Share everything and anything. Unless the person is acting like a total *, then just clam up and grin at them for as long as is reasonably polite Then cave and share everything. Unless of course they persist in being a *, then tell them that sorry your camera's got twigs in it and photoshop flooded.

I haven't uploaded much editorial yet... but what i have uploaded, they accepted (except one because of some confusion about exactly which god - out of 2 million - was being celebrated) even though they weren't 'newsworthy' as such, more illustrative...

You just need to stick some info in the caption

for a portrait of a chai seller, for example, the description was 'a chai seller waits for business' and the extra caption (the news) was "The informal economy generates 90.3 per cent of all livelihoods in India."

For a young chap with an elephant, the 'news'  was "Elephants have been domesticated in India for over 3,500 years."

Put an interesting fact in the description and it's newsworthy : )

Ok - I'm definitely up for fairtrade.  My sister's company has an account with istock

I'm not an istock contributer so don't know how to frame it.  What should I tell her?  She prefers ethical business, but if i just go in going 'they just gave a big paycut to everyone and pretended it was a good thing!' she's not going to take it seriously

Anyone got a statement about it that I can just copy and paste and send her and tell her it's from the photographers?  I think she'll listen then

Lucy x

edit: i take it back - it's not the way... bad idea if it hurts the contributers! 

I was hoping they would find another solution.  

Quote from: Freedom on June 28, 2009, 08:27
I must confess I am perplexed. Apparently most people are happy shooters, I just don't understand how this thread has become one in which some people fantasize about other people's failure and flaws, without even knowing them. I thought the question is about your own state of mind.

Do we have to point our fingers at others? If you are happy, can you just spread the good news and happiness?

Did this thread ask you for advice?

Does speculations on other people's failure and judge other people's unhappiness make you happy?

are we reading the same thread?

Quote from: nosaya on June 28, 2009, 08:22..

If there were beautiful Scandinavian type models in India, and/or if they worked for Indian wages... then India would RULE the mirostock world.

They produce everything in India for pennies on the dollar.
But luckily for the rest of us, they don't have access to the type of models that most of the world buys.

: D My beach is famous in Italy as the beach where you go for the beautiful girls... it's a yoga and spa place. You can imagine the healthy, glowing skin on those flexible bodies! Norwegian, Latvian, Muscovites, senegalese, american, french.... all flavours here.It's great for Asian models too. Japanese girls are just tooooooo beautiful to photograph.

Half of them dance, the other half do yoga in rivers on sunlight. The other 63% are with me with sticks and swords and metres and metres of flowing silk...

I don't have my L lens yet.  So i just photograph the grungy walls of my neighbour's house.

QuoteA buyer at IS complained in the forums about the pricing of the Vetta collection. He/she stated that IS should stick to what it does best  "Macro quality at micro prices"!

Doh!

(btw my neighbour, who's also the priest at the sive temple next door, is EXACTLY like homer simpson. except he's a brahmin. and he doesn't drink beer)

But it's the way it's probably gonna go. Microstock.will.rule.the.world.

Mid and macro photographers will flood our little meadow of loveliness with their truckloads of lights and lens and model releases.  Micro professionals will be on the run and start chasing down the hobbyists, the hobbyists will lose heart and scatter to more specialised places.  There they'll probably find the macro photographers who couldn't stomach micro prices; who will eat some of them, but let others live.  

Then they're gonna start marketing the technology where you can blink your eyes and print direct from the brain... and then that will be the end of all of us and the meditating monks will be the new Gurus of Stock Imagery.  And obviously only  orangutans and beavers will be used for wildlife photography - because they can reach the places we can't go.  

Eventually we all be outcompeted by shrimp.

Yes, i just read Ken Rockwells post.

If he is concerned about an over-zealous tax system, so be it. Tackle this with more honest debate if you disagree. Throwing insults like 'immature' and sniggering at him is too easy.

actually, you guys are right. I hadn't thought of that... I want more money too... 50% commission? A very nice dream... if enough of us want it, we can make it happen.

Seriously though, a lot of the reason why sooooo many stay as 'hobbyists' and 'amateurs' is because they're not getting adequately financially compensated for the high quality work they produce.  I've heard a lot of people say they have to run very hard just to stand still.

And they might never make that leap to 'professional'.

For people doing illustrations and artwork (like me), it's easier. But for photographers it sucks.

I didn't vote because i was happy, then i became less so.

I'm happy with sales but I'm not happy with the respect and power we have as a suppliers group.  I think we should have more. I think we often get treated as 'hobbyists' when it suits them, and 'international business persons' when it suits them.

I think the relationship between the agencies and the suppliers is not balanced. Many suppliers are so 'grateful' at getting their images accepted at all, that agencies can often change ToS on us with impunity.

Now that I've turned 'professional' I don't want to waste my time getting caught up in the 'process of opposition'.  I want someone else to do my objecting for me; or I want to chip in a little bit of yearly cash to get legal info; I want a place where i can freely speak with other suppliers without fear of losing a lot of business.

Basically,  i want to give the responsibility for protecting my professional interests to someone else.  And i want to pay them and support them in doing that.

Together microstockers have a much better handle on international law and taxes than the agencies... it seems crazy that an association doesn't already exist.  If we pool our collective knowledge, if we each contributed just 10$ a year, if we had one place for all the information we need to maximise our profit, and minimise our time....

Sure, this has a political aspect because it is about power and money - and getting more of it.  

But it is also more efficient. Efficient systems expend less energy.  The less energy we spend on things that we can get an association to do, then the more time and energy we will have to spend on doing the things we love.

Am I alone in feeling this way?  I know I'm not...

Lucy x

Many suppliers are from the developing nations, or are only part-time, so costs should not be prohibitive.  It's only an example, but look what happens when we start multiplying just $10

$10 a year from 50 suppliers = $500
$10 a year from 1000 suppliers = $10,000
$10 a year from 5000 suppliers =  $50,000
$10 a year from 10,000 suppliers = $100,000
$10 a year from 50,000 suppliers = $500,000

Knowledge sharing; our own market research; legal advice; representation; promotion .... the list is long.

it seems like a few people are experiencing this.... but, judging by a thread on the same thing at ss, it's split down the middle.

I've never had a newest search problem, and my new images go on my first page of the most popular.

The introduction of the new search algorythm didnt impact on my sales either up or down.

Photographers seem to be fretting more, if that helps.

x

Hi, SS just posted this update on the IRS stuff. I'm presuming they're referring to veer in the final sentence. (i bolded some text).  all in all sounds like a possible wee bit of good news.

QuoteWe thank you for your patience while we have taken time to carefully design a new Tax Center, in which you will find detailed information on tax matters for non U.S. submitters. We will be launching the Tax Center inside our Submit site soon, and we will send you an email announcement when it has been launched.

We also want to assure you that we will not begin withholding any taxes until after the Tax Center launch, and after you have been given a chance to determine which forms you need to comply and can begin that process. No one should submit any forms to the IRS until we have provided the additional instructions.

We apologize for the delay in providing you more specific instructions but we are using this time to consolidate everything you may need in a single location.

Finally, we recognize that other companies in our industry may have offered different views of what is necessary for compliance with U.S. tax laws. We will reconcile or reject these other views before we finalize our instructions to you.

i think the reality will probably be that you won't know what you want until you've shot a bit more.... probably most people go along the 'buy the most reasonably priced entry-level dslr' route and then upgrade when they know what their needs are.

i wanna take back my previous post. I typed 25c loads of times and now it looks totally wonky and maybe that means something : D

So SS trade as a direct channel... and are therefore publishers? So we're gonna get taxed after all.  Or what? can anyone dumb this down to amoeba level pls?

: )

There are really 2 business models

Sell a few and price em high. Sell a load and price em low.

Microstock is about volume sales. You have to forget the 25c thing, because it's not, in reality, true.

25c+25c+25c25c+25c+25c25c25c+25c+25c25c+25c+25c25c+25c+25c25c+25c+25c25c
+25c+25c+25c+25c25c+25c+25c25c+25c+25c etc

for one image is not just '25c' : D    it's a whole load more... and it can keep going and going and you'll still have your image at the end of it. It's actually quite beautiful... we're not actually selling 'the thing'. We keep the dough AND 'the thing' : D

microstock is viable but it's about volume .... and that means regular uploading and a large or super high quality port.

x
ps. am i going mad but is there an optical illusion on the 25c lines? can anyone else see it slant down at a 10degree angle?

is it true that ss are not withholding June's payout anymore?

