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Messages - OM
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726
« on: July 23, 2011, 06:53 »
I'm an FT total exclusive and if I do an advanced search for an image of mine which can only be offered through Fotolia, I came up with the following offer on one of my images: $26.44 for a 16" x 16" poster including $14.00 image license.
The image # given by VB is the same as the FT# of the image. The license fee is the price of an 'L' license for this image. This image does have an extended license option which I haven't modified to take account of my status but it remains $20 for the EL..................soooooooooo, they are not charging the EL price and only the 'L' price which, in this particular example, is the maximum size.
727
« on: July 18, 2011, 16:33 »
Can you or anyone actually explain what this dispute is about? The thread title says 'fraud' which obviously is something that does need regulation.
The blog referenced in the other post describes it this way:
"French law designated as void any sale of goods, product and services that is priced at infinitesimal price. For example, if one was to purchase one image on Istockphoto for lets say $5 and use this image for a book, a magazine, an ad campaign, a brochure, on a TV set, in a Movie set, over and over again for 70 years ( life of a copyright), it would amount for less than a cent per usage. Under this law, that pricing is so low that it would not constitute a sale. Thus become illegal."
By definition, such a law would make all microstock contracts illegal. Any image sold without predefined usage with a time limit would constitute an infinitesimally small price (less than 1 cent). One image at screen res for a site with 1 million visitors/year gets under 1 cent/use pretty fast even if it cost $1,000 to purchase. And don't mention subs pricing!
728
« on: July 11, 2011, 15:38 »
Cap'n Bob? Got a good funeral though. Pretence!
Once there was a media-mogul, he did everything in his power to make his business go bad and bad to the point where staff, etc, just packed up and left, didnt even wait for bonuses, nothing.
There was however a sinister method behind his madness and actions. He wanted to amalgamate his overseas businesses into a new Corp but without all the hassles and troubles from thousands of staff and unions for that matter. Stating that everybodies life would be so much better in the new company.
He purposley made life misserable for just about everybody, in the end people around him couldnt stand him and his cronies, they left or didnt care.
Then when all was quiet and nobody really didnt care, he made his move. I guess its not too difficult to know what that company was called? I said was called because two years later he went bancrupt for billions and preceded to take his own life. Too many debts, bailiffs and lawsuits.
729
« on: July 08, 2011, 20:14 »
A search change is always a #13.....................lucky for some, unlucky for others. I suspect that the last change was in March of this year when my sales dropped a fair bit and haven't yet recovered. Still, I've only got a couple of hundred images and cannot be a benchmark for anything.
A couple of 'interesting' observations on search:
Recently (2 weeks ago) I submitted a food shot. I put the recommended first 6 or 7 keywords in order of importance.
So far neither a single view nor sale (believe me, I've occasionally had almost immediate sales with no views for weeks!!!). How that is possible, I have no idea.
Anyway, more to the point re. food shot; I searched using my top (first) 3 keywords and, to give the search a better chance, I chose 'recency' 1 month. Nothing, zilch, nada. Image did not appear on any page.
Then I searched using the image title (yep, that part without spelling correction). Image turned up immediately.
Conclusions from my experiment. Putting keywords in any order of importance is bollocks and seems intended to cause a contributor to expend brain power whilst it is to little or no avail. Use a great title and ensure that the spelling is correct.
In other instances I've noticed that the use of certain words as the first word in the title attracts lots of views, whereas placing the same word second or third in the tile gets very few views (even when the 10 first keywords are identical and in the same order). This effect I noticed in a series of images before the most recent fiddling about with the search in March of this year which affected my sales for the worse and from which they have not recovered.
With the recently announced changes, I hope for the best but expect the worse.
730
« on: July 08, 2011, 19:15 »
I had just 2 double digit sales days (instead of at least 4), so it shows. Maybe this means "Instead of 4 double digit sales days" ?
That's what I understood from the first time I read it!
731
« on: June 21, 2011, 18:12 »
Fotolia obviously doesn't see it as impacting their business. Therefore no incentive to change. Since when did they pay any attention to contributors' views anyway.
