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Messages - Elenathewise
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676
« on: November 17, 2010, 00:48 »
Did Fotolia just changed the upper limit for EL license for emerald contributors or is just me? Used to be 200, now the upper limit is 100... What's going on? No announcements, no explanations... I am getting sick of this.
677
« on: November 11, 2010, 13:30 »
Things are finally picking up for me... Last month was finally able to get above the plateau. Hope this trend continues:)
678
« on: November 11, 2010, 13:25 »
I always shoot hand-held in the studio even with telephoto lens on my D3X. I don't think I ever had an unsharp image - I can shoot up to 1/250s with the lights, it's more than enough. Maybe Yuri needs to cut back on his coffee:)
On location, different story. Nice fast-adjusting monopod would be useful... I still get away with using a tripod when I need to.
679
« on: October 20, 2010, 11:22 »
Hi All,
Yea, I have used it a lot recently for work and love it from surreal to photo realistic. I spend a lot less time shooting an interior as apposed to having to light every nook and cranny and spend more time on the backend in my office which is cheaper and easier than spending days at a location. We just shot a new High end Condo building with 84 floors and we shot 25 shots a day of interiors, got to love that. We started dropping in a model for an exposure and lighting them then just stripping the model into the shot in post.
Do you have any examples to post? Would be interesting to see the end result!
680
« on: October 04, 2010, 20:00 »
Istock achieved tremendous success as a small startup company, oh my God how did they ever do that?
By selling something that used to cost $300 for $3.
To be more accurate they did it by recognizing that with advances in internet and digital technology something that used to cost $300 now costs $3 .... which some people still fail to recognize 10 years down the road...
681
« on: October 04, 2010, 18:24 »
In my opinion, all big corps should be banned - there is something inherently wrong with that institution. They cause too much damage.
I couldn't agree more. You ARE wise. 
And I thought this is a MS site, didn't know communism is still that common...
Hell why not ask the government to take over IS like they did with GM ?
The 2 viable options you guys have are simple:
1. Pull out your port.
2. You all seem to know how to run a MS site so well. Why not put your money where your mouth is and open one your selves?
Banning big corporations, what kind of BS is that ?!?!
Who will build youre cars you drive? who will supply you with electricity? phones? Water?
Grow up people
Umm... please don't take offense but it looks like you're one good example of a person completely brainwashed by corporate world.... you really think we won't be able to survive without corps? Is it corps or commies in your world, with no alternatives? Istock achieved tremendous success as a small startup company, oh my God how did they ever do that? And really, I'd much prefer smaller privately owned companies to build my cars - they would be much safer, more efficient, geez, they'd all be electric or run on some other cool and clean technology by now. My water would be much safer and cleaner, my electric power sustainable, my food nutritious and safe and not causing decease and obesity. The problem with big corps is that first they kill all competition and then they do whatever they want, which is always driven by insatiable greed.... But wait - this is really capitalism 101, how old are you - 16? you didn't get to take that course in high school yet?
682
« on: October 04, 2010, 15:39 »
What I don't seem to understand is why all of you think you are smarter then IS (or the rest of them) to know what is best for them ? they have been doing this for years and are worth well over 1B $ I guess they are doing SOMETHING right...
Because the people actually pulling the strings at Istockphoto are Getty management. You know about them don't you? They're the folk who brought Getty to it's knees a couple of years ago causing the shareholders to sell out cheap to H&F. I wouldn't trust them to run my bath let alone a business. It was their intense greed and unwillingness to adapt to the market and business conditions that lead to their downfall back then and it looks to me that they're up to their old tricks again.
I have to agree with you Gostwyck - from the moment they bought Istock they started to screw things up slowly but surely. Yeah they did bring advertising dollars with one hand, but with the other hand they are slowly killing the business. Like all corporations do. In my opinion, all big corps should be banned - there is something inherently wrong with that institution. They cause too much damage.
683
« on: October 04, 2010, 12:51 »
Or maybe I pissed off someone on SS and they started to push down my images in search results and you pissed off someone on IS? :-) Anyhow, I can not find any rational explanation:)
Yes Elena, this something what comes into my mind many times. Search engine placement, that can be the most probable reason for such discrepancies.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your stats, I need every incentives for not to stop new uploads to IS.
They don't make it easy to upload to them, too! Every time there is time to upload to Istock we struggle with the disambiguation and the need to go through the files one by one, sometimes ridiculous requirements for model releases and such (and then the files get rejected because the term "human face" apparently is not applicable for a close up portrait of a human (face)). I don't know if we could keep up uploading if we didn't still see some growth there. At least with SS uploading is still a breeze so we just throw files up there because we already have them. I know how disappointing it can be to see no visible results of 2-3 years work on some agencies. I do have very strong suspicions that their search engines get manually adjusted somehow. You still do amazing work, you latest stuff should be selling at least as well as your old images. Yes there is more competition, but there is not THAT MUCH more competition these days. We got maybe 10 strong new players in the last couple of years (in photography), it would dilute your sales but not to the point of no growth at all.
684
« on: October 02, 2010, 23:45 »
Every months in a year is different so it is pretty difficult to compare them to each other and make a judgement of how your things are progressing. But I like to compare the same month of consecutive years - from this you can see how your microstock business goes. There is a trend I realized about a year ago: IS is falling... well... other agencies are growing while IS doesn't or slightly even decreasing. There is the graph that tells you everything.
I am steadily uploading to each of these sites and my portfolio is growing and growing. SS and FTL is clearly rewarding it, but on IS I am having less downloads then two years ago even if I doubled or quadrupled my portfolio. This is interesting... worrying... well, I know IS doesn't care. What is bad. I liked them.
You know what, with my port you have to switch IS graphs with SS ones... I am still seeing lots of growth on IS, but my SS sales leveled off 2 years ago - they are not falling but not raising at all, in spite of lots of new images. Go figure! I gave up trying to figure out what's going on. Maybe the reason is that agencies advertise to different markets - on some you sell well, on others not that much...? or maybe there is some mysterious database effect, like a black hole - once you fall into one, there is no coming back.... Or maybe I pissed off someone on SS and they started to push down my images in search results and you pissed off someone on IS? :-) Anyhow, I can not find any rational explanation:)
685
« on: September 10, 2010, 19:32 »
Not sure if this already was posted...
The end of iStockphoto at Ember Studio: 
http://www.emberstudio.com/blog/?p=193
This is nice. Too bad I can't leave a comment thanking them - getting an error.
That's Helix 7 site. He's a member here
Well thank you Helix 7 :-) And trust me, buyers have nothing to lose by switching to other agencies. For example, only half of my port is available on Istock because of stupid upload limits for non-exclusives. I know this is also the case with many excellent contributors with big and diverse portfolios. By switching to other sites you'll definitely see more choice, not less, and probably for cheaper price. The irony is that even if you buy cheaper there, we'll get paid more! Looks like win-win situation to me:) I am glad buyers making these decisions - only a fear of losing customers can make istock re-evaluate their policy.
686
« on: September 10, 2010, 19:05 »
Not sure if this already was posted...
The end of iStockphoto at Ember Studio:
http://www.emberstudio.com/blog/?p=193
This is nice. Too bad I can't leave a comment thanking them - getting an error.
688
« on: September 10, 2010, 12:39 »
Another news article about us:
http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/61173/20100910/istockphoto-gets-ire-of-contributors-over-new-payment-scheme.htm
Written by Getty, apparently.
Yes, this is not really an article, it is a Getty press release. The "IBTimes" may just be a site which prints press releases for a fee.
It shows that IS/Getty, while not openly responding to the outrage of their suppliers on their own forums, do feel it necessary to take PR steps outside their own site.
Yup funny thing you can't even post a comment... I tried several times. And yes, how wonderful - all of us "miscalculating" our commission rates.... Ya it takes a lot of brainpower to multiply your current number of credits by 2! (Using their own recommendation! ...even if that holds which is most likely won't).
689
« on: September 09, 2010, 22:34 »
Mine is dropping to 19%. I would also think Yuri won't reach 1.4M (my estimate his would be around 1M). So ya, if any non-exclusive keeps 20% I would like to know who that is:)
690
« on: September 09, 2010, 13:48 »
Why couldn't Istockphoto just leave their 20% as a base and added more to contributors with more yearly sales? I am sure that would have been fine with most people. And it wouldn't make them "less profitable". Simple as that. If you don't take greed into account.
