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Messages - hatman12
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926
« on: July 29, 2007, 13:02 »
Yes, the hair on the cheek is a problem, also the red jumper is covered in bits of fluff which ideally need to be removed.
Whilst the direct flash needn't be a problem, you will get better results if you invest in a separate flash unit with a swivel/bounce head.
Otherwise, it's nice and sharp with smooth tones. Note that the image inspectors at iStock are quite creative types and shouldn't have a problem with shallow focus. BUT in my experience there is a difference between a picture being accepted and a picture that actually sells - you'll find that picture buyers generally prefer everything in focus.
927
« on: July 29, 2007, 12:50 »
Yes, I've had a payout and it was fine.
I also went through my portfolio and deleted all the images without keywords (about twenty files), uploaded them again and they got approved immediately.
Last week was my BWE at FT. I'm not jumping up and down with excitement because the $/total images is lower than elsewhere, but a BWE is at least some progress.
928
« on: July 28, 2007, 21:54 »
Hmmm... mine's 82.66%. I'm disappointed with that. It was 86% until last week when an inspector decided to reject three files for 'artifacts'.
ARTIFACTS? I NEVER have artifacts or noise. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.
Three files sent off to scout......
Inspector must have been out on the town the night before......
929
« on: July 25, 2007, 17:42 »
Well I think it's a mug's game to be honest. No disrespect to anyone here.
Five years ago no-one had heard of microstock; istock entered the market and had a new concept to sell to millions of potential design and image buying customers. They now have 2 million of them on their books. SS, DT and FT followed closely on their heels and have around another million customers perhaps.
These customers have access to a huge number of images at good prices and with good service.
So the game has changed; the 'new' market no longer exists; 3 million of the customers are now captive. Why would an existing or potential customer sign up with a new agency who might have less than 200,000 images when they can go to istock or DT or even SS? Answer: very few.
So a new agency has hard work to do; it's going to require a huge investment, attendence at trade shows, marketing, advertising, and all to a diminished potential customer base. StockXpert and LO are doing well by attending the trade shows but even so it's going to be a long hard slog for them.
So what is the logic of you giving your image library to these new agencies? You've spent thousands of hours creating those images, and now you are freely handing them to new agencies many of which do not stand a hope in hell of ever creating an economic return on your investment.
But great for the new agency owner: he collects over time a nice image library of say 1 million pictures; he now has a valuable asset that he can sell - YOUR asset of course. So in a year's time Albumo go along to Snapvillage and say "hey guys, don't waste your time collecting images one by one - you can buy our library for 2 or three million dollars; all the pictures nicely keyworded and categorised by our mug contributors who have made no money because we couldn't get any customers".
Please, people, don't be mugs; you've got a very valuable asset there; you should protect it, not just hand it out to all comers.
930
« on: July 25, 2007, 16:15 »
FWIW I don't intend uploading to any of them. What I ask myself is this:
Is it better to drink from a river than to try to get blood out of a stone?
My experience so far with BigStock is that it is like trying to get blood out of a stone; I can upload and upload, but they simply don't seem to be investing and marketing to grow their buying customer base. My returns there are uneconomic. I see no evidence that the situation would be markedly different at LO or 123.
On the other hand I know that IS have 2 million buying customers, and I also know that they can sell in volume. Instead of wasting my time with new agencies, what I should be doing is working out ways to maximise exposure to the 2 million customers at IS; that means doing some of the things others have done like making sure I have banners and lightboxes and 'similar images' links, and also of course maximising the upload facility with quality and commercially viable images.
The same thing applies at SS - I know they can sell in high volume so I am better off spending my time maximising that potential. For instance there is a way to have five similar images displayed underneath each of my pictures. I haven't worked it out yet, but I simply ask myself 'do I want to spend time showing every customer a further five images of mine whenever they download?'. The answer of course is a resounding 'yes'.
So I wish everyone success with their new agency stuff, but I believe my time is better invested elsewhere.
931
« on: July 24, 2007, 05:36 »
Steve, I believe you are right to be cautious. Our images have taken months if not years to produce; if we just hand them over to any new agency for uncompetitive returns we are simply diluting our hard work and accepting lower returns. That's wrong IMO.
If new agencies want our work, they should not only be prepared to pay decent rates, but also demonstrate exactly how they are going to invest to grow their customer base and produce an economic return on our product.
We should be denying our product to anyone who cannot show the commitment and returns of an agency like StockXpert for instance, who are investing and growing AND paying good commissions.
David F
932
« on: July 23, 2007, 19:49 »
I've had a quick look and I'm not attracted to it. Then again I'm not attracted to anything new unless it can offer something better than existing agencies, and without customers that's an impossible task I suppose.
