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Messages - araminta

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 14
1
Newbie Discussion / Re: Getty
« on: November 29, 2012, 07:12 »
As I understand it, you need to submit first to Getty only images which have been requested by Getty, either on assignment or for example through tweets they use to request for certain subjects.

2
that is not correct, Getty requires session exclusivity!

This is my exclusivity clause on my Getty contract:

All Content submitted to Getty Images is on a Content exclusive basis. This means that Content submitted to Getty Images and any other content that is substantially the same (a Similar) may not be licensed to any third party unless Getty Images has notified you that it has been rejected. However, on a non-exclusive basis, You may use Content and any Similars for your personal or self promotional, non-commercial use, including sharing Content on photo sharing websites, blogs or social networking websites for personal or self-promotional/non-commercial use, provided that you do not compete with or limit the rights granted to Getty Images under the Agreement. Also on a co-exclusive basis with Getty Images, you may use Accepted Content that is available for license through a royalty-free license model in connection with the sale by you of prints, t-shirts and other retail merchandise where the Accepted Content is the focus of the product, so long as you are not licensing or giving away rights to the Accepted Content for anything other than such merchandising. On an exclusive basis you may use Content and any Similars for limited edition, signed and/or numbered fine art prints (though Getty Images retains the exclusive right to sell and license prints not signed or numbered).

This is for images sold through Flickr collections: rules could be different otherwise.

3
Requesting exclusivity is something that doesn't attract me, though. Do they require exclusivity for all images in a series or just the ones they pick?

Something in-between: only the one they pick, but you cannot sell elsewhere photos which are too similar.

You can however still use the photos to sell physical items such as on Zazzle for example.

4
I got the same e-mail a few months ago and I've now about 20 photos at Getty: starting from the very first month I have sold 1-3 licenses each month which roughly correspond to my income at one of the Big 4 (i.e. not very much in 2012  ;) )

What is interesting is that they selected some of my photos which are not micro stock oriented, more "artsy", and which I didn't sell on micro stock sites before.

Beware that they do require exclusivity for selected photos however.

http://www.gettyimages.ch/Search/Search.aspx?assettype=image&family=creative&artist=Araminta+Studio+-+Didier+Kobi

5
If you stay in the city, visit at least the old city with the cathedral and the natural history museum as well as lake Leman shore in Ouchy where you will find the Olympic Museum.

Switzerland is however a small country and Alps are just 1h away by train or car and Chillon Castle is on the way and is worth a visit. Bern or Fribourg are also nice cities about 1h away from Lausanne and Geneva is even closer (but I don't like this city that much myself). The medieval city of Gruyres with its castle and the H.R.Giger museum is also woth a visit if you go to Fribourg or Bern: a good place to eat a"meringues double-crme" after a "fondue au fromage moiti-moiti" ;D

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/04/la-gruyere-double-cream/

6
Canon / Re: Canon EOS 5D mk II vs. EOS 7D
« on: August 05, 2011, 16:46 »
I have both and I love both: they are complementary.

Better IQ and noise handling for the 5D, better autofocus an higher FPS for the 7D.

I would recommend the 5D for portrait, landscape or stock and the 7D for sport or wildlife.

A minor difference is the 7d comes with a built in flash and the 5d does not.  Most of us (hopefully) use off camera flash so it shouldn't matter.

The built-in flash can be used as a IR flash trigger on the 7D which can be very useful.

7
Well, selling the app would be as selling your RAW files of your whole portfolio  ;)

Well, not actually: I would compare code to raws, but if you'd only sell executables...
(I'm speaking in Windows terms, not sure if it applies to apps)
Yes it applies indeed, but each executable would have to be customized somehow and I would have to handle myself bug fixes or updates for each custom version which could become a nightmare. Moreover, you need the development environment to publish applications and you need a developer certificate linked to a developer account: all money is sent to this account.