691
« on: September 09, 2010, 12:37 »
Istock posted a second "Explanation" to its contributors - the link is here:http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322This is the bit that irritates me:"Since roughly 2005 we've been aware of a basic problem with how our business works. As the company grows, the overall percentage we pay out to contributing artists increases. In the most basic terms that means that iStock becomes less profitable with increased success. As a business model, its simply unsustainable: businesses should get more profitable as they grow. This is a long-term problem that needs to be addressed."
Wow. This is a biggest piece of BS I ever heard. Obviously, whoever wrote this has trouble with basic math, or counting on us to have failed math in 4th grade. How is it even possible that "overall percentage" increases when they always paid contributors 20% of the sale??? Did they increase our percentage without telling us somehow in the last years? Well of course not. The percentage remained the same. The amount of money they paid to contributors increased, but so did their profits, correspondingly! in the 20:80 ratio. If they used to pay contributors 2 million, they were making 8. If now they their payouts are 20 million, they are making 80! How is that becoming less profitable with increased success? And why making millions and millions of dollars a year is not enough for them?
You are thinking only about non-exclusives. Given enough time with the old model, say 20 years as an example, even exclusives who uploaded 100 images their first month and then quit could go from 20% to a 40% diamond just from total downloads over time. I get what they're saying. Over time their average profit decreases as more people move up canisters. Which every exclusive eventually will. I understand what they're getting at but don't agree with the goals they've set. I think their estimates are off. We'll see if they change them.
Yes I was thinking about non-exclusives, that's true. I've been a diamond non-exclusive on Istock for quite a while and wasn't following their incentives for exclusives... WHICH THEY INTRODUCED THEMSELVES! Just after being bought by Getty, surprise-surprise... Their obsession with exclusivity caused lower upload limits and acceptance rate for non-exclusives, even if they were good sellers, which was ridiculous and against all common sense. And NOW they are making non-exclusives pay for their short-sighted decisions! Well they are making all contributors pay. Wonders of corporate culture...
692
« on: September 09, 2010, 12:05 »
Istock posted a second "Explanation" to its contributors - the link is here:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322
This is the bit that irritates me:
"Since roughly 2005 we've been aware of a basic problem with how our business works. As the company grows, the overall percentage we pay out to contributing artists increases. In the most basic terms that means that iStock becomes less profitable with increased success. As a business model, its simply unsustainable: businesses should get more profitable as they grow. This is a long-term problem that needs to be addressed."
Wow. This is a biggest piece of BS I ever heard. Obviously, whoever wrote this has trouble with basic math, or counting on us to have failed math in 4th grade. How is it even possible that "overall percentage" increases when they always paid contributors 20% of the sale??? Did they increase our percentage without telling us somehow in the last years? Well of course not. The percentage remained the same. The amount of money they paid to contributors increased, but so did their profits, correspondingly! in the 20:80 ratio. If they used to pay contributors 2 million, they were making 8. If now they their payouts are 20 million, they are making 80! How is that becoming less profitable with increased success? And why making millions and millions of dollars a year is not enough for them?
693
« on: September 05, 2010, 11:05 »
Oh there will be copies. I have to agree with Lisa here. Not everyone who will buy the book will start submitting images, but those who will are going to copy the images from the book as their first exercise:)
I don't know if I'd feel threatened though... a concept is important, but execution is also important. If a nicely executed concept already exists in the library, it won't be threatened by the poorer image of the same concept. And if a reader of the book turns out to be an excellent photographer, then we'll have to worry book or no book:)
This is the image in the book. I'm not particularly threatened.
This is almost a scene from "House"! :-)
694
« on: September 04, 2010, 21:08 »
Oh there will be copies. I have to agree with Lisa here. Not everyone who will buy the book will start submitting images, but those who will are going to copy the images from the book as their first exercise:)
I don't know if I'd feel threatened though... a concept is important, but execution is also important. If a nicely executed concept already exists in the library, it won't be threatened by the poorer image of the same concept. And if a reader of the book turns out to be an excellent photographer, then we'll have to worry book or no book:)
695
« on: August 31, 2010, 21:27 »
Yeah, I actually Canadian but have lived in Norway for the last 6 years.
