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Messages - Shooterguy

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1
Announcing the launch of our new iStock Premium + Video customer subscription!

Were confident that this will unlock video for many more customers, increasing the footage being licensed, and ultimately driving more video revenue and royalties.

Ha ha ha ha ha .

"Ultimately" ... right. Sometime in the future and no one can say when it might be. Or not.

2
Microstock News / This is hilarious.
« on: December 19, 2018, 16:44 »
Apparently there's at least one company that thinks small-business-related stock video clips are painfully bad.
 https://www.constantcontact.com/videos/ode-stock-video-business-owner

I bet this thing gets some good traction on social media. Time to up your game, video guys and gals! (At minimum, no more bakers.)

3
 "However, we try to talk to investors who are familiar with this space and understand the value of a decentralized marketplace for stock content."

It is EQUALLY if not MORE important for your investors to understand the value of the images being sold. The value of the platform nothing without great, original, well-curated images.

4
Stocksy / Re: Call To Artists is Open!
« on: November 26, 2017, 19:54 »

A questionable social media presence is probably worse than none.


WOW. Really?
I believe that. I can see how a presence that has objectionable work unrelated to Stocksy imagery...or some other bad move, could be worse than a blank slate.

5
Stocksy / Re: Call To Artists is Open!
« on: November 26, 2017, 12:22 »
Three good responses and it all makes more sense now.

6
Stocksy / Re: Call To Artists is Open!
« on: November 26, 2017, 11:21 »
Sean and others, can you help me understand why a social media presence is sort of a requirement? I don't get it. The definition of stock imagery is images that are bought to serve a specific purpose. Why does it matter whether or not the creator has a footprint in social media?
Thanks.

7
General Stock Discussion / Re: Best number of downloads
« on: November 06, 2017, 22:51 »
At peak I had about 2100 images with iStock. Downloads ran a bit over 3000/month. That was some years ago. It's a fraction of that now...no idea really...I don't track it.

8
@Peter, I think it's amusing that all of these people are telling you that this was a drone shot. And none of them were there but you, and you can probably PROVE that it's a legit shot from an aircraft...and yet they still say "no way." That takes balls! :)

Good grief.

Peter -- I think the FAA might want a word with you!! LOL!

Long lens or not, flying a drone anywhere near an airplane or anywhere near the controlled airspace, especially an airplane that looks like it is landing, is just wrong and is endangering the lives of others. For what...to get a cool shot and make a few $$? Seriously? The shot is taken straight down, so a camera would have had to have been mounted on the bottom of the aircraft taking the shot. Possibly.

Hopefully the image is just a good photoshop job.
@jonbull and @cathyslife, I can only reiterate at this point. It was taken from a plane, a piloted aircraft, under the control of an ATC. Not a drone. I'm a pilot myself with a commercial license. Assuming I get the appropriate clearance, today, in about 3 hours I will fly over YVR and all its landing jets. Depending on the active runway this will place me in a couple of different spots but in all cases I will at right angles to the active runways and will be listening very carefully to what ATC tells me to do. Separations are well thought out, really well, and everyone does their part to make sure they are adhered to. It really is okay for that plane to be there. I wish I could take you both for a ride today. You'd have a very nice time, take some great pictures, and see how Air Traffic Control handles their work in congested flight areas. Not just from the back seat. I'll even let you fly if you want, just not over YVR.

PS. The EXIF data on that shot would indicate the need for a HUGE drone to carry that camera lens combo. :) I mean huge.

9
Symbiostock / Re: Symbiostock 2.0 and the Common Footprint
« on: December 01, 2015, 13:49 »
Robin,
Please help me understand. Symbio is strictly a platform for independent sellers of stock, is that correct?
For general portfolio hosting and print sales one should use a different platform?

Lawrence Sawyer

10
Everest, it's all of us, not just you. My credit sales used to average 50/day, now it's about one. Maybe less. The industry is being gutted and going through massive transformation. It is what it is. Best to look for another income source.

11
Stocksy / Re: Call to Artists 2015
« on: October 07, 2015, 22:48 »
Sean Locke-- and others who've been accepted into Stocksy I've applied and I want to know how to interpret what I'm seeing. I have not received an email accepting or rejecting my app...but I can access the user profile page, choose my payment settings, and agree to the member agreement. (although clicking "accept" is a dead link.) These are things that I would think are only accessible to accepted photographers. Is it possible that I popped in to this member's area while admin is setting up my profile, but I've not been notified yet? 
Or am I reading too much into this, and any buyer can see this "member" area even though they're not contributors?

12
New Sites - General / Re: PIXYLOO Announcement
« on: November 21, 2014, 12:43 »
And question #2: How do I communicate to you, in my application on your web site, that the body of work you'll see of mine on agency XYZ is older and doesn't necessarily represent what I'd submit to you?

13
New Sites - General / Re: PIXYLOO Announcement
« on: November 21, 2014, 12:37 »
Based purely on the honesty and quality of what you've written in this thread, I'm actually tempted to give you a chance as a contributor! Are you available for in-person meetings if I should stop by while in town?

14
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 15, 2014, 19:57 »
Getty could have taken a different approach and gone after a really splendid collection, accentuating the Exclusive aspect. That's how you get away with charging more. But they didn't. They decided bigger was better and took a bazillion images from every Tom, Dick and Harry. Shutterstock went after the garden variety subjects, done exceptionally well, and iStock, I suspect, started losing sales. In 30+ years of shooting stock I've come to the conclusion that you can charge a premium for unique imagery or great service, but you cannot charge a premium if your images are me-too. You have to be different in some way, and you can't raise prices forever.

 
I was in traditional stock long before Microstock existed. And while I embraced Micro at it's rise, I also embraced price increases. Since the early 2000's, the market has evolved to settle at "Midstock" wherein prices are higher but affordable, and the predominant license is RF. (And where you can't buy anything worth using for $1 anymore.) Rights Managed can pay better, but sales are rare. The marketplace prefers a fast, (delivered online without negotiations) broad license. And I'm ok with Midstock. I'm ok with the pricing in the $30-$300 range, so long as my cut is at 35% or better. What I'm not ok with is my distributors deciding that they can only compete on price, and pushing customers to Subscriptions that pay me substantially less.


When Getty bought IS they tried to increase pricing for the industry. THEN Shutterstock saw an opportunity to undercut IS and did. As they gained traction and buyers flocked to SS for Walmart pricing, IS lost customers to SS's "screw the artist" business model.

Shutterstock's subscription offer is the cause of photographers making less money and for IS's recent changes. If you don't like what is going on at iStock -- blame Shutterstock

15
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 15, 2014, 08:43 »
I was in traditional stock long before Microstock existed. And while I embraced Micro at it's rise, I also embraced price increases. Since the early 2000's, the market has evolved to settle at "Midstock" wherein prices are higher but affordable, and the predominant license is RF. (And where you can't buy anything worth using for $1 anymore.) Rights Managed can pay better, but sales are rare. The marketplace prefers a fast, (delivered online without negotiations) broad license. And I'm ok with Midstock. I'm ok with the pricing in the $30-$300 range, so long as my cut is at 35% or better. What I'm not ok with is my distributors deciding that they can only compete on price, and pushing customers to Subscriptions that pay me substantially less.

^@Bobobolinski: My personal belief is that your hope/strategy of lower prices for buyers is a very bad, very damaging approach, for you and the industry, although it can depend on to whom you are selling.
But-- we know that you are selling on a Getty owned-site, so we can assume the buyers are often corporate clients. They have money. Corporations have money. Little mom-and-pop designers, maybe not so much, but Getty sells to businesses with money. You should never assume that lower prices equals more money for you or a healthier marketplace.

All it does is teach buyers that quality and scarcity don't matter, and imagery is a commodity. Never, ever sell your work by competing on price. Creative works should never be marketed on price.

Come on, you work in Microstock and you are complaining about prices being lowered? That's how the entire microstock industry works, pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap.When IS have sales for a day or two, my sales shoot up, therefore I tend to believe that lower prices equal more money, because that is my experience. There is obviously a tipping point where prices can be too low but that is not the case at the moment.

16
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 14, 2014, 21:34 »
Yes, they are in the past. But that's what my numbers played out to, and others in my shoes saw (as in past tense) them too. Actually the compulsory Subs didn't surprise me at all. I've been with Getty under other contracts for years and that's their model: they reserve the right to market your work at any price point they see fit as market conditions change. I just do what I can to maximize revenue under whatever contract I'm in.

17
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 14, 2014, 21:07 »
In fact, I'm a photographer. My road to (relatively) high RPD required several moves.
1. Never did I assume that buyers need low prices to purchase.
2. I worked my a** off to build my portfolio on IS starting in 2006, with a vary wide variety of quality imagery of real-life scenes.
3. I put as many images as I could in my E+ collection.
4. Created my files as large as I could to boost the odds of selling larger sizes.
5. Chose to never participate in Partner Program, because why feed the supply of images that will be sold cheaply? Just because it's not sold much doesn't mean it's not worth much.

An Exclusive contributor on IS at 35% royalty rate, selling Medium, E+ files on average, along with some Vettas and Extended licenses, will make what I do. If you have only very small files, or only files that are in the Main or Standard collections, you will make a lower RPD.

On the other hand, the number of sales I've seen has dwindled steadily since 2012. Much has to to do with the Best Match algorithm, adding new images (or not), and a host of other factors. I'm not saying we're in control of our sales numbers, only that we're in control (to some degree) of our RPD.

There is power in pricing, though there is also elasticity of demand.

18
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 14, 2014, 11:14 »
^@Bobobolinski: My personal belief is that your hope/strategy of lower prices for buyers is a very bad, very damaging approach, for you and the industry, although it can depend on to whom you are selling.
But-- we know that you are selling on a Getty owned-site, so we can assume the buyers are often corporate clients. They have money. Corporations have money. Little mom-and-pop designers, maybe not so much, but Getty sells to businesses with money. You should never assume that lower prices equals more money for you or a healthier marketplace.

All it does is teach buyers that quality and scarcity don't matter, and imagery is a commodity. Never, ever sell your work by competing on price. Creative works should never be marketed on price.

19
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 14, 2014, 09:52 »
Uncle Pete, I don't need any more data. My average RPD was north of $12 before the Total Makeover. Now it clearly will be around $7, because sales of files larger than "Large" are rare. Hardly anyone needs an XL or XXL file. The "average" file size (extracted from RPD) WAS was a Medium. And Medium is large enough for most print applications to say nothing of the web, where Smalls and XS files rule. Sizes needed won't change.

I'll say that again. Sizes needed won't change.

Now-- Sizes downloaded MIGHT change, because you can get more for less now. But in the last 24 hours it has been proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my income will drop by 65% for larger images, and about 40% on average. And those are ugly statistics.

20
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Istock's back
« on: September 14, 2014, 09:08 »
Two sales of Large files since the change yesterday. Both would have paid me $22 before; each paid $7.35 this time. Looks like it's time to take a walk.

21
Stocksy / Re: Stocksy submission critique please
« on: November 29, 2013, 10:38 »
It seems to me that one can't really compare sales between Stocksy and any other agency, because Stocksy is highly curated and very few others are. The portfolio that Sean had at iStock was pretty different compared to his Stocksy set. Even once he gets to the same number of images, it will be a very different body of work compared to what he had at iStock; and the buyer base will be different as well.
As to the OP: my guess is that her submission was seen as too "staged", but I'm speculating here. It is great work, but I can see how it might be viewed as being just a little too "traditional" for the Stocksy look.

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