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Messages - Adeptris

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126
General Stock Discussion / Re: If it sells, shoot it!
« on: August 28, 2009, 06:54 »
What sets you apart is your research and creativity.

Great statement, could not agree more. But, this for me is why its okay to share. Research and creativity come later on in the process.. and not so easily shared or explained.


Plenty of scope for lots of football pics - youths on Capetown beach at dusk, couple of silhouetted goals etc, etc..

haha this is too specific to share ;) i've planned some shots of this with my favourite ethnic model. shooting it in cape town would be a bonus... this kind of thinking is lacking in micro, i think. current affairs conceptual images, done well. I've seen some images for 2010 on getty, and have seen mr. locke shooting for swine flu (?) another area to expand into.. often doesn't need a shoot dedicated to it, rather just a few extra props..

Most of the real 'beach or street soccer' images like this I see are real editorial and not suited to microstock, for advertising the players are often in the strip of thier favorite players or teams which adds to the concept of 'aspiring to be one of the best in the world', any setup images will likely just look fake, as microsites do not allow the soccer strips, which libraries would you target any real looking images at, in the UK maybe Alamy want about in the USA?

There will as you say be a commecial market for clean comfortable generic soccer images, just to promote the many spin-off opportunities these type of events create, but these will have a local look, feel and interest and can just be taken anywhere, a soccer event or soccer school in the UK would not use a capetown beach soccer image.
 
David  ;)

127
General Photography Discussion / Re: Very bad Photoshopping
« on: August 28, 2009, 03:26 »
I don't see the issue.  Sure, the lighting doesn't match the best, but aside from that, I see nothing wrong.

How many caucasian models do you have with hands that have the skin tones of a 'colored or black' person?

The reason the guy was replaced was a marketing one, the Polish people who are mainly caucasian had a large number of non nationals a few years ago, and now they only have a smal percentage so the image did not fit.

David  ;D

128
General Stock Discussion / Re: If it sells, shoot it!
« on: August 28, 2009, 03:05 »
Anything with your model dressed in plain generic clothes without patterns or logos, any plalce where there are properties that you know do not need a release, with any landmark that is not subject to IP, any shots that have no other tourists or members of the public, and where the vehicle designs are so generic you cannot tell them apart.

So forget the vacation and have a staycation, as you shoot with generic people in generic places with generic objects, staying at home with the goldfish and the plain looking model with the smile and headset, and just look at how much you saved towards that new camera.

David (not Jealous at all, enjoy your vacation)  :P

129
I picked up another sale yesterday so that is 7 sales in the calendar month, my commission from them is $38.40, so there are customers willing to spend $4 - $12, the images are 3 people, 3 animals and 1 wooden toy, the people shots were, a bored girl, a boy in a russian hat, and a girl on a mobile, animals two big cats and a horses head, the toy a wooden train.

I think that not having to buy a credit or a subscription package that is the key to these sales and any future success I hope they get, I do not have to pre-pay or buy a package when shopping in the high street, so why do I have to do this for image purchases, as a buyer I do not like having to overspend when I want one product.

David  ;D

130
Computer Hardware / Re: Windows Home Server?
« on: August 28, 2009, 02:11 »
I have a similar product from NetGear, but I use it becase it is a raid one system where if one drive fails no data is lost as it mirrors to the other drive, and I can just hot swap a new drive and it will mirror the data.

The question we all have to ask ourself is simple, If I had a fire or a breaking an my kit was destroyed what is my Disaster Reovery plan, kit can be replaced the images cannot, I have the NetGear storage, one set of portable drives with all my data at home, one set of portable drives held at another location plus online backup, all these are options for disater recovery.

For remote access I looked at all different backup services and found the most economical for me is this, 'Amazon s3 Storage' and the FireFox plug-in, so providing I can get online I can get acess and download any image, the cost of this storage is so reasonable at $0.15 per GB a month, the plug-in is not graphical is the only downside.

this is an an overview of how to use the two products for online storage

I will have a dig around to see if there is a way you could also use Amazon s3 as a virtual drive.

