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Messages - polar

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26
iStockPhoto.com / Re: I can not see my profile page
« on: June 22, 2017, 08:46 »
Same here.

Of course, it's the ONLY place where we can see the minimal sales information they deign to give us and that's now missing too.

27
Off Topic / Re: Plane crashed in my front yard
« on: May 19, 2017, 09:33 »
His engine exploded. Plane caught fire. Could have landed in the water because he was over the bay, but he figured my front lawn would be better.

I'd hazard a guess that landing on water would have a high probability of causing the plane to flip with likely fatal consequences. These small planes have fixed wheels, don't they? And wheels dipping into water would face tremendous drag.
But that's just a guess.


It's funny, because someone asked the pilot at the scene what he'd normally do in this situation, and he answered that he'd try to land the plane in water. What made him decide to head back to land instead of landing in the bay is anyone's guess. Another pilot did the same thing last year...he was over the Hudson River when his engine failed, and instead of trying the river he attempted to make it back to Teterboro airport, which was impossible. He ended up crashing a half mile from my parents' house in Cresskill, which is not too far inland from the river...and nowhere near any airport and many, many miles from Teterboro.


I find this very strange. A water landing with fixed wheels is almost guaranteed to send the plane tumbling. As I mentioned in my other post, when I flew out of an airport surrounded by water, I was trained to approach  high and fast to allow a glide to the runway. We did everything possible to avoid a water landing.

That said, landing in rough terrain or trees is pretty tough too. We did overland training that involved looking for flat terrain to land on if the engine quit. The instructor actually killed the engine during these exercises and we had to go through the motions for the approach -- although thankfully, I was never required to land in someone's field. They generally don't instruct you to land on highways because of the power lines. Those will trip you as easily as water.

ETA: You can easily flip the plane even with retracted wheels, especially if one of the wings hits the water. One of the things that was so amazing when Sully put his plane down in the Hudson is that he didn't flip it.


Well, I guess he had to choose water or forest. And being from the other side of the country he was probably unfamiliar with the area. I'm still amazed that Sully was able to land that jet on the river.

But now I'm wondering...why not the beach? I have no idea how hard it would be to land on sand, but at least he'd have open space there. Maybe no lights would make it hard to see?


I'm assuming that he was trained to look for flat terrain to land in, but sometimes there are no good choices. A  beach that was wet and hard-packed might work -- probably better than a forest. But you'd probably not have much luck if the sand is soft, dry and loose.

If you read accounts of Sully's landing, you'll see that one of their major concerns was making sure the plane was not yawed right or left on landing and that the wingtips were kept out of the water. Either would probably have caused the plane to cartwheel and/or break up. He had to be dead straight and level when he hit the water -- and he had no engines to control the plane's position. Plus he was very low in the air, having just taken off, and had less than four minutes to pull it off after losing his engines.

If he hadn't made an almost instantaneous decision to land in the water instead of trying for an airport, they probably wouldn't have made it. If he'd tried to go back to LaGuardia, he might well have crashed right in the middle of Manhattan. It was a truly remarkable feat of piloting and he probably saved many lives by doing what he did.

ETA: Regarding your comments about the relative safety of private versus commercial pilots, here's an interesting article by a former military and commercial pilot about how budget airlines are employing less experienced pilots to save money. She notes: "As one captain explained: Everybody wants their $99 ticket but added: you dont get [Captain] Sully for ninety-nine bucks. Instead, you you might get an accident waiting to happen."

http://theconversation.com/rising-number-of-inexperienced-pilots-may-lead-to-more-crashes-39593

28
Off Topic / Re: Plane crashed in my front yard
« on: May 18, 2017, 21:14 »
His engine exploded. Plane caught fire. Could have landed in the water because he was over the bay, but he figured my front lawn would be better.
I'd hazard a guess that landing on water would have a high probability of causing the plane to flip with likely fatal consequences. These small planes have fixed wheels, don't they? And wheels dipping into water would face tremendous drag.
But that's just a guess.