I don't like the 'photo sharing' idea, which seems there to generate 'traffic' that will not produce income for Microstock photographers.
I also don't like the fact that they are seeking advertisers; that's not usual in microstock and suggests they might use microstock generated views to earn advertising income which will also not benefit photographers.
So I'm not convinced, but time will tell.
933
« on: July 23, 2007, 19:21 »
Richard, the Microstock market is changing rapidly; there are lots of people trying to launch new agencies, but they are all chasing a diminishing supply of product. And the more photographers that get signed as exclusive by the likes of IS and DT the greater the product shortage becomes.
Prices and commissions have to rise, and I suspect that good images will be earning 50% higher commissions on average in two year's time than they are today; FT has increased prices by 33% or so and IS has just slipped through about an 8% rise; SS increased commissions by 20% in April and restricted that increase to those who can produce the goods, recognising that there is a difference between the part time hobbyist and the player with serious intent. All of this is just the start.
A new agency has to be able to sell the product and generate an economic return for the contributing photographer; to a great extent the level of commission doesn't matter; after all, what is the point in promising 50% or 70% if few sales are ever made. Volume of sales is the key, and for that an agency needs quality product and a large marketing and development budget.
iStock can get away with 20% commissions (for the moment) because it has 2 million customers and can sell hundreds if not thousands of copies of an image. Can you do that? If you can't, why should I risk diluting my returns from iStock by giving that product to you?
I wish you every success, but I am not going to hand you my images to allow you to build a business unless you can give me a solid economic reason for doing so.
934
« on: July 23, 2007, 18:07 »
For me, BigStock's performance is abysmal - I earn as much in ONE DAY at SS and IS than I do in AN ENTIRE MONTH at BigStock. That's a shockingly atrocious perfromance by an agency that claims to be in the 'big five'.
Having said that, perhaps they were waiting to pass the 1 million decisively before upping any marketing spend; they have announced refinements to the search engine, and hopefully they will now invest some serious money in promoting their product to potential customers.
I agree with Jan in that number of images is misleading; sales count; marketing and promotional spend count.
I'll give them a year but if they show no progress in that time I'll withdraw my product from their shelves.
935
« on: July 23, 2007, 18:02 »
Down here in Australia V2 is as slow if not slower than V1. Keywording and categorising takes an absolute age and is very very tedious.
Having said that, my sales appear to be back at V1 levels and the average $/DL is about 50% higher given the new price structure.
It is, however, disappointing that V2 seems to represent little or no improvement on V1.
936
« on: July 22, 2007, 06:57 »
After some consideration, I have decided to say 'No' to Snapvillage.
It seems to me that the deal they are offering is poor. There is a shortage of 'serious' microstock photographers, and to come into the market with no product, no customers and offer 30% commission is just not good enough.
Other 'newer' agencies like StockXpert are paying 50% and have spent a lot of time, effort and money over the last couple of years trying to establish a customer base and a reputation. StockXpert in particular is making good progress.
If I now accept a 30% proposal from SV, before they have any customers and before they have shown any progress at all, well that would be like slapping StockXpert in the face. I am not prepared to do that.
It would be different if they had a million buying customers. It would be different if they were like IS and could demonstrate sales volumes much higher than anyone else. But I am afraid none of these apply.
No. I hope SV will be successful. But to achieve that they have to have quality product to sell. And I'm afraid my product is worth more than they are offering.
937
« on: July 20, 2007, 07:07 »
Sounds like a wind-up post to me. Such misinformed comment doesn't suggest much 'research' has actually been done as part of the poster's 'research'.
I would be very disappointed to have an income of only $90,000 per annum as a Macrostock photographer; certainly I would need turnover of twice, perhaps three times that.
And if I thought my Microstock income would be capped at $90,000 that would be very disappointing; I certainly expect to earn at least that and preferably twice as much.
Alternatively I suppose I could stick my head in the sand, join the Macrostock market and see my income halve over the next two years as all the customers turn to Micro.
No, I think it's a wind-up and best ignored.
938
« on: July 20, 2007, 07:03 »
Gave up trying to keyword order and categorise twenty pics today. Down here in Australia V2 is so appallingly slow that it could take me up to an hour to categorise those twenty pictures; that's a completely uneconomic proposal. I'll wait a few days and see if it speeds up.
939
« on: July 16, 2007, 06:39 »
See official announcement on iStock web site. Hulton is apparently a famous image library with thousands of rare and ancient images.
940
« on: July 15, 2007, 23:13 »
A thought has been crossing my mind recently: exactly how many 'serious' microstock photographers are there? And what defines 'serious'?
As a starter I'm going to suggest that anyone with 1,000 pictures online and increasing that by 20-30 a week is a 'serious' stock photographer. Many members of this forum fall into that category.
But worldwide how many are there? Is the supply side of the market saturated or not?
StockXpert and DT oblige us by publishing lists of photographers, and these lists make interesting reading. For instance StockXpert has 3,000 contributing photographers, but only 151 of those have 1,000 images. Obviously the list is changing all the time, but at the moment 'serious' contributors make up only 5% of the list. At the other end of the scale there are 1,634 photographers with 100 pictures or less. That's 54%. The 5% have many more pictures than the 54%.
DT have 16,000 contributing photographers, yet only 234 of those have 1,000 images. That's less than 2%. 13,357 have less than 100 pictures. Once again the images being sold by the 'serious' easily outweigh the 'masses'.
They say that in business there is the 80/20 rule; I suspect that in microstock it is more like a 95/5 rule, with 5% making 95% of the money.
Clearly the agencies would rather attract the 5% than the 'masses'; it's just a more efficient way to work. But with more agencies being launched and clearly a 'shortage' of serious stock photographers, what does that tell us about the future?
It certainly doesn't suggest the market is saturated. Far from it. In fact it suggests the opposite.
Yes there will be new entrants, perhaps from the Far East, but surely any serious amateur or aspiring microstock photographer has already signed up; there cannot be many left.
I'm not sure where these thoughts are leading me. One thought says prices and commissions must rise. Another says that 'exclusive' is going to become very important and probably command a much higher price premium than at present.
No wonder the newer agencies fall over backwards to attract a portfolio like Iofoto - with only two or three hundred serious players there is a huge shortage of quality product.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are a valuable commodity.
941
« on: July 13, 2007, 02:42 »
Well done Jan. Congrats!
942
« on: July 12, 2007, 19:40 »
Yeah, they've got the IPTC data tags linked to the wrong fields, so the description goes in as the title. They've known about it for a month but clearly they cannot be bothered to fix it. Sloppy......
943
« on: July 12, 2007, 17:30 »
Sadly, the Alienbees aren't available here in Australia Litifeta.
Nearest equivalent are the Elinchrom D-Lites (AUD $1600 for a pair complete with stands, soft boxes etc).
944
« on: July 10, 2007, 20:21 »
tina - go to 'my portfolio' and you'll see a selection list of 'published' pending' etc..... just under the titels stuff at the top. Your pending files should obviously appear in umm... pending.
945
« on: July 10, 2007, 17:46 »
Yeah, I'm waiting too; I can't see any point in rushing to upload until all the beta ideas are fixed.
Hopefully Corbis will be watching and listening and will get everything prepared over the slow summer period.
I have been impressed so far, although a little surprised at their naivety over things like IPTC, watermarks etc and also their 'surprise' at the volume of image submissions.
Nonetheless let's sit back and wait for developments.
946
« on: July 10, 2007, 17:41 »
Well the iStock thing seems to be a problem of their own making - all these small changes taking place when few of them seem to be any improvement.
Worst is the sudden removal of being able to refine a search - it is not possible to search by 'contributor' any more, so all of those buyers who habitually used to trun up day after day and search for 'lisegagne' or 'hidesy' have suddenly had that facility withdrawn without a word of explanation. Appallingly bad management.
The Microstock industry is alive and well; there are millions of buyers out there; but it seems that with the excuse of 'progress' the agencies are destroying their own positions in the market; we've got the crass implementation at FT, a 'we are better than thou' poor management of change at IS, and even glitches in the buying process at DT over the weekend.
There is one thing to learn from all this: NEVER put all of your eggs in one basket.....
Imagine if you are a diamond exclusive at IS with lots of customers turning up day after day used to just searching 'by contributor' and suddenly that facility is turned off........
947
« on: July 10, 2007, 16:52 »
Had a look at Alexa this morning just to see what the trends look like. Everything seems to be running at the lowest point of the year, and even lower than Easter in some cases (looking at page views).
I'm making a note to avoid July next year - it's like trying to push a car uphill against all the falling views, so I'll take a month off and tour France.
Not entirely unexpected, and of course it's important to continue uploading to reap the benefit of better times ahead.
Most disturbing are the figures for BigStock, where page views are way below even the low points of last summer.
948
« on: July 10, 2007, 11:30 »
There are one or two peeps on the SS forum saying they've noticed a slight change to the 'most popular' algorithm, with new files appearing lower down the popularity list.
Apparently this has only happened in the last day or two. I must say I've been a little surprised that my newly approved images didn't quite hit the road running over the last day or two as they usually do, but on the other hand July 4th area is a very slow time of year.
Anyone noticed anything?
949
« on: July 10, 2007, 11:19 »
Well done. Nice picture. Wish I owned a yacht like that.
950
« on: July 09, 2007, 16:51 »
All of these lessons are much appreciated - I learn little bits from each one.
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