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Messages - MichaelJay
76
« on: June 29, 2009, 05:49 »
Today i went to the IRS just to ask out of curiosity how would i declare my microstock incomes in the end of the year. Well, obviusly they were not put to day in this bussines, but they seem to think i have to be registered as an economic activity or enterprise as any other activity that makes me win money, here in Spain it means also to pay about 350$ monthly for the social security. Is this correct, i cant believe it. These agencies advertise them selves as anyone can upload and sell images as a particular. Soooo...? Yes, anyone can upload. Anyone can earn money. And anyone has to pay taxes on the money earned. If you make money, as a matter of fact you are making business. No matter how much you make from it or how much your revenue is, it's a self-employed business. Well, and the USA says if your country has not signed a tax treaty with us, on income earned in the US you have to pay your taxes in the US (now you can argue how much of the income was actually earned in the US, of course...). If you country has signed a tax treaty (which I assume for Spain), you will have to do whatever is agreed in that treaty. In the end, if that is more difficult for you in Spain than for other countries, wouldn't it be your government that needs to be "blamed"? Because it should be in their interest to make tax money from their citizens rather than leaving it paid to some other country. But somehow I doubt that you have figured it all out yet. I can't believe that Spain doesn't have any local legislation allowing for small/part-time businesses that don't require a full registration with social security etc. But I can't tell you, maybe it would be the right time to ask a local accountant/tax advisor.
77
« on: June 24, 2009, 04:32 »
...which is very useful to many designers. I am sure that can be seen in some people's portfolios as a successful track record of numerous images that have been sold hundreds of times...
78
« on: June 17, 2009, 02:00 »
there is no "select all" option. Well, maybe there is one for exclusives:)
No, there isn't. 
79
« on: June 16, 2009, 09:40 »
3. Wouldn't it be easy to take a few shots of a good image but at a different angle, crop, lighting and then put an exclusive shot in that family of shots into each site that offers exclusivity. Maybe you should check the exact terms and requirements. I would be surprised if companies offering additional payments to have no terms ruling this. Usually it should state something like "image exclusivity includes sister images which are defined by the same model in similar clothing, similar environment and/or using similar props". Claiming one image as exclusive and uploading a sister image somewhere else would most likely make you violate that contract. (If somebody can prove me wrong, I'm always willing to learn )
80
« on: June 16, 2009, 09:06 »
Quite an achievment! were you always exclusive or is it since you are that your RPI got higher? Nobody is "always" exclusive since you have to get to bronze level first. But I guess your question is aiming on something different... I have sold my first image license in 2002 when one of the first mid market RF agencies went online. Didn't upload to Micro until end of 2006, tried a few sites at that time but quickly discovered that uploading to many sites is too time-consuming for me and I appreciated the way of feedback I got from iStock's contributors and inspectors (yeah, even when I wasn't exclusive their "weird and unjustified" rejections taught me a lot...  ). My RPI wasn't that high before I was exclusive, though I don't see a high correlation. Just the fact that I learned a lot in the time before and after I turned exclusive. And I don't think I'm even close to the end of that road.
81
« on: June 16, 2009, 08:58 »
What did I miss? Maybe, that your royalty payments are not necessarily an indication of overall market size?
82
« on: June 16, 2009, 08:55 »
I have seen a post here where one site had a policy where they paid out all deffered revenue under the payment level at year end to the contributors, much better for new and part-time contributors. Okay, maybe this is "fair". But there is cost involved in each payment made - guess how many contributors need to be tracked down to get current payment data... Someone has to pay for that cost...
83
« on: June 16, 2009, 07:28 »
The whole business of payment levels is defended by some photographers, but in reality it is not a financial number plucked out of the air or based on the cost of reviewing a new contributors images, but is cynically calculated to maximise profit from photographers failure, the common observation is 75% of photographers never making a first payment, so the stocksites know what revenue the average contributor can generate, but set the level 25% above that value, there is a lot of profit in there for the stocksites and a lot of lost income tax revenue. I don't get this reasoning. Are you suggesting that agencies are keeping money for "witholding tax" but not actually paying it to tax authorities? I'd think this would be considered fraud in most countries.
84
« on: June 16, 2009, 02:28 »
I really believe that anybody who is seeing agencies as parasites and not canceling their contributions is a hypocrite or a masochist. If you don't profit from a business relationship, why would you continue otherwise?
85
« on: June 15, 2009, 07:50 »
Read carefully, those numbers were per month, not per year ;P (or is it me that read you badly and you did 600$+/month over the last 12 months?) Yes, "between 600 and 1400" meant that the lowest month I made around 600, the highest month nearly 1400.
