mine's http://twitter.com/deadcandance

mostly daily ramblings, photography and design. I'm not an avid twitterer, though.

at least a venue to pay my information debt back to the people  

I held an exhibition in an art gallery and sold my photos in a foreign country upon invitation. It was for a cancer charity (the place was theirs, I  donated %50 of the income I made from selling prints) and held for a week. Photos were printed on A3 glossy paper and bound to "photo blocks" (which are a sheet of polypropilene to make it stay longer) and their expected lifetime is 1 to 2 years. I had approximately 30 photos on sale, which I sold 8 of them for a price between $150 and $200, total sum of first three days was $1400. That's really nice, because people knew that they are not going to last long. If I were to frame them and printed on fine art grade paper, I'd price accordingly. And they still would pay. There's no reason that you're not doing this. In the end the charity made $700 in three days and I did the same too. It was profitable for them, It was profitable for me too. If you can risk printing costs, It's a good thing to be an art photographer. though I'll admit fifteen minutes of fame at the opening is fun too   but you should know that "art"-more conservatively-"things pleasing to the eye" is very different from microstock.  I know there's an artsy side of microstock which you can bend the limits a little, I'm not talking about that. this is really a different scheme of mind. have a look at world's most expensive images. you'll be surprised. one of the photos which sold for $4.000.000+ is photo of a supermarket price tags which I really doubt if that could pass iphoto's selection. If you are to try this side of photography, do it with a little relaxed and untechnical attitude. when you are trying to nail the focus to the eye, usually you lose it. a blurry photo is no worse than a crystal sharp photo in the "art" world, may even be more valuable. I invite you to try it, it's so much more fun when you're not thinking about focus and cheaply smiling models   For me it's how I started photography and what I love most. be also aware that some galleries are really picky about what they exhibit, it's really ordinary to get a rejection. these gallery managers are here because they have different tastes than most. don't get insulted, it's just a little bald idiot nodding for myself I have occasionally have problems to get into a galleries(though, in fact I didn't get any exhibition in the near past, I was overloaded with schoolwork) and I am a 19 year old photographer which held an exhibition abroad, with 8 years of photography experience. they're truly, honestly, asses.

that's what I had to say.

burak

Quote from: goldenangel on May 05, 2009, 18:56
I never upsize in 10% increments. So far, I didn't have images rejected on Alamy. Are there any arguments why would upsizing in 10% increments be better?

think like that: if you have 10x10 pixel grid and you are to make an 11x11 one and your interpolation algorithm is polling data from 2x2 grids, your lower leftmost pixel is going to contribute to data of four pixels, one himself, and 1/10th's of neighbouring pixels(for clarity reasons I am assuming when a pixel occupies %10 of area of a newly built pixel, it will have a %10 effect on it's color, which is rarely the case with modern algorithms). When you do this ten times or so, you're effectively making a pixel level gradient of %10 increments, going like %10,%20,%30... effect. it looks more natural than making pixels 4x bigger and then blurring the complete image to compensate. in this case you rely on your blur algorithm's polling widthxheight which is more often than not not enough to get on equal footing. but the guys at photoshop are probably much more smarter than us, and as soon as they figured it out, they must have updated their algorithms to exploit this. I remember this trick from scott kelby's photoshop 7 book, it may really be outdated.

oddly enough, I remember that at somewhere in the official alamy thing, they were saying not to interpolate with %10 increments.

nikon d50, but in a few months hopefully upgrading to a nikon d300 or canon 5d mark1. trying to figure out if there's a real difference between those at iso 100 and at iso 1600 on both machines.

my nikon equipment consists of a kit lens and 50mm good ol' prime, so, not much worrying about change of brand. do you have any idea about their viewfinders, like which is bigger or better or so?

let me explain a bit. I am a nikon user with two lenses(one 18-55, one 50mm prime) and I am inclined towards build quality of d300, but I am not sure it's best bang for buck. I shoot events and concerts, and I need a good high iso performance. I know d300 is good, but 5d is full frame. dpreview does not have a direct comparison, and on most discussion boards people seem to be polarized about the issue, which is definitely bad for a real confrontation of abilities. people talk about d300's far superior color rendition, does that hold in raw?
I also want to contribute to alamy, but so far I have been rejected because of inferior file quality(d50 is 6 megapixels) will 12 megapixels suffice? I am also worried about full frame problems such as "Edge softness / falloff / chromatic aberrations, needs good lenses" (dpreview) if anyone does have an idea about them, I'd be grateful. do full-frame really make a solid difference in image quality? I suppose a full frame body needs quality lenses. should I expect full-frame lenses to be more pricey than APS-C lenses? one of the reasons for thinking full-frame is the ability to use old secondhand(metal lens era) lenses if possible. but if they are absolutely equal, I'd be more inclined towards nikon, I have nikon lenses. if you have other suggestions also, I'd be more than happy to listen.

sincerely
burak

edit: well, I found this kenrockwell article
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/iso-comparisons/2007-11/index.htm

that does have 5d versus d300 iso comparison, but unlike ken, I am not that sure about definite 5d victory. i mean, we all see 6400 is unusable(in print, microstock is locked to iso100) but under that it seems it's a tradeoff. 5d gets more detail in, but d300's noise is more unobtrusive like film grain. 5d's noise is disturbing even when there's not much. and for ken's shame, he didnt turn off d300's noise reduction, which renders his article totally inconclusive. any thoughts?

Quote from: cclapper on August 08, 2009, 21:16
If you submitted 24 photos, 5 of which were the hearing aids, and the reviewer saw the first 3 or 4 that he didn't like, he/she is likely to reject the whole batch. I know it doesn't seem right, but that's what they do.

this definitely does not seem right, but you have a point. I always thought most people were uploading in large and fewer batches instead of the other way. I'll try it.

@perseus that's one really helpful guide. you should make it sticky on beginner forum. I will be getting two flashes with stands and a (gasp)real softbox and planning a camera upgrade so these issues will hopefully be no longer bugging me. But I still can't figure out that, when I get textureless white(when I blow-out whites completely) white color "bleeds into" my object.is it normal or expected?

I'd like to correct a misunderstanding here(my fault, of course) there are no  24 photos of aids, just five of them and four of them are here. all other batch consists of different objects, some travel photos, although i got many worse travel photos in and sold them. it's not that I'm not puzzled about it, just the photos you are looking for are most unexpected. for other proble s reviews are probably true. I'll find a less textured paper.for white balance my camera(d50) dont accept gray cards. for lights,i think i need to find real spots, rather than desklamps on steroids for depth of field, these objects are TINY, i mean, in sub-cm level. i have no macro lens, I used macro rings instead. eats a lot of light. I maxxed out aperture to smallest that'll not cause diffraction and can be held by hand. (plastic squeaky tripods wont really help in situations like this) this is the max DOF i could get. anyway, a poor workman who blames his tools. I'll try to fix them when I get home though. any advices about equipment that can return money spent? I'm just a starting photographer, my gross total is $10 thanks for all the help.  

that's the batch I'm talking about. Photos are of a set of in-the-ear hearing aids. I looked at their portfolio(and of IS, of fotolia, of DT) as far as I can see there's nothing like mine, and I think they can sell since they are unique. There are more photos of that set, but approx 24 photos there's 24 rejections. while they maybe OK to reject(though I don't really think so) I'm most puzzled by the pieces I attached. All my rejections are marked for low commercial value. Any ideas? Should I submit them back? Can you see any technical errors? Is there anything I can make them better if I shoot again? As a note they are brand new: it's how they are made.
,

I think agencies have more than enough checkboxes under rejection reasons header. While I think similarly about that a good photo can make people overlook technical flaws, I don't think fotolia or shutterstock reviewers are particularly kind to make a low quality photo rejected by anything other than "low quality", some first photos of my newest batch are rejected from fotolia for overall low quality.(which I don't think so)

thanks, isolating natural objects is really a good idea. in the meantime, yesterday I got accepted to shutterstock with 9/10 which is really nice and unexpected. Refused from istock third time , this time subjects too similar. I have hard time complying with technical regulations, not any photo of mine rejected because reasons different than technical problems. I have an 6 mp Nikon d50 and kit lens. I was fine with that, but that's the first time I am feeling I'm limited by my hardware, I have no extra megapixels to crop, my kit lens miserably fail when used on anything different than the sweet spot, and long exposure induced noise and the general background noise at iso200(minimum iso of d50) is rather frustrating. I also learned how annoying chromatic aberration is. loupe uncovers unexpected annoyances.But I'm learning... Interestingly my lowest acceptance rate is %25 at bigstockphoto, they only accepted 6-7 photos of my 25 photo batch I created since my start, on the contrary I have 15 photos on fotolia. That's very different from what I heard about bigstockphoto. It may be that agencies have different "personalities." I have yet to make a sale. thanks again for all the guidance.

note: I also changed my name to my shutterstock and fotolia name.

wow! I have never seen a forum with such a welcoming community. thanks guys

@pixelbytes thanks for the kind words, very much appreciated. I didn't see this post by arcurs, but I started reading from the newest. Probably get there soon. I also agree with you on that looking to top sellers is, in a way of looking to it, rather pointless. their existence as top sellers does not guarantee that your copy will be sold, instead, it makes your job harder. But in other ways such as learning how microstock works, it may well worth a look.

another aspect, I would never want to sell photos of my friends, and asking for a model release seems quite humiliating to me. even then, they don't look as good at %100.

I will take a look at alamy tonight.

@epantha thanks! I'd wouldnt try five times though I sent them for stock review, hope they'll pass. I never thought sending graphic design, but seems to be a pretty good idea, if you can send designs such as letterheads, instead of ornamental patterns or vectors? I am just starting to design(designs you have seen on flickr are my entrance submissions for KABK)
I noted down your advice. better try istock's forums. thanks for that.

@takestock not to mention the feeling that your equipment pays for itself! I would really love that

@adeptris this game kicks ass. a huge THANKS for that! I really needed that, my first score is 2 true in 10!

@gostwyck I don't know if you noticed, in the thread header, it says "specialty" advice. it's true I'm in no need of a lesson about aperture, I need advice such as adeptris just gave me. I am trying to learn as fast as I can, and I learned what I knew about microstock in last four days. I just wanted to hear what fellow photographers advised to learn first. I'm not going to leave it where this topic ends, but I am asking for a starting point.

@tan510jomast I started to see same flaws too. I guess it's what we need to compromise for being a stock photographer, tolerance for mediocre technique On the other subject, I clearly understand you. I am no crusader of art came here to conquer microstock. Anyway, I don't think microstock does need an ansel adams to prove it's legitimacy. it's fine in this way already. There is a huge market for generic images, and people who can create content should be awarded, there's nothing wrong about that.

I know a few gallery photographers. believe me, one of them can't tell why does he take photos. this guy is called an artist. he doesn't have a clue why he does this, instead of maybe playing tuba? so, no worries about that too.

Confidence is something I really need these days, microstok ruined my self worth

This is a question I wanted to ask, too. Can I earn something with isolations? I mean, I will noI havet be hiring a model anytime soon, so I'm left with others. although I have good nature photos, I understand that they won't sell well. I only think of isolations and still life. any better ways?


"Do you guys any idea what I should shoot? I am getting really adept at isolated images, but I don't actually like model photography, this is something I have little to no experience. I didn't use any models other than my close friends. Also, I wonder, When you pay for props, model's salary, studio etc. can you really make a profit out of these shots? or is there any way I can't see to take them? How is it like working with models, is it cumbersome, do you feel that you have to command every gesture of the model, or can you relax and just rely on model's modelling iq? Should I look for models for these kind of shots, they seem to be real top sellers."

anyone have an idea about this?

@puravida actually what you say is true, but I did not say anything about that pentax's or sony's lenses were worse than nikon or canon's. In bold, I said that canon and nikon have more lenses to choose from. I said nothing more. I also agree perseus in saying " a bad sculptor who blames his tools."

yes, yes I'm sorry, appears that I'm misinformed. It's probably my unconscious interpolating a canon problem to all others. However, yes if not values inserted, nikon offers limited metering, but if you enter lens info, nikon dslr's can meter fully. I can happily accept such compromise if it allows me to use any lens nikon made.

