Right, can everyone now please go to my blog page www.microstockselling.com and click on every referral link you can find!

Hi,
My name is Jarod Quistambyble and if you send me 100$ 49.99$, I will send you a bunch of referral links so you can start earning up to 1,000,000$ per week by just uploading your CSF card.  
(the time for contributor referrals is over - everybody on the planet with a cam knows about microstock already - try to get buyers)

This is highly unusual.

Probably a coincidence. I has a 2-digit $ day on DT by large credit sales (one TIFF). Two of them were very niche editorials. It just happened that the right buyer came around. No worries. Tomorrow is another day.

Thanks for the headsup! We've rectified the issue. You may check it now.

I checked it with a simple benchmark: asia landscape tropical. Quite straightforward, I guess. I want a landscape, in Asia, and in the tropics. The first page is still full of seascapes, beaches, cityskapes (Hong Kong). God forbid, there is that Athens Parthenon again, on the second place, from Fabrizio Chiruzzi. It's not a 123RF glitch, this guy is a fatal spammer. No wonder he turns up in 70 lightboxes.


http://www.123rf.com/photo_307949_temple.html

177 keywords.

architecture, worship, world, woods, wooden, wood, white, waves, water, vintage, vacation, tropical, trees, travel, tranquillity, tranquil, tradition, tourist, tourism, tin, mine, temple, technology, sunset, sunny, sundown, sun, summer, study, student, strength, street, stone, statue, stand, solitary, solid, sky, site, silhouette, seascape, sea, school, scenery, saltwater, ruins, ruin, rome, roman, rocks, road, restored, remains, religion, relic, pythian, preserved, planks, pillars, pillar, person, people, peaceful, path, palace, outline, outdoors, outdoor, omphalos, olympics, old, ocean, navel, nature, mountain, monument, mining, middleeast, man, lonliness, light, levant, lebanon, laptop, landscape, landmark, jupiter, jordanian, jordan, jerash, italy, italian, isolation, isolated, island, internet, industry, industrial, human, horizon, homework, history, historical, historic, heritage, heliopolis, hawaii, greek, gree, god, gate, games, forest, florida, europe, escape, empty, empire, east, desolate, design, deserted, delphi, delfi, decapolis, culture, cultural, cornwall, cornish, construction, connection, connect, concord, computer, columns, column, colors, coastline, coastal, coast, cloudy, clouds, cloud, clipping, classical, classic, civilization, civilisation, cityscape, city, chimney, calm, buildings, boats, blue, black, big, beauty, beach, background, baalbeck, attractions, attraction, atmospheric, atlantic, athens, athene, asia, artemis, archeology, arch, apollo, antiquity, antique, ancient, alone, acropolis

Laptop and Florida, huh? Say no more. If you allow that kind of spam, no wonder that the real asian tropical landscapes pop up on page 99999. I don't want to compete with this.

How old is she?  Old people can be GREAT models!

Yes seniors are great and underrepresented models but in this case I feel it would be degrading for her. I don't like to shoot dementing people since it might take away their dignity, even if they sign. I had a similar grandmother-in-law in Mindanao and the stories she told about the cruelty of the Japanese occupation were breath-taking. I'll keep those for a blog sometimes. But the shots I took have to remain private.

but the image I'm talking about is just the first one of a series of about 35 of one shoot.  And the shoot cost me about 650 dollars (doll included)

Yes that's different. I believe you that the baby must be special, looking at your DT port. A PR for the paintwork would be fine I guess.

I don't know about the other sites but the August slow down has been consistent for me.

I guess that Gostwyck was right about the European holiday habits. Blue collars, people with small kinds tend to take holidays in July. The white collars tend to take holidays end July-half August, partly to avoid the crowd. I guess buyers are in this latter segment.

My sales stopped even before the takeover. Since 1st of April this year I've had one single sale at CS!

Yes but Elena is a stock celebrity. She can fill a stock house on her own.  So what she reports is very significant.

Top 10 HDR software http://captainkimo.com/hdr-software-review-comparison

Thanks for the link. Noteworthy is that you'll get 15% off Photomatix if you order by Captain Kimo's site.

Hard drive cameras get a fair bit of criticism over their compression

Interesting info. Does that mean that DSLR cams have no compression on video?

Did you try to contact them yet?

They don't care. Their earnings page for me is f@cked up already 3 months. Their site must be in disarray and their reviews are a mess. I stopped uploading and if soon they don't get things straight, I'll quit there.
Edit: Just looked and I saw a bunch of sales of my last shoot. Turned out my collaborator back in Asia (that uploads my stuff) uploaded them without me knowing and they were all accepted. He told me I'm too grumpy and I should upload all everywhere.  - oh well...

I don't think the few people commenting here has any statistical relevance.

You are totally correct. That's why I kept out of this thread. But I enjoy reading the observations of the big guns here. It's one of the better threads. (XL and L sizes sales on iStock the past 2 days more than made up my 3 no-sales days after F5 - this might be the time of year: I had an unusual high number of level 5 credit sales the past 2 days on DT).

But I do know that there is some very special imagery in Vetta, some real eye popping material which are an inspiration and are completely unrelated to the typical fare. Not that I am trying to drum up support for IS.  Rather I think the success of Vetta, which many exclusive contributors can vouch for, has been watched since Day 1 by the competing agencies.

I think iStock should let non-exclusives into Vetta, with exclusive pics. It would benefit them since they make much more profit on non-exclusives than on exclusives, and they would have a wider creative crowd to tap from. The Vetta collection would still be exclusive then.

It's very slow lately. They even closed the "How was your July" thread on the forums. I had 2 giant (relatively) level 5 pics sales yesterday. Since the keywords were N/A and just one hour apart I had a look at the Google Analytics on my site where those pics are on the front page with a link to DT. Lo and belo, somebody visited there and exited by the link to DT. It will end up we'll have to do our own marketing I think.