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Topics - steheap

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1
Shutterstock.com / Rejection for Inaccurate Location
« on: March 19, 2023, 10:18 »
This is one I haven't seen before and I'm at a loss to see what is wrong. I've submitted about 300 images from South America already and most have been accepted. This latest batch of 12 images from Buenos Aires were all rejected with

Inaccurate Location: The selected location does not accurately describe this content, is not consistent with the metadata, or contains non-Latin characters (e.g., Cyrillic, Thai script, etc).

The camera has no GPS or location information (Sony A7R5) and I didn't add a location in Lightroom - that section of the metadata is blank and this is what I entered (an image similar to the ones rejected that I submitted just now)

Anyone come across this rejection before and what is the solution?

Steve

2
Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock 1099 form for 2021
« on: February 23, 2022, 13:30 »
Anyone managed to download their 1099 tax form for 2021 from Shutterstock. I was sure there was a download link in the Tax Center (which didn't work earlier this month) but now I can't find it at all.

Steve

3
Shutterstock.com / Once upon a time
« on: March 10, 2021, 15:53 »
Once upon a time, this would have been a cause for celebration. Now, with Shutterstock, I'm not so sure...

Steve

4
Software / Adobe Creative Cloud site issues?
« on: March 31, 2020, 17:24 »
I don't know if anyone else has this issue. I just rebuilt my PC and loaded the Creative cloud onto it. Everything seemed to be fine. I just opened LR and the first thing that came up after the initial screen was a security alert warning that the certificate for this site had been revoked and the site should not be trusted. Clicking OK on that opened up an Adobe message that something went wrong and it was "probably on their end". WHen I dismiss that, Lightroom also closes. So I can't do anything in Lightroom as a result.

Anyone else see that?

Steve

5
I hesitate to mention this among the doom and gloom posts in other sections of the forum, but I've updated and published the 2020 edition of my best selling book (OK, my only book) on Getting Started in Stock Photography.

https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/12/getting-started-in-stock-photography-2020-edition/

It is aimed at beginners but does get good reviews (on Amazon) from a wider range of readers. It doesn't paint a rosy picture either. But if you are interested in getting started in stock, this is a way to learn the basics quickly and easily.

Steve

6
Software - General / Lightroom performance with Avast Anti-virus
« on: December 12, 2019, 10:51 »
For months I have struggled with slow performance from Adobe Lightroom - several seconds delay before the metadata would appear ready for copying between files and although I thought it was linked to the Avast free anti-virus app I have on my Windows 10 machine, nothing I could do in the settings seemed to help. I had discussions on their support forum but basically was told that it was doing what it was supposed to be doing...

Finally I gave up and uninstalled it - Lightroom is now like a happy puppy - eager to take on the next task with joy and anticipation! So if you have this combination and have these issues - this seems to be the only solution I have found. The fuller story is on my blog, but you already know the bottom line.

Steve

https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/12/lightroom-and-avast-free-anti-virus/

7
I spent a lot of time building my own personal stock site with the Symbiostock plugin for wordpress, but it is time to close it down. So few sales although it does rank well for individual images on Google. But I don't want all those incoming visitors to see a 403 page missing notice. How have those of you who have taken down your personal websites done it and what did you replace it with?

Steve

8
One for the old folks among you all - I wanted to make something that allowed me to copy all the slides and negatives I have from years back. Not necessarily for stock purposes (although I suppose there might be some interesting ones in there) - but I just wanted to be able to look at where we had been on past vacations etc.

Here is my DIY slide scanning rig in all its glory:


And the full article on how I built it:
https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/07/diy-35mm-slide-and-negative-copying/

Steve

9
I know EyeEM might not be one of the bigger earners, but it has been pretty consistent for me recently. As I was adding quite a number of new images, I spent some time trying to understand exactly how the upload process worked and how the keywords went into the system. I learned some things that could really screw with your earnings over time and have tried to summarize all my learning points in a post I made today on my blog.
https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/07/eyeem-issues-to-avoid-when-uploading/

I'd be interested if others have come up with workarounds - especially for the way that your keywords get thrown away before the image is uploaded to Getty!

Steve

10
New Sites - General / EyeEM Earnings
« on: April 30, 2019, 17:45 »
Anyone had their earnings from EyeEM for April? Nothing so far for me

Steve

11
123RF / US Tax form 1099 from 123RF
« on: February 14, 2019, 09:48 »
I asked 123RF when we will get our 1099 forms from their agency for the 2018 tax year. Helpful as always, they said:

Quote
The 2018 tax statement will be made available via the Tax Center page at a later date in March.
Link: https://www.123rf.com/tax/index.php

Kindly check the page in the coming month for updates on your tax statement.

Hope this clarifies, have a nice day!

Best regards,
Your Submissions & Review Team

Great news for those that like to file their taxes early...

Steve

12
General Stock Discussion / December Earnings
« on: January 02, 2019, 11:07 »
Funny how there used to be a race to publish the previous months results - now, not so much!

So I'll start. December was pretty lousy. After what had seemed like an endless run of months being better than the same month the year before, December dropped by $850 or so for me. Most sites were just poor and little of my holiday shots seemed to sell. However, I also did my annual review of 2018 on my blog and this graph stood out as a real sign of the future:


At this rate, I need to keep doubling my portfolio just to earn the same. Nothing new there, but the steadiness of the decline is the most worrying feature. No sign of a leveling off - just down and down.

Lets hope that 2019 is the year that pulls us out of this - although I can't think of what would cause that to happen, unfortunately.

My full results are here:
https://www.backyardsilver.com/2019/01/stock-photo-review-of-2018/

Happy new year to all...

Steve

13
Newbie Discussion / Holiday Sale - Getting started in stock ebook
« on: December 25, 2018, 17:53 »
I'll probably get kicked for introducing more photographers to this crowded market, but I have reduced the price of both my ebook, Getting Started in Stock and the bundle including Alex's Brutally Honest guide to stock photography between now and 31 December. The price that shows on my website has been reduced by 25%.

So if you didn't get the present you would have liked for Christmas, here is the perfect solution...

You will find it here: https://www.backyardsilver.com/stock_photography_ebook/

Steve

14
Adobe Stock / Keyword Order in Lightroom
« on: December 17, 2018, 11:03 »
Matt

I'm sure quite a number of us use Lightroom to process and keyword our images before uploading to Adobe stock and its great that many enhancements have come along over the months. But the one glaring issue is that keywords are always sorted into alphabetic order in Lightroom and then Adobe Stock states clearly that the most important keywords must be first.

Are there any plans to fix that in Lightroom and offer a feature to sort keywords by priority order?

Steve

15
General Stock Discussion / Sales in September
« on: October 01, 2018, 12:11 »
Who remembers the good old days when by lunchtime (US time) on the first of each month there was always a vibrant new post detailing the earnings from the previous month? Sometimes it was a race to see who could be the first to report. These days - not so much.

So I'll start. A pretty good month for me (yes, you heard that right) with September being my 16th consecutive month when I have exceeded the earnings in the same month of the previous year. The big saving factor for me this month were my video sales - $564 our of a total of $3315 for the month.


Full details as usual on my blog: https://www.backyardsilver.com/2018/10/earnings-from-selling-photos-and-videos-online/

Steve

16
General Stock Discussion / How was your August?
« on: September 01, 2018, 19:22 »
Am I the first to report this month. A pretty good month for me, helped by an amazing $79 on Canstock and two big print sales on Fine Art America.


15th consecutive month where I have exceeded the earnings in the same month in the previous year.

Full details as usual on my blog: https://www.backyardsilver.com/2018/09/earnings-from-selling-photos-online-in-august-2018/

Steve

17
CanStockPhoto.com / CanStock on a roll...
« on: August 30, 2018, 08:56 »
I don't know what is going on with Canstock this month but I have sold 3 high priced images this month for $24.90, $19.90 and $9.80 to bring my total earnings to $80. Normally it is $10 to $20 a month. Whatever they are doing - lets hope it continues.

I applied for a payout!

Steve

18
I came across a new product a few days back that looked interesting for travel photographers - Steadify. I talked about it on my blog here: https://www.backyardsilver.com/2018/07/steadify-you-are-the-tripod/ but basically it is a support that fastens to a belt and then has an extending monopod like arm that comes up to support the camera or lens. I've seen nothing other than their publicity information, but it looked interesting.

Anyway, the point of this post - their Kickstarter campaign has just gone live and there are some interesting early bird offers. Here is the link to that campaign:
http://heape.fnd.to/steadify. This is not an affiliate link but the company did provide me with a shortened link so that they know where the interest is coming from.

I'm planning to buy one and test it on my next travel trip.

Steve

19
You might be interested in a Flipboard magazine that Alex and I curate about stock photography. We basically collect interesting articles that have a bearing on our business and make them available in the Flipboard magazine style. Just saying....

https://flipboard.com/@steveheap2015/making-money-from-stock-photography-lhjj87ouy

Steve

20
Yaymicro / Yay Images - how to see contributor account?
« on: February 18, 2018, 12:26 »
I had a portfolio on Yay Micro when they closed and pretty much forgot about it. I see that Yay Images is still in business and my images are still for sale over there. When I try to log on, I get the message that YayMicro credentials are not accepted and you need to create a new account. Anyone done this and how do you get back to ownership of your own portfolio and see if there is anything owed for sales of those images?

Steve

21
General Stock Discussion / January Earnings
« on: February 01, 2018, 09:34 »
I saw there was a Shutterstock thread, but that seems to be turning into a cap discussion again. Have you ever thought how complex the code would be to change the search order for every keyword for every contributor that had earned a bit more than normal in the previous day/week? And why?

But back to the subject. My January was pretty reasonable. January is always a low month for me, but I increased by 23% over January 2017 to end with $2727 for the month:


The individual sites were a mixed bag - the earnings from some of the sites with larger prices depend very much on just how many of those I get in the month. Statistically that goes up and down. Anyway, full details as usual on my blog:
https://www.backyardsilver.com/2018/02/earnings-stock-photography-january-2018/

Happy shooting in 2018!

Steve

22
General Stock Discussion / Review of 2017
« on: January 03, 2018, 09:25 »
I've finally finished writing my review of 2017 from the point of view of a "generalist" contributor. Things were not too bad (dare I say pretty good??) for me in 2017:



These are my total earnings year by year since I started in 2008. 2017 showed a nice bump over the past two years, mainly thanks to Adobe Stock.

The full analysis is here:

http://www.backyardsilver.com/2018/01/review-2017-earnings-stock-photography/

Steve

23
General Stock Discussion / Workflow for multiple agencies
« on: December 19, 2017, 18:01 »
Having a bit of free time on my hands, I decided to update the description of the workflow I follow to upload my images to 16 different agencies. If you are interested in how I organize myself to do this, here is the post:

http://www.backyardsilver.com/2017/12/my-current-workflow/

Steve

24
General Stock Discussion / Earnings in November
« on: December 01, 2017, 16:42 »
What is this - mid afternoon and no-one has posted about November earnings? Are we losing enthusiasm or something?

Great month for me - my best if I ignore one $1060 ImageBrief sale a couple of years back. Here is the overall picture:


My discussion is on my blog: http://www.backyardsilver.com/2017/12/earnings-stock-photography-november-2017/

Steve

25
Dreamstime.com / Dreamstime Blog Post Competition
« on: November 29, 2017, 14:54 »
Dreamstime have announced (on their blog) a competition for the best blog post posted on their site between now and December 22nd:
https://www.dreamstime.com/blog/unveiling-our-new-blog-section-one-month-blog-marathon-prizes-47768

I decided to write about a tricky subject how to come up with ideas (and images) to illustrate things in the news. I know this is a shameless request, but if you have an account at Dreamstime, would you mind having a look at my blog post and, if you find it useful, click on the green Useful button at the top of the left column (at least it is there on a webpage view of their blog!)

Here is my entry:
https://www.dreamstime.com/blog/how-to-illustrate-difficult-concept-47795

Thanks, Steve

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