732
« on: June 19, 2011, 11:27 »
Ive actually had three good days now, cant tell if they have tweaked the best match or not?
Ive also noticed the Fotolia-Hotshots and they are good but honestly, whats the point in promoting these type of Lifestyle-images, plasticky people, etc, I mean, I bet, lifestyles are taking up at least 50%, of the whole stock-market and thay all look pretty much the same, dont they?
Probably makes more of an impact promoting exotic plants or spiders.
At least they seem to have stopped promoting their 'free images' in the newsletter.
733
« on: June 10, 2011, 06:58 »
My Fotolia income has dropped from 300 to 400 dollars/mo to 150....200. This month has the potential to be the weakest month since January 2009.
So sad. It seems my avatar predicted even this...
Excellent avatar! 
734
« on: May 31, 2011, 07:02 »
The 'Fine Art' market and Wall Street are both intricately linked (IMHO). Neither 'market' is truly a market. We, that are not in George Carlin's Big Club, cannot possibly understand the need for greed, megalomania and the status of cult that exists in that world. That world does not follow our rules of logic in our true economic reality and therefore someone pays $3.9 million for an 'artwork'. Imagine you had a few hundred photo's by Cindy Sherman gathering dust in a draw (bought at a time when they cost nothing) and you have a need to 'cash out' quickly. What could be simpler in order to magnify the value of your collection a thousand-fold instantly but to sell a photo and ensure that the bidding goes to silly heights (it's naturally assumed that at auction, buyers want stuff for the lowest price but what if the buyer wants the highest price so that their own collection is valued at the new mark-to-market price). Not saying that this is the reason for such a silly price...probably too peasant-logic based. BTW Jackson Pollock was nicknamed Jack the Dripper.
735
« on: May 29, 2011, 18:13 »
As long as he continues to do the corporate kleptocracy's/bankers' bidding, he's good for another 4 years. 
736
« on: May 29, 2011, 10:24 »
Maybe one day $ will worth more than .... Who knows!
Has been before (in 2002). Can be again. All in the hands of the central bankers to decide.
737
« on: May 29, 2011, 06:24 »
Definitely not worth the risk IMHO. Every single image you have accepted will immediately go to zero in the search order. If you are approaching emerald, you must have a lot of images and some or a lot of those images may be from time when FT was image hungry. Many of your present best-sellers may be rejected on the basis of arbitrary criteria by the 'rejectors' etc, etc.
To be honest, I've never figured out why FT allows a couple of things, 1) Payment in Euro and 2) Euro contributors to be become exclusive. When they sell a downloaded image in USD from a European bronze exclusive, they have to give the contributor 40% of $1.45 of every $1.00 received when they pay out. The higher the canister level, the more they lose! And there are few benefits to FT that I can see of having exclusives. They don't promote them, exclusives' files may be more expensive and it's not even possible for buyers to see who is exclusive and who is not!
The reason that FT does so well in Europe (IMO) is that the various European sites of FT work in the language of that country and buyers prefer to search in their own language which is often not English. Keywording on eg. the German site is done in German by the contributors so it is much easier for a German buyer to find what he wants in his/her own language when they go to FT.de (or get sent there automatically).
When I joined in 2008, there were 3 choices. Join USA and get paid in USD, join UK and get paid in GBP or join one of the European country sites like Germany or France but have to go through registration in German or French. I went with GBP. Converted to Euros at present, a 50 credit@75pence (GBP37.50) payout gives around 44. Whereas a US$50 payout only gives 32.
738
« on: May 14, 2011, 19:41 »
All I know is that when FT sends me a mail as a buyer(and as it happens contributor), they waste half the space featuring their 'FREE' section............how monumentally crazy is that?
The message I get is:
"Here's some pics.......they are so crap that our reviewers wouldn't pass them (or they didn't sell a sausage for two years and the contributors sold them for 50 $cents for eternity out of sheer desperation) and they are now yours for free...........that's right, we don't make a cent on them! BTW please look at the other shots above them and buy them cuz this is how we really make our money! Thank you for your attention."