Also, I still think that Nikon and Canon offers most variety of lenses. Since canon is not so backwards friendly, this leaves nikon. Am I wrong? While pentax and minolta do have some pretty decent lenses when it comes to quantity and quality, the big two triumphs.

of course. I didn't think it as a private information as I talk to anyone about what would they wanna shoot and where, but I understand everyone is not that open handed. Anyway, I'm probably less of a competition than you think. I apogolize, then.

I am not a long time pro, of course I'm long time photographer, but I'm no pro(I only held one exhibition, gained like zero money from photography, you know.) I added the link now. Yeah, I did not send them art photos either. That's the confusing part. I thought that I was sending photos particularly good for stock use. Apparently, it was not. Yeah, that %100 thing is really annoying, but "that" thing made my photos obviously sharper and well defined, so I'm pretty content.(in a week, I learned about diffraction[actually remembered from high school physics classes] and I searched for my camera's noise profiles to keep noise really low, Found by experiment my lenses' sweet spots[at which aperture the lens is most sharp] and many more things.)

For good photography, I have different views. I actually think both of us are saying similar things, but the concept "good photography" taught at me is probably radically different than yours. People I learned from were artists to death.

Rejection reasons, in fotolia, simply says technical problem, nothing detailed. In dreamstime it is often "image sell value too low" I think they are saying they are never going to sell that image if it gets approved. I didn't even got my feet into istockphoto, so I have no idea about them

Do you guys any idea what I should shoot? I am getting really adept at isolated images, but I don't actually like model photography, this is something I have little to no experience. I didn't use any models other than my close friends. Also, I wonder, When you pay for props, model's salary, studio etc. can you really make a profit out of these shots? or is there any way I can't see to take them? How is it like working with models, is it cumbersome, do you feel that you have to command every gesture of the model, or can you relax and just rely on model's modelling iq? Should I look for models for these kind of shots, they seem to be real top sellers.

Quote from: tan510jomast on July 10, 2009, 23:47

Quote from: neversaynever on July 10, 2009, 23:39
if you are really low on money, you could just pick one secondhand DSLR that is functioning, and just put your all remaining money on lenses. That'd give you much more flexibility. I have Nikon d50, and well, it works beautifully even after four years, and I have no problem microstocking with it.

Hear ! hear! That has to be the best advice anyone can give to someone starting out. Well spoken !

thanks. Also if you do it my way, you'd better stay away from pentax or sony or etcetera, because you will need lens compatibility and diversity, and canon&nikon duo are the ones with most lenses. by sacrificing autofocus, you may get brilliant pieces of shiny metal-not plastic- quality hardware. in that way, stay away from anything that could narrow down your options, such as d40, d60(which cannot use AF in anything other than lenses with autofocus motor built in to lens, which are pretty rare.) I would buy nikon if I had to buy second hand, because in terms of build quality nikon seems to be far better and should endure longer getting into your hands with far fewer creaks.(IMHO about last part, canon's pretty good too.)

hello guys, how's life out there?

I'm a fellow newbie microstocker with an art photography background, which is(was) quite shocked by prices of the microstock world. then, one day, I figured out that microstock may earn you a little, but refusing it earns you nothing. So I'm basically here to pay for 18-200 nikon I wanted. Seems easy, right?

No. I didn't even get accepted to istockphoto(I'm refused second time) I fear shutterstock because of one month ban, fotolia and dreamstime accepted 2 of my 9 stock photos and the list goes on..

Do you have any idea what I am missing? I mean, I have good command of the language of photography, so anything technical should not be a problem.

I also read much of the microstock literature, so I probably know the basic principles. I know it is not about art or even about good photography, but a difference that blinding was not something I did expect. Instead of general advice, if you have any special thingies or "remember that"s you collected, I'd love to hear what you have to say. Also if you have any clue, feel free to criticize my work, that's something I really need. find the stock photography tag. and if you like, feel free to comment on my others, that's greatly appreciated too.

and thanks guys, a pretty solid community you have there

edit: I forgot the link  http://www.flickr.com/photos/26993726@N08/sets/

if you are really low on money, you could just pick one secondhand DSLR that is functioning, and just put your all remaining money on lenses. That'd give you much more flexibility. I have Nikon d50, and well, it works beautifully even after four years, and I have no problem microstocking with it.