MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Anyka

Pages: 1 ... 29 30 31 32 33 [34] 35 36 37
826
General Stock Discussion / Re: Attach a fake Model Release?
« on: September 25, 2009, 14:17 »
I think stolen images is not the only situation where one would use fake MR's.

Suppose you are shooting nature shots and there's this guy walking his dog and you take a shot that turns out great.  The guy is hardly (or not) recognizable, but afterwards, the photo turns out to be really good stock material. 

I have such a picture.  It was refused by half of the sites because I don't have a signed release.  Blur the face?  That would ruin de shot.  Fake an MR ? 

Before you start thinking I did that :  no, my man-with-dog shot was not good enough to do all the trouble of faking an MR (and beside that, I'm too chicken to do it).  But isn't this a situation where one could be tempted ?

827
Dreamstime.com / Re: keyword translation
« on: September 20, 2009, 11:48 »
Keywords are not translated in your portfolio, only in search results.
Try this :  put the site on the chosen language and do a search with translated keywords.  Be sure to use words that cannot be translated otherwise, because the automatic translations REALLY make a mess of it.  It's easiest if you put the search on "newest first" and then type keywords for one of your newest images.  If you find your image, you'll see the keywords are translated. 
Be sure to sit down when you do this, cause the translated results are truly hilarious!
(at least they are in Dutch, may-be not in other languages).

828
Site Related / Re: What do you wish MSG had more of?
« on: September 16, 2009, 11:20 »
One more "Other"
I wish every member was required to have at least one link to a site they have a port on, so we could tell who is full of crap and just ruining their mouth off and which ones know what they are talking about.
-Larry

Absolutely!  That would be great (why didn't I think of that?).
I often wonder about people's portfolios.  Or I ask myself "is he a vector or a photo guy?"  or : "a landscape type or succesful stock-on-white-background type?"

829
General Photography Discussion / Re: August 2009 earnings breakdown
« on: September 01, 2009, 14:22 »
August was really bad.  July was much, MUCH better.

830
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 21, 2009, 07:30 »
so how many sales per how many images are people getting here?

For the months of March-April-May-June I had an average of 140 euros with 1900 photos, which is about 1,2 dollars per image/year, and almost the figure that Juha predicted.  However, I don't know how many of these 1900 were accepted and added to the collection, so it might be more than 1,2 per image/year.

831
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 20, 2009, 23:52 »
4 to 5 weeks holiday for adults????  I think I will be moving to Finland !!!

832
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 20, 2009, 14:31 »
Same here!

833
Adobe Stock / Re: Fotolia Payouts Held Up Again?
« on: August 18, 2009, 13:46 »
That's weird, Fotolia was my fastest payer this month ...
I submitted my payment requests for 6 sites on the same day (even same hour), and this was the result :

- Fotolia 3 days
- Dreamstime 4 days
- Shutterstock 8 days
- Istockphoto 9 days
- 123rf 13 days
- StockXpert :  still waiting (it's 17 days now)

834
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 18, 2009, 13:36 »
I finally sent e-mails to the 3 people I know at Rodeo, and this was Juha's reply today :
(I did check my spam folder daily though).

Hi Anyka,
Have you checked you spam folder? Reports should be sent thru June. July reports isnt sent yet. Some photographers have been found the reports in Spam folder since it is html mail with a lots of small thumbnail photos which might be caught by even easier set filter.  You should add my email ([email protected]) to safe senders list.

As summer is very challenging time for us as we're shooting a lot of new photos ourselves too are reports delayed a great time. Also summer months commissions are paid later September/October as July/August is national holiday season here in Finland and sales are very slow.

All emails what I receive will certainly get answer usually in 1-2 weeks. Summer season is exception as I might be out of office several days at time. Daily requests and questions I get thru out the year is like I earlier mentioned very challenging as I write around 300-400 emails every month plus all other work. As I always tell to everyone we only have two full time employees (me and Tero Sivula) and Ossi is doing reviewing as part time. Til we get more employees there is usually holiday seasons a great delays in replies since we have to keep up all the customer inquiries the minimum delay.

Hopefully this cleared up things how things work here and everything is going great here!
Best regards,
Juha Tuomi

835
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 16, 2009, 14:06 »
If this goes on much longer, one of us should learn Finnish ...  shall we draw straws ?   ;D


836
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 15, 2009, 16:10 »
OK, the site is on-line again, so that was a server problem.  It's even up-to-date because I am seeing a series of Autumn and back-to-school images.  But the silence towards submitters is still going on ... so has any one heard of them since June ?

837
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: August 15, 2009, 15:58 »
Has any one heard from Rodeo or Juha Tuomi these last two months? 

The first 4 months gave good sales, then suddently it went dead :  no sales, no reports, no answer to e-mail, just silence.  Until a week ago, the site (www.rodeo.fi) was still working, there was just no contact between submitters/site.  Right now (could be just a temporary server problem) the site is down.
Via Google I found www.rodeostudio.fi which seems to be made to attract photographers, though lots of it is in Finnish. 
What worries me most, is the fact that Juha Tuomi is not reacting to the microstockgroup posts anymore (he used to be very quick in response a few months ago).

838
General Stock Discussion / Alamy "doing microstock" !?
« on: July 31, 2009, 14:17 »
After three months without sales at Alamy, I was very surprised to see 4 images sold in one day ... until I saw at what price they were sold :  17 dollars for the 4 images together.  They were sold under the new "novel use" license, with means I get 50% of it = 8,5 dollars for 4 photos.

I almost forgot what "novel use" meant, so I checked my Alamy e-mail announcements and this is a quote :
The scheme is optional and shouldnt be confused with Micropayment.

OK, I'll do my best and NOT confuse this with Microstock ...  ???

839
General Midstock / Re: Rodeo searches new talented artists
« on: July 28, 2009, 06:54 »
I am sure you're right about July being a "dead" month, but Rodeo sends sales reports in the beginning of the month, and I did not receive one either.  This means that we had no sales in June.  As for July, we'll have to wait until the first week of August.

840
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock Tax center live
« on: July 24, 2009, 10:03 »
In Belgium "Legal Entity" means (correct me if I'm wrong) that you act as a company, and not as a private person.   You are employed by your own company, even if there's only 1 person (yourself). Therefore self-employed people are companies too.  If you live in a VAT-country, you will have a VAT-number.
This would mean you (and I) belong to group B2.  However, Shutterstock then said we have to decide (with our accountant) which type of Form W-8 is correct for us ... and there's my problem! 
Last time I asked a similar question to my accountant he let me wait for 6 months before I got an answer, and I'm sure the Shutterstock grace period will not last that long!

841
Shutterstock.com / Re: Shutterstock percentage distribution
« on: June 21, 2009, 00:46 »
Mine are 71% - 12% - 17% (over the last 5 months)

842
Cameras / Lenses / Re: Do you insure your equipment
« on: June 02, 2009, 13:48 »
I wish I COULD get it insured ...
I can easily have all my stuff insured as long as I do NOT use it professionally.  But I do use it professionally, and then there doesn't seem to be any company around that has a policy that fits my case.  
I checked with several other professional photographers, and none of them had insurance.
There are plenty of foreign companies of course, but I prefer a local one, especially in case of dispute/legal issues.

As for hotel rooms, I do not need extra insurance, since the small print in the fire/theft policy for my house states that "my house" is everywhere I live, hotels included.  So when my hotel room is robbed, I can claim the theft from my fire/theft policy at home.  
May-be you could all have a look in your fire/theft policy to check if hotel rooms are included ?

So what's left is :  getting robbed in the streets, theft out of the car (I NEVER leave anything in my car) and my own clumsiness (dropping stuff or tripping over my own tripod).

843
In theory - and I really mean IN THEORY, cause I have not tested this of course, and I am talking about the Belgian tax situation, which happens to be one of the countries where one pays A LOT of taxes :

1. Most contributors still have another income, and this income (let's call it JOB INCOME) is probably higher than Microstock income.
2. That means Microstock income and Job income are added together to be taxed in your own country (let's assume at an average percent of 25%).
3. You send in your tax return to your country's government, and deduct your expenses.
4. Now this gets tricky :  indeed, many of us have more photography expenses than photography income, yet we do not deduct every expense, for the simple reason that if you would do that, you would have a negative microstock income, and the Tax Inspectors would accept that for your first start-up year, but not every year.  So let's assume your job gives you a net income of 20.000 (dollars, pounds, euros, not important), and your photography an income of 10.000 minus 7.000 expenses = net income of 3.000.  3000 extra income x 25% local taxes = 750 to be paid extra to your government.
5. Shutterstock pays you 10.000, of which 50% is of US buyers, so 5.000 x 30% = minus 1500, so you are paid 8500 instead of 10.000.
6. On your tax return, you put the 7000 expenses, but also the 1500 prepaid taxes.
7. 750 national taxes minus 1500 prepaid taxes = less than 0, so you don't have to pay anything to your local government anymore (at least for your photography income).
8. As I understand the treaty system, every country on the treaty list agreed to avoid double taxing of their citizens, but I don't think that all these countries pay eachother what they collected.  So the USA will not pay the 1500 to Belgium, and Belgium will not pay to the USA what they collected from US people living in Belgium.
9. That means that in the end, you will have paid 1500 + 0 local taxes, which is more than 25% on my net photography income.
10. Conclusion :  if your country has a treaty, you MUST do the paperwork, so that Shutterstock will not deduct anything.  If not (like Serbia?), you should absolutely find out how to report the pre-paid US taxes on your national tax return, and which documents are needed to prove it.

I repeat, this is purely theoretical.  Any one here who can back up the theory ?

844

Thank you thank you thank you Leaf for the tip about calling the IRS on the phone!!

I just made that call and it took me exactly 12 minutes to get my EIN number (5 minutes waiting for my turn, rest of the time answering questions).  All they needed was :  my name and address, NOTHING ELSE, not even the VAT number of my company.  I got the number at the end of the call, and I can use it immediately, though it will also be sent to me by mail.  The reason it took 7 minutes just to give my name and address was :  I had to spell every letter twice, and then the nice IRS lady spelled it letter by letter again for checking. 

I am afraid the next step won't be so easy though, because the W8-BEN form uses language that is completely over my head.

Is there any one on-line who could tell me which box/boxes I should tick on this form?
I am a Belgian one-man-business submitting to Shutterstock ...

(a) The beneficial owner is a resident of ...... (Belgium) within the meaning of the income tax treaty between the United States and that country.

(b) If required, the U.S. taxpayer identification number is stated on line 6 (see instructions).

(c) The beneficial owner is not an individual, derives the item (or items) of income for which the treaty benefits are claimed, and, if applicable, meets the requirements of the treaty provision dealing with limitation on benefits.

(d) The beneficial owner is not an individual, is claiming treaty benefits for dividends received from a foreign corporation or interest from a U.S. trade or business of a foreign corporation, and meets qualified resident status.

(e) The beneficial owner is related to the person obligated to pay the income within the meaning of section 267(b) or 707(b), and will file Form 8833 if the amount subject to withholding received during a calendar year exceeds, in the aggregate, $500,000.

I am quite sure (a) and (b) should be ticked, but what about (c) and (d) ?????

Clause 10 is also a mystery to me :
(10) Special rates and conditions (if applicablesee instructions): The beneficial owner is claiming the provisions of Article ........ of the treaty identified on line 9a above to claim a ....... % rate of withholding on (specify type of income): ........................... Explain the reasons the beneficial owner meets the terms of the treaty article:   ...

I wish Shutterstock would just publish a few fake examples ...




845
Off Topic / Re: How Long Is Your Commute To Work?
« on: May 23, 2009, 00:16 »
OK, for the OUTSIDE workers I think I am the winner for the shortest distance :  2,5 minutes by car, or 1100 meters (yes meters!).  Yes I know I could walk that distance easily, but (1) this is Belgium and that means LOTS OF RAIN, and (2) I do my shopping right after work and for that I need the car (good excuse?).

846
If you like special effects like this, done without photoshopping at all, then this book is a must :
http://www.amazon.com/Still-Life-Special-Effects-Photography/dp/2940361304#

It's a great read, but when you've finished the book, you'll be SO HAPPY there's something like photoshop!

847
Some one at the forums at fotofanatic.com (contest site) "confessed" he was selling at Shutterstock.  He was jeered at by the other members for selling his art at such ridiculous prices.  Not by me, cause I got curious (and I never regretted it).

848
I think the the biggest photographers watch closely this thread, just they don't wanna be exposed because they don't want to ruin relations with agencies.

I am sure that will be one of the reasons why the Big Ones do not react.  Another reason (especially for smaller contributors) might be the possibility of retaliation by the agencies.  If an agency notices that contributor X gives his/her images exclusively to the new collective "premiere" site for the first six months, the Big Agencies will not like this.  I don't expect they will ban Yuri for it, but what about the smaller contributors?
By the way, I really liked the term "Premiere" - don't remember who launched it in the other thread, but I think it would stand out as part of the site name (photopremiere.com, premierestock.com?)

849
That is great news, congratulations!  It's a very useful tool.

850

1. Quit day job FINALLY!!!
2. Do full time shooting
3. More travelling
4. Pay a student to take over the boring stuff like uploading, maybe keywording too

Life would definitely be more fun!

Pages: 1 ... 29 30 31 32 33 [34] 35 36 37

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors