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Messages - sgoodwin4813

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851
No difference to me since I'm not with them.

852
For me with PP and subs they are still #2 after SS, although much closer to the others than before.  iS by itself is now unfortunately only middle tier, but with PP and subs still top tier.  I'm sure with their next brilliant change they will probably change that though and then your thread title will be accurate.

853
With the 60D you can use EF-S lenses.  For travel I use the EF-S 10-22 and the EF-S 17-55.  Both are quite sharp, light weight and not too expensive (but not cheap either).  The 17-55 is also recommended #1 by the Digital Picture for general purpose lenses (http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-General-Purpose-Lens.aspx). 

If you want something really light, small and relatively cheap I would go for the EF-S 24 mm pancake lens and the 40 mm pancake lens.  I have the 40 mm and it is quite sharp but haven't seen the 24 mm yet.  The pancake lenses have the advantage of not attracting much attention when walking around with them and you could easily carry them in a large pocket.  You could get them both for around $300 and those focal lengths would cover a lot of travel photography.

If your main concern is focus rejections then new camera gear may not be the solution - you might need to review your technique as well, and get a tripod too.  And of course nowadays it seems that the right reviewer is the most important - too bad we can't choose them.  Good luck!

854
Shutterstock.com / Re: Increase of ELs
« on: May 20, 2015, 08:37 »
Wow, great job!  I had none last Oct-Dec, got 1-2 a month from Jan-April but none so far this month.  I think they are random.  Hope your luck continues, but also that it spreads to some others as well!

855
Canva / Re: Canva
« on: May 19, 2015, 12:36 »
Its hard for me to get BMEs as they keep deleting images from my portfolio. It really doesn't sit right with me. They should for the sake of helping them start up grandfather a portfolio. Instead it feeks like thanks for the help but we no longer need you. Anyways, I'll get back under my rock.

What kind of images are they deleting?  That hasn't happened to me yet and it would be nice to know what they don't want to save time when submitting.

856
Canva / Re: Canva
« on: May 19, 2015, 05:30 »
For me last month was a BME there and this month so far is about the same - no complaints

857
all the buyers have been abducted by aliens.

I hate it when that happens

858
When I was an undergrad I played in a brass quintet.  It was fun and good experience but we were mostly doing it to make some extra money.  We occasionally played a free concert for promotion but mainly did weddings and churches.  When anyone asked, we repeated the same mantra, "no pay, no play".  Some of the church people got kind of upset and thought we should play for free, but we told them sorry, we would only do it for money.  Our prices were very reasonable so they usually hired us.  We never did do a free gig while I was a member.  I'm not about to start now!

859
Veer / Re: Veer sales nowadays
« on: May 10, 2015, 12:20 »
Did anyone ask them why they do that?

Of course not - this is MSG, all we do is complain!

Actually in response to your question I did ask them and will let you know how they respond.

860
Some agencies are very limited in what they will accept for editorial and anything that looks artificial will be rejected.  I don't recall BS being particularly restrictive so it might just be a particular reviewer.  What I hate is when they reject one that is perfectly fine for regular RF (and accepted that way everywhere else including SS) but they say it has to be editorial.  At BS sales of individual images are low enough that it isn't worth worrying about or trying to resubmit - I'm not going to take the time to make up an editorial caption only for them.  Just submit, forget and move on.

861
Veer / Re: Veer sales nowadays
« on: May 10, 2015, 09:47 »
Wow, I've just checked mine and they have done the same thing - stripped out all of the most important keywords and put in very general ones or completely wrong ones instead.  They have removed all of the scientific names of plants and animals even though those provide the most efficient way to search for something specific.  That explains why sales essentially stopped a few months ago.  Not worth bothering to submit there anymore.  Whoever came up with the idea to do that should be fired - it must be killing their business if nobody can find what they want.

862
General Stock Discussion / Re: April 2015 Earnings
« on: May 01, 2015, 11:34 »
For me it was down about 34% from last month (which was a BME) and a little over 11% from April last year.  So not great but not horrible either.

863
Veer / Re: Veer sales nowadays
« on: April 21, 2015, 15:29 »
Sales there have become very slow lately - almost nothing all year.  OTOH, uploading is easy and reviews now are fast and reasonable.  IMO they are worth the small amount of additional time required for uploading, but keep your expectations low.

864
Yes, the key players stand to make more money if they drive the stock prices higher by squeezing contributors. However they do not rely on that solely to make money from SSTK

They regularly grant themselves stock at a cost to themselves of 0$

For instance  on 04/13/2015 they granted the new Chief Marketing Officer Aditi Javeri Gokhale 42,000 shares of SSTK - Award at $0 per share

They also set up automatic trades to sell this stock and then grant themselves more at a cost of $0 every few months.

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Stock/SSTK/insideractions


Wish they would do that for contributors...

865
Off Topic / Re: Railroad Photography
« on: April 12, 2015, 07:59 »
That group has a good goal, but they seem more than a little fanatical - of all the railroad fatalities I've heard about I can't ever remember one involving a photographer.  Usually it is drunken idiots or someone who tries to beat a train across an intersection.  Some of them might be trespassing, but others you could probably get legally.  They also haven't ascertained whether the tracks are still in use.  I know a place near me in Indiana which is part of the rails to trails system.  They tore out most of the tracks but left a high bridge, which you can still go to and photograph and the tracks by the bridge are intact.  Some friends of mine walked all the way across the bridge, but I chickened out after realizing that there were no railings and it was a 100-foot drop if you stopped paying attention.  I should go back this spring - with some photoshopping you could make some interesting images.

866
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Editorial Caption
« on: April 05, 2015, 08:15 »
Yes, iS has their own format.  If you use DeepMeta it helps.

867
Off Topic / Re: Seattle Wages Soar! Spread the wealth!
« on: April 05, 2015, 08:12 »
Minimum wage is not a guaranteed living wage. It's just a wage. If people want more, they can work and earn more.

Yes, exactly. 

For several summers while in school I worked at a large theme park where they paid below minimum wage because the jobs were seasonal.  The low wages were very annoying but we knew this going in and you could work extra shifts to make more money if you wanted.  At one stretch I worked every day for 6 weeks and was averaging over 60 hours a week to make money for school.  At least it was pleasant work and overall you could make more by working extra hours.  That was fine for a summer job but anyone working full time should be paid at least minimum wage. 

868
Off Topic / Re: Seattle Wages Soar! Spread the wealth!
« on: April 05, 2015, 08:03 »
Interesting discussion and we will see how it all plays out.  I doubt the place raising prices by 21% really had their costs go up by that much, and it sounds like their customers are mostly supporting labor.  In general I don't have a lot of sympathy for companies whining about increasing costs while dramatically increasing the pay of their CEOs.  For example, a couple of years ago McDonald's increased CEO pay over three times despite decreasing sales (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/mcdonalds-ceo-pay_n_3070833.html?).  How can they justify that?  CEO compensation rates are made by other CEOs or retired CEOs who sit on their boards - and get paid handsomely for a few meetings a year.  It's obscene.  When the CEO of McDonald's gets paid more than $27 million in a year I certainly think they can give a bit more to their employees.  It's the same with the cable companies - they always raise rates and complain about rising costs while their CEOs get $15-20 million a year.  I would think you could survive off the first couple of million and there are plenty of equally qualified people who would do just as well or better for a paltry 4 or 5 million.  If they want to cut costs they should start at the top.  Then they could pay their rank-and-file employees more, who would stimulate the economy by spending most of what they get, rather than giving more to people who don't need it.  They will also find that by paying employes more they will have less turnover, less theft and much more loyalty when they need to ask for something extra.  Progressive leaders know this already and that is why most of those companies are thriving.


The thing you don't understand is that a lot of those McDonald's are franchises, owned by people running a small business. They aren't rich CEOs. They're people living in small towns trying to squeeze as much as they can out of their budgets so they can pay their employees and themselves. People who own small businesses often work 7 days a week for no pay in the hopes that they will turn a profit. And you all are talking about hitting them even harder.


No, I understand that completely, that's why their recent raising of minimum wages only applied to 10% of their workforce.  The franchising system is designed so that owners can make a good profit, otherwise nobody would do it and the fact that 90% of all McDonald's stores are franchises attests to that.  In an interview with a franchise owner in New Zealand who was retiring and selling his stores (http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2014/07/24/what-its-really-like-to-own-a-mcdonalds-franchise/), he said he was making well over US $500 K per year, so still plenty of room to pay his employees a little more and live very well himself.  He also said he typically put in around 48 hours a week, 5-6 of them a day working hard.  Here's a quote from the article (it was question and answer format):

In that time did you make enough money to retire? I know someone who started up his own comic book store and in only ten years he claimed he made enough money to retire and shut the store down and sold everything off.

After having my first store for 5 years, I could have retired and lived nicely.

So after owning one franchise for 5 years he thought he could have retired and lived a nice life.  In the US they say franchise owners can expect to earn at least 10% of total sales and the average sales amount per store is $2.6 million so the owners should be pocketing at least $250 K per year (per store!).  Of course they work very hard to achieve that and the hard part is coming up with the initial investment, but your supposition that franchise owners have to squeeze costs to barely eke out a living is not supported by reality.

I agree that salaries in general should be determined by supply and demand and that those with better skills and abilities should be paid more.  This works well for many jobs but there are severe problems at the top and bottom ends.  CEOs, sports coaches and many others often make far more than they deserve.  At many US universities nowadays the most highly paid people on campus are the football and basketball coaches, which is obscene.  The person at the top certainly makes a difference and they deserve to be paid well, but I'm sure there are many other people who could do just as well or better for half those salaries if they were allowed to submit bids for those jobs.  At the bottom end employers will pay as little as possible.  If left to market forces we will have what we have had in the past, which was basically slavery and/or people working under horrible conditions.

The minimum wage was not meant to be a living wage, just as social security was not meant to be a pension plan.  However, it should have some measure to keep up with inflation and to protect those at the lowest levels so that they are not taken advantage of by those in power.  Ideally, only those starting out would be paid minimum wage because others should be paid more as they increase skills and experience, but in reality this does not seem to happen.

Companies are always trying to cut costs and of course the CEOs have to if they want to keep shareholders happy and keep their jobs.  We've had a big period of outsourcing to maintain profits by sending jobs to China, India and other countries with lower labor costs.  That works great for individual companies for the short term.  However, that means that huge amounts of salaries are being paid out to people in other countries, who are not going to spend their money in the US (or other developed countries), so eventually your own sales dry up and your economy collapses.  It's better in the long run to pay more and put the money in the pockets of people at home, even if it means a decrease in short-term profits.  The leaders in Seattle seem to have realized this and I suspect the city will benefit in the end (to get back to the OP).

869
Off Topic / Re: Seattle Wages Soar! Spread the wealth!
« on: April 04, 2015, 09:35 »
Interesting discussion and we will see how it all plays out.  I doubt the place raising prices by 21% really had their costs go up by that much, and it sounds like their customers are mostly supporting labor.  In general I don't have a lot of sympathy for companies whining about increasing costs while dramatically increasing the pay of their CEOs.  For example, a couple of years ago McDonald's increased CEO pay over three times despite decreasing sales (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/mcdonalds-ceo-pay_n_3070833.html?).  How can they justify that?  CEO compensation rates are made by other CEOs or retired CEOs who sit on their boards - and get paid handsomely for a few meetings a year.  It's obscene.  When the CEO of McDonald's gets paid more than $27 million in a year I certainly think they can give a bit more to their employees.  It's the same with the cable companies - they always raise rates and complain about rising costs while their CEOs get $15-20 million a year.  I would think you could survive off the first couple of million and there are plenty of equally qualified people who would do just as well or better for a paltry 4 or 5 million.  If they want to cut costs they should start at the top.  Then they could pay their rank-and-file employees more, who would stimulate the economy by spending most of what they get, rather than giving more to people who don't need it.  They will also find that by paying employes more they will have less turnover, less theft and much more loyalty when they need to ask for something extra.  Progressive leaders know this already and that is why most of those companies are thriving.

870
It's immediate as far as I can remember

871
PhotoDune / Re: Who still has a high acceptance rate?
« on: April 03, 2015, 07:28 »
The last few times I submitted there it was 100% acceptance for isolations, 0-25% for everything else with 5% probably being about right.  If you want to increase your acceptance rate send them some isolations.  Of course those never sell there so it won't result in sales but at least you won't have as high a rejection rate.  I only keep submitting there because uploads are easy and accepted images do sell but the high rejections is really annoying for a low-selling agency.

872
Interesting, I thought I was doing poorly as far as ELs. 1 in 337 from 2008 through 2014 totals. Had to pick the closer number 1:300

But as someone probably pointed out we all have different content, subjects and primary areas. (or should?) Some people may have images that lend themselves better to EL use? I have no Editorial ELs and roughly 85% of my images on SS are Editorial now.

I'm fairly sure all mine are for illustrations or line drawings, not photos.

That seems to be the determining factor. I get the impression (but it's no more than that) that ELs  go more frequently to cityscapes especially those at night. Having said that, I occasionally get one for a food shot or picture frame.

I've had ELs for all kinds of images including isolations and editorial but almost never cityscapes and never one at night (despite having some in my port that get good DLs).  I have had cityscapes get lots of SODs before, especially those at night, but not much on ELs.  I assume it varies a lot for all of us.

873
Alamy.com / Re: Is ALAMY down?
« on: April 01, 2015, 21:46 »
Works for me, too

874
It is odd to get more sales this month than the previous 4 months combined, but since they are almost all subs the total isn't worth writing home about.

That is my experience as well - a BME for # of sales, but only near last year's average monthly earnings.  I assume it is a computer glitch with delayed reporting of previous sales but probably no way to find out for sure (unless it continues this month).

875
General Stock Discussion / Re: March 2015 earnings
« on: April 01, 2015, 08:01 »
BME overall thanks to some big sales.  BMEs on SS (helped by video, including one for $105), DP (thanks to a nice EL) and Canva.  Canva actually beat BS and 123 this month, both for number of DLs and $$$.

DT good, others OK or at least near last year's average, except for BS, 123 and iS, which was way down - middle tier at best based on regular sales.  123 has continued to be weak.  Nothing on Alamy and not much on the other low earners.

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