Quote from: Annie on December 23, 2021, 22:43

Quote from: Wilm on December 23, 2021, 22:23

Quote from: Annie on December 23, 2021, 19:33
Oh, wow! Look at all the wonderful food ideas. Yum !

Martha, Beef Wellington sounds fantastic.

Wilm, I have heard of raclette before but thank you for your mouth-watering description. I would love to photograph something like that. Would make a great flatlay. And yes - the Rosemount wine! I forgot. We were supposed to 'share' that when I reached 100k DLs on SS this year. I was so busy and distracted at the time that I never posted it to SS forum.

Of course, Rosemount Estates is here in my home state, but Wilm - because our winery industry here is one of our big exports, I am always interested to hear how much you would pay for a bottle of that wine overseas?

Pete - thanks for the shrimp recipe!! Yum. We would call them prawns here - and do you remember the old Australian 'put a shrimp on the barbie' tourism ads with Paul Hogan??

https://youtu.be/95OovSKEtfs

Hello Annie,

the Rosemount Estate Shiraz is about $8 here, the Cabernet Sauvignon is $9.

But for you to just hide the 100,000 downloads is outrageous! You can't be that busy that you forget to post that! 

Congratulations on this well-deserved milestone! Super! 

You are cordially invited for raclette. And of course, feel free to take pictures. The tabletop is brand new and makes a very nice background. And: It's not far. Only 12,000 kilometers! We have a guest room for you...

Oh, thanks Wilm. Wouldn't that be wonderful if we could share the raclette. Thanks for the offer of the guestroom!! 

That's not bad for the Rosemount. Our most expensive export wine, often bought by collectors, is our Penfolds Grange - starting at around $900 AUD (!!) a bottle. If you ever see that around, please let me know the price if possible?

https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_529926/penfolds-grange-2012

I have drunk Penfolds more often. But I did not know the Grange yet.

The 2012 bin 95 costs here from $ 1,000 AUD.

The prices are very similar for the Henschke Shiraz. It depends on the vintage, of course.

And, Annie, the prices for the Rosemount I had written yesterday were $US. Sorry, I hadn't paid attention to that at all.

For Real: the 2016 St. Henri I get here for $ 190 AUD.

But is also not my price range... 

Quote from: Annie on December 23, 2021, 19:33
Oh, wow! Look at all the wonderful food ideas. Yum !

Martha, Beef Wellington sounds fantastic.

Wilm, I have heard of raclette before but thank you for your mouth-watering description. I would love to photograph something like that. Would make a great flatlay. And yes - the Rosemount wine! I forgot. We were supposed to 'share' that when I reached 100k DLs on SS this year. I was so busy and distracted at the time that I never posted it to SS forum.

Of course, Rosemount Estates is here in my home state, but Wilm - because our winery industry here is one of our big exports, I am always interested to hear how much you would pay for a bottle of that wine overseas?

Pete - thanks for the shrimp recipe!! Yum. We would call them prawns here - and do you remember the old Australian 'put a shrimp on the barbie' tourism ads with Paul Hogan??

https://youtu.be/95OovSKEtfs

Hello Annie,

the Rosemount Estate Shiraz is about $8 here, the Cabernet Sauvignon is $9.

But for you to just hide the 100,000 downloads is outrageous! You can't be that busy that you forget to post that! 

Congratulations on this well-deserved milestone! Super! 

You are cordially invited for raclette. And of course, feel free to take pictures. The tabletop is brand new and makes a very nice background. And: It's not far. Only 12,000 kilometers! We have a guest room for you...

Quote from: RalfLiebhold on December 23, 2021, 12:24
Wilm, sounds almost like we planned our dinner together, except we prefer red wine  . Raclette seems to have caught on in Germany in recent years.

I wish everyone here a relaxing Christmas and a happy new year.

Hi Ralf,

I suspect you got confused by the "sauvignon" and were thinking of a sauvignon blanc. It is a red wine - the Montes Cabernet Sauvignon. Certainly not a Mouton or Petrus, but it has a very good price-quality ratio.

I wish you a nice Christmas with delicious food too!

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 23, 2021, 15:24

Quote from: Wilm on December 22, 2021, 16:44

I am very sure that this list is not true, Pete.
Where is Germany? Where is France? Andorra - 168 - with its 77,000 inhabitants compared to Indonesia - also 168 - with its 274,000,000 inhabitants? Hmmm...

