Hi all,

 I don't want to spoil the party at all but before you drop 8K on this new DJI product I would be absolutely sure that not one rotor will go out on you. At 3K the first model was okay, losing 3K is a lot different than 8K. Many countries do not allow the use of 4 rotor systems as they can be dangerous. DJI horror stories are all over the place if you do a bit of google search. This industry is moving so fast unless you are ready to start making money tomorrow with your new flying camera I would wait it out. No rush for now they are all just getting things figured out and the changes are happening at light speed. Please read reviews at B and H, and everywhere for that matter, about the Inspire 1 and all DJI products. This new unit is the same Inspire with new optics but the guts of the bird appear to be the same as the 1. There are lots of good ones but there are plenty of bad ones and DJI is the worst for repair if you recover your crashed bird. You could easily be down for 2 months waiting on parts and for professional that makes business difficult. Best of luck

Cheers,
J

Hi All,

Just checked out the page I think they need a different lead in clip. The idea of strapping a Go Pro to the bill of a bird is kinda messed up. Interesting to see where this will go.

J

Hi Striving,

 I like what your tag line reads...Stand up for what's right. 

Peace,
J

Hi All,

 If I ever have a question regarding the legal issues of stock photography I always speak with Nancy Wolff. Nancy is the leader in understanding how to stay safe when producing stock content. Enjoy the Vimeo Nancy is the bomb.



Cheers,
J

Hi All,

 I got a message from Facebook yesterday that they would like to offer me the opportunity to sell my stock content through Facebook. They have also partnered with Shutterstock to be able to use SS content in adds. I disregarded the message and now wish I had copied it as many are asking me what is going on. I was wondering who else might have gotten the same message and what do you think about their offer? Here is a link I found on Google explaining some of the news. http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/facebook-shutterstock/

Thanks,
J

Hi All,

 If you are interested in selling property released location stock content www.spacesimages.com deals specifically in this market and offers a 50/50 split pays for all key wording and distributes your content to every major player in Macro Stock. Some of our photographers make very good money from their property released imagery. As with any subject you need to know what to shoot and how to shoot it, we offer and very detailed quarterly creative brief to help all our contributors to better understand what buyers are looking for and how to meet that mark. We would be happy to discuss any questions you might have regarding property released content at any time. Also there are several agencies that deal specifically in this market if you do a search I am sure you will find other agencies that might suit your needs as well. Best of luck.

P.S. I think Randy makes some very good points when you have a location you should get the most out of it. Shoot lifestyle, shoot location, shoot still life on location, shoot elements from the location. Shoot everything you can from any one location, maximize your potential sales.

Cheers,
Jonathan

 Hi Bgbs,

 Here is a basic response that will hold true most of the time but unfortunately does not answer your question specifically. I look at what I spend and what I need to make back per shoot. I find following sales of shoots rather than individual images helps narrow down what to focus on with each location next time out. So say just for giggles, we want to spend no more than 10 dollars per image on production and we want to make back somewhere around 75 dollars per image over their life. This cannot happen successfully unless you are paying close attention to what sells and what doesn't.
  We also follow a very loose rule that 20% of our content is going to result in 80% of our revenue but the more you shoot the more you can adjust this number by small margins. Remember when you move that 20% to 22% you have actually increased your revenue be a large margin so don't look for big swings just keep dialing in what sells and what doesn't and try to move that gauge with small steps.
 My best advice to any stock photographer is to stop thinking about what you like and what looks " Cool to you " and start thinking like a buyer. We are in a business to produce widgets here folks this is not art. The more you start looking through your camera and thinking about " is there a story being defined for the buyers needs " and " does it read clean and clearly as a thumb nail image " as that is the size your image is in competition, the stronger your sales will become.
 This business is so much about prep and pre-production and having a clear road map before you start your days work. Try to plan out your shoots down to the very detail in your mind and on paper. You can deviate from the route when you are shooting and see something that you didn't anticipate but for the most part treat your job like a job and you will start to see strong growth. Nothing wrong with shooting stock for fun on the side but if you want to make this a business you need to have a strong game plan and I believe your asking the question you did shows you are approaching this business from the right perspective.
 Yes, there is a very clear and distinct model to shooting stock successfully. Keep shooting and keep copious notes every day and you will start to see the model you are looking for. Best of luck to you.

Cheers, Jonathan

Hi All,

 An image does not have to have a release to be accepted into RM, I guarantee you that much. If you have any other questions I am always willing to help with an answer if I can. Drop me a PM if this isn't making sense and have a super weekend everyone.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 Thank you for all the contacts it was great reviewing so much talent. If I missed your message for any reason please send me another to [email protected] I am pretty sure I got to everyone over the past two days but if I did miss you please send me a reminder. This is an open invite, if you come across this post please feel welcome to contact us we are always on the lookout for strong talent and Microstockgroups has a ton of it. Thank you Tyler for allowing us to send this message through your site, we truly appreciate it.

Cheers,
Jonathan

 Hi All,
 
 I told everyone I would be ready to answer questions Monday morning. I am sorry for the delay but I have had something important that has come up and will keep me away until later in the day Monday. I apologize for the delay, I will be answering all of my PM's and e-mails on Monday Evening and Tuesday morning. If you would like you can always contact us at [email protected] and someone might be able to answer your questions tomorrow. For the mean time here is a small gallery of the kind of location lifestyle we are looking to represent in both our RM and RF models. Most every image in this gallery comes with a model release unless the model was not recognizable. Until I can reply to everyones questions you can see our RF and RM pricing structure at our web site www.spacesimages.com Thank you once again for you interest and your patience I will reply to everyone before Tuesday's end.

http://gallery.spacesimages.com/spaceswithfaces/

Thank you,
Jonathan

Hi All,

 Great questions I am swamped today with family activities but I will be back on Monday and will answer all these questions. Just to support what Sean said Stocksy is very transparent and we think they rock. We love agencies that work directly with their contributors and support all their efforts. In the end it is our contributors work that makes us a successful agency. If we support our contributors needs then we all win. Looking forward to Monday to reply to everyone. Thank you all for your interest.

Jonathan

Hi Ticktock,

 I cannot share our agreement with Getty but I assure you that you cannot get your content in front of as many eyes as you can through our agency. Even if it were half of what you could get by going direct you would not be able to have those same images available through the 90 resellers we offer. If you are submitting to Getty for instance you cannot submit those same images at Corbis, and Masterfile, Gallery Stock etc. you are limited to only the one agency but at Spaces we can distribute your content to everyone.
  You can kind of look at our distribution like Micro is without the hassle of key wording and uploading to multiple sites. If you are represented by Spaces Images you submit to only one site and you don't worry about key wording. We even do some of the small retouching that so often gets kicked back by even the Micros. From small dust spots to removing grid lines or paths as well as resizing your image if it is too big. Our goal is to get our contributors content to market as fast as possible so if it takes a bit of time on our end to make an image shine rather than kick it back and have to start the process all over we are ready to help out on some of the basics at no charge.
 Thank you for the questions they are really helpful if there are any other questions you might have please feel welcome to ask and I will do my best to answer them in detail.


Cheers,
Jonathan