This is probably possible, but it is a business per se and not really the one that interests me the most  ;)

8
Looks like you're having a problem with customer reviews.
I've read only 3 comments until now and I know they are bad, but I was expecting that.

Why? Because you need to pay to get some images and many people hate to pay for anything.

I will mostly concentrate on downloads numbers and sales and I will not worry too much about such reviews even if they may impact sales indeed, but many applications have the same problem.

9
Is it possible for you to sell a customizable app to other photographers?  I'm no software guru, so creating my own app isn't a possibility, but I would definitely be interested in purchasing a copy that would allow me to add my own photos, etc.
Well, selling the app would be as selling your RAW files of your whole portfolio  ;)

As I have written above, I've thought about this possibility (not selling the app, but offering it as a paid service, the app being completely managed by myself), but currently it would be too much work for me and many issue would have to be solved before. Now I want to concentrate at building my own portfolio which is what interest me the most: this is a hobby for me and as I am a software engineer, I prefer not to do the same kind of work as a hobby :)

Any version for the Droid? Would never get an iPhone.
The app is a native Objective-C application and I would have to develop it again for Android in Java: too much work for me. The iOS market is big enough for me: if I am successful here I will earn enough and if I am not successful, I won't be successful on Android either. 

10
Well, I've thought about it indeed, but it would imply a LOT more work and hassle for me and as I do it still as a hobby, I'm not sure I would be able to do it correctly. I think I prefer first see how the business evolve for me and later, maybe...

But the next step for me will probably be to sell high res images for prints from within the app.

11
Microstockgroup Buy and Sell / Beyond microstock - iOS AppStore
« on: February 05, 2011, 08:29 »
Hi all,

Let me start by a disclaimer: this post is self-promotion, but hey, Yuri did it for a monopod, so why not me  ;)

I think however it may interest some microstockers.

As you may know, many are experiencing difficult times for about a year now, and I'm no exception. I thought about it a few months ago and I have decided to try another market to sell my images: I have decided to create my own iPhone / iPad wallpaper app (I'm a software engineer... it helps).

Obviously, the purpose is not to sell stock images, but more aesthetic one: it is a good way to get some money from my best macro shots which do not sell on microstock sites.

The app is free, but access to the best images require purchasing a premium access as in-app purchase: I think "freemium" business model is the best way to do it.

If you are interested at looking, the app is here: Araminta Wallpapers. It is free to download and it is a universal app for iPhone and iPad.

The app is available on the AppStore for a few days only, but I can already tell you that should sales stay the same, it would already bring me as much money as all microstock sites (but I'm not Yuri). I'm not sure however how sales are going to evolve in the future, the main difficulty being that you quickly get lost in the crowd if you do not reach some Top Ranking: sounds like a known problem to all microstockers  :P

If you are interested, I will give you some feedback concerning sales: why not trying to create you own app?

Thanks for reading and sorry for those who are not interested.

12
Being a professional and the price of gear are two separate, unrelated things. That price for a monopod is simply ridiculous.

Most of the price is for the head alone and it is not uncommon at all to find even more expensive heads: have a look at Really-Right-Stuff or Arca Swiss products.

I don't know how quality-wise this monopod compares to other high-end products, but saying that the price is ridiculous for a monopod is just... ridiculous?

13
Shutterstock earns me 6x more than iStock. Imagine you would fall back by 1/2 on iStock, you will still earn (much) more in total. Jump!
iStock earns me 2-3x more than Shutterstock: it is difficult to conclude anything based on other's experience  :P

14
Canon / Re: Canon 5D Mark II or 7D?
« on: June 16, 2010, 04:24 »
7D has a very high pixel density and using it with anything but the best lenses is not a good idea IMHO.Moreover, the 24-105L is not very wide on the short end on a crop body.

I've now both the 5DmkII and the 7D: I purchased the 7D mostly for wildlife with the 100-400. AF on the 7D is definitively better and 8FPS is quite impressive if you need it.