Taken directly from the SS artists information, not made up.  I did say, that countries were a choice of the artist and that some have no data. I should have included, this is artists with 1000 or more images on that date, which was 17872

Germany was my error - omission 559
France the same - 137

If I had something that counted words in a document instead of doing it myself, with a search, "find" one by one, I'm sure the results would be better. But I'd still need to remember to search for Germany, before I could count that. My mistakes.

Andorra has always stood out as an oddity. Maybe people used it for fake accounts or some substitute for a real location. I have no answer for the illogical number.

For today, on April 29, 2017, 100 contributors had 100,000 or more images in their collections. Top 11 because they were over 300,000 at the time

#   Author   Type   Portfolio   Added per week   Country   Member since
1   Africa Studio   Photographer   1067700   4700      2007
2   Rawpixel.com   Photographer / Illustrator / Vector Artist   859700   14400      2014
3   Aha-Soft   Illustrator / Vector Artist   689600   300   Russian Federation   2010
4   Toluk      564100   17000      2011
5   lineartestpilot   Illustrator / Vector Artist   505900   0   United Kingdom   2009
6   wavebreakmedia   Photographer / Videographer   473400   0   Ireland   2006
7   Ionut Catalin Parvu   Illustrator / Vector Artist   431900   0   Romania   2016
8   ImageCatalog      401900   1100      2016
9   Sergey Nivens   Photographer / Illustrator / Vector Artist   338900   1000   Australia   2009
10   Kathy Hutchins   Photographer   326200   1200   United States   2010
11   iDesign   Illustrator / Vector Artist   308800   0      2011


Anyway, I selected artists with 1,000 images as a cut off for what some would call serious. Even that is flawed, because someone with 600 stunning, well produced images, could have a serious account and make some good "serious" money. It's just an arbitrary number, because I had to find something that was representative. I picked 1,000

Perhaps the Andorra phenomenon can be explained by the fact that Andorra has extremely low income tax rates. A kind of "tax haven/paradise" for contributors? I don't know - it's just really striking.

Quote from: Annie on December 22, 2021, 23:23
Thanks Martha and Thijs ! Merry Christmas Wilm.

So what is everyone cooking/eating for Christmas? For those who dont know me, I'm a chef's daughter and love cooking and sharing recipes.

And before anyone complains that this is not stock related, I will add that Christmas food around the world is a great festive subject. You can even shoot this year's dinner or meal prep, and upload later for next year. Christmas tends to sell all year round anyway. My suggestion is to set up an area beforehand and have all your equipment there ready for a quick shoot before it goes on to the table. Do all your lighting and testing beforehand.  If you don't have indoor lights then use natural light. Push a small table up against a window or door.  Or even place a tablecloth on the floor and shoot as a top-down flatlay. Or even photograph everyone eating and celebrating at the table. If you can get up really high and shoot that top down, then that would be great too. I can just imagine your guests: Whats that big ladder by the table for??   (And don't forget your copy space!! LOL)

OK, so that's the stock side out of the way, what's everyone eating?

We tend to follow the traditional English roast turkey with desserts like plum puddings. But when the weather is too hot, a lot of people have things like seafood and salads. Or BBQs outdoors. I make an ice cream plum pudding (or some sort of ice cream cake) for dessert.

Martha, I suppose because you have turkey for Thanksgiving, Americans dont tend to have that again for Christmas? And Thijs, Wilm and others - what do Europeans have?

Annie,

I have to smile a little. Do you know Asterix & Obelix? There's a short dialogue when the two of them are on their way to England in a boat together with Asterix's cousin.

"Do you often have fog like this here?"
"My goodness, no, only when it's not raining!"

There is always a grain of truth in every humorous stereotypical statement.

It's much the same here in winter. At 9am it starts to get "light" (if it's not cloudy, because then we have only twilight all day) and by 4pm it's dark again. It's raining or, as is currently the case, it's freezing cold. One would freeze in the grass at the BBQ, so this alternative does not offer itself here. You would have to cut your beer out of the ice block and suck it as ice cubes.... 

We have raclette. The whole table is full of bowls. Very finely sliced beef tenderloin, pork tenderloin, chicken breast tenderloin, bacon, corn, green onions, herb butter, peppers, champignons, potatoes, raclette cheese, marinated prawns (with olive oil, garlic, honey, cognac, a few dashes of Worcester sauce, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper). Served with water and Chilean "Montes" Cabernet Sauvignon - no Rosemount Estate this time ;-). This usually lasts a couple of hours. Yummy!

On the second day we have crispy baked duck in orange sauce with almond croquettes and red cabbage. As an appetizer there are slices of white bread fried in garlic butter, topped with blanched red cabbage, small orange slices and freshly shaved Parmegiano reggiano.

My daughter will make a tofu dish to go with it instead of the meat because she is vegetarian.

For dessert there is stratiatella and caramel ice cream with amaretto.

Enjoy the Christmas holidays! All the best for you too!

Merry Christmas to you all! I wish you confidence, optimism, health and a lot of sunshine - also figuratively - for 2022!

Quote from: Roscoe on December 21, 2021, 15:57

Quote from: Wilm on December 21, 2021, 15:43
Yes, Exiting Times are also already announced to me figuratively. I am looking forward to it so much...

I like it being able again to rise up in a level.
Because now I was a stuck in a current level.

Today my shutterstock RPD is $0.105. Looking at this, I don't have to worry seriously about downgrading from level 5 to level 1. It doesn't change that much at all....

Quote from: Disappear on December 22, 2021, 11:14
When it was first sale in different agencies for you?

What you are getting at with your question is clear. But no one can give a serious and useful answer. The time span ranges from one second to never.

What I can say is that in the past there were often downloads on the day the images were accepted. I suppose that is theoretically still possible today, if you upload usable image material on a very current topic. Since I have hardly uploaded any images in the past few years, I can't say much about it.

I observe, however, that even the contributors, who deal intensively with the market and produce very good image material, hardly achieve downloads with new image material. Hundreds of new images generate a handful of downloads - if at all. The market is oversaturated.

I have never been exclusive anywhere and personally think it is wrong.

But if you think about it, dreamstime is a bad choice from my point of view. They are on a steep downhill path. And I'm not sure how long they'll survive.

To me dreamstime didn't even make $5000 in 10 years. I still upload there because the images are uploaded in seconds - it runs alongside and costs me no additional investment. But that's all there is to dreamstime.

What about istock as an alternative? When I look at the poll results, that seems to make more sense, doesn't it?

Quote from: cathyslife on December 22, 2021, 16:52
France is fourth from the bottom, but I don't see Germany either.

Right, thanks, I overlooked that.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 22, 2021, 16:13
Country Search as of December 2018 - data is no longer available. There's no certainty that this is really the country because it's user supplied. Not all accounts had a country.

Thailand      2567
Russian Federation   2122
Ukraine      1857
United States      818
Italy         367
Belarus         346
United Kingdom   344
Spain         301
Czech Republic      258
Serbia         227
Romania      205
Japan         202
Canada         197
Indonesia      168
Andorra      168
Malaysia      156
China         134
Turkey         132
Netherlands      128
Australia      117
Latvia         115
India         107
Hungary      90
Bulgaria      84
Moldova      76
Azerbaijan      75
Kazakhstan      71
Estonia         67
Slovakia      67
Lithuania      65
Luxembourg      65
Lithuania      65
Sweden      59
Brazil         57
Portugal      57
Israel         55
South Africa      50
Switzerland      50
Austria         49
Taiwan         48
Greece         45
Korea         44
Croatia         42
Belgium      36
Finland         35
Vietnam      34
New Zealand      33
Hong Kong      31
Denmark      29
Bosnia and      28
Norway      24
Pakistan      23
Philippines      22
Singapore      20
Ireland         20
Mexico         19
Colombia      18
Macedonia      17
Armenia      15
Georgia      14
Cyprus         11
Iceland         6
Uruguay      6
Antarctica      5
Cuba         3
Tunisia         3
Cocos Isl.      2
France         2
Tajikistan      2
Niue         1
Solomon Islands   1

I am very sure that this list is not true, Pete.
Where is Germany? Where is France? Andorra - 168 - with its 77,000 inhabitants compared to Indonesia - also 168 - with its 274,000,000 inhabitants? Hmmm...

Quote from: SVH on December 21, 2021, 21:31

Quote from: thijsdegraaf on December 21, 2021, 20:24
I don't want to make this a discussion page either!

Well, thank Martha for it if it does.

And for best whishes, I wish everybody (vaccinated or not!) a Merry Christmas unless you are not christian and then I just wish you happy holidays.

And Thijs, my new years wish is that you will not mention the Netherlands in each of your comments but just comment from your own heart. I know you think it's a great country but actually that was a long a time ago. Around the 18th century or somewhat 

Covid is reality. So is the Netherlands. Both are part of the world we live in. Whereas Corona now occupies more space on Microstock than the Netherlands. Sorry, Thijs, but it is the truth! ;-)

Personally, I would very much appreciate it if members of this forum are allowed to post their own personal contributions, filled with the content they deem important.

I do not live in the Netherlands. It is not my home country. But I like to learn about this country. Just as I like to learn about other countries. It broadens my horizon. I don't know what the problem is....

Merry Christmas to you all! For the year 2022 I wish you health and success! And try to stay optimistic!

Yes, Exiting Times are also already announced to me figuratively. I am looking forward to it so much...

Quote from: Level6 on December 20, 2021, 18:22

Quote from: Findura on December 20, 2021, 16:55

Quote from: Level6 on December 20, 2021, 15:37
Isn't less information sometimes better tho?, if it's all about content content content these days maybe info like fps etc could throw off some customers?.  also, maybe they are copying the free sites, after all the free sites have some way of staying in business with no revenue.......hmmm.

Did you forget the sarcasm smilie?
I think so.

If I were a buyer, I would not buy where there is not enough info.
Dreamstime doesn't have fps info on footage either. I would never buy footage there. When I had a look at the website and some videos, my first impression was : totally unprofessional.

Perhaps the new SS designer is an 'undercover' brought in from a competing business. 
But I hope everything will be fine.

Yes but times have changed and people are dumbing down while getting smarter if that makes any sense and maybe they are catering to that crowd who is now entering or in the workforce, those who will just tap on something that "looks cool" and use it and don't want to see or care about those pesky technical details.

I live in a mixed student building in a college town and it's mostly computer science and engineering students here, they do programming and math to the next level, some really impressive stuff but can't clean a room or operate a complicated piece of equipment like a vacuum cleaner if their lives depended on it.

They think differently, I can't understand one symbol on their math assignments yet in real life they function like 2 year olds.

There was a big party on my floor last Friday and it was great btw but then came time to clean up the next day and none of them could figure out how to get rid of 30 balloons so they asked me if I knew who sells large garbage bags because we have a lot of balloons to get rid of and I said sure but you're gonna pop them first right?.,  they had no clue what I was talking about, their plan was to put all these balloons in to large garbage bags and haul them out to the bin.

I took a fork from the kitchen and five minutes and a lot of noise later I swept the remains up with my bare hand and put them in the little kitchen garbage bin, they looked at me like I was a god and them proceeded to tell me how smart I am and how much money I could make......

That's who's entering the workforce......

This story is really great!!! 

Quote from: Brasilnut on December 21, 2021, 11:23

Quote from: Level6 on December 20, 2021, 16:09
The new compensation model allows contributors to receive a true percentage share from each download, rewarding content creators for producing quality work that is fresh, relevant and currently in demand by our customers.

This sums up SS...by the way, the port is full of stolen images.....

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Rockkss

This one, too. All mirrored...

https://www.shutterstock.com/de/g/nguyen+thi+phuong+dieu?sort=popular

Quote from: Uncle Pete on December 17, 2021, 20:06

Quote from: Josephine on December 17, 2021, 17:56
Please dont forget, that Adobe is making lots of money by selling you their software....

No they aren't. 

I earned a free photo subscription last two years and will again this year.

Who else gives us anything at all? Our bonus from SS, for a years work, is being reset to level one.

True!

December is not over yet, but the picture is already clear.
For me, Adobe is the only agency where my numbers have actually improved a little bit over 2020 and 2019 - for all other agencies, they've gotten worse - worst of all, shutterstock.

Right now at AS it's up $544 and up 481 downloads. At the end of the month, I'll know the exact total. But it won't add that much more, because the end of the year is always a disaster for me.

Also compared to 2019 it's 423 downloads and $432 more. Compared to 2018 and 2017, the differences are dwindling. In that respect, Adobe is actually very consistent for me - and that in difficult times and despite the fact that I uploaded very little.

I agree: Well done, Adobe!

Quote from: SVH on December 16, 2021, 07:35

Quote from: Wilm on December 15, 2021, 21:23
No agency or company that conducts business over the web will ever provide insight into the algorithm. But even if the company did, it wouldn't do anyone any good, because then everyone would adjust their wares to that algorithm and the company would have to generate new algorithms to define a new ranking in searches.

I do not agree. If Adobe would just state that the ranking is based upon, number and frequency of uploads of the contributor, sales of the photo, sales vs views, region, age of the photo etc... that they shuffle every so many weeks or months, it would be just honest communication in the cooperation we have with them.

And if that leads to more uploads, better quality photos then that would be beneficial for them and buyers as well.

It's not that I am asking how to beat the casino at the black jack game or the answer to the million dollar question.

Well, there is a well-known factor that influences the ranking of images at AS: the order of keywords.

All other factors are unknown to me.

But again, even if we knew the factors that influence the ranking of images in search, nothing would change.

There are 40,112,000 search results for the search term "landscape". Of these, 10,000 results are displayed - the remaining 40,102,000 images and videos are invisible to the searcher. Every 40,000th image is visible in that case.

If the factors you mentioned were known and the contributors would upload even more images, it would lead to the fact that at some point only every 50,000th image is visible. Even if the uploaded images then had better quality, then perhaps at some point the overall quality of the image database would improve, but that has nothing to do with the ranking of the contributors' images.

It reminds me of the SEO agencies. They all promise to get their clients' websites to page 1 in the search engine because they pretend to know how the algo works. But if you have 500 dentists in one city, not all 500 of them can be on the first page of the search engine – even if all 500 of them hire an (or all the same) SEO agency. In other words, how to get on the front pages of the search engine is a mystery - even if you tell us a few factors.

Quote from: Evaristo tenscadisto on December 15, 2021, 23:41
Define what is bad or good material?
For example if it's Editorial footage from a good camera, not shaking and without grainy noise i will usually not buy it!
Normally when i buy, i buy more doc stuff so i prefer rather natural and more amateur than "candy" Pro stuff. It seems more real, believable and natural.

So maybe what we think it's trash perhaps is gold for others. 

In my opinion Content is King no matter the "quality". I rather use "Demand" to define what you call bad or good. If there's demand then you probably sell more then something that have few demand. Now if you don't upload i am sure that you will never sell.

When I wrote "bad," I meant "unusable," the opposite of usable, which is what I wrote in the line above.

You worded it well: bad means "no demand".

"Content is King." I agree. That's one option.

The second option is visuals that are so aesthetically pleasing that they positively stand out from the mass of millions of other images.

And the optimum is when you manage to combine option 1 and option 2.

No agency or company that conducts business over the web will ever provide insight into the algorithm. But even if the company did, it wouldn't do anyone any good, because then everyone would adjust their wares to that algorithm and the company would have to generate new algorithms to define a new ranking in searches.

I'm not sure I'm interpreting Mat's lines correctly. But I take from his words that recent upload activity plays a role in the ranking of the portfolio.

And there may apply to the entire contributor portfolio then:

- who has not uploaded anything, is not in a good position
- who has uploaded a lot and the material is usable, is in a better position
- who has uploaded a lot and the material is bad, is in a worse position than the one who has uploaded nothing.

Quote from: oscarcwilliams on December 15, 2021, 06:15
My sales have ceased going on a whole week at Adobe.  Anyone else notice the difference in their sales?  Thanks

No, Oscar, for me it is reasonably normal and constant.

Shortly before the middle of the month.

December 1 to 13, 2021 compared to December 1 to 13, 2020

At AS
Downloads: - 7%
Revenues: + 21.8%

For SS
Downloads: - 25.1%
Revenues: + 50.5%

AS vs. SS
Downloads AS compared to SS: 76%
Revenues AS compared to SS: 125.2%

I don't really believe it's a coincidence when I look at the timing of Adobe's activities. First came the action with the release of free images for 1 year - for $5 per image.

And now comes the Creative Cloud Express - shortly after the free image database is bulging. I have to say: this was very cleverly done by Adobe and the chronological order is smart.

What Adobe is doing there is certainly very clever and certainly covers the market needs. In this respect, I find it absolutely understandable from the company's point of view.

At the same time, my gut tells me that this is not necessarily taking place to the advantage of the contributors.

Quote from: For Real on December 09, 2021, 18:20
once in a while they miss the monthly payment and will add it on the next payment- sucks for sure...

I never had this case! No Problems in more than 130 months. They were always correct.