It's funny, because someone asked the pilot at the scene what he'd normally do in this situation, and he answered that he'd try to land the plane in water. What made him decide to head back to land instead of landing in the bay is anyone's guess. Another pilot did the same thing last year...he was over the Hudson River when his engine failed, and instead of trying the river he attempted to make it back to Teterboro airport, which was impossible. He ended up crashing a half mile from my parents' house in Cresskill, which is not too far inland from the river...and nowhere near any airport and many, many miles from Teterboro.

I find this very strange. A water landing with fixed wheels is almost guaranteed to send the plane tumbling. As I mentioned in my other post, when I flew out of an airport surrounded by water, I was trained to approach  high and fast to allow a glide to the runway. We did everything possible to avoid a water landing.

That said, landing in rough terrain or trees is pretty tough too. We did overland training that involved looking for flat terrain to land on if the engine quit. The instructor actually killed the engine during these exercises and we had to go through the motions for the approach -- although thankfully, I was never required to land in someone's field. They generally don't instruct you to land on highways because of the power lines. Those will trip you as easily as water.

ETA: You can easily flip the plane even with retracted wheels, especially if one of the wings hits the water. One of the things that was so amazing when Sully put his plane down in the Hudson is that he didn't flip it.

29
Off Topic / Re: Plane crashed in my front yard
« on: May 18, 2017, 21:11 »
His engine exploded. Plane caught fire. Could have landed in the water because he was over the bay, but he figured my front lawn would be better.
I'd hazard a guess that landing on water would have a high probability of causing the plane to flip with likely fatal consequences. These small planes have fixed wheels, don't they? And wheels dipping into water would face tremendous drag.
But that's just a guess.

Yes, you're right that ditching a plane with fixed wheels in the water is very bad news (not that going in with retracted wheels is a barrel of laughs.)

I used to fly and was based at a small airport that was surrounded on three sides by water. Pilots who flew there were trained to land differently from those who went into land-based airports. We came in "high and hot" so if we lost the engine on approach, we'd have enough height and speed to glide to the runway. No way did we want to go into the drink.

30
Off Topic / Re: Plane crashed in my front yard
« on: May 17, 2017, 15:05 »
What's the prognosis for your water? How long will you have to avoid drinking from your well?

I hope the guy had insurance so you can get some compensation.

31
It's only recording credit sales, of which I had precious few in April and none on 1 and 2 May, but incredibly it seems I had 3 yesterday! A red-letter day for me on iS nowadays.  ::)

So that page is still being updated, at least with credit sales, which, frankly, are the only ones I'm interested in. I thought I read that iStock announced those updates would be stopping -- but maybe that's something else they couldn't get around to actually doing.

Good news -- the page is still being updated.  :D
Bad news -- no credit sales.   :'(
They claim it's inaccurate. Not quite sure how it can be inaccurate yet ESP is accurate (what would the inaccurate records be?), but there's a lot of smoke and mirrors there.

Well, I hope it's inaccurate that there are no credit sales since mid-April. But I have a sinking feeling that, in that respect, it's accurate.

32
It's only recording credit sales, of which I had precious few in April and none on 1 and 2 May, but incredibly it seems I had 3 yesterday! A red-letter day for me on iS nowadays.  ::)

So that page is still being updated, at least with credit sales, which, frankly, are the only ones I'm interested in. I thought I read that iStock announced those updates would be stopping -- but maybe that's something else they couldn't get around to actually doing.

Good news -- the page is still being updated.  :D
Bad news -- no credit sales.   :'(

33
I'm curious whether anyone has seen sales listed on the old iStock user stats page recently.

I've been checking it because it was still offering information on the dollar value of credit sales. But for me there's been no activity there since the middle of April, while a few sales have shown up on the ESP profile page. They could be subs, which wouldn't be recorded on the user stats page. Or the user stats page could now be dead, which some have suggested. Should I stop bothering to check it?

