At the risk of seeming redundant, I'll say it again. I really enjoy working with this site. My sales haven't been huge, but my portfolio is still small. Some artists have over a thousand cards online. Some who signed up at the beginning may be in the thousands, but there is no minimum for payout. You get what you earn every month. Creative bursts hit me, and I design 20 or 30 cards in a week. I don't think that one has ever been rejected. They are an extremely pleasant and easy site to work with.

Has anyone bought any refurbished mac products? Good luck or bad? It's just a matter of time until I have to buy a new laptop. It seems like a good way to save some money. Apple Care can be extended to a full 3 years. That's the same as I got on my last new mac laptop.

Thanks for the help!

For me, the good old days were before the economy hit the skids. The good old days are slowly coming back.

I fell off a rock wall while playing follow the leader and broke  both of my  arms at the same time. It made the local newspaper. Oh, and I let the bathtub run over one summer afternoon. It spilled between the floors of the house into our kitchen. A huge piece of plaster fell off the kitchen ceiling and almost hit my mother. When my parents got someone to fix the plaster, they discovered 2 tons of honey from a beehive that bees had built between the first and second floors of the house.The kitchen ceiling was about to collapse. They had  to call bee keepers to move the bees. I don't remember how they got the honeycomb and honey out from between the floors of the house. That made the local paper, too. My parents must have been thrilled when I went to college.

Everyone has made some valid points. Except that we all should exit the field. That's a personal decision based on earnings plus how enjoyable doing micro is for the individual photographer. The bar for quality and technique is constantly getting raised. What I've been wondering lately is what will be the next popular style in micro photography? The market for isolated objects on a white background and models in business suits with soft lighting on a white background seems saturated. Who is going to be the next innovator who comes up with that unique look that catches on? The style that all the designers want, and that we all imitate.

Pat

If you'd had it up, you might have gotten in even sooner.

I agree with Whitechild. It also comes to my mind that we don't know how much money any of the agencies are making off of us. I say this as a citizen of the US. Everyone here has been burned by the current financial crises, and I'm probably a bit paranoid because of it. In some ways we all asked for it by being complacent after the boom years of the 1990s. We just all assumed while we were making money that everything would always be fine. I'll bet most microstock photographers and illustrators felt the same way before the drop in sales that came last summer when the recession hit. I'd be more than willing to work with the agencies that will show us their bottom line. If their % of profits are dropping, I'd be willing to work toward a compromise with any agency that will give us the numbers. As contributors we should have asked more questions upfront. It is their agency. They provide the structure that enables us to sell, but it's our product that fuels the profits. One really can't exist without the other. Keep in mind that we want these businesses to make money, and we don't want to go on a witch hunt. Hard times call for creative solutions. I was selling art during the 1980s when the oil bust hit in Texas. When the gallery business bottomed out in Santa Fe, I caved and stopped selling. I still wish that I'd had the foresight to work toward a creative solution to the problem.

As for the poll, I'm not sure yet.

This is wonderful news. We appreciate the communication.

OK before we go on let's make a list of the problems that need to be fixed. That said, I'm very impressed with the quality of solutions that are being proposed. Please feel free to add any points that I might have missed. Here goes:

1. The rise of rejection rates by most of the established agencies. An explanation for this would go a long way toward easing the hostility that this problem causes. Something like, "We're full up, and it's costing more and more to add new images." If not totally valid all of the time, it would begin to give us an idea of the problems that the agencies are facing.

2. Decreasing income % from sales. This is due to subs and changes in pricing structures by the agencies.

3. No control over the pricing structures for our images other than to complain and stop uploading.

4. Irrational reviewers giving unclear or inaccurate reasons for rejections. Plus that lack of direction and detail in the rejections. Look at number 1. I'd rather hear that than some crazy reason that makes no sense. Also, I'd rather hear, "Fractals aren't big sellers, and we don't need more of them unless they are extremely new and creative." Rather than no commercial value, or this is a well covered subject. This probably isn't realistic on my part.

5. Lack of policing or cleaning out of the databases for older substandard images. It would be nice to believe that we can police our own images, but how many of us have any objectivity about our own work? Plus, the difficulty in removing images from our ports at the different sites adds to this problem. I have no idea how much this sort of quality control would cost, but it might be a good use for Attila. Let him have a go at older images that either haven't sold or have technical issues that would never be accepted now.

6. Lack of transparency by the agencies. This includes financial transparency, an explanation for the rise in rejections, and an explanation of the changing quality standards. Dreamstime is my favorite of the stock sites, but I just wish that they'd said that they needed to change and tighten their standards and given us an explanation before the rejections started. It's their company, but it's our images. They have the right to make any changes that they want to their corporate policy, but as a contributor I want a detailed explanation.

Whatever direction we go if we decide to organize formally, it is probably the best idea not to make our headquarters in the US, but I don't know enough about business in the world outside the US to say what country would be the best.

We have a long way to go before we solve this problem. Many of us are creative, but business novices. We're going to need a ton of input from the more business savvy among us. I agree that it would be nice to have the support of the major players, but I'm wondering how necessary this is? There are probably hundreds of really creative new talents out there who can't get into the major agencies who would love to join us in a new venture. There is probably even some undiscovered creative gem out there who could revolutionize the style of stock photography or illustration who just can't get their product to the buyers.

Maybe the most we can hope for is to influence the established agencies to listen and respond to our issues with the way things are currently run. Maybe we can open up a dialogue. This might be the least time consuming and cheapest way to go. We could organize as a collective with some bargaining power. Lest someone yell union, this would be different because we would never be in a position or require membership in order for a contributor to get work. Yes, some contributors would get a free ride, but life is never fair. As I said in an earlier post, we're not trying to eradicate microstock, we're just trying to find a better way to influence or establish a better pricing structure for the contributors, and take more control over our sales.

Lastly after everything is in place, marketing, marketing, marketing.

This sounds a lot like an internet version of many artists and crafts cooperatives. They are usually started by people who are tired of the usually gallery 50 to 60% cut for low sales and little marketing. Craft gallery owners often opt for lower quality to get more cheaper sales. Sound familiar? The cooperatives are usually run by a rotating board with all of the members putting in several hours of work a month at the gallery. Several of these galleries have been successful in New Mexico and North Carolina since the 60s. There are probably many more businesses like this out there. These are just the two areas of the country that I'm the most familiar with. If an artist wants to sell through the gallery but doesn't want to work there, they sometimes have the option of taking a lesser percentage of their sales. There would also be a need for a good contract similar to the ones that we agree to with the micro agencies, but it would have to take into account all of the changes in the pricing structure. With ironclad options for getting rid of those members who don't live up to the agreement. I'm not sure how this model could be adapted to the internet, but the idea is exciting.

Great idea, gostwyck. It's well worth exploring.

Pat

This is why I love the Microstock Group. Thanks for the input. I have weeks of fun ahead getting all of this up and running.

Thanks again, batman.

Pat

All of you who have read my earlier post about having two houses 1500 miles apart know what I'm talking about. I've been in New Mexico this last week sorting through our storage area there. I found a box of lighting equipment that I bought in the early 80s to photography the handwoven rugs and textiles that I was making at the time. I bought them from Spiratone, who is no longer in business. All of the equipment is in perfect working order. Will the strobe flashes and slaves work with my digital camera? I don't want to damage the camera.

Thanks for the help.
Pat