I know 85% isn't an accurate number, it's just the angry number to throw around. It's very complex to try and figure out what they are really making as an average percentage based on the whole. I like the previous post where the guy touched on fair trade and china. I don't think what he was getting at was moving to macro. For me I have a freelancer, micro and macro budget. As an art buyer I do love iStock for my micro needs. It's priced right, and the content is good. "made in china" doesn't mean its bad. I have an iPhone thats made in China and its awesome! Since I've dipped into the stock world, I have a soft spot for it. I know how hard it is to make a go of it.

If I have say $2000.00 per year, and I spend all that at istock, its a safe bet that about 20-35% will go to the artists. So if I'm trying to support the artists first, I'm better to spend that money at stockfresh of another place where the contributor gets paid more.

In the coffee world, the farmers yelled and screamed for more money, but it wasn't until people started to realized the benefits of fair trade that the farmers started to get paid fairly for there work. Art buyers are mostly socially conscience people, I think the industry should start a movement for fair trade royalties. Maybe that just crazy I don't know, just trying help and give a different perspective.

Haha, that balmer guy has some mad sweat pattys!

If your shot is only lit by a strobe, freezing action is not achieved by the shutter speed, its achieved by the flash duration. You could have 1/60th on your shutter speed, but say 1/2600th flash duration and freeze moving hair. Short flash durations is one aspect that separates less expensive strobes with higher end ones.

If you want to have ambient light in the shot and freeze action, you could use a hot light, or a reflector with a fast lens - allowing you to bring up your shutter speed beyond its maximum sync.

As an art director, I've seen the industry change so much. In the beginning, you would hire a photographer with a style and concept in mine. That was the norm, not just reserved for huge accounts. Then, paying $600ish for RM was the new cool. Now days, a lot of agencies only have iStock accounts. The designers are emo about it. Constantly complaining, because the shot they really want is at Corbis or Getty or that illusive phootshoot, but instead they are forced to settle for less, because the end client doesn't care anyways. Vetta solves this, because now designers can buy better images with their iStock account. All they have to do is buy less, and they can stay on budget.

This will work until for a while until the non exclusive iStock photographers start producing equal quality images and selling them on the other stock sites for cheep.