But considering that you are not into wildlife/sport, 5DmkII with 24-105L is probably the best choice for you.

15
I don't think they are going to have a dedicated "WallpaperStore", but there will definitively be plenty more of applications providing free or paid wallpapers.

I'm myself currently starting to develop such an app: this will be my first iPhone/iPad app. I'm a software developer, which should helps quite a bit :)

I will try to sell my "artistic" photos (mostly macros) which doesn't sell on microstock sites. Will be an interesting experience indeed.

16
You actually closed your account at SS? Too bad you just didn't choose to opt out.

I guess you did not plan things very wisely. Sorry for you  :-\

17
Off Topic / Re: LHC
« on: March 31, 2010, 05:14 »
You will be ripped apart mechanically by the tidal forces as you approach the center of gravity. You will not evaporate since black holes are focuses of gravity, not of heat.


Exactly: the tidal forces are so strong than nothing would actually survive to this interesting journey.

This is however what would happen for a stellar black hole. In the LHC, some were predicting the creation of micro black holes which are a completely different beast: this is a particule sized black hole.

Micro black holes should not cause that much harm because they evaporate extremely quickly (Stephen Hawking's theory) into a burst of energy (not that much energy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_black_hole#Can_we_produce_micro_black_holes.3F

BTW, I'm living 50km away from the LHC: I would be the first microstocker killed by the black hole. Hopefully my portfolio should survive  ;D

But as you approach the speed of light, the time around you will extend compared to a relative stationary observer, so it will seem forever.
Nobody outside the horizon of the black hole can "watch" the process as light can't escape. You should read more of Asimov.  ;)


Asimov is a good teacher indeed :)

18
I agree with other comments: you need more diversity and take care of the technical aspect of your photos.

Blown out sky and out of focus flower are not good enough for IS.

I'm afraid microstock agencies no longer need to have more pictures in their database: they need now to have better pictures. This is especially true for IS and even more true for your initial submission.

19
iStockPhoto.com / Re: istockphoto subject of how to answer?
« on: March 19, 2010, 08:30 »
You're not going to make friends here by answering true to question 18  ;D

20
Computer Hardware / Re: iPod/iPhone
« on: March 05, 2010, 07:27 »
FYI, even if you have to repurchase an app (e.g. you deleted it by mistake in iTunes), you will get it for free (if you use the same iTunes account).

You just need to buy it and you get a message "You have already purchased this app. Do you want to download it for free again?" (more or less). This is also true for inApp purchases.

21
If you have acquired the license and the license does not exclude such usage (which is probably not the case), you can use them.

22
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Refund- client did not want this file.
« on: December 02, 2009, 10:28 »
Stock photography is all about selling photos to people who prefer to pay for it instead of stealing it.

If a buyer wants to get a photo for free and don't care about having a valid license for it, paying a license and then asking for a refund is definitively not the safest and most efficient way to proceed  :P

The same way, buyers could wonder whether they are purchasing a license from the actual copyright holder of a photo: they need to trust the photographer on that point as you need to trust the buyer here.

23
Adobe Stock / Re: fotolia thumbnails - washed colors?
« on: October 12, 2009, 02:57 »
Peter, the way PS is configured (Preserve Embedded Profile) means that the profile used by your camera is preserved.  You should use "Convert to Working Profile" in the Color Management Policies.

24
Off Topic / Re: Espresso Enthusiasts Chat
« on: October 07, 2009, 07:24 »
As a swiss citizen, I'm sold to Nestl and Nespresso machine  ;D

Really practical system and very good espresso I would say. About 15-20 different coffee to choose from. I try to limit myself to 5-6 espresso per day, but it is not always easy.

25
Each lens its usage.

The difference between 17mm and 24mm is huge: 17-40 is a lens for landscapes and 24-105 a walkaround lens.

Unless you need the money, keep both. And you are not obliged to have them all in your backpack: I have 10 lenses but I don't take more than 3-4 in my bag.

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