useful. Light as opposed to heat, as people used to say.
545
« on: June 16, 2014, 06:03 »
546
« on: June 16, 2014, 05:30 »
it seems that particular ship has sailed:
Current submission ends 1st July and is here. Good luck to anyone submitting. I agree that competition is a strange word. But who really cares ? In reality it is a competition to get work seen anywhere. Also - this seems, in theory at least, to more or less replace the old Flickr pool system - without the need to have to bother with Flickr. It seems to me that whilst it is called a competition - in practice it is exactly like a set of submission dates after which potential content will get looked at.
547
« on: June 15, 2014, 08:30 »
Thanks for the heads up on this piece of crap company! Heck, DPC is looking mighty fine compared to this company!
What percentage of the final price is reasonable on a tee shirt or mug sale ? What percentage of the final sale price do you get if someone buys your image at Shutterstock and prints it on a mug or tee shirt for sale ?
548
« on: June 14, 2014, 14:39 »
image quality should have some rewards, beyond subs. Hey wait, didn't SS add OD, Single Sales and other ways for buyers to pay more, without having a subscription. And those pay us more?
Do those ways of paying more depend upon the quality of an image ? Isn't all content at SS in the same priced pool - no matter its quality, rarity or the cost of production ?
549
« on: June 14, 2014, 04:21 »
Can anybody explain the appeal of an image like that?
I can explain that image. Its a contemporary and impressionistic take on the snapshot aesthetic. It looks like a casual misfire - which is to say that it looks typical. It would not look out of place in fashion layout or on tumblr. And that fits with how she is dressed, the texting etc. It looks like she is hanging-out, nothing much to do. (Or change the blue for red and youve got something which could almost be a still from Dont Look Now. And maybe it is a bit sinister too.)
550
« on: June 13, 2014, 12:28 »
http://www.michaeljayfoto.com/agency-news/stocksy-launches-new-call-to-artist-should-you-apply-as-contributor/
That's a good article. Two things Michael has written especially chime with me: Which are the photos that I really loved taking? .... Potentially even that much that you didnt upload them into your microstock portfolios because you knew they would just sit there, ignored in the masses of images in those libraries. They were not produced with the I shoot this because it will sell mentality that stock (especially microstock) has put into our minds. Its the I really like this, I have to shoot this. And I could imagine applying to Stocksy or some other agent within the next few years. But I'm not in a hurry. I'd rather work on producing a coherent body of work which I actually care about first. That matters more to me than money TBH. I've been making small steps recently. It's been great to start again from scratch. Instead of the directionless this-and-that stuff I have done over the past few years. I really kind of lost my way. I am definitely sitting on better work at the moment. The changes at iStock have made it seem rather pointless uploading content since it never gets seen or used anyhow. It certainly seems increasingly as if microstock in general is going towards being the preserve of factories producing pictures of business teams. As Sue and others have pointed out here previously a huge amount of new work even from very well performing photographers is not being surfaced anymore. So it's good IMO that Stocksy have made something which isn't a shoe-in. It would be great to hear about other smaller sites doing well too.
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