Got it just now too. Immediately replied asking for clarification - I also spend a lot of time ensuring my description / titles are accurate. No idea what they are talking about...

Quote from: dbvirago on March 20, 2016, 21:25
I just got my payout. Far below threshold.

Me too. Well, an advice slip that my payout has been authorised anyway. I never requested it, so that's a good sign (I.e.: they are paying what they owe).

Quote from: Elenathewise on March 19, 2016, 01:02

Quote from: dirkr on March 18, 2016, 21:07
How do you really see if a photo was reviewed or not? Once uploaded my images are immediately available on the marketplace. If anyone wants to license them, they can.

I know they do review them at some point in time, and in very rare cases an image gets the status "declined" or "chnages required", but that's more or less the only way for me to see if they have been reviewed.

As images are available for purchase right after uploading, what does it matter how long the formal review takes?

It's easy to see. Click on your photo, then click on green "download photo" button on bottom right. This will open a new page with your shopping cart. If in the description of the image you see very red sign "Secure this photo. Be the first to license it" right under
License: Print Ready RF (Pending) - obviously, the image has not been reviewed.

You will notice also that under your photo there is a bunch of similar photos with following above them: "NEED A PHOTO IMMEDIATELY? Check out these similar photos."
The similars come from the reviewed collection. If you were a buyer, wouldn't you choose an acceptable similar that's immediately available rather than going though the process of requesting a license?
   

So this is annoying. I thought images were made available for licensing immediately too, but after reading this comment I checked and my oldest images don't show the 'pending', whereas the newish ones (i.e.: 6-7 months ago) do. This means that they aren't really available - buyers are requested to put down a deposit, which 500px will refund AFTER 5 DAYS! Who does that in this day and age?

Anyway, will contact support now to see what the deal is.

If I were in the US I would apply. Not sure where the negativity is coming from...

By the way, I'm a non-native English speaker and for a long time worked as an events organiser at a high profile venue in London. My grammar is not excellent, and I have a foreign accent. No clients ever doubted my competence and legitimacy because of it. Maybe it's different in the US.

Stock is a side income to me, but very welcome, even though I don't make that much. I teach photography at a private school and shoot corporate events and headshots aside from that.

Like you I had a D90 until a few years ago. Then I upgraded to a D800 and now added a D810 to the equipment (I work with 2 cameras when shooting events). I have to say that even compared to the D800 the D810 is a great improvement (I guess because of the removal of the low pass filter).

Can't say anything about the Canon, but would find it difficult to transition after getting used to a system. I particularly like the position of the shutter speed and aperture dials on Nikons. Not too keen on their position on the Canons.

I'll have to go against the flow here and agree with OP: some optimism would be nice. You don't need to be optimistic about the way the industry is going, but about what you are doing. I think it comes down to managing expectations.

I started with DT only in 2006 or 2007, always as a side income, and with about 80 images online. Back then I was making close to no money. But hey, whatever came in was better than nothing. Today I have around 1500 images online in about 12 or 13 agencies. I still see it as side income and my monthly income is between US$150 and US$250/month (it fluctuates quite a lot). Still very small compared to the medium/high earners here, and living in London doesn't help (£100-£200 doesn't go a very long way). But contrary to some people here, I don't see a great variation in income when I upload or take a break for a few months, and I get a small payout every month. This goes towards pints at the pub and other stuff on which I would be spending money anyway.

The thing is, I shoot what I like shooting, and if it sells in stock great! If not, I would have shot it anyway. I don't think the time I spend keywording, captioning and uploading is such a high cost for the number of images that I upload. I just know what to expect and manage my expectations accordingly. I also teach photography courses in a school on a freelance basis, and photograph lectures, receptions and headshots. I enjoy all aspects of my photographic work at this moment in time - I stopped shooting weddings and parties because it made me miserable. Stock still brings me pleasure, and the money that I make there is what I expect to get.

If you feel so negative about the industry and the way things are going, it's your job to change it. Great if you can change the direction the world is spinning (I'd love to have a higher RPI!), but if that's not possible maybe it would be good to look for other ways to commercialise your work.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 26, 2015, 19:58

And it certainly isn't the first time. Wasn't there a Northern Ireland party political poster, and then the rival party bought the same picture and claimed the family as theirs?

A couple of examples: http://pzrservices.typepad.com/advertisingisgoodforyou/2006/11/im_smarter_than.html

Has anyone else seen this?

The caption/title is so dramatic, but when you read the article the couple says they have 'no regrets'. When I read the title I thought the couple had been lied to by the photographer (which doesn't seem to be the case).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32873562

When I shoot models that's the kind of thing that I come very clear about before the release is signed - it's one of my greatest fears that someone will come back to me saying that they weren't aware of the potential use of their images. I once photographed an Iranian body builder - he needed the images for a competition, and agreed to sign a MR in exchange. I explained very clearly about stock etc, but after the shoot he tells me that he's ok with everything, as long as his images didn't get published in gay material. I said that that was a possibility, but not in a defamatory way, and that I had no control over it. He then told me that he could lose his head in case this happened and someone in his home country found out. I then just told him to keep the images - I never used them for anything.

Has anyone else had any similar stories? How did you deal with it?

Quote
Unlike others though, the one thing I would dearly love to see in their business bundle is the networking option. In my mind that could prove to be very useful tool indeed moving forward. The ability for photographers to form selective, non-parasitic, and more localized affiliations or mini agencies which specialize in high quality difficult to source (for the big boys) regional content is the only way out I can see from the downward pricing spiral. Couple that with direct buyer input request features and a pricing model similar to that found on ImageBrief for example...and maybe, just maybe...

Yes, that would be nice. At the moment I need to get my own site working before I can think of networking, but I have no idea how to actually bring clients in...

Someone in another thread (about Symbiostock) suggested a centralised search site where clients can register only once, and that brings results from all networked sites just like a standard stock agency. I would be happy for such a centralised "search agency" to take a commission on sales to be redirected to the indexing results, keeping track of clients' registry, and promoting the service (as well as to pay whoever's wages for maintaining the service).

In a perfect world, I would like clients to have the option of buying direct from the artist from the search results (thus having to register again at the artist's site). This way the artist would still have their own website and could still assign their own prices. Just daydreaming, of course.

Quote from: farbled on May 12, 2015, 15:20

Quote from: NandoPhoto on May 12, 2015, 10:26

Quote from: farbled on May 05, 2015, 18:14

Quote from: skyfish on May 05, 2015, 17:51
For me XAMPP is the best, i use it for years.
PayPal allows tests, just read their instructions.
BTW, i am not on free solution, but it meets all requirements. There are many other points why i selected commercial platform.

I set up the GRFX solution (supposed to be for illustrators). It works for photographers, just no network function which doesn't matter to me anyway, I prefer to be on my own. SEO seems really good, Woocommerce backend which allows VAT (haven't tested that yet) and I'm doing 100% paypal (tested). Like the legacy Symbiostock software (also free), it works just fine by itself.

Hi Farbled,
Can you tell me whether grfx has an "editorial usage only" option / disclaimer? Like you, I'm a photographer and at the moment don't need the networking option, but most of my portfolio s editorial.
Thanks.

No idea honestly. Pop over and ask the guys. Or, since it's self hosting, just put editorial use only in your title or something and have a second license. That's probably what I'd do, or separate by category. Just a thought...

Thank you. I've decided to try out the Sell Media solution. Still tweeting, and no editorial support (but with workaround options), but easy enough to setup and very good customer support so far.

Quote from: farbled on May 05, 2015, 18:14

Quote from: skyfish on May 05, 2015, 17:51
For me XAMPP is the best, i use it for years.
PayPal allows tests, just read their instructions.
BTW, i am not on free solution, but it meets all requirements. There are many other points why i selected commercial platform.

I set up the GRFX solution (supposed to be for illustrators). It works for photographers, just no network function which doesn't matter to me anyway, I prefer to be on my own. SEO seems really good, Woocommerce backend which allows VAT (haven't tested that yet) and I'm doing 100% paypal (tested). Like the legacy Symbiostock software (also free), it works just fine by itself.

Hi Farbled,
Can you tell me whether grfx has an "editorial usage only" option / disclaimer? Like you, I'm a photographer and at the moment don't need the networking option, but most of my portfolio s editorial.
Thanks.

Quote from: Robin@Symbiostock on May 07, 2015, 17:45
Most importantly, I'm going to kind of sever my relationship with the legacy software now because it seems my attempt to include it in the future of Symbiostock kind of backfired.

Robin, will the migration tool still be available at launch, or has that plan changed too?

Quote from: [email protected] on April 30, 2015, 16:12

FWIW the grfx.co community is open to all image producers regardless of your media.

Please can you clarify? From the other threads and the update notice in my Legacy site (in bold), I was quite convinced that it was for illustrators only, and only if the quality of work was up to grfx.co standards?

Is this really happening? My worst performing site will pay me for the second time ever (the last one was in 2011).

It's actually a problem - I had decided to stop submitting to it just last month and was at peace with this decision. And now this...

Three things:

- Please get rid of keyword tiers (like everyone else says), or simplify it (a lot). I suppose all contributors spend a considerable amount of time keywording their work pre-upload. It's exasperating having to do it again post-upload.

- Please PLEASE include an 'Editorial only' option, instead of making us select several different 'restrictions' for the same effect (as explained to me by one of your contributor liaison people). By all means, keep restrictions as an option, but simplify Editorial submissions.

- Let us decide if 'number of people in the image' requires a model release. For instance, blurry backgrounds and shots of legs don't require model releases (generally speaking), but your system automatically selects 'RM' if you indicate that the image contains people and you don't have model releases.