David  ;D 

131
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Vetta
« on: August 28, 2009, 00:17 »
I was actually kinda making fun of those emo designers. But their behavior is what all microstocks actually should take into account more. Designers were unhappy about microstock images and didn't value them. Now they are happy with essentially the same images. All it took to raise images value is to bump the price.


I think it was more that these images are not typical stock and did not attract lots of views and sales, so they sank to the botton and spent some time with the dross, because the search enginge was ignoring them, now they have been found and added to a 'category' where they can be found but the search engine.

Another reason could be that the Exclusive Artist is lazy, uploaded and added 50 keywords without really looking at them for relevence and position, this will also make a good image sink with the dross, and in any search by the buyer the image might be returned but in the middle of a set of many images due to bad keywording.
 
Maybe the the real problem is the oversupply and weighting of 'popular' images, so the search engine developers should stop weighting images by views and downloads, stack images by the same artist in a search, add in a randomize function that re-sorts every search so we do not get the same set of images each time we do a search as, "Hello!, this is the forth time I have done this same search and got the same images, I have already seen them why do you think I want to see them again?"

When I searched for 'Christmas Tree' on iStock there are  7559 results, I can start from the first page or go to the last page and work back, but what your suitable image is number 3750 I will never see it, what I would like as a buyer would be that each time I re-run the search I get a set of fresh images shown to me, but then that would be fair to the customer and all contributors, which some contributors would not like.

David  ;D        

132
Why not just accept the 'Non Commercial' policy?

Sending them links to other users that are abusing the system is not good, they have answered your question with an answer that you likely already knew, just accept it and move on.

Use your own website or use a WordPress blog with a gallery or article and add your links from there.

There is PhotoShelter and SmugMug paid services as well to host your gallery or portfolio, but then you have to do the hard work of marketing yourself.

David  ::)

133
General Stock Discussion / Re: Microstock tug o' war
« on: August 27, 2009, 02:34 »
^^^ New sites need to have new markets, a niche market, a high quality unique collection or another unique selling point, higher commissions do not affect customers who are only interested in the image not how much the artist will get.

A new site needs to look at Customers first and what can they give them that adds value to the service, I hate credits and subscription packages as I want only to pay for what I need at the time, I do not pay the supermarket for 10 tins of beans when I need only two so why should images be different.

As a low use blogger I want a new site that is a Pay-Per-Transaction cash, or any amount as a Pay-As-You-Go Top-Up service, if I want an image for my blog, currently I use istock for this and buy 1 credit sized images to blog, they cost me 1.40 a shot and I am happy with this rate, but sometimes I just have a couple of credits left, I may want 3 images but settle for 2 as I do not want to spend 14 on 10 credits.

The service I would change to tomorrow would be one with the same prices for the small image where I can pay as I go through PayPal be that 1.40 or 4.20, if that site gives the contributor a better cut then that is a good thing, but not something I would ever consider.

I know that the theory is that by spending credits the customer is not thinking about the financial value, if this is the case then a system where I can top-up by any amount which is converted at checkout to credits.

David  ;D       

134
General Stock Discussion / Re: More competition for Micro
« on: August 27, 2009, 02:10 »
Just like the Getty web images Alamy have updated the blog for RM 'L' and aded time restrictions:

Quote from: Alamy Blog
Electronic uses:-

Corporate website (single placement / one design - duration up to 1 year)
Editorial website (single placement / one design - duration up to 1 year)
Electronic presentation (single placement / one design - duration up to 1 year)
Promotional email (up to 10,000 recipients, single placement / one design) duration 3 months)
One web advertisement (single placement / one design) duration 3 months)
David  :)

135
mmmm exclusivity is delicious

This quote was from another thread, but it comes across like something the traditional guys might have said to photographers trying to break into the business back in 2000, and we all know that nothing stays the same!

Ok It might be delicious for exclusives now at Istock, but the model goes against Getty's own way of doing business, they have inherited the model to get the business and customers which was a very smart move, but they did not design the iStock business model.

I doubt if Getty as a business are really comfortable with the Exclusive Contributor model as it goes against free trade, they could leave it as is, but from my experiences with big companies like Microsoft they sit for a while after aqusition and then slowly bring things in house and change the companies they aquire to refect thier own business model and ethics, a sort of re-branding.

So this is a fake scenario, you have to decide the future of iStock:

If I was in charge of this situation what would I be looking at, the growth is falling and we will not make our projections, I would have to start with cutting costs and streamlining, now I think that for iStock the contributor exclusive served well and was a good tool a few years ago, but the parent business model is 'image set exclusive'.

I would be asking if the contributor exclusive content is a much better model than image set exclusive, and just how much value does it really add to the business for the additional cost, are the exclusive images that much better than non exclusive.

If then found that both products are a comparable quality and content then I would be looking to change things, as we will then be paying to much for a lot of our products.

My thinking would be an isolated apple may be from an exclusive artist but it has no greater value than a non exclusives isolated apple, so why we are paying some suppliers 50% more for the same image quality and content. 

I would need to restructure and clear out the old guard add a few 'yes men', get enough non exclusive quality content to balance the library.

To cut costs I would have to look at the content to see if it all had an added value, then do some gains and losses risk assesments, start to ease out poor non exclusive content to strenghen the brand, then I would start to use the parent companies model alongside the exclusive contributors and open up content from all contributors as 'invited exclusive image sets'.

This then opens up our premium collection and brings in the required images from the high production cost professional photographers that we are trying to attract as they move into microstock, build this exclusive image content from all contributors alongside the library and then turn the screw on the dross.

After a while move all contributors to the same model and have only the invited premium collection and a general library, with all contributors on the same commission structure based on the image quality not the contributor loyalty. 

After all as a business, if we lose a few contributors it is manageable and expected?


David  ;D (sleep tight don't have nightmares)

136
<...
>...
You'd like to think that reviewers would do a search to see if your image is exploiting an existing hole, or is just the 10,000th shot of an overcovered subject - and let you know when you're getting "warm", i.e. homing in on something that sells.

Too much to ask of a company calling itself an "agency"?


At $0.05 an image I don't think they have the time to reference the library, just about enough to to pick a rejection reason from a list, tell them that they have to work as a reviewer first and when they have reviewed 1 million images they will know what makes a good stock image.  ;D

David  :o

137
Great answer!  There's a great way to supplement the income - marketing ourselves as "photography career consultants".  ;D

On a serious note, it does seem like some of the best money is in promoting stock (blogging, book writing), or providing support services to aspiring photographers (classes & seminars, keywording & uploading services, etc.).  Maybe that is really where the smart money is these days....?


Like Jack Hollingworth
Massive following on Twitter

There is the 'smart money'?

David  ;D

138
New Sites - General / Re: Clustershot.com
« on: August 26, 2009, 07:00 »
Not bad, but I think the text the photgrapher gets $xx.xx is a bit naff and not needed, I should think I am on the photographers site so what does that mean?

To much real estate is taken up by text, thumbs are to small!

Add to cart and it is annoying when it shows what I have added each time, if I want 6 images I will go elsewhere.

Cart page has no Continue Shopping or back button.

Suggestions.
So a lightbox/cart system where you can add images to the lightbox or cart and stay on the gallery page, a view lightbox/cart with continue shopping option.

Remove the Photographer gets text, have an option to show only thumbnails to increase thumbnail real estate by removing the image and the horrible at % thumbs, all I would want to see is a search box and sets of readable 150px - 170px thumbnails and a watermarked larger view and details when I click a thumbnail.

On checkout a flag which says the buyer has read and understood the licence T&C's even if they have not.

Search is way too slow on an XP client, Intel core 2 CPU's, 1.8ghz, 2gb Ram 'yawn'!

David  8)

139
New Sites - General / Re: Moodboard - August 09 Press Release
« on: August 26, 2009, 06:32 »
I got as far as they set the prices and the 20% Commission  ::)

140
"What do you tell aspiring photographers about stock?".....

"If I had the answers to your questions, I would be realxing somewhere else or you would be paying me for a consultation!"  ;D

141
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Vetta
« on: August 26, 2009, 00:29 »
I disagree that the market will eventually see photos of Vetta caliber on other sites. At least not in a way that it would diminish the value of Vetta. I think 95% of microstock photographers won't bother spending the time or money to produce unique photos like the one's found in the Vetta collection. If someone chooses to produce the same quality, I bet they want a bigger share from the cake and join iStock so that they can submit to Vetta. iStock is way ahead of its competition.

Ok I am confused here is a simple question:
Where were these 'iStock exclusive high value images' being sold before Vetta, they were shot for the Istock library and not shot for the Vetta collection, they should not have been on sale as RM on other websites and then added to iStock and Vetta as RF, so they must have already been on Istock as 'exclusive RF' and at microstock prices until they were hand picked and chosen for Vetta, or were they just sitting on hard drives waiting for the birth of Vetta?

The imaging world is much bigger than microstock and Istock, and as you say not many microstockers will produce high quality high production costs images for any agency as they do not have the funds or tools.

From those that do shoot high production images how many do you think are iStock exclusive, and why would they not be on other traditional or midstock sites at similar price points, and why would they consider losing other revenue streams and take a year to become iStock exclusive, just to add Vetta images?

It is far to early to sing the praises of Vetta, the Vetta images were uploaded for the general collection by exclusives, they are not new contributors so they would have calculated the value of the image based on high volume of sales, the images in Vetta at the moment might be getting a better return, but the Vetta collection will grow and this will cause dilution of revenue within the collection putting pressure on the other images, then the numbers will need to be crunched to see if 'Vetta is Betta', or higher volumes in the general library is better.  

David  ;D

142
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Vetta
« on: August 25, 2009, 23:06 »
This will work until for a while until the non exclusive iStock photographers start producing equal quality images and selling them on the other stock sites for cheep.

I'm not sure that is a valid reason buyers don't shop at other places.  There's lots of good stuff all around.  Something else is drawing them to Vetta then.

Comfort, ease and time will be some of the reasons, as mericsso said "Now days, a lot of agencies only have iStock accounts."

If they only have an account with iStock then they are already tied-in and comfortable with the interface and how to use it, there is no need to waste expensive time shopping around if iStock can now deliver on price, quality and content.

But read what mericsso said again "now designers can buy better images with their iStock account. All they have to do is buy less, and they can stay on budget"

Istock are not creating a new market as the designers would have settled for lesser images because they did not have the budget or choice to shop around, so we have the same revenue 'no new market' the same only spread thinner, as Vetta is only taking exclusive images and buyer might now only look in the Vetta Collection then the suppliers of these images will benefit at the expense of the non exclusive revenue.

mericsso said "This will work until for a while until the non exclusive iStock photographers start producing equal quality images and selling them on the other stock sites for cheep."

Another sting in the tail for non exclusives to produce equal quality images is still not enough, the designers already have thier 'Itsock Accounts', but they may buy the same quality images from another site, but only if the artist is "selling them on the other stock sites for cheep.", so the real point is the designers want 'high production low volume agency exclusive images at microstock prices', I also want a $50,000 vehicle for $25,000 the difference is I will never get the car.

Just My Opinion:
Stocksites can create as many variant models and collections as they like, but there is "no new money" and all they will do is move it around or reduce the revenue allowing the designers and finance departments to cut budgets because they are now offering better for less.

The current model of the industry has all the customers already in the taget markets, and there is only one real option and that is one of consolidation, I think this has already started with the big sites grasping thier part of the market, which will force smaller sites to become niche or cease to trade as they cannot compete, the larger site will later streamline by cutting operating costs and improving delivery to maximise profits.

David  >:(

143
General Stock Discussion / Re: More competition for Micro
« on: August 25, 2009, 14:41 »
I am not shocked at all the writing has been on the wall for a while, all the stocksites growth has either stopped or declined as the new markets are no longer there, the only new markets are the digital ones.

It just looks like preperation for newspapers and magazines moving to online subscriptions, you will notice the limitations on use, so it might be warning shot to the media giants that they will not be getting thier content so cheap.

To make this attractive to online users they need two more things, pay-as-you-go and a direct delivery, online users will not go looking for an image or pay for 10 if they need just one, but they might buy one if it was delivered to their blog, browser or application.

David  :o

144
Gostwyck,
I did think about just your points for quite a while before joining up, as I only contribute to a couple of agencies and do not sign-up easy when a new offering comes up with high commission percentages , but there were some differences with The3dStudio.com that helped me decide, thay are well know and strong in different digital media like 3D and already have a following and a customer base, I looked at the other products which ranged for Free to $300+ this means the customers are not scared to spend for the right product.

Our images are not thier only product so they will have revenue streams to build the library, they do not set the prices the contributor does, they do however suggest default prices of $4, $8 and $12 which seem to work well from the reports here and my own sales, although they are new to stock imaging they are not new to the digital business and I am sure if the default pricing does not work they would let us know, the pressure might come if they over subscribe with contributors, and the less savvy contributors in an effort to grab sales lower thier prices to far.

David  :D  

145
Sunshine and a friend is ok, I think daylight and a friend is better, the image setting later in the day when the sun is low will have less harsh shadows, the fringing is often caused with some lenses and strong contrasting light, the sunlight is reflecting off the sand in your example causing the high contrast fringing.


There youtube and plenty of natural lighting tutorials on the web, a bit of research will be a good idea.

One of mine on Removing Purple Fringing in Photoshop

David  ;)

 

146
Shutterstock.com / Re: passport id
« on: August 25, 2009, 02:43 »
it's said we can use government id, but when i did, they want a passport id. is there a way i can apply using other government id?

Quite common on the big site, and only passport ID for some, when I started out my UK driving licence and photo ID was not accepted, I photographed or scanned my passport and uploaded it, you could add a watermark if you are worried about uploading a copy of your passport.

David  :D

147
I read the blog and in my opinion the contributor may not be thinking right and the method will not maximize revenue and could damage overall revenue from other sites.

By taking the aggregate price from other sites to find a median selling price is a good approach to start with, but why then go on to cut that price, this will devalue the contributors product and lose them potential good revenue?

Using a median price will mean that the buyer could find the image for a few cents different at other sites but only slight differences, but if the contributors reduces their prices because of higher commission and buyers find that they can get the contributors images much cheaper at CC, yes they may purchase them from CC giving the contributor short term gains, but this overall dilutes the contributors revenue pool, by transfering the contributors sales from the bigger sites to the smaller ones puts pressure on the larger sites which will lead to commission cuts later, so could in the longer term damage the contributors overall revenue and make it harder to trade.

I would suggest one of two options, first do the different site calculation and price at the median price, sales will be slower but the return greater when you have a payout, the second is to look at how other contributors are pricing on CC and calculate the 'CC median price' and use this for your images at CC which will fit with the websites pricing structure and what the buyers will come to expect and not undercut the contributors images on other sites or fellow artisits images.

I have not looked at CutCaster do they suggest prices based on image sales, they should have enough sales data now to help guide contributor to price for the website's 'customers price range' and be suggesting price points to maximise potential.

David (just some logical thoughts, maybe 'BS' but maybe not)  ;)    

148
Can you post a link to this on shutter, I'd be happy to take a look at what's going on and investigate what you are referring to. Of course, I can't guarantee that we can do something simply because some other company does...we have to listen to what our CPA's tell us on this issue and that's why we have the system that we have now. You can email the into to me at [email protected] as well.

Hi Matt,
Online submissions are quite common now, they will have an url or upload area where you can send an xml file in a specific format, and digital signature is also accepted, contact the IRS support desk would be better.

David  ;)

149
When talking about moving to a contributors agency, it is better from a software perspective to keep it small and quality so the database can deal with keyword searches.
  
I have done loads of research on how searches work for bigger collections of images 1 million+, the keywords are in one database server with the image info, sitting between that is one or more servers with the search engine which is an Indexer and each may have 10 million image keywords in memory, then the third transation server is the front end that sends the request back and forward, I have found a few options and will try to blog in a couple of weeks on just what is required and what is out there for a start up.

So keeping it small is the best way to go!

David  ;)  

150

* blush

omg, why am I so embarrased, lol!! Thanks David, that's dead nice of you, I'm mortified but grinning!!  :) Thank you!! lol!


It should appear at the top of the home page shortly, as a DMAA_Group tweet. 8)


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