Also, about using experienced industry people to create a 'new model', that has already been done, and they always get bought out by a bigger company, that's why, if you want something different, that is guaranteed to remain independent, it has to be a co-op, run by volunteers, with a budget to hire professionals when needed.. you could give an actual guarantee to each artist that joins, that the web site will ALWAYS remain independent, and will always be run by peers. And that will go a long way..

Think of the microstock community, you already have laywers, graphic designers, web designers, web developers, you have retired professionals that would love to volunteer on something like this..

I also think there should be a cap on the number of images any user has, it totally defeats the purpose, if we have one member with 10,000 images, who continuously uploads to the detriment of smaller members, so that kind of thing will have to be tackled, and not allowed!

Also, if this is fair trade, it won't be about undercutting the competition, it will be about charging what the market will bear. As far as I can see, IS were just at that point, and I would start with their pay-as-you-go payment structure, where it goes up to 10-20 dollars for a super high res file..

Also the very very first step should be to get a group of volunteers to out their hands up who have time to start organising this, and then get all the volunteers into an instant message chat.. after you have more of a talk about it here tho need more ideas!!

Ooooo, and, as someone mentioned, over time if the idea is a success you will need to upgrade servers/hosting, so why not ask each member to donate a % of their earnings towards the running of the site, but only ask them to, not enforce it, and only those who can afford it.. then that % can go towards running costs.. and we elect a secretary to keep track of everything so that each member can see exactly what the money is paying for..

Let me add some ideas, from a buyers point of view.

This could really work if you market it as a fair-trade product. Educate the buyer about the exploitation that is going on in microstock, and then explain how, if you buy your product here, the artist is always paid fairly. There will have to be a very strict standard on what is fair, and how to remain competitive with it.

But personally speaking, I would rather pay 10 dollars for an image knowing the artist has a smile on their face and I've not exploited anyone's work, and that's how I currently work. (Plus, it's company money, and I make the cost back from my own customers, so it's not like it breaks the bank) That's where you get them. Because they can NEVER compete against the fair trade idea, because they will never pay the artists enough!!!

That could really work.. I also have a web design company, and once you guys have a real proposal together, I'd be willing to take a look and see how this could be done.

Hi there! With reference to the original post, yes, you have a good idea of stock photography concepts, the model looks great and very natural, so well done!

When it comes to microstock, manual setting are best, so you need to learn how to do a custom white balance, and then in Photoshop levels and curves are v.useful.. unfortunately one of the worst things you can do for a stock portrait is to blow out highlights, as it is almost impossible to get detail back, but you could get these images up to scratch to get accepted by some of the microstock sites (There's a chance istock will always have issues with the blown highlights no matter how much you improve it with ps).. but well done, great model, nice poses, all you need is white balance, some more teaching about lighting, and definately lots of playtime in photoshop!!