New Zealand's terrorist used the gesture in the court.

yeah, he's trolling.

ooooh, for once of these things actually aligns with an Australian timezone (east coast at least). have registered, thanks Mat.

love to see an old thread resurrected!

I've got a pic of my feet on the beach, such a cliche, from my early days, it's also one of my oldest images, and the editing is terrible, but it's in the top line at SS and is hands down my best seller. I've reshot the concept, with better editing, and those don't sell at all. I have 2 images, image of sunset over farmland, one has been "properly" edited with multiple exposures to included the  properly exposed sky and balanced foreground, the other is one of the set, with the fully blown out sky being all white, that one has sold well and the other "correct" image.... 0 sales. These aren't regular sellers but I often think of how customers don't see the flaws we see. Some technical flaw that would render an image "ugly" to me doesn't even register with customers. Reminds me to lighten up and relax a bit, and makes me want to say the same to editors.

I applied again last month. Today is exactly one month since the email that said my application is complete. Still no news from them.

Below is a screenshot of my application pages. Constructive feedback would be appreciated.

  the diversity angle is good. they have a couple of guys shooting like you, I can't speak for Stocksy as to what they are looking for, but all the best!

Quote from: gillian vann on January 07, 2019, 18:35

Quote from: KuriousKat on May 19, 2018, 02:48

I started submitting to Cavan (only about 20 images) but stopped because they have a 2 year exclusive hold on your images before they'll remove them from the site. I knew about the 2 year hold beforehand and thought I'd be ok with it but ultimately decided it's a deal breaker for me. Yes they also restrict out take images from the same shoot to be submitted elsewhere.

I also signed up to Cavan late last year, thinking it would be a good place to park my Stocksy rejects, and I asked about whether I could delete files and still haven't heard back.  it probably was in the agreement, which I only skimmed through. For now I only have 1 small food series on there. I really dislike their image upload process and I haven't been back to add more. I had hoped it would be a good workaround for the Getty "no deletions" rule, but apparently not. The risk of uploading a series, having 90% declined, and a 2 year lock down, is a real problem.

I did get accepted to Cavan and they accepted 10 out of 10 of my initial submissions, but some of the comments here have me hesitant to submit more.

Is Stocksy your preferred agency?  Can you tell me your reasons why?  I'm new to the stock world so whatever insight you can share would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Stocksy pays the best, for me outsells all the others. they also give me the most frustration as the standards are high. a decline from them hurts deeply, cos you know that's where you want your work, amongst all that other excellent work. if SS or Getty decline my stuff i don't care 1 bit, I'm also with Adobe Prem and they have a higher decline rate than Stocksy and I just laugh when they decline stuff. Stocky has wonderful imagery, you don't have to wade through pages of shite to find something, and although they have their more arty side, it's tempered with a lot of beautiful everyday imagery too. You can reach out to any editor and have a discussion about your work, i recently had a 2hour hang out with an editor and it was so amazing to be able to do that. You can query a decline, have a discussion and sometimes it will be overturned, or not, but the chance to talk with someone is always there. They will send files back to have something edited/fixed, rather than a straight decline. Sales are real time. The Image Manager is the best in the industry. There's no sneaky back door deals where you end up with $1 and left wondering what the agency got.

what did I miss?

Sorry, I was under the impression that Stocksy asks for exclusivity, is that correct?
If that is the case, I don't think anyone doing video would ever upload as an exclusive

yes they are exclusive.

I'm not sure what defines "well" but I've got monthly sales of video. Paid off my Mavic at least, although now i've upgraded I'm behind again.
as to your second point, I have myself muttered something similar.

I had the same reaction, I also don't understand why so many of my photographer/stock friends have shared this. It's so hard to find good talent for stock, you actually need actors, not models, as Emilia proves, and they all think it's beneath them.  and my photographer friends who shoot families frolicking on the beach at sunset, laughing down at us. meh.

and has that day come? i don't check in often on my Fotolia account and I see it now goes straight to the Adobe landing page and my sales stats aren't in a tidy graph, or even totalled up. what??

I just had a look at my rejections and the last two were for pictures of piles of old Greek coins. Rejection reason: banknotes must be partially obscured to thwart forgers.  There weren't any banknotes in it, of course (and any forger churning out counterfeit Greek drachma coins is going to struggle to make a living).

hahahaha. and surely they'll get a physical copy of a bank note rather than using a stock photo?

At this point I think it is safe to say that everyone who applied and was not accepted thinks the process was BS.

And those of you who have been �in� for a while disagree.

But it�s probably time for the �ins�, who according to their own words have nothing to do with the CTA, to refrain from posting thoughts on the process.

ouch.  I'm sorry the process is taking so long, and I agree it's ridiculously long, so it's not unreasonable to grumble about that.  Surely you realise that although we aren't part of the CTA process, we are privvy to more info than you about what Stocksy wants? Frankly, i'm not sure I should even have to spell that much out... ok, do it your way. this chocolate is getting back into the box. All the best.

Just to reply as to why this agency is needed: despite there being a lot of "australian" pics on Getty etc, there aren't a lot that are actually authentic. Snowman on the beach? hahaha, we don't actually do that! But some photographers do it because you northern hemisphere ppl think it's funny, and it sells. We also don't do much flag waving, maybe on Australia Day, and even that is now becoming cringey (you'd have to be here to understand why). Australia has a certain look to it and many USA editors just can't quite understand it. Some our stuff is totally daggy (look it up) but that's part of who we are. Our teens don't wear uniforms, or make up to school, and   they have a different everyday look to USA or UK teens. Our homes look different, as do our roads (no yellow lines), cars, etc. Many designers lament the lack of actual Aussie content on the big sites, or that a search for "australian" stuff yields so much non-aussie stuff in the search. the fact that some of you don't get that "au" or "aus" is our abbreviation should also highlight the differences between us, and some suggesting what you think the company name "should" be, ha! our internet suffix is "au" and we often refer to anything Aussie as "aus" for short. It's all good.

 I confess there are many times when I shoot my life to look as bland, generic and USA as possible, because I agree the bigger market is the USA so I try to maximise my selling potential. It's so refreshing to be able to include all the little Aussie things in my images for Austock, and nice to be able to take real photos of my life here and not something that appeals to the hipster/PNW aesthetic all the time.  Also, the owners are nice people. It's a small startup and you can ring them on the phone and have a chat. Austock isn't doing the microstock thing, their pricing is high and the royalties paid are excellent.

And yes, I contribute to Austock.