Not exclusive and yes I upload semi-regularly, last time I uploaded was December 2011.

April 2012 istock has tanked for me, worst month since April of 2005, and I started uploading to istock in January of 2005. I have 1600 images with istock, There used to be 500 dollar months for me with this company, and now I have earned 38 bucks this month. Ouch.

Great info, thanks. My only question is, one of the respondents makes 900,000 per year, how much does that one figure skew the average income results? It would seem to me that one figure would skew the results a lot from a relatively small pool of respondents, around 700.

My best guess is
Getty
Corbis
Masterfile

Look at NEC

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa241w-bk-sv

Lots of top photogs and graphic artists swear by NEC.  Arguable as good as (or close to) an eizo, for less money. Lacie markets things and re-badges products made by other companies, which you get to pay higher prices for and receive gawd awful customer service with. So no reason to go with a LaCie over an NEC.

Cant afford an Eizo but want a color accurate monitor that is easy to calibrate (essential for good stock imo) the NEC is highly recommended across the board.

We all live in a Gursky world.

Ben Lewis - Gursky World

Personally I think this is revolutionary technology, a paradigm shift. The tech is in is infancy, this is a first step, an embryonic version of something that in a few years, maybe five, will completely change photography. Think about it, deciding after the fact, where to place focus, how much to be in or out of focus. I see so much potential here it's mind boggling. It's either going to put me out of work as a photographer or allow me more creative freedom then ever before. Awesome.

I'm all for the Occupy Wall street protests, but I agree that the video is off the mark trying to make the comparison to the Arab spring protests. Also, the police arrests (brutality?) shown in the video has nothing to do with Obama and Clinton, it as to do with the local authorities, the mayor, the police department, the individual police officers. Trying to make the comparison to the Arab Spring delegitimizes the protests IMO. 

Even more relevant is the first page of Dan Helller's blog, September 30th, 2011. http://danheller.blogspot.com/ Great example and explanation.

I always resubmit everything that's rejected to all agencies, is, ss, dt, big,  (fotolia and 123 accepts everything I send them, veer most everything so no need with them) It's just part of my system I have set up.  SS especially because for me they have been the least consistent. I resubmit quite a bit later, usually a few months at least. One time I got a warning from IS. I even do this with Getty / Flickr. Have had many images selected the second time around, even with Getty / Flickr.

I have 60 images on Getty, 35 are Flickr, and I make sales from Flickr every month. The monthly totals vary but anywhere from 10 bucks to a few hundred. The RPI is better than the micros but the caveat is it takes a long time to get a lot of images up on Getty Flickr. They only allow you to submit 25 per month and for me they accept usually just a couple per month. Many others complain of the low acceptance rate as well. I could submit as many as I want under the photographers choice collection but at $50 per image for the placement fee it isn't worth the cost for me. So all my images go through the selection process of Getty / Flickr first, and any  that are not selected (which is most) go to the micros and Alamy.

I cant remember the specifics, but a there was an image sold on Alamy for something like $20,000. It was an image of a fish market (if my memory serves me correctly) just a snap shot, it wasn't any production image or a famous photographer. I wish I could find the forum post of this but I cant even remember which forum it was on, I read so many and this was a good four or five years ago but it was legit. There was a lot of hoopla over it at the time.

Joseph, why . are you worrying about micro stock? Your port is way too good. Why aren't you shooting for Vogue yet?

For what it's worth I agree with you totally. If you look at the more traditional stock agencies they use agency models. I assisted a fashion / stock shooter, Getty, Corbis, no micro, and she always hired models from agencies in Los Angeles. They are on time, they work, they provide experience, they produce the goods, and they look great on film. MM models, flake, don't know how to model, expect the photog to micro pose their every move, in my experience, they just don't look as good, or bring much talent to the table. I'm sure there are exceptions but that's why their on MM and not working for Elite. It's other stuff too, clothing stylists, makeup stylists, it all shows in the final product. I cant tell you how many times gorgeous women show up to a shoot with terrible clothes that are not ironed, thinking that the photographer can take out wrinkles in photoshop. These girls want to model and have no fashion sense or posing ability whatsoever. If I could afford it, I would use nothing but agency models.

Curious about anyone who submits to Getty via flickr, what are your thoughts about the new Flickr Open collection? This new collection will be mirrored on thinkstock so I'm wondering if I'll even submit images that are selected to that collection. I might be better off just submitting those to my regular micro outlets. That way they would be on 8 micro sites as opposed to one. Any opinions?

If you want a small "micro four thirds" camera, then you want the GH2, best sensor of all the micro 4/3 cams (see http://www.dxomark.com) and look specifically at the dynamic range portion of the tests, and even more specifically the low iso DR performance. However, the best affordable DSLR right now is the Nikon D5100 $850 with lens, again according to DXO mark this sensor beats out Hasselblads, all Canons except the 1DS mark III, and is on par with the more expensive D7000, and D 700 Nikons, a real bargain. $1600 will get you the Pentax K5 which rates even higher in the DR portion. DR is IMO probably the most important factor when looking at a camera. But the Nikon is great all around, is light, and has a great movie mode as well if you're interested in that. I'm a Canon guy so no fanboy propaganda on my part. Just looking at the numbers.

I don't contribute to Corbis, however I earn roughly about the same each month from Getty and Alamy. I have over 2000 images on Alamy and only 50 images on Getty. But keep in mind, the images on Getty are exclusive to Getty, most of the images I have on Alamy are also on the micros. Now comparing to the micros, I have mostly the same images that are on Alamy on the micros, about 1700 images, IS, SS, DT, FO, BS, 123 RF, and Can, and the amount I earn on Alamy and Getty combined each month roughly equals what I earn on IS alone each month. Not exact but that's a rough comparison of my stock sales. So, my RPI on Getty is much higher, however they are much, much more selective and I lose a lot of what I call usable similar images that would otherwise be uploaded to the micros and alamy.

happened to me, must be a glitch, darn, I had a few hundred bucks in sales just today.

RacePhoto. This was a topic a few years ago on the Alamy forums, when Alamy changed their system and required essential keyword, main keywords and comprehensive keywords, and it was a big deal back then. There was a ranking penalty for Pseudonyms that had many similar keyworded images. Many people who specialized in one particular type of content were very frustrated and the tip, as it were, at the time was to divide these large collections of similar keyworded images up into a number of Pseudonyms. I don't follow this type of stuff too much, I spend more time shooting then keywording, so maybe that has changed. But, it was a few years ago something that Alamy discussed, not speculation on my part.

Nothing is adding up, the pending numbers when added to the online numbers do not reach 10,000,000, the estimate is the 22nd down from the 25th, when images are uploaded the are estimated to be reviewed in 150 hours, then they are reviewed in a day or two. What should we believe?

QuoteThat was my usual experience as well, but I uploaded some images yesterday, submitted them this morning and a few hours later they were accepted and are now online.

same here, I uploaded a whole bunch of images, wait time was estimated at 4 days, and they  were reviewed in a day, so I'm waiting until the pending numbers gets much closer to making the total number 10,000,000.

Also, if I recall, too many images with similar keywords will bring down your search ranking, so you split these images up between pseudos in order to to have a smaller number of similar keyworded images affecting your rankings since ranking is pseudo independent.

Is anyone waiting until the pending images number comes very close to the online images number before they submit? Right now online is images equal 9,972,252 and pending is 15,629, about 12,000 or so shot of 10 mil.

QuoteI is notable, though, that the earnings are going down rather than up.  Is that because you are getting fewer sales there, or because the average price per sale is dropping? 

Both

Also, a few years ago they changed their system of key wording and I never took the time to go through my images and fix them so I believe since then, my images have never ranked very high in Alamy searches. I just recently went through all 2000 of my images, and re-keworded them to fit their hierarchical system, and also removed duplicated keywords (i used to be very sloppy at keywording) so now hopefully my images will rank higher and I'll get more sales. Or maybe i just wasted a whole bunch of time. We'll see.
-David

I have roughly around 2000 images with Alamy, 1700 or so RF, all the same RF images I submit to microstock. And before you bash me for sending Alamy the same stuff that's on the micros, Alamy has publicly said that they accept micro images, just as long as they are RF. My Alamy earnings: In 2009 I earned a total of $1600, in 2008 $1800, 2007 $2600. So that isn't as much as I earn from IS or SS or Fotolia, but for me it's on par with Dreamsime, and much better than Big, or Can , or 123. So I just think of Alamy like another micro, with the benefit of sending them the occasional RM, and not having to worry about any editing on their part. There is always the possibility of getting a real big payoff with Alamy, rare but it does happen, and it's no more time consuming than most micros. Now there is no upsizing so that even saves more time. Win win in my book.
-David

I've been getting a lot of rejections lately, and SS used to accept darn near everything I submitted. However, maybe it's a coincidence, but on two occasions lately, I submitted on the weekend as apposed to a weekday and both times everything was accepted. Different reviewers who are smarter, I mean more tolerant, working on the weekends?