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Messages - JPSDK
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 [6] 7 8 9 10 11 ... 74
126
« on: September 03, 2014, 15:59 »
More DOF would be appreaciated.
127
« on: September 03, 2014, 15:54 »
Whatever spasms they make they have lost me long ago.
They are leaches and nothing but leaches and that wont change before the managing director calls me and offers me 50%, and handles the contract over by hand.
Then I will consider.
refunds, upload procedure, harressment in the forums, lies, CB.
repeated.
128
« on: September 02, 2014, 00:07 »
My sales are constant and rising and have been for 3 years, despite I do not upload much.
Rising how much, and from what base? And what percentage gain annually? Without figures such announcements are meaningless. When I see someone on IS claiming they are doing well, against all expectations, the first thing I do is look at their total sales. I can guarantee, almost with fail, that those people are low sellers.
If you are the same JPSDK as is a contributor on IS you average about 20 sales a month for the 7 years you have been at IS, and your portfolio consists of 1 file, so to say you don't upload much is a bit of an understatement and you are hardly the average contributor.
I took my images down from is some time ago, left only one, a dead cockroach. I was referring to shutterstock. But maybe I should be a bit more precise: My sales are relatively constant and the income is rising and have been for 3 years, despite I do not upload much.
129
« on: September 01, 2014, 12:56 »
My sales are constant and rising and have been for 3 years, despite I do not upload much.
130
« on: August 21, 2014, 09:49 »
Which says more about the forums than the questions.
131
« on: August 21, 2014, 09:33 »
How does one define premium? My own experience is that what I would consider premium doesn't sell that well in comparison to what I consider generic crap (all within my own port).
I'd define premium as anything or anyone that can sell at premium prices.
Precisely how I would describe it. High quality high volume selling content we could struggle to price as premium as there is such a big supply, we may make more pricing it lower to maximize sales. High quality more niche content would do better as premium. A less well shot image of a very rare bird may do better being priced as premium. Let us do the experimenting, we can micro analyse the market far better than the people running the agencies from the top down.
A while ago I had to source some images of engineers working on specific type of rail track, I ended up having to pay hundreds of pounds for some terrible grainy snap shots from a niche site because the content had to be right. Premium in my example refers to the pricing rather than the quality.
My point is that one solution to the un-sustainability of the current model for content providers is to let us make the decisions, which I think would be a win win. Two flat simple prices, or only one price for each site ("premium site" and "standard site")
The solution is just a suggestion, the underlying problem I would say is a fact. Maybe the an agency can come up with a different solution that makes this business sustainable for us. At the moment they are losing control of their content stream. To be in this long term they have to step up and take positive action.
I disagree that they spotted this first, we are still at the stage where only we down in the trenches have felt the vibrations. As far as they're concerned they are still seeing huge volumes of content uploaded, they haven't realized it's an act of desperation by many of us to pump out as much stuff as possible in the short term.
Have a conversation with some of the producers who are aware of DPC but have left their work in there. Most of them will tell you it is because they have thrown in the towel on micro altogether and it is part of an exit strategy.
We CAN take decisions. We can choose to not sell on all agencies but only on those few, where volume makes up for price. Thats what I have done.
132
« on: August 21, 2014, 09:23 »
i'm recently seeing a boom in online naming and shaming and it's a worrying trend.
first of all, is it legal ?
NO !
secondly, is it professional ?
NO !
so what do we do ?
if the trend keeps going on my forecast is negative from any perspective, we're slowly getting used to live in a society where you will soon need to record everything you say or write or do for fear of being exposed in public and online, and by domino effect nobody will trust anybody.
You are out of wack with the situation. You sound like a soccer mum out in Oclahoma that hat her first internet connection last year. The internet has been full of illegal things for 15 years it is only recently that laws have been made to save the net from being the wild west.
133
« on: August 19, 2014, 10:59 »
ja ja, the reviewers, the *insult removed*, incompetent and all. Also Attila, and his gang.
Upload them again because the photographer is always right.
Why cant you guys grow up, and realize that your are competing in the big supply and demand game, and you are loosing.
134
« on: August 19, 2014, 00:20 »
I feel tempted to give up ShutterStock. Just got 5 of the new ones rejected. So far 10 out of 20 of my best selling iStock images were rejected by SS. the last 5 for out-of-focus / blurry images. Since i bought my Canon 5D MK2 in 2009 in had NO images rejected by iStock for those reasons. Are they joking or what ?
That is the individual impact of the "glass house effect". Meaning that inside the istock glasshouse the competition is less among photographers, so they do not develop as much as independents are forced to. Which deteriorates istock images from the inside so that contrary to the belief, images on istock are often NOT as good as those on other places. Which again is why istoch in their desperation, opened the floodgates for new images, and thereby made many years of (outdated) curation worthless.
135
« on: August 18, 2014, 18:23 »
Its typical for all sorts of grassroot campains that they waste a lot of time on endless debating and end up in fractions of people with the same vision.
Its also typical that they only reach limited results.
...And that (former) (cult) member become hostile towards eachother.
Amazing is the tendency that (former) members absolutely have to take the dirty laundry out in public.
But so it is, it happens all the time. Especially among politicians.
136
« on: August 18, 2014, 00:26 »
 Here come the minuses! She has called in the cult troop!
Cathy, maybe it's time to realize that you were a big part of the problem. End of story.
Why was cathy a big part of the problem? and btw.. Which problem?
137
« on: August 13, 2014, 11:29 »
I would say that Mike Ledrays port is the most crazy and funny.
138
« on: August 12, 2014, 09:02 »
I wont comment now, because I said it all already long time ago.
Only one thing: Leo, do not blame yourself, you were carried away like any dedicated young man should be, and you learned a valuable lesson: you can not build a skyscraper in a swamp, but you need to dig the foundation deep into the bedrock.
139
« on: August 08, 2014, 08:49 »
Would you care to show me the butterfly pictures? I have a special interest in that kind of pictures.
Sure. Always happy to show off my work!
You'll find those five Taxiles Skipper images (right next to a new series of Horseshoe Crabs) in the "latest uploads" section on this page:
http://www.dreamstime.com/marthamarks_info
And if you'd like to see four images of a Common Checkered Skipper, look for them on bright yellow flowers on this page:
http://www.dreamstime.com/marthamarks_more-latest-adition_pg1
Ss is always bothered if large parts of the image is out of DOF, and it can easlily be with a small butterfly on a large flower taken with macro.
140
« on: August 07, 2014, 09:27 »
Would you care to show me the butterfly pictures? I have a special interest in that kind of pictures.
141
« on: August 01, 2014, 23:39 »
Btw, you have many examples of "keyword problems" in your flicker port. Do you want me to critisize some of them?
142
« on: August 01, 2014, 23:27 »
Comment to the picture above:
a 15 sec long exposure is bound to get the leaves blurred, and even the sturdiest tripod is vulnerable to earthquakes (footsteps), or slight movements in the metal itself. (yes, im serious). With long exposures the gras begin to GROW in the frame.
I suggest you go to a 9 or 11 and find a strong focus point in the front of the hyperfocal distance, then blur in the rest of the picture becomes less visible.
Then something else: The waterfall is a fine artistic picture, but it is not a good stock photo. It is not iconic (visual representation of a concept) enough and the keywords that describe it are mixed: waterfall, wood, green, forest, river, rock and more.
Now imagine a picture with only these 2 keywords: waterfall, blue.
Not that there couldnt be other keywords, but imagine an image with a content of mostly blue and waterfall.
That would make the customer happy when he searched for exactly that.
The more mixed your content and keywords is in the file, the more searches it becomes irellevant for.
So my advice to you, if you want to become good in stock:
Shoot icons. If you can even make your own new icon, you get en the several ciffers dls pr image.
Shoot keywords, and not artsy pictures.
Think customers, and forget about fancy lenses and techniques.
We photographers believe that photography and equipment is important.
But it is not, the most important thing when selling microstock is coherent content. Meaning that the image and the keywords as a whole must have an impact.
143
« on: July 24, 2014, 18:28 »
for me July is about 70% of May and June.
144
« on: July 24, 2014, 18:25 »
SS just fell off a cliff for me the last three months. May, June and now July are all down 50% or more from last year. My earnings in all three months are lower than for the same months in any year since 2007. It's mostly the lack of ODs and high-value SODs that are making the difference. Those sales have dropped dramatically during those three months. Makes me wonder what's going on...
you have one ore more specific competitors.
145
« on: July 16, 2014, 15:17 »
Is this thread still alive?
Ill say it again, then.
rejections are about supply and demand.
If your pictures gets rejected, they are not in demand. Just forget the "official" rejection reasons.
And there is nothing mysterious about that, when there have 20 mill pics online.
Your pictures can be borderline with camera, postprocessing, legal documents, keywords and content.
Which is all "content".
The agencies sell "content", and they accept "content" that is profitable and reject the unprofitable "content", and you are likely to provide unprofitable content if you photograph everyday things from western culture, have an ordinary camera/ lens combination and ordinary subject such as western looking woman with headset.
Now, feel free to call me an idiot, and feel free to continue whine about rejections of your splendid photos of garden tools, instead of stepping up some steps on the ladder and photograph something in demand and usefull, or even better, make a trend in colours and subject that can open a floodgate of downloads for your pictures. It has been done before, but not by people stuck in whining, but by people who were kicked in the arse.
146
« on: July 16, 2014, 14:59 »
you asked for advice, but you are not listening.
The good advice is already in the thread. Quite precise.
Forget revievers.
Look at your images, and compare to best sellers.
or said shorter:
forget your photography and remember the customer.
You could buy a picture and find out what the opposite side feels like.
147
« on: July 16, 2014, 14:48 »
I once met a guy in Copenhagen who was collecting money for abused animals.
He showed me pictures of bears with rings in their noses and leopard furs and wounded rhinos with no horns.
It as all so sad and the animals were so abused. There were also lame dogs with 3 legs, with scabies.
Such a pity.
Then I asked him if he was paid to do the fundraising, and yes he was, he proudly answered. 10 dollars pr. hour.
"Well, I sell cement" I answered. "What do you sell, ---sufferings and pity?".
What I mean to say is that they are all full of s+++, they sell guilt and shame.
And that has been heard of before, once back in time you could even buy you self a place in Paradise, maybe you still can?
I detest those parasites, who prey upon our concience and morals and make a rich living for one or 2 of the gurus.
And when it comes to giving pictures away for free, Inever do it. Or almost never, sometimes I even have fun with asking a free summerhouse or car for just for a week or something.
But there is never anything free the other way. And it proves that the folder with the credit never shows up or the book or whatever they promised you.
If you give away anything for free, you get devaluated and people piss on you.
148
« on: July 09, 2014, 13:49 »
There is no new king.
But there is nobility.
And there is nobility degraded to robber barons.
And as a peasant its about choosing sides and not have your head chopped off. And in these days of new digital feudalism, I choose to stay loyal to the count and not be a mean of the robber baron.
149
« on: July 09, 2014, 13:41 »
Its about time to bring in the communists and hear their suggestions.
"that we distribute wealth so that it the broadest shoulders that carry the heaviest burdens".
That means, Mike, that I want half of the poodle, and you can have a wing of a swallowtail.
If negotiations become difficult.... and they might.
We can just go on raving, plundering and pillaging....
its in the genes.
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