Oh yeah, is it nice there? Toronto with it's heat and humidity and noise is getting to me...
696
« on: August 29, 2010, 11:18 »
I am not impressed with Photographer's choice. Maybe it used to be a viable option when the sales were higher on Getty, but not anymore. Most sales I get are tens of dollars, not hundreds, and they are not frequent. It's hard to justify paying 50 dollars placement fee. What they should really do is to lower the placement fee proportionally to the way they lowered their prices, that'd be fair.
697
« on: August 23, 2010, 19:51 »
But sales on SS stopped growing in (second half of?) 2008 for big portfolios. I was trying to figure out why.
Maybe it's a result of losing market share. Maybe it's a result of trying to increase profits (as I speculated earlier). Maybe it's because their library is growing too fast and has a lot of redundant images in it.
Whatever it is, currently Fotolia and Istock are doing much better for me. And no matter what emotions we may have about this agency or the other, it's the sales that matter in the end.
Elena, I think we all got the point of your thread. We have been discussing exactly those phenomena you mentioned for three pages now.
Are you expecting some sort of definitive answer here? Obviously none of us can give that to you and I expect you already understand that. All anyone here has to offer is their opinion. Feel free to pick and choose the ones you feel are most useful to you.
Yes Lisa, I know quite a few people got the point :-), and again thank you all for your responses and opinions. My last response was aimed at some people that didn't, I know I should have included quotations, but I guess I was too lazy to do that:) I was also hoping that Shutterstock people may help to clarify things, but I guess this has to be on their forum to to get a reply.
698
« on: August 23, 2010, 17:40 »
To all feeling the need to defend Shutterstock or badmouth it: it doesn't really matter, if they are "good" or "bad". The fact is (and I gave the numbers earlier) - my sales didn't grow there for the past 2 years, in spite of substantially increasing the portfolio.
They did grow proportionally to the number of uploaded images on other agencies, like FT and Istock.
That's a fact. SS may or may not have a good search algorithm, subscription may be good or bad thing, they could be good or bad to contributors, whatever your opinion is.
But sales on SS stopped growing in (second half of?) 2008 for big portfolios. I was trying to figure out why.
Maybe it's a result of losing market share. Maybe it's a result of trying to increase profits (as I speculated earlier). Maybe it's because their library is growing too fast and has a lot of redundant images in it.
Whatever it is, currently Fotolia and Istock are doing much better for me. And no matter what emotions we may have about this agency or the other, it's the sales that matter in the end.
699
« on: August 20, 2010, 14:00 »
Sure - I was invited to participate in "Photographer choice" which means you have to pay 50 dollars placement fee per image. They allowed me to submit 10 images for free, and then there is this "sell one submit one for free" thingy, but I wasn't able to grow my portfolio much. I did have a few sales and submitted a few more images and also put all the money I earned there back, but I still have only about 30 images there, sold as RM. Which I know is not at all any reasonable set to make conclusions from, but even the fact that it's hard to grow the portfolio without investing huge amounts of money speaks for itself....
700
« on: August 19, 2010, 16:16 »
Sigh... Noone saying Shutterstock is not viable business - on the contrary, they are very successful as a business. Noone saying there is a "conspiracy" or fraud or anything like that, for God's sake:)
And no - I am not taking my portfolio off Shutterstock, don't hold your breath:)
The reason for this thread was - there was a strange trend in SS sales and searches that I couldn't explain. I was wondering if other people with similar portfolios and years in business observed that trend too. Since I got several confirmations of the same trend, I speculated on how this can be explained. I am not attacking Shutterstock or telling them how to do their business. We all signed a contributor's agreement that allows the agencies (not only SS) a lot of freedom on what to do with the images we supply.
I don't want to open another can of worms and give examples of what FT does that I also find borderline ethical. Big companies always try to increase profits and often enough the means are not quite ... well, let's put it this way: crystal honest. So - calm down people:) Nothing unusual here. I got my answer, thank you every one who participated!
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