Because their friend would be happy to email them the images for free of course. Friends are always happy to help each other out whether it's professional advice, plumbing, mechanics, DIY or in this case pictures __ I'm kind of surprised that it is being questioned.

I guess you must be a much better friend than I am. If you want my help moving, I'm there. If you want my opinion on something, I'm there. Need help building your house, I'm there.

Ask me to do anything related to my making money and my profession, no freebies.

While I was on vacation, the friend that I went to visit decided I could help her sister with some product photography, for free, she never even offered to take me to lunch. I only took my camera, no lights, etc. It was my vacation after all. I was there to enjoy the sun and sand, not work. I did the favor, but asked that she not tell anyone I did the work. It was half-assed and unprofessional. I did the best I could, but it took me about 5 hours of PS time to clean them up. I was fuming. Never again.


[/quote

I know what you mean - people (not even friends) often expect me to do free translations and proof-reading of their work, which I just don't do anymore. Jobs like that for some reason aren't considered to be actual work. And I handle things like you do - I'll do lots for friends, but no free translations, no free proof-reading and no free photos!

Oh no! That's frustrating. Probably it just means "We don't like it".
I noticed that you keep having problems there. Sorry to hear that.

ooops, just noticed that my post went wrong.
Just to clarify, my part was only this:

Ok, but what if by then other sites have closed their doors to new members or have introduced upload limits? If you had to rebuild your port on other sites uploading 10 or 20 a week, you'd be in trouble.

Sorry.

Thank you for responding, Jonathan!

Hey, me too! Two sales with earnings of $ 1,05 each!
Well, I'm very pleased with Veer MP for today.

I wonder if this is why I suddenly earned $30 today without any sales to show for it.

I had that today aswell - but it wasn't $30, it was $0.4! 
That seems to have happened at DT before, last time the sale was visible in the list of downloaded files next day.

You might want to add shotshop to your list. They are midstock (30 Euros per image, regardless of web or print). There's a monthly upload limit that starts with 30 images for new photographers and changes according to your acceptance rate. I haven't had any sales there yet (only started there 8 weeks ago), but from what others say they seem to have regular sales. I like the site a lot, I must say. Whether they accept English keywords, I don't know. But I don't think I'd recommend keywording in English if you're trying to reach German Buyers - wouldn't rely on any site's automatic translations (maybe except for istock. Otherwise, as you probably know, fotolia is the leading stocksite in the German speaking countries.
Otherwise, I can't think of any other German agencies that are not on your list.

Hi Stardust,

 Pink is the best color to support food shots at least last year. The agencies analyze what pix sold the best then try to see the results and build data from them. So model in waitress outfit holding plate of food would sell better on a soft pink background than a blue one. Interesting stuff. Buyers do follow a general pattern but it is not etched in stone as the only info to go by. Do some testing yourself and see. Maybe do one shot on different backgrounds and see which sells the best, your own personal color test : )

Best,
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for the tip! I've heard generally about trends like that being analyzed, but I've never actually found concrete information on things like that.
Regards,
Barbara

hi food photographers

I read this stuff on color psychology:

Quote

While blue is one of the most popular colors it is one of the least appetizing. Blue food is rare in nature. Food researchers say that when humans searched for food, they learned to avoid toxic or spoiled objects, which were often blue, black, or purple. When food dyed blue is served to study subjects, they lose appetite.

Green, brown, and red are the most popular food colors. Red is often used in restaurant decorating schemes because it is an appetite stimulant.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

Quote

Physiological Effect: Violet has shown to alleviate conditions such as sunburn due to its purifying and antiseptic effect. This color also suppresses hunger and balances the body's metabolism.

http://library.thinkquest.org/27066/psychology/nlcolorpsych.html

What has been your experience with the use of color in food images?  Is what is being said relevent to the success of different food images? Do you stay away from using purples and blues in your images?  What do you think?
Lucy x

I shoot nearly nothing else but food, and I'm aware of what psychologists say about blue, but I don't stay away from it. Blue and purple often give a nice contrast to the boring colour of pasta (yes, I know that pasta can look very yellow, but I don't like that look at all). Often, I use blue and white edible flowers to decorate arrangements, and it looks nice with pasta and very light green salad leafs, for example. Also, blueberries and blackberries seem to be very popular dessert ingredients for American buyers (Europeans seem to like raspberries and strawberries more, from what I can tell), and these "new" blue potatoes that are trendy now go well with lots of dishes (maybe not meat so much, though).
What I find most important in food photography is distracting the eye from parts of the dish that you just can't get to look appetizing: Chili con Carne or Bolognese sauce as such always will look awful and offputting. Lots of shots of those dishes don't distract the eye from the ugly bits, the really successful ones always do, though!

It helps a lot not taking rejections personally. You might be overinterpreting the feedback IS is giving you. What they are saying with a rejection is "We don't want the photo", they are not saying a single thing about you. Even if the rejections are weird or arbitrary or whatever. If you don't come to understand that, you're trying to enter the wrong business.
Otherwise: Good luck to ya!

Quote from: stardust on May 07, 2009, 15:47

Quote from: batman on May 07, 2009, 15:12

IF there should be an IS  ...    it could be only PC

What does  PC mean? 

Photos.com

Oh no! Let's hope not! 

I thought this at one point too. it doesn't make sense from an economic perspective. if agencies were to do that it would upset the whole cart and completely change the agency model. t

agencies would have to lure the best contributors with incentives and this would result in shrinking their profit margins substantially, for little gain. I think most agencies are more concerned with branding themselves rather than branding their contributors.

That makes sense. I just got that idea when fotolia started copying istock's exclusivity model. Since then, I have the strong feeling that sometime soon they will just kick me out ("Thank you, white, bronze, and silvers - we've reached 10 Million images now...").
That is also the reason that I'm staying with all of the big 6. I just don't think all of them will survive. And when 3 of them have gone, I don't want to have been exclusive with one of those. Although, from the beginning, being exclusive at istock has always tempted me, but I'm not nearly there jet (61 DLs  

BTW, I enjoyed looking through your portfolio a few times since you've come over here. I'm sure that you'd do well anywhere. Not sure whether anyone has made this point before, but suddenly having to get used to uploading, categorizing, and keywording to many agencies and also getting a few of their wild rejections might be quite a pain to someone who's been exclusive for quite a while. It's not just the time factor.