thank you.

it seems that those that have flags on faces keep their secrets secret

Flags blended on faces:

- there are millions on them overall all stock sites
- you may like 'em or find 'em cheesy
- original they are not

but it's Brasil World Cup and I suspect they will sell like crazy and at least they are cheap to produce.

now question:

when you do it, do you create a flag by yourself in PS or illustrator or you use some public domain one? is it legal  and allowed practice to use public domain flag image or should one create its own?
I will manage to make scandinavian or mid european flags, but Argentina? Brasil? Mexico? etc etc with it's little suns, emblems and details? uh

thanks

I guess airplane fare and car rentals would make most of expenses. For boarding , you don't have to be at most exclusive places, when on continent you can always find a place to sleep several km or even several tens of km from a place of your interest with rates way lower than in city centers or resorts, and you could always eat in small inns/pubs/tavernas/whatever or simply buy groceries in local supermarkets where residents shop for theirs. I would like to go to Cuba, Bahamas, or Indonesia, but plane tickets and transport would eat thousands of dollars into the budget, food could most probably be found cheap, place to sleepover as well (if it's not exclusively resort based place like Maldives where guests aren't allowed in villages after dark).

I suppose they wouldn't delete ones with downloads, but ones that didn't sell or claw their way to the top waters of search engine

Quote from: Uncle Pete on March 27, 2014, 17:25
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    Albert Einstein

Actually search engine placement is purely based on luck and yields different results at different times. More like gambling. Game is rigged, but there is some leeway for winning a big buck, and it doesn't cost money, but time (which actually is a more expensive commodity, but not with a small portfolio). Did anyone successfully deleted images and got better search engine placement?

Quote from: shudderstok on March 28, 2014, 01:08

why don't you go out and create instead of simply copy or as you call it 'replicate'. i shoot travel full time and simply shooting what everyone else shoots 'cause it sells' is lame. but then again, maybe that is your level, just copy copy copy and pray to make a bit of money. you remind me of the guy who once sent me a PM on IS and asked me where i took a shot from cause he noticed it sold a lot and he wanted to go and take the shot from the same angle??? what??? oh well, water seeks it's own level.

I say replicate and you insist on copy. I will replicate the vista, not the picture. I will make gazillion different framings on gazillion different focal length from each point. Not copy particular framing.  They will be my own, but they will be made from 30 or so most famous & most commercial standing places on the caldera. There is a limited and exhausted number points for standing on the maybe 2km total walkway with view upon the caldera in Fira, Imerovigli, Firostefani and Oia on a most photographed place in the world where more than million tourists with cameras come every year. One could only improve in better technique, color or be lucky to have better light, but those shots are covered before, you seen them or not. I plan to collect info about where to go to shoot. What, I should skip photographing Santorini and send it to stock just because heaps of contributors did it before?? Well, truth is that place is overexploited, but I don't plan to miss my piece of it, just plan to make a lot photos. I shouldn't shoot blue domed church? Or a boat on a roof? Or Oia windmill? Or multiple belled church tops? Sure, maybe ten guys on stock sites have original photos but they did it in 2004 and they are copying what they saw on postcards and books from guys who did in 1984 on film, and those original posters ain't any of you here I bet. Thousands of others followed and stock sites love it to advertise they have gazillion photos available and some of newer photos are better than old ones.

Quote from: sobm on March 27, 2014, 16:57

Quote from: Goofy on March 27, 2014, 16:47
The month that I make $3K just from Shutter I will officially retire from my day job! 

where do you live now?state?I can support my own life with 2k in here..but only me..no family kids wife ...etc

how life is different in different parts of the world. in my neck of wood 2k per month could support at least 2 full families with multiple children each. In Germany, for instance, they have average salaries that are 6 times what they are in my country.

Quote from: ShadySue on March 27, 2014, 12:14
As you say, it's beautiful (apparently, I haven't been), but it's been covered millions of times. As you're going anyway, 'profit' isn't an issue, but how much you can now compete with what's already out there, I can't imagine. Even if you could find 'different' images, would they be what the market wants?

Anyway, enjoy your trip in what appears to be one of the most beautiful towns on earth.

thanks!

Technically I plan to replicate every possible angle of what is already available from places publicly access-able (I'm not staying in a fancy hotel on the caldera but on the resort on the other side of the island and thus wouldn't be able to pass beyond "most" *read as locked or guarded* gated walls on the caldera to peek for a minute to get a shot). If I get other angles or views or treatments which I doubt there are many left really, fine, if not, I don't plan to get a headache thinking what to do. I aim for making technically correctl replicatiopns of what already sells in as many shots as I humanely can achieve in that time (only 3 days and 3 sunsets). Already studying village maps and preparing shotlists extensively. Would love to decorate my wall afterwards with images that I adore that I took myself. If it pays for a part of vacation or a whole of it, I'd be ecstatic. I have no idea how big percentage of those images sell regularly. For instance, a single shot of a traditional part of Skiathos netted me about 150 eur over last 4 years. It is my bestseller on Shutterstock, and, alas, only one so far. 2 extended licenses helped. I don't know if a huge flock of Thera pictures can give me at least several of such strong sellers. Don't know whether to risk another 150 eur cost of going to Mykonos for an afternoon. My budget is stretched and that little trip would be entirely planned upon future mykonos photo sellability. sorry to hijack thread and take your time, thanks.

I'm going to Santorini for 3 days this summer. You guys think it could earn me some cash to have it thouroghly photocovered? It's one of most photographically covered place on the earth, is there a possibility at all for those images to generate any kind of profit?

I'm planning in photographing all three days as beaches are hideous there. I can't stand swimming anywhere where I can't see bottom and where bottom isn't crystal clear sand.

they are holding my payment for ten days now.... not happy

what was it?

censorship?

I'm afraid it doesnt stand for that. It's either Big Bodied Woman or Big Breasted Woman.

Ahh, now this is funny!

I don't quite get some of American humor niches, d*ck & f*rt humor being one of them. On the other hand I find British humor mostly hilarious.

congrats! I'm almost there, it took me a little over a year, how long did it take you?

it is a great photo and 4 downloads in one day is very good, but wait and see what will happen in the next three or four days. If it continues to sell in those quantity over a week you have a strong seller. It's still not popular enough for Top 50 of the week, I'm afraid. I've had photos sell 2-3 a day for several days and then die entirely unless you regards one sale a month as "hot cakes".

When you die your threads get hijacked by trolls.

the new deadline is September 1st.

can we use old releases for shoots prior to Sep 1? I have around 100 old pictures that will not be accepted before that date.

yes, I know they retain 30% of US sales, that's not the question. the question is, if they take it anyway why provide them with my personal data? if I don't fill any form and my US tax is retained and I am not a US citizen, am I breaking any US laws? I would like to travel there one day (not to be restricted because of some bizzare burecratic mumbo jumbo of shutterstock/IRS that I know nothing of), but I am reluctant to give my personal data to a goverment of a country that is not my country and what is not my goverment.

since I am from a non-treaty country, and I don't like disclosing my personal data to anyone, and they are taking my 30% either way, do I have to fill the form? If they take my money and file it to IRS, what for should I fill in any forms?

from my perspective Vetta is a very good thing. I am not istock exclusive, not yet reached the level nedeed (pathetic, I know, but getting 250 dls in a year isn't that easy to achieve with a full time job) but in the future I might be.

once in a while, someone yells (OldHippy/sergey I am looking your way ) that we're selling images for peanuts. then some agency pulls a stunt and our commissions get cut even further. We shout and shout on the fora and the dust settles and we accept. Nothing changes for the better, except for the buyer getting something for less. Should  an agency want to raise their prices it runs into a buyer's riot and buyers go somewhere else to buy those same images at the lower price. We ourself are helping low paying *insult removed* agencies to wage that low price war. But, not with Vetta. You get at least 40% commission since being an exclusive is a requirement and it's 4 times more pricey. And buyer can't just scoff and go somewhere else because those images aren't for sale anywhere else. If they don't want to pay the price they don't get newest images of that quality.

istock, strangely as it may be, is right now looking as a bastion of hope for microstock (from contributors point of view) . they have effectively raised prices with Vetta and gave loyal contributors the share of it and customers still didn't get enough leverage to leave because they would leave a significant number of unique images behind. exclusivity is a powerful weapon for that. IMHO, istock should Vettify all of their exclusive content  with giving customers an advance notice to buy whatever they like at current prices. Is designers' budget so low that they would be jeapordized for having to pay 20$ for a photo download instead of 5$. How many pictures does your project require? thousand? How much is the gas to drive to the lab for that billboard material to be printed?

Jonathan, thank you very much. It is very nice to see a successful professional sharing insights like this to a bunch of people he never met. Thank you once again.

sorry, you probably don't want to hear this, but you have to up your game a bit to get more downloads:

- shoot more commercial images, images you have in your port often lack concept. what do they represent, what do they sell? that armadillo toy, for example: how often there is a need for an armadillo toy picture? one sale in thousand? one sale in million?
- hire models or persuade people in your surroundings to pose for you. cast them. use those who have commercial qualities. young, pretty, well dressed men and women with perfect skin, teeth, hair etc... doing usable commercial lifestyle things sell. your people images compete with them. you probably live in an area (US,UK, Canada or Aussie) where finding ethnically diverse models is not such a problem. Where I live, in South-Eastern Europe, for example, it's 99% caucasian, so I can't find models to catter to that market.
- try to compete with other images of the same type. those notebooks and pencils look nice, BUT they are not noticeable among thousands of shots of notebooks and pencils that look better. better isolations, brighter images, cleaner paper, better arrangements, color harmony etc etc.

I have entered the stock game too late. in June last year IS had photos numbered with 6xxxxxx, now, just 1 year later it is into 10xxxxxx. 4 millions of pictures (not all accepted offcourse, but at least one third is) more in just a year. that means that one smiling businesswoman that used to sell hundred times in 2007 is now getting at best 10 or so dls. and the market is shrinking. I really HOPE someone will break this argument, but I'm afraid it is so. Riding the best match search engine train (pure luck) with the best image you can afford to make (not luck, it's solely in your hands) is the key to getting those flames to pay for the costs of the production and make some profit at the end of the day.

hope this helps, if not, sorry.

I was expecting a giant cake...

I think eruptions are generally rejected because of noise.