86
« on: June 15, 2009, 06:45 »
I think your numbers are off a bit. With those numbers, someone with a portfolio of 500 images would make between 500 and 750$ a month for a hobbyist. I don't know anyone who does that. With a portfolio of <700, I made between $600 and $1400 for the last 12 months. And I'm an amateur/hobbyist. Ok, most likely that's because I am iStock exclusive and I would have uploaded 2500 images or more if I had to feed some other sites that require regular attention. In that case, my RPI probably would have been much lower as well.
87
« on: June 15, 2009, 04:34 »
It says they pay 25 cents per download.... Does that mean someone can download a picture and use it in their publication for just 25 cents ?? The 25 cents is what you get, not what the customer pays. Basically, there are pay-per-download models and subscription models. Pay per download means the customer is paying a certain amount for each single image, in most cases depending on size. Subscription model means the customer pays a fixed monthly, quarterly or annual fee and gets to download x images per day or month for that money, in most cases this is independent of size. A subscription model might be that the customer pays $250 for a month and gets 25 downloads a day. So if he would use all his available downloads, he would pay $0.33 per image. But maybe the customer only uses 10 downloads per day on average, so he would only get 300 downloads at $0.83 each. You will easily note that hardly anybody can make use of so many images each day, so many customers most likely buy those images to keep a personal archive for potential future use. Maybe your image will be downloaded but never get used. Maybe it will end up as a cover of a large national magazine. You can't tell.
88
« on: June 12, 2009, 08:46 »
I was looking at this - Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1- I think it would suit a noob like myself?
I know it's limited in allot of ways, but for special reasons I need simplicity.
Probably ok for a starter, yeah? I've seen prices around $1600 which is far above a entry-level camera. And the accessories might be a bit limited yet but certainly will become bigger if the FourThirds standards gains some more market share. Though you probably will be limited to the format which is even smaller than the usual APS-C sized sensors. Smaller sensor means denser pixels and is likely to produce more noise in less-than-perfect conditions. If you settle for this camera, I would avoid to make any further investments even if you feel limited later on. It's pretty common that you start with a camera and kit lense and will find reasons to buy more glass, flash, remote trigger whatever after 6 - 12 months. You can certainly do so with the Lumix but you will always be bound to FourThirds while Canon, Nikon, Sony at least offer that you can invest in full frame lenses from the beginning even when you only have an APS-C sensor in your camera. That's why I would recommend to stick with one of those three brands. Also - if you are willing to spend $1600, you will be better off by buying a cheaper entry-level camera and one or two excellent lenses.The lenses are more important to the image quality than the camera. And they will last much longer than the body.
90
« on: June 11, 2009, 15:27 »
With regards to getting into Getty via iStock, it's not an automatic 'in': being an exclusive Silver, Gold, or Diamond only allows you to apply to Getty, and even then it's only as a contributor to their RF Photodisc collection - getting accepted is another matter. Not quite true. With Silver members, they do an approval process which you can't influence (you don't have to send in additional images, they evaluate your existing iStock portfolio). Gold and Diamond members are accepted at Getty for Photodisc and the new iStock Exclusive collections automatically.
91
« on: June 11, 2009, 06:30 »
Can I get advice on what the best (for stock pics) beginers camera would be?
Like the best click for your buck? With a generic question like this? Probably not, no. What do you want to do primarily? Model shoots with studio light? Landscape images? Night shots? Macros? Basically any DSLR will do if you learn how to use it. Probably Canon and Nikon have the largest variety of cameras and accessories, Sony is likely to be called #3 in the market. You can't do anything wrong with any of their DSLR cameras. But some bridge cameras (non-interchangable but still high quality lense like the Canon G10) will be sufficient as well. Preferrably one that can shoot in RAW mode. Depending on how much you want to shoot and upload, it might be a better choice for beginners. The key still will be how fast you learn what you can do with the camera of your choice.
92
« on: June 03, 2009, 00:58 »
The difference I think is photos.com will pay iStock and not contributors. So as long as iStock has their paperwork in order with the IRS, I don't see why Photos.com would withold tax on them.
Funny system, all this...
Well, not so funny at all. IRS withholding tax is a taxation on US people (all others are not the goal of this tax and they can avoid it by sending in those forms). But in this case, I am not a US citizen paid by a Canadian agency, so I wouldn't see why I should pay income tax on that.
93
« on: June 02, 2009, 01:55 »
I've been an exclusive contributor at iStock for the last two years and moderating the German forum - but I'm in no way involved in applications and I'm not even an inspector, so take my advice as a fellow contributor. ;-)
The basic message of the rejection was not for technical reasons but "your images don't have the right commercial appeal to our customers". This is certainly not meant as disencouragement but as a hint that iStock is looking for a certain type of images. I wouldn't even say that your images wouldn't come through inspection after you are approved as contributor.
But for iStock to work it needs images that have potential to sell not two or three times. There's too much effort involved on all sides to pay back $10 only. iStock is a mass market and - though many images won't make more than those 2 or 3 sales - it pays off by images that sell 100 or 1000 times. So you need to prove that you are able to select the images by their mass market value.
Actually I'd oppose some of the opinions above: The jet plane seems to be the only of the three images having some commercial appeal. For successful submission you would need to remove the type signature of course. But I think it would make a good microstock image.
The dog is... well, maybe cute but certainly not a potential bestseller. With the plain grass around (not a clear image of the dog only but not a very interesting background/surrounding either) it looks a bit snapshotty.
And the third image is very artsy but definitely not commercial - you might sell it as an art print and hang it on a wall but that's not iStock's main market.
What iStock is looking for is generic images that could be used in hundreds of places for hundreds of purposes. Find three images in your library that you could imagine showing on three different websites or brochures about three completely different stories or products and you might be on your way. After you're accepted as contributor, then you can still try to upload what you consider best and find out if inspectors and buyers share your opinion.
(just wanted to add: Despite some people's negative opinion, iStock's fellow contributors are pretty helpful to people who have an open mind and want to understand how iStock is judging images... I encourage you to post your images either in iStock's Critique Request forum or here on MSG before applying the next time. I am sure you will get a lot of feedback. And never assume that whatever others nor iStock say is meant in any way to judge your overall photography skills)
94
« on: May 29, 2009, 06:07 »
I wouldn't base my decision on the question if exclusive images get better placement in searches or not. This has been discussed but only the involved admins actually knows and it might change over time.
You can certainly expect the royalty change. The higher upload limits could be an asset if you are able to produce more than 15 good images per week.
What I think is an underestimated advantage: Inspection standards are easier to consider in your process if you can focus on one site. Keywording is a bit different on IS as well compared to other sites, so you can spend more time on optimization. And you might find that on all sites different types of images sell a bit better or worse.
So in effect going exclusive allows you to optimize your work flows which might help for your individual success on that one side. But you're the only one who can judge if this is a viable path for you.
95
« on: May 28, 2009, 02:41 »
not only your client is allowed to use your pic as a cd cover, but being RF he can use it even for the cover
of Time Magazine, books, funzines, t-shirts, mousepads, whatever he wants, worldwide, no restrictions, and FOREVER. Actually about half of the uses you mention would require and Extended License because they are out of average design use. I can't tell about other sites but at iStock three of those five uses would cost around $125. I've seen images on Getty selling for less. But yes, it's mostly all for a few bucks. You give away images to use by a huge company like IBM for $5. But for each of those uses you get hundreds and thousands of licenses sold that would not be able at a higher price point. Simple as that.
96
« on: May 27, 2009, 12:44 »
Everyone is allowed to say what they like on this forum within the sites rules even if you completely disagree. Well, it's not up to me to make the rules here but calling people "naive" (at least that's what I read in "Microtards", maybe some native speaker can convince me that this can have a different meaning as well) is verbal abuse against everybody and - in my opinion - shouldn't be allowed on any forum. You can disagree with people but still keep some manners.
97
« on: May 27, 2009, 12:07 »
my pics are real deal, you can see the cigs packet next to the beer too,
stains on the table, dirt, and mosquitos included ...
I'm sure there are lots of people who want to advertise their business with images like that, yeah.
98
« on: May 27, 2009, 12:05 »
The limited-demand images don't really matter at all in the long run. And so the pricing of them is irrelevant. What matters are the mass-demand images. They are what the microstock business is about. (If we knew which image were going to be limited-demand, we should perhaps put them in RM, but, as you say, there is no way to know that, only the market knows that.) Totally right as long as you focus on classic microstock. But many of us are confronted with choices nowadays... What I didn't say is there is no way to know that - I said it's difficult, and sometimes we make wrong choices. But we can always try to learn and improve, not only in photography, also in marketing our images. ;-)
99
« on: May 27, 2009, 05:56 »
no need to wait for 2010.
At least it would give enough time to at least collect some facts. Might make for an interesting conversation then. At least you'd get some credibility.
100
« on: May 27, 2009, 04:04 »
read again this thread in 2010 and check if i'll be wrong.
Ok, agreed. Let's leave it at that for now and come back to it next year.
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