34
Some people could get their DM2 stats up till Tuesday, but Franky was told to disable it from fetching new sales stats, and a message to that effect went into DM2 yesterday. At the same time, they disabled the old stats chart, which had been working until yesterday morning.
It certainly looks like they're hiding something. How could these apps be pulling inaccurate credit sales.
Malice ... total incompetence ... how is it divided up?

Isn't it a good thing that "money is not what makes us happy?"   :-\

35
I don't get this. If they're no longer updating financial  information on the iStock site, why do I keep seeing new sales popping up on the user_stats page? I just had one yesterday, so updating is happening. Is there a ghost in the machine that's randomly adding fictional sales stats to that page?

The user_stats page reported a very-rare-for-me EL last month and it was for a fairly substantial amount. Now I'm wondering if I'll ever see that money.

The opacity of this reporting system is really infuriating.

36
Photography Equipment / Re: Insurance for camera & gear
« on: March 14, 2017, 14:41 »
You wouldn't necessarily need (at least in US) a specialized photography policy to cover gear.   

I'm in Canada and I could not get coverage for my camera gear under my home insurance policy, not even as a floater at an additional cost. AND my gear would specifically not be covered under the normal "contents" coverage of my home insurance policy. As far as they were concerned, if I earned even one cent from my images, I had to get a crazy expensive commercial policy. That's what you get for being a good customer for over 40 years. :-(

I couldn't find any other insurance company that would cover the gear as part of my home policy. I ended up getting a commercial policy from a company that offers specialized coverage. It's expensive too, but not as much as my regular insurance company would have charged. This policy does place some limits on the number of trips/amount of time I would be taking the camera gear out of the country.

37
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Suddenly Can't Login to ESP. Can You?
« on: March 07, 2017, 22:28 »
I couldn't log in just now, but clearing the browser cache solved the problem. However, I almost always have to enter my username and password twice to get in.

38
I do nature and travel photography and have been looking for mid/macro agencies that specialize in these areas. I'm concerned about the ban on selling "sister/similar images" that some of these agencies have.

I've been on several photo trips where you shoot all day in a particular location and can end up with hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of images each day. Some of these images shot in close proximity in time and place would clearly fall into the sister/similar ballpark but overall, there's generally a wide variety of different-looking images, including multiple species of wildlife.

Would all the images shot in the same place on the same day be considered similars, even if the images themselves depict very different things? Would different species of animals shot on the same day and/or in the same location be considered similars? What about all images shot in a given location over a week or a month?

Also, does this type of ban apply only to sending similar images to other stock sites, or does it also apply to personal RM sales for, say, calendars, postcards, notecards and editorial sales to magazines, newspapers, web sites, etc.?

I don't have a problem with image exclusivity, but I worry that one or a few accepted images can effectively prohibit me from selling hundreds or thousands of others. If this is the case, it doesn't seem all that much better than artist exclusivity. And it sounds like the return on the accepted images is not likely to compensate.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. I'm just starting to look into this and I already feel overwhelmed.


39
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 25, 2017, 15:31 »
What is "Downloads Year To Date" in Account Management > Profile ?

2017 credit+subscription or credit+subscription+partner program downloads ?
Allegedly so, and any GI for those eligible (which now seems to be everyone, judging by reports from some Indies of GI sales, not Premium Access fka G+ fka G360.)

Quote
Is It reliable ?
Your guess is as good as mine, or anyone else's.

Are people seeing the numbers in "downloads year to date" increasing? Mine hasn't budged since ESP account management went active. It's not entirely surprising if there are no sales, since I'm not uploading and have only a tiny rump portfolio left after multiple deactivations. But I do tend to get a few sales this time of year so I'm curious to know whether the machine is actually working -- especially since I'm only 3 cents short of a payout. I wouldn't be surprised to get only a 2c sale.  :-\

40
iStockPhoto.com / Re: I don't understand Getty
« on: February 24, 2017, 17:33 »
Somehow it got changed to Payoneer. I changed it back yesterday.

Okay, thanks. Do you think this was related to the switch to ESP? I'm wondering if I should keep checking on it to make sure there's no random, out-of-the-blue switches.

41
iStockPhoto.com / Re: I don't understand Getty
« on: February 24, 2017, 11:06 »
I hit payout and they're mailing me a check. Uhh, I have a Paypal account. You guys have used it before. Oh Getty...

This is concerning. I want to keep my payouts in US dollars in my PayPal account, which I use for making online purchases in USD. If they sent me a check, I'd be forced to convert currencies and pay extra fees.

In ESP account management>payment>payment options, it shows my PayPal account has been selected. Did you have PayPal listed there and they sent you a check anyway? Or was the payment option changed in ESP for some reason?   

42
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 22, 2017, 01:53 »
Looks like this are only Jan earnings. Where are December PP sales? Also, my credit earnings from this graph doesnt match those on iStock statistic page. They are a few cents short...

As far as I can tell, I'm missing a few cents too and it was just enough to prevent me from getting the payout I was expecting this month. Three cents short.  >:(

43
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Getty forum - how to change "display name"?
« on: February 21, 2017, 13:05 »
Thanks for the advice. I was afraid that the only "solution" would require getting the attention of so-called contributor "support." In other words, abandon hope all ye....

I'll wait to see if anyone responds to the request I sent yesterday but my experience in the past has been that even if they do "respond", the "response" is unresponsive and you get into the endless loop of irrelevance that others have reported recently while trying to get their ESP accounts activated.

I guess I just won't bother ever posting a message in the forums.

44
iStockPhoto.com / Getty forum - how to change "display name"?
« on: February 20, 2017, 21:45 »
I don't spend much time on the Getty forums but since this ESP switch, I've been looking in there more often. I checked my profile in the Contributor Community/Forum section and found that it listed a user name and a "display name", both of which are my email address. I'd prefer not to use my email address as a display name on any messages I might post in the forum but I cannot find a way to change it.

There's a link on the profile page called "Edit Profile" and it contains lots of stuff but nothing that would allow me to change the display name. I searched the FAQs and the forum threads and couldn't find any useful information. I sent a question via "Contact Us" but after years of dealing with IS's so-called contributor support, I'm not expecting an answer within my remaining lifetime.

So I thought I'd ask here. Has anyone tried and succeeded in changing their profile information in the forum section? I'm not talking about the profile in the ESP Account Management section, which is different and doesn't make any reference to "display name."

45
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 10, 2017, 15:23 »
I got that linkless email and managed to sign in to ESP with my Istock username and pasword...
Did work and immediately went to royalties because it would be nice to receive some info after two months waiting:


No data available
Royalties data will not be available until your first transaction has occurred. Please try again next month.

Looks like it's going to take another month before something shows up, if there were transactions.

Allegedly we're going to be paid on or around 20th Feb.
You can see how many files you're selling (credits, subs and GI/G+ [NOT PP}) if you're in ESP, by clicking on Account Management and riffling around a bit.
Deeply worrying (for me) if it's accurate - I seem to have sold 2 or fewer licences each day this week - including subs.

Where do you see these stats in Account Management? All I can find is "downloads year to date" under the Profile tab and I presume that's only credit sales.

That's the ones.
Admin says on their forum that that is all stats except PP.
(Only number of sales, not $$)
If it's credit sales, I'd be laughing, it would be well up on last year, but if it includes Subs, I'm down.
Also IF DM2 credit sales stats are accurate, then the downloads year to date are a lot more than DM2 is reporting.
For example, yesterday ESP downloads YTD reported only 2 new sales, and DM2 reported one credit sale, so presumbly I got only one sub*.
Today ESP has risen by one, and DM2 hasn't, so presumably all I've had today is one sub*.
*or GI/G+

I was already getting fewer subs per month than I used to get credit sales, but now ... and earning me "as little as 28c".

I only have a tiny number of sales (so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering with all this) but I know that all except one listed in the downloads-year-to-date were credit sales because they were there before this whole ESP migration mess started. