pancakes

MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - JuhaT

Pages: [1] 2
1
General Stock Discussion / Re: Video subscription price
« on: June 12, 2023, 00:51 »
QUOTE:
"My lowest video royalties from
Shutterstock - $0.25 (in any level)
Getty Images - $0.06
Adobe Stock - $2.38
Pond5 - $1.92 (non exclusive)
Dreamstime - $ 3.14
Depositphotos - $2.70"

This clearly illustrates the poor state of the stock image and footage business from the perspective of content creators. I don't contribute any more footage to any agency and concentrate on building up my own.

Is this math right for the subscriptions? How do the biggest agencies do that? If this is how it goes, I see it as really unfair. For example, the client pays 1920 dollars for an annual subscription and can download 300 video clips during the year. As the monthly downloads are capped, there will be pretty sure many months that clients use the quote even close to 100%, so from that 300 videos, they may end up downloading only half. Hence, the agency gets that half 100% for themselves and pays only from those 150 downloaded clips the royalties. If that isn't good business for the agencies, then what? That's the nature of the company, and that could be easily solved as people have been on the moon for decades ago. That surely wouldn't be impossible to do fair somehow.

Much more work for sure, and definitely, it doesn't have any effect on the global market, and maybe it doesn't pay off. Still, maybe there is an itsy bitsy tiny market share for the little boutiques type of stock producers which can produce exclusive content with prices that can be pretty competitive from the client's perspective.

This could be time for the bigger speech ("I have a dream") but instead, I'm just opening my stock agency for international business and trying it out.  ;D


2
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock acquires Unsplash
« on: April 06, 2021, 11:46 »
I'm still puzzled how well those free agencies are doing. They get their content for free from the photographers and then they make millions of ad revenue and get to keep 100% for themselves. That does not sound very ethical business and  I'm pretty sure that if 100% photographers would know the fact that they enable that they would take their photos from the sites but as it is advertised also to photographers and it is the community thing and so on.

Is there anywhere told how much was the price for Unsplash? I have read in their blog year or two ago where they said that their monthly expenses are over 98.000 dollars so only expenses are over a million dollars per year. Wonder how much is the net revenue?  ;)

3
Adobe Stock / Re: Introducing the free collection from Adobe Stock
« on: November 06, 2020, 10:21 »
- Connected to the above, the free section has content from Wavebreak media (~14,200 images in WavebreakMediaMicro and wavebreak3), Rawpixel.com (over 10,000), Wirestock (~5,300), Gstudio (~4,000), Jeremy Bishop (~4,000), Good Studio (~3,000), Artinspiring (~4,000), Caia Image (~4,000), Jacob Lund (~7,000), Visual Generation (~4,000) Hero Images (~7,000), Morgan (111). This is all high quality content, largely indistinguishable from the paid content.

I'm interested that are those very known microstock contributors paid to be included in the free collection? Or do they get even paid something for free downloads? As in general I think it would be very hard to get that much content from them to be offered for free and make a promise for possible better sales in somewhere future.

I understand the free concept very well. It has over two years that we made a customer survey which resulted that in Finland over 23% of the customers used primarily free image banks, over 57% used sometimes and only 20% said that they are not using free image banks. So in that light Stock agencies are in a real pressure for offering something free to get more visitors to their pages.

4
Wow! Thanks. That was an amazing article and thank god Google Translate!  ;)

Very interesting that you can get millions from investors if you're able to build such a community which is like mentioned in an article a pyramid scheme to some extent.

I have to read those other related articles too.


This article is in German, but well researched.

Unsplash is a startup, I dont think they are anywhere near profitability. One of many places building community, hoping that at some point later somebody will figure out how to make money with it.

https://www.alltageinesfotoproduzenten.de/2019/01/15/das-geschaeftsmodell-hinter-kostenlosen-bildern-am-beispiel-unsplash/

They do seem to have a lot of funding, so they can probably burn their investors money for a few more years.

Perhaps at some point somebody will step in and buy the unsplash story. Personally I doubt it.

Pixabay is a small outfit, most people have never heard of. But unsplash is really advertising everywhwere, they are spending a crazy amount to attract people to a free site.

They will never have enough interesting content for the professional buyer, but they are a nuisance.

5
Thanks Cobalt, that is very interesting info.

Where you have read that they have so much investor money to offer free images without making real money in return? I have found many one photographer free image sites where the content is next to amazing and I can't believe that someone could give that kind of content for free unless getting good money in return some way. I have no idea what kind of money there is involved in affiliate business in those free image banks but I would pay big bucks for the info if I just had the money for it. That model is interesting but it if affecting to the whole business more than many could believe. It affects majority of client's minds and how they feel about the concept of paying something for the images. Think about if a few thousand graphic designers would start to design for free. It would be like a similar concept and I'm sure a whole industry branch would be infuriated and would start flaming that concept immeadidly to every client they know but that is kind of happening in different scale already by Fiverr.com and similar services where you can buy quite spectacular design for just s few dollars. Compared to Finnish prices people pay here at least 300+ euros for logo design and for big companies it can be 100.000+ euros per logo. You get that same Fiverr price despite of the size of the company. In stock and image business big boys have been so clever how they have done it in 15 years to ruin the whole business and now probably running it so low that they have started to suffocate themselves because that is just pure stupidness what SS has now started with their new commission rates.

I read in the Unsplash blog post where they told me that running costs are over 98.000 USD per month. That didn't even include salaries I think.


Unsplash is still burning jnvestor money. I have yet to hear they are a profitable business.

As for their content: a lot of the best content is gifted to the world by photographers who are paid employees of unsplash.

The first few pages of unsplash always look good, but turn any search towards newest content and look at the horros that await you.

Free content has been around since the creative commons license on flckr.

I am really curious to see where the free sites go. They must live of something after all.

6
Thanks, CommuniCat,

that fear is real in many industries, more niche, more likely to have a competitor to use the same image as there isn't much images at the market. I have seen some images in free image banks to have 200.000 downloads if those images are in many free image banks they have even more potential to be used at the competitor's marketing.

There is a nice market segment indeed to contact those special industries and sell your assignment gigs to avoid those situations.


One of my clients in the telecoms space fronted up to a major industry exhibition. They spent a huge amount of money on their stand and one of their key competitors was right next door to them.

You guess where this is going, right? By chance, the designers for both companies had used the exact same cheap stock image to market their companies at the same show that year. It was hugely embarrassing for everyone concerned.

The result is that they contacted me and I was literally flown around the world to shoot a portfolio of custom stock images for them. Dubai, Kenya, Mozambique, Hong Kong, Washinton DC, London, and Belgium.

Your insights are so very valuable and interesting. Clearly there is a market - it just may be a lot smaller and better served at a far higher price with niche content that is very difficult for others to get.

7
Hi Everest,

I agree with you on many levels. One of my points was that big producers who can step up in the game and produce that kind of high-level material usually don't have much choice, they might have 10+ people on board with high maintenance costs. If those companies are earning 20.000+ USD per agency per month from the most significant agencies, it will be hard just to shut off one of them even if commissions have cut half of one of them. I don't have inside knowledge do they have exclusive fixed deals, but I bet SS and others have guaranteed their essential supply of high-level content in some way or as they continuously make small steps to cut commissions to see how it affects. There will be some point where it will be the same effect when you put the lobster on the boiler and turn the heat on. It would be great that the few biggest production companies would team up and drive the cause and stand for all contributors, but that would be an extreme risk to themselves. It would be a real hero act and would be the most significant event in this business in decades.

What comes to free image bank people photos is the hardest part as it is a risk to use photos with recognizable people in them. So that has started a new culture of using back images. People are showing their backs everywhere, like in brochures, websites, e-commerce stores, hero-shots, etc. That is so weird as there are studies that face in the photo that makes more impact, but of course, free is an even better deal to many than 2 dollar images.

The hardest part is that people in the companies that use these free or dollar photos don't care. I have talked to many clients and got sympathies, but there is that like almost half of them who use free or cheapest images possible just because they don't care, do photographers get that 10 cents or 10 dollars commission from the image. Many of them are working in big companies and don't even use their own money, but they think that saving that one buck is somehow life savior to that company. I have heard also talk that it is a little unfair that photographers just snapping photos from there and there and get thousands of dollars per month for doing almost nothing, so there are a lot of trash talk and wrong thoughts how hard work it is to get living in this business. I have talked to many contributors who contributed to my agency, and many of them have said that in last years they have lost an average of 30% of annual commissions every year despite producing more and more every year in volume and quality of content and that goes hand in hand what I have experienced. In 10 years, we went from one of the biggest agencies in Finland to two photographers small boutique. Today it is more like a hobby than a business. I get my money out of assignments.

8
Why Shutterstock and other big microstock agencies will thrive no matter how hard they spank their golden hens.

I will try to make it short, but first of all main answer is that no matter how hard they cut the commissions, there will always be tenths of thousands of contributors, which will contribute content even with 1% commission and that fact is already proved by free image banks. Biggest free image banks have millions of beautiful images that photographers and videographers have contributed to the community. I know that the idea behind that contribution is very novel, but Im pretty sure most of the contributors havent thought about the consequences of the concept of free. After a few years after microstock prices became standard, it hit hard on my stock agency. In 4 years, revenue dropped 85% because of microstock landing and owning a Finnish market area, and in that period, free image banks were about to rise. In 10 years my agency (Rodeo) revenue has been dropped a dramatic 98% of what it was ten years ago. In our customer survey in 2018, 24% of our clients were using free image banks as a primary source of stock photos, and over 70% were using free image banks as a secondary source of stock photos. Were already over 50% were using microstock agencies primarily in their stock photo source.

The point is that it doesnt matter that a few thousand people take off their portfolios. It just doesnt make enough impact on a bigger scale for over 300 million image banks. Also, as long as there are tenths of thousands of contributors that already contribute to free image banks, there will be much more to contribute to microstock agencies, whatever pennies theyre willing to pay. There are also big production companies that cant just stop contributing if some leading agencies change their commissions. They have monthly expenses that have to be covered or everything collapses, or agencies probably make exclusive deals with the best to maintain the production of certain content to most essential categories.

What comes to free image banks is another story. It is pretty weird that Unsplash has over 1 million dollar expenses and probably quite impressive development staff which perhaps want something in return for their work that they make so much money with affiliate sales of Shutterstock and other agencies that they can run that business AND they get their content free from photographers. Is there a thought that free image banks are doing that for just goodwill?

It would be very interesting to see how much the biggest free image banks really make revenue. I think that a lot of contributors would change their mind to give their images for free to use for making money to other people. Not to mention of course that many designers make money with the free images too.

Keep up the spirit and thumbs up for everybody!

9
Hi!

This is a little annoying as there isn't any other possible way to contact support than using obviously the same account as in the Forums and yesterday as I asked a one support question in the Forum section and today can't log in at all and my account is marked as a spammer.

Why on earth? At least for a paying customer it would be nice not to be treated this way and get at least an option for direct support in cases like this.

What I'm supposed to do now?

All the best,

Juha


10
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 22, 2009, 02:01 »
Good question,

yes we have a certain requirements but still check every applicant even if she/he doesn't met the exact numbers because some have just started and if we see that they have potential we can make an agreement with them. However if someone has 100 good photos and says that those have been taken in two years we have to say no. The reason is explained in our strategy at the start of this thread. We also check the portfolios in content matter. Some has great photos but the content is somehow not suitable in (our personal point of view) Finnish markets. To answer directly to your question that in rare case someone has great portfolio in personal page and we found out that a large amount of hires images in submission isn't good enough in technical matter we have to terminate the agreement. We check the portfolios carefully and estimate how many rejects there will be.

In general every agency have their own (I know, every once in a while it seems to be kind of twisted) strategies who to accept to be a photographer and what kind of images are accepted and what rejected. Personally (and being stock photographer myself) I would definitely don't waste my time by thinking so carefully what is accepted and what rejected, it just takes too much time and all that energy can be used to plan a next shooting and so on. ;)

Happy shootings to everyone!

11
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 21, 2009, 07:49 »
Photographers can easily check their portfolios by putting their name between quotation marks in the search field. The name used in Rodeo can be found in photo detail info page for example: http://www.rodeo.fi/MediaCard.aspx?MediaID=218967&Search=%2522Anneke+schram%2522&Page=1&SearchOptions=1&ImageSizeOptions=3&ImageTypeOptions=3&ViewOptions=1&ImagesPerPage=40

The name is usually real name written in photographer agreement if not requested otherwise.

Translation:
Valokuvaaja=Photographer

12
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 21, 2009, 02:57 »
I will be in Helsinki late October and hope to meet up with my namesake. Maybe can make a blog about it if he has time to hook up.

From my first trip back to the motherland last year (first from my family since they decided to pack up and go to Canada in the '30s), I have to say it's a country full of highly educated and motivated young people. And, apparently, a whole bunch of 7-11 - style quickie marts where there is a backroom for fanatical gambling on horse races. So, if you are an Equine photo specialist I am sure you could make a killing in that market. :)

Yes, it would be fun to go out for a lunch. Just give me a call or send email when youre here.

-Juha

13
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 21, 2009, 00:30 »
Hehe,

Anyka, that rarely apply for entrepreneurs. So if you or someone is thinking about moving to Finland make sure that you will be employee. First year you dont get full holidays but next year yes. ;)

14
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 20, 2009, 15:37 »
We are alive and kicking!

No worries, I would just need a few extra hands and couple more hours in a day.

It was totally my mistake that I forgot to send a photographer newsletter to tell about how we work in summer time (or other holiday seasons). In summertime I'm out of office a lot of time shooting new photos and that means that email is totally jammed by all kind of questions and inquiries. We have to prioritise the customer service, calls and emails.

About sales. Rodeo has done amazing growth percents whole year thru to June. July was first month that we made little worse than year 2008 but the sales are so slow in that month since national holiday season, many small companies are totally or partly closed for a few weeks. Kids have here 10 week summer vacation starting in early June and ending around mid of August. During that time bigger companies have enough employees to keep companies running. Usually adults have 4-5 weeks summer holiday in Finland.

Hopefully that cleared up more.


Regards,

Juha

15
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: April 09, 2009, 03:26 »
Yes, that is possible if portfolio is very small. It is not that the content and quality has anything wrong but the estimate general revenue of 1-2 euros/year per photo is working very good in our agency and that is expected also in case of very good portfolios too.

16
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: April 09, 2009, 01:47 »
Sales reports are sent only if sales are occurred. Commissions are also paid monthly so in case sales report are caught in spam filter or lost somehow, you will see the payment in the Paypal or Moneybookers and ask for us sending sales report again.

17
General Midstock / Re: Microstock/Midstock distinctions
« on: February 22, 2009, 14:04 »
Yes, you're right. Though in my knowledge, either micro or midstock they're always selling RF. RM licenses are a different story.  ;)

18
General Midstock / Re: Microstock/Midstock distinctions
« on: February 22, 2009, 03:48 »
OK. That was very clear. Thanks.

I don't see myself so distinct differences between micro and macro. That is true that some photos sell better in macro and vice versa but that could be just the case between few agencies not thought to be a rule.

Photographers should think it more straight forward process. How to spread portfolio in most effective way not to use too much time for the submitting process. Stock agencies should be more concerned about the volumes photographers and photos taken in.

One general rule should apply when talking about any agency. Photographer should get about 1-2 euros per photo per year basis. If that rule doesn't apply there is some reasons behind that. It can be that agency has just started, it could take 2-3 years to develop reasonable business. Portfolio could be weak either in size or content matter. Agency might generate a plenty of sales but customers doesn't need the content photographer has in portfolio, other photographers can earn multiple times compared to others. Usually agencies inform what category images sell well, if photographer cant produce that kind of material it is very likely to fall under that general rule revenue annually.

Generally micro is more volume business but selling photos in macro isn't shortcut to earn same money more easily. If you want to generate a steady sales monthly basis you have to have decent size of portfolio, when thinking about that the general rule is very good that expectations doesn't rise too high. 500 photos should earn you a 500 euros in a year per agency. Now think about is it better to submit those photos to one or five agencies if possible?

19
General Midstock / Re: Microstock/Midstock distinctions
« on: January 27, 2009, 04:08 »
I don't understand exactly what you mean by "big enough". Do you mean that don't have enough photos for sale or don't make enough sales in total ?

Every agency has own differences, you have to just search the right ones you want (like most) to make the deal with. To some photographers the money is most important and they work hard to build a great portfolio to accumulate cash flows, some could find the community thing (discussion forums etc.) more important than the bucks flowing in.

I really think that it is kind of wasting time trying to understand the whole picture as a photographer. At this time there is probably hundreds of businessmen thinking about how they could turn things up side down to make another million dollar business by establishing a new agency which is selling photos in some different way. Just going to few grocery stores and comparing prices and you end up with the question "Why ain't all same products are priced same in the grocery store?"

Just focus what is most important to you personally. Just think the key points on how you want your photos to be sold, RM or RF, in traditional agencies, midstock or microstock and what are your goals. Content of your portfolio is also very important, what kind of photos it contain or will contain in time.

If the money is most important aspect, does it really matter is your photo sold either RM of RF, in micro, macro or midstock for a dollar or 100 dollars? All and all ain't it the total sum of commissions after a certain of period which counts. ;)

20
General Midstock / Re: Microstock/Midstock distinctions
« on: January 25, 2009, 09:54 »
I havent searched carefully many other midstock priced agencies but for speaking for our agency (midstock) vs. microstock there is atleast two great difference.

1. With the little higher price customer will get the largest file size, many microstock you get only small file size of that price, if you want that XXL you pay quite same difference in price compared to midstock.
2. You dont have limited print runs or limited the usage in some other similar ways.

21
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: January 24, 2009, 18:09 »
Great to see that there is so many artists interested about smaller agencies too.