739
« on: May 10, 2011, 06:57 »
I am guessing a ND filter would help.
Recently I came across advertising for a super ND filter. Nothing new really, just crossed polarizers which, at max crossed probably offer around 8 stops ND filter. They block a lot of UV light and transmit IR.
740
« on: April 22, 2011, 06:24 »
Many of you know that I sell my stock photography from my own site, www.elenaphoto.com.
We have re-worked the layout extensively for it to look more professional and user-friendly.
However, sometimes my customers still have questions like - can we be sure it's your own work and the images are not stolen form somewhere? Of course, I assure them, all work presented on the site is 100% my original work, and I can prove it, but I was wondering it there is something in the layout of the site that makes them doubt that... or is it just simple caution since there are so many cases of theft?
Thanks in advance,
Elena.
Great site! I think you may be suffering from that first sentence......." We present a collection of Royalty Free (RF) images by one of the best-selling stock photographers, Elena Elisseeva" It sounds as if a third person is representing you. Maybe, "I proudly present my collection of royalty free images. I am Elena Elisseeva, one of the world's best-selling stock photographers and this is my site." Perhaps you could present what you consider the advantages are to buyers of using your site compared to those of the larger agencies......convenience of pay per download instead of having to buy a bundle of credits, etc? All my copyrights is belong to me!
741
« on: April 18, 2011, 13:33 »
Seems to me that FT exclusive gold members and above could profitably buy credits from this vendor in USD and use them all buying their own images at a profit especially when registered on a FT Euro site. This is the stock equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. Start at gold with 4% profit. Quickly rise to diamond for 13% profit on every file sold to yourself!
742
« on: April 05, 2011, 21:20 »
yep.. I think JoAnn hit it on the head and Disorderly translated it for us all nicely. does sound like the current operation.
wrt Getty -- yes, I think I'm at the Hotel California there - "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave"
Oh, and we get to keep your credit card for a while too. 
743
« on: April 05, 2011, 21:11 »
Maybe because of the small port I have, I tend to find that FT sales average out over two months. One month above average and one month below.
744
« on: April 05, 2011, 11:50 »
I think they keep messing with the search. Suddenly the cash cows stop selling without compensation from the new stuff.
Still, in your case at 'silver' that's not good getting no sales at all for a week. The last week of March was like that for me too but I've only got 200+ images so I shouldn't complain and upload more. Trouble is that newly uploaded stuff hardly sells at all. And that makes me wonder if it's all worth the trouble.
745
« on: April 01, 2011, 08:36 »
You had me on the first link but the second sorta gives it away!
746
« on: March 30, 2011, 16:49 »
One on one makes it sound like it is what the name suggests but it's more than that according to his blog. "regarding the One on One business mastery sessions, on sale for $16,500, all application spaces are presently filled, and we will begin the process of interviewing and assessing interested studios. if spaces remain open after the present applications are reviewed, i'll make another announcement. it seems that the $16,500 price offer was misunderstood by some to include only a one day meeting, while in actuality, the product is much more extensive. " http://jeshderoxweddings.blogspot.com/
747
« on: March 25, 2011, 18:08 »
Retire now and you can remain a legend in your own mind.
748
« on: March 25, 2011, 16:59 »
Did Fotolia really pull the portfolio that quickly? They used to take a long time to sort things like this out.
Not that fast. It was still here a couple of minutes ago but missing the keyholes. http://en.fotolia.com/p/200699254
749
« on: March 25, 2011, 16:28 »
You're full of BS.
You couldn't make that shot on your best day.
750
« on: March 25, 2011, 14:54 »
Ouch...
Ok Mr. Pro Photographer.
It's a CG render. Not quite finished yet, needs a little photo shopping and PI effects.
Lol.... petty and childish.
If it wasn't finished why did you ask if it would get into MS? And as a photographer that has earned a living entirely from photography for the last 25 years that is IMO.
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