I finally was invited to participate in "missions."  I read all your discussions about it and was kinda sad not to be part of the club.  I may never be able to be paid next to nothing for 1000s of photos of bananas.  Now that I'm included though, wondering if its worth it?  I have the opportunity to photo people and an empty space for $1 for the pair of photos. 

Are you all participating? How long is the review process?  Is it one mission per quarter or more/less?

this is one of my highest rankings ever despite modest sales so far this week.  i had a huge batch of sales last week. someone bought 23 items (very similar theme) which has me worried a bit.

i had a $70 sale on the 6th of the month so ss was way in front of as for may.  as with every month though, as caught up slow and steady and is now ahead of ss by a small amount despite the fact that i had another big sale on ss.  first month where it's even close since last fall when ss was close to as and maybe once or twice was my #1.

Was it $4 for the year last time around? I honestly don�t remember.

used to be $5 and there wasn't a "perpetual" option

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on May 19, 2025, 08:50

I don't and won't participate in the free collection, but for those who do, cutting the annual payment seems like a low blow to me

Well, maybe people who give their content away for free, deserve this.
Adobe pre-selects content that already sold in the past, so I never got the point of contributors giving it away for free.

the majority of the images selected have sold very few times (i think the criteria is 4 or fewer sales in the last year).  with current trends, at least for me, most of the images have little to no chance of earning $10 total ever.  i'm fine "giving away" a few images for $10 while i can still earn something for them.  they will only accept 10% or less of the nominated images so it won't be a huge loss and in many cases i have other similar images that will still be in my port available for sale.  i won't nominate images i think have better earning potential or are better earners on other sites.

nice work and i like your thumbnail photo.  have you gotten monetized yet?  nice consistency and thanks for sharing.

despite above average number of downloads and decent number of video downloads it's the worst month for me out of the last 6 or so.  very few decent sales and nothing big.  istock is very much like shutterstock.  largely tiny meaningless sales that add up to nothing and the once in a rare while big sale that totally skews the numbers.

getting closer...

not a great month, but not terrible.  a little below the recent average but 15500% increase from feb, 2024 (that is the actual percent increase, not an estimate).

Quote from: AM24 on February 21, 2025, 14:46

I love blue cheese and it photographs really beautifully. The only thing wrong with your photo, Pete, is the background. The two-tone is too distracting. But a full black background would have been too flat. It's good to have some texture in your backgrounds too sometimes.

Getting the right background is 50% of what makes a good photo. As you know I used to go to salvage places and get a lot of things there. Like those old wooden large trays that I painted and distressed. Or get some sample vinyl floor tiles. I still use the dark slate ones.

Here is a page I left out of the book because it was getting too large. The background of my black forest trifle in the champagne glass are those dark slate vinyl tiles. Used just 4 - 2 behind and 2 on the base.


Oh, and there are my polka dot cups and saucers !! 

Not my photo, just used for an example. However... Good advice on backgrounds and worth remembering. I also have flooring and counter samples for backgrounds. The further advice on side lighting for food is also always something to remember.

Yum, Yum, one of my delicious and attractive food photos.



 

what's funny about this is i have posted and sold kind of similar images.  the concept being junk food looking greasy and unappetizing. could be used for an article about clogged arteries or obesity.

pleased to say its my best month ever by a small margin.  one really big sale otherwise it would have been pretty underwhelming.  to my surprise it was a video.

you're right, rpd by itself doesn't matter but rpd times volume is your bottom line.  for me and i think many others volume is a little higher on shutterstock but the rpd is so low that the bottom line is much less $ than adobe.  i think we can all agree that $ in the bank is what matters at the end of the day.