Quote from: gostwyck on June 07, 2009, 17:26
Beef is generally the most popular meat for example and with Chinese food then shrimp dishes almost always outsell any other kind of meat or fish

That's so interesting. I wonder if it varies by country though.... Obviously beef is a big no no in India.  Im right next to a Siva temple and my dog's a german shepherd so the right size bone for him is a cow bone. They're littered all over my garden and it's starting to nag at me... even though my neighbours have been too kind to mention it. Indians are really sweet like that. And they're a huuuuuuuuuge up and coming market.  They call it 'veg'. Meat eaters are called 'non-veg'. It's like the opposite of Argentina.

x

Quote from: Jonathan Ross on June 07, 2009, 16:28

We all need some hugs

I know! we do... especially recently... 

Quoteone of the leading money making stock shots  ( I am talking huge money ) in 08 was a dripping ice burg.

: D  I tried to get the same shot, but using lots of trickery and imagination.  That photographer could have been me, if only I'd managed to find a way to staple the icecube to my studio wall : (

Lucy x

Quote from: Jonathan Ross on June 06, 2009, 17:37
Hi Stardust,

Pink is the best color to support food shots at least last year. The agencies analyze what pix sold the best then try to see the results and build data from them. So model in waitress outfit holding plate of food would sell better on a soft pink background than a blue one. Interesting stuff. Buyers do follow a general pattern but it is not etched in stone as the only info to go by. Do some testing yourself and see. Maybe do one shot on different backgrounds and see which sells the best, your own personal color test : )

Best,
Jonathan

Hi jonathan.... where do you come across your data?  ...... (hopeful)..... : )


Its not really on the food topic - but I'm starting to focus exclusively on pale grey rendered backgrounds.  Outsells all the other colors. 

According to the psychologists grey will evoke feelings of loneliness and detachment so i reckon the buyers spend too much time online and not enough time outside playing in the sunshine.

I don't think these buyers need our images... i think they need our hugs x

thanks stardust, really useful post... I haven't attempted photographing actual cooked food yet but when i do i'll definitely keep what you said about the distracting the eye from the icky bits in mind...
x

Somebody pointed out in another thread - to my shame! - that royalties get withheld by the UK government from Alamy photographers.

Now I've been spouting big words like anti-competitive and protectionist - and I would like to learn to what extent I've been a * in this regard.

If the UK is also withholding royalties, then it is definitely not an issue just with the IRS and the U.S. And it could definitely spell more trouble for the other agencies, because now 2 precedents are there.

Really - I'm coming at this with an empty bowl at the moment.

But I do worry that this growing red international red tape will cut the small submitters out of the game. And then that will leave the micro professionals, and then the mid and macro professionals might come in and fill the gaps the hobbyists left. And then everyones' income goes down : (

Right from top to bottom we will all get less. 

Personally i don't care right now about money. But what if one day i want to go into space? Virgin Galactic tickets are something like £250,000 although i expect the price will come down significantly in a few years. Or so.

Lucy x


Just cos i'm stumbling in the dark, doesn't mean i can't guess at where the light switch is.

It's been nice to see that my DL are still OK. I haven't uploaded anything recently
x

woah. only just read the whole thread.

Posted the last post in the wrong thread. Apologies for not realising what this was really about, currently backing away with my hands in the air...
x

hi food photographers

I read this stuff on color psychology:

QuoteWhile blue is one of the most popular colors it is one of the least appetizing. Blue food is rare in nature. Food researchers say that when humans searched for food, they learned to avoid toxic or spoiled objects, which were often blue, black, or purple. When food dyed blue is served to study subjects, they lose appetite.

Green, brown, and red are the most popular food colors. Red is often used in restaurant decorating schemes because it is an appetite stimulant.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

QuotePhysiological Effect: Violet has shown to alleviate conditions such as sunburn due to its purifying and antiseptic effect. This color also suppresses hunger and balances the body's metabolism.

http://library.thinkquest.org/27066/psychology/nlcolorpsych.html

What has been your experience with the use of color in food images?  Is what is being said relevent to the success of different food images? Do you stay away from using purples and blues in your images?  What do you think?
Lucy x