Here comes some clarification about our workflow. Photographer can either send photos/vectors in dvd or transfer by using ftp. Photos must have keywords in metadata. Model releases can be uploaded separately. Our editors makes all work from that on. We want to make it easy for photographers to submit. Some times we are able to review photos very quickly and occasionally it might take even few weeks, depending on the season. Anyway it can take several weeks to generate sales depending on the content of portfolio. It can take time that customers adapt that certain specialities are found. Usually business, family and senior categories are most searched among very good concept photos. Those generate sales very quickly.

Price for the hires photo is 40Eur so photographer gets 14Eur for single download sale and 11.20Eur for credit download.
Price for lores photo is 15Eur so photographer gets 5.25Eur for single download sale and 4,2Eur for credit download.

Credit download commission is lower since customer gets discount of the package prices. Those are mostly used by high volume customers.

Referral gets 5% from each of referred photographers sales price. If photographer sells photos for 1000Eur per month, referral gets 5% of that. Not 5% from the photographers commission.

To Fljac (and others too): As a stock photographer my self too I understand very well the both sides and yes it is also tempting for an agency to give outstanding commission rates to collect quickly thousands of photographers but to be honest, marketing, developing and paying salaries ain't easy part either. If it would, there would be thousands of more agencies around the world but that is just general discussion about making business. Every agency has its own strategy.

To Anyka (and others too): Kuvakori was our old name. After we developed totally new system we changed our name to Rodeo, company itself haven't changed beside that name. We are general agency with a wide range of customers but first what comes to my mind is that we have a big hole in food photos and good concept photos of all kind. We send very detailed monthly sales reports by email. You see thumbnail, download date, sales price and commission. You can even see all referral sales and their prices with thumbnails. We have started also a monthly photographer newsletter were we share some search statistics of previous month in Rodeo.

Great questions and discussion and thanks to our photographers about sharing information to others fairly. We like to make transparent business and be trustworthy to our photographers and customers.

22
General Midstock / UPDATE: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: January 24, 2009, 08:15 »
Hello fellow artists,

Time to Rodeo update again ;). Rodeo had a great last year, total growth of over 100% in year 2008, for three years in a row. Rodeo will be 6 years old stock agency this month and we are full of energy and motivation to develop the business further.

Rodeo shortly:
- Royalty free photos
- Price for multimedia usage 15 Eur, hires images 40 Eur
- 35% commission for single license sales
- 5% commissions for referral sales
- Over 100.000 photos on line
- Only 49 photographers around the world
- Our business is dedicated to Finnish markets at the moment

Want to join our team?
We are constantly searching for new artists. Who other agency could offer such a great exposure for their images. We don't have millions of photos and 100.000 photographers on line. We are picky but we believe that taking all in would really hurt all our photographers earnings, we grow the amount of photographers carefully with the growth of the total business.

We have now made slight changes to our recruiting requirements. It is now a minimum of 500 photos to join but if you're really talented and active stock artist, please fill up the application and give us a portfolio link and we think about it. All and all, we're looking for active artists, that is the only way to get good sales a year after a year.

Check our application and agreement page and let us do the selling for you
http://www.rodeostudio.fi/photographers/registration/contract.htm

Don't forget our website (Only Finnish language):
http://www.rodeo.fi

Don't hesitate to ask more about us > please send a email to me > address is located in the application page.

Best regards,
Juha Tuomi
CEO
Stock agency Rodeo Ltd
PL 61, 00661 Helsinki
Finland

VAT registered company FI09801445



23
General Midstock / Re: Stockagency Rodeo - update
« on: November 06, 2008, 02:49 »
Allthough the site is in Finnish language there is a translation engine build in (the first one in the market?). If you search in English it will be translated to a Finnish and vice versa.

There is also an option to search from just Finnish photos (Kotimaiset). Just a foreign photographers photos (Kansainvliset=International) or All photos = Kaikki kuvat. Aint all that would be just an easy to guess?  ;)

Btw. Thanks to all who have sent an application. It was a very pleasant surprise to get that many applications in a short time. We will contact to all in a few days.

24
General Midstock / Re: Stockagency Rodeo - update
« on: November 05, 2008, 16:05 »
Yes, dvds or ftp.

25
General Midstock / Re: Stockagency Rodeo - update
« on: November 05, 2008, 14:08 »
Yes. that is in the contract, however we have lately paid out even under 50euros commissions monthly.

Also if you think that you have a very strong portfolio in content matter it is wise to contact me and ask about joining. The 1000 photo limit is suggestive.

Pages: [1] 2

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors