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Messages - ShadySue
13851
« on: April 02, 2011, 06:45 »
Does this mean that IS Vetta images are now available on the partner program as well?
No, it had better not, since the Agency and Vetta collections on Getty do not require a contract with Getty.
Does that then mean they could do what they liked without even making us 'agree' or pull the files?
13852
« on: April 01, 2011, 17:27 »
Down 33% compared to March 2010; c8% on Feb 11, which is worse than it seems as March is 3 days longer. The reduction in the EL commission is biting.  (Unlike some others, I'm actually on the same %age level as last year, just won't 'go up' in a few weeks; and I lost relatively very little in the clawback, so neither of these are factors) c200 new files this year so far, 37in queue, c10% of my port, so hopefully they will help for April and onwards. April has begun with a whimper.
13853
« on: April 01, 2011, 13:41 »
Overall it looks like the golds and diamonds did ok with many of them having BMEs.
That's not what I'm reading on that thread.
13854
« on: April 01, 2011, 07:58 »
I hope that whatever IT people they hire are more competent than the current sorry lot.
Even if they just stand up to the idiot who's pulling their strings and say, "You can't have good, fast AND cheap".
13855
« on: April 01, 2011, 05:58 »
13856
« on: March 31, 2011, 19:57 »
And I am very happy to hear you numbers! it's people like you who keep us motivated !!
Sean, please stop motivating people. It just makes the competition worse.
Yes, my bad!
You just can't help yourself!
13857
« on: March 31, 2011, 16:25 »
Just ordered the money shoots book and will order the other one soon. Very good advice to say the least- I need to really look at my other hobbies or job experience and bear down on those areas to find a niche. I am into the technology area the majority of my life, military (part time reserves), and a fairly USTA tennis player with lot's of professional coaching. I will do my research on these areas and see what ideas I can produce.
Thank you...
Tom
Both of these could be a minefield of property and model releases, so check everything really carefully. It's easy to take for granted the sort of things you see day and daily. Or submit editorial.
13858
« on: March 31, 2011, 12:22 »
You've come very late to the party and have got a long way to make up. You will need to invest heavily in learning and equipment and models and props and sets to make a lot money. And remember, you're up against all the people who already have lighting, equipement, models, props and set ups down to a fine art.
I have no idea of your photo experience, but as for stock it seems that these two books are excellent for stock beginners
Ellen Boughn:P Molcrostock money shots
and Rob Sylvan: Taking Stock
Remember: Look and see what's available already. You have to do better, or why would your image sell over theirs?
If you've got a niche that few others have access to: are there buyers for that subject who buy on microstock sites? Often these specialist subjects are covered by existing experts who provide words and images packages for publications, so there is very little market for random images.
You need to do a lot of research to see what's possible.
And remember, the more people, like me and you, who get into micro, the thinner the sales are spread. My sales and $$$ are well down this year compared to last year at this time, and many others, who have been at it for a while, are saying the same. You can rise for so long, then there's a plateau. When you sell ten images a month, 15 images the next month is a huge rise, but that's not, to borrow a phrase 'sustainable' for most of us.
13859
« on: March 31, 2011, 09:15 »
No marketing = no business. Good grief.....I may have asked this before but do they have a salesforce working the phones to drum up new business?
A couple of months ago, they advertised for a marketing specialist and that job is not currently being advertised, so they may have hired same, or decided not to bother. They also seem, for the first time in four years, no currently to be looking for "someone who can break our system". This is their current list of vacancies: BerlinCountry Specialist, Spain (G-BER 11045) Berlin, DE Designer (G-BER 11051) Berlin, DE CalgaryAccounts Payable Specialist (G-CAL 11096) Copywriter (G-CAL 10359) Marketing Database Analyst (G-CAL 11072) Project Coordinator (G-CAL 10356) Windows Systems Administrator (G-CAL 11037) User Experience Designer (G-CAL 10358) MilanDirector, Country Operations, Italy (G-MIL 11075) Sao PauloCountry Director, Brazil (G-SP 11076)
13860
« on: March 31, 2011, 08:18 »
I'm guessing they might also want to see what the effect on the exclusives becoming independent/leaving has been, so can predict what could happen if more exclusives do the same following another target hike. Also if/how many independents leave. And how many contributors have stopped/slowed uploading. versus how many have taken the challenge to shoot more/better. And what the effect of introducing editorial has been.
All of these will take time to compute, which they should have thought about before their rash promise of early-announced targets.
Forward thinking doesn't seem to be an iStock strength these days.
13861
« on: March 31, 2011, 06:55 »
lol, at least it looks like someone's bothered about whether the content of the article is factually correct.
Maybe some independents contacted Kelly and demanded their 20% as stated in the article.
13863
« on: March 31, 2011, 04:49 »
Maybe something to do with this?
http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/?p=8304
I hope not.
I wouldn't have thought you couldn't use methods taught in a tutorial. Not that I do, and if I did, I wouldn't make them so much 'the same'; but still, it's surely not illegal or unethical if you create them yourself using the tut?
13864
« on: March 31, 2011, 04:44 »
Yeah, or it could just mean, plain and simple that contributors are at a certain time accidently cut-off from a certain part of the world for a certain purpose. I cant figure it out yet but there could be a bug or glitch here, something nobody is aware of yet.
I stumbled over this by accident, a buyer in the US, wanted a high-res shot instead of the low-res in my portfolio and contacted me on my private mail, late Tuesday night. He didnt find the low-res but even worse, he couldnt even find me! or my Port.
Its pretty alarming though because it would explain the total lack of DLs during Europen nigh-time by US customers, prior I used to get about 50% of my DLs during these late hours.
Oh well, might be a ghost in the house?
Certainly my out of European hours sales are virtually non-existent these days. I guess you'd have to find e.g. an American resident, German Australian and Thai to see if they are even getting the same numbers of hits on a search. A recent anecdotal happening suggested they might not be, but I didn't follow it up. That sounds very worrying that they couldn't find you or your port. If they (or someone else) can repeat that, I'd get onto Support right away.
13865
« on: March 31, 2011, 04:36 »
Bloody h*ll, by accident I see I have an 8 cent sale yesterday too. They make it so difficult to actually see your sales, you have to dig to find them. Not to mention they randomly update your stats and credits so you have no clue what is going on in real time.
That's true, very annoying and probably designed to keep us guessing, but AFAIK, the 'balance' in the bar at the bottom of the page (unless you've chosen to hide it) is updated in real time and you can check sales in real time via My Uploads > Last Download. It is a footer, though.
13866
« on: March 30, 2011, 18:47 »
Allegedly, it's based on what buyers from that area have preferred in the past.
So, in a search for 'coloured shapes', maybe more Americans preferred your green triangles in the past, but more Europeans preferred my red circles. So they go with that for future searchers.
I guess it makes more sense especially for people pics, as the preferred style is often so different.
13867
« on: March 30, 2011, 18:17 »
Slightly off-thread, but maybe not 'epic fail' territory.
For editorial, they have decided that you need permission to photograph one or two minors, or inside interiors (baguely defined: I had a rejection for a photo taken of performers (amateur) on an outdoor stage in a public park at a free event, after over four weeks 'pending executive' during which all that could easily have been confirmed by Googling.
Anyway, I wondered from the outset why they didn't provide the sort of specifically editorial releases they would want for these purposes right at the outset/editorial launch.
Today in the editorial forum:
Contributor:
I'm bringing this up because I got two of these rejections today. It would be nice if iStock would create an editorial release for such a situation. The current property release is so broad that some property owners or managers might be unwilling to sign it. I'd like iStock to create a release that basically says that the photographer is allowd to be on the property and has the owner's permission to take photos while they are on the property.
Subman:
The current property release is efficient, permission to shoot is permission to shoot. Normally with bigger events, press documentation giving permission to shoot on location are provided by the organising institution..
Contributor:
The current property release states:
"As owner or authorized representative of the Property and by
signing this release, I give the Photographer / Filmmaker and
Assigns my permission to create and use the Content depicting the
Property in any Media, for any purpose (excluding defamation and
/ or pornography) which may include, among others, advertising,
promotion, marketing and packaging for any product or service."
The editorial license does not allow the images to be used for any of those purposes. If I want to shoot at a local mall (for example) and I tell the manager that the images will only be used in newspapers, magazines or another editorial context and then ask them to sign a release stating that the images can be used for "advertising, promotion, marketing and packaging for any product or service," I don't look very honest.
Aside from the commercial property release, is there anything else that will iStock will accept as permission to use our images for the editorial collection?
Five hours ago: no reply is the loud reply.
13868
« on: March 30, 2011, 16:19 »
Perhaps they became aware how much those targets can tell about the sales performance of the different tiers.
Plus maybe they've realised how demotivating it could be for those who have no hope of rising to the next level, and they may make serious decisions about how they manage their future. Besides, with the vagaries of the best match and the instability of the site, the unfixed bugs, the regular breaking of things that were working, who really thinks that throwing up another hundred or so images will definitely make a difference? If it was that easy (that they could just go out and shoot guaranteed high-sellers), they'd be doing it anyway, just for the income.
13869
« on: March 30, 2011, 13:30 »
sadly articles are regularly published including misinformation. having watched how SOME journalists work, they have their eye on the deadline and usually know diddly squat about the subject they're writing about. which almost always results in misquotes and misinformation. i
Having been the victim of this, I can attest and concede that this happens. I guess there will be some disgruntled applicants 'suckered in ' by that article, then finding that they only get 15% when they start.
13870
« on: March 30, 2011, 11:33 »
the article is fine IMO.
Including the blatant lie: "commission levels stretch from 20% to 45%"?
Can we hazard a guess as to the extent of this lie:
Number of contributors earning less than 20% commission = ?
Number of contributors earning 45% = ?
would it have mattered if he had said 15% to 40%? it wouldn't have changed the context of the article in any way. to put it in perspective, in publishing authors get 4% to 8%-if we're lucky. I'm not stating that I agree with 15% for non-exclusives. I completely disagree with so low a percentage in our industry for any artist. but I'm just saying that suggesting it was a great big LIE designed to mislead seems silly. because even had they printed the 'truth', it would have hardly changed the article.
Well, ya know, the devil's in the detail.
13871
« on: March 30, 2011, 11:22 »
the article is fine IMO.
Including the blatant lie: "commission levels stretch from 20% to 45%"? Can we hazard a guess as to the extent of this lie: Number of contributors earning less than 20% commission = ? Number of contributors earning 45% = ?
13872
« on: March 30, 2011, 10:19 »
I love this part
But Thompson rebuts this idea, and suggests that rates have risen at iStock: We started paying 25 cents an image! He adds that commission levels stretch from 20% to 45%.[/i]
I understood that at first no money changed hands? And the commission part omits a great part of the truth. [1] Yup, JJRD was right, it's a "new kind of trust" we have to have in our 'leaders'. Trust that we'll never know HAFC WTH is going on. [1] Does that make it a 'sin of omission' and a 'sin of commission' at the same time?
13873
« on: March 30, 2011, 04:48 »
I make no comment on the premise of the site, just that the 60 images are watermarked with a large variety of stock libraries from Getty to thinkstock. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/60-completely-unusable-stock-photos (Very first photo: I remember way back when I was a student seeing a poster campaign featuring a 'pregnant man' with the slogan, "If you could get pregnant, you'd use contraception' or similar.)
13874
« on: March 29, 2011, 14:41 »
Perhaps they'll get lucky and find a few very talented and productive newbies to fill the store shelves of Vetta/Video/Vector? If not, this spring will turn into this year and it'll end up like logos - on some back burner somewhere.
I suppose they could just co-opt suppliers like they did with agency. They can bend the rules as much as they like. But well done to all those Vector and Video non-Vettists.
13875
« on: March 29, 2011, 11:47 »
Hi Stock Folks,
Recently, I submitted about 6 photos with my parents in the photos. Only 2 were accepted and the rest rejected due to trade mark or logo issues. I have scan the photos over and over and don't see any logo's or trademarks. But some of the photos show a painting over the fireplace and some family photos which are slightly blurred. You cannot see the artist name on the painting over the fireplace. When shooting people what are things that I must do (prep work)? I don't really want to shoot them in the standard drop cloth but rather in their natural living conditions. So many things to consider...
Thanks.
Tom
The painting is an issue, unless you can prove that it's old enough to be in the public domain in your country or you can get a release from the artist. As for the photos, if only slightly blurred, you'd need a model release for everyone in the photos (parents to sign if minors in the image) and a property release from the photographer/s. Surely the agencies you're submitting to give guidance to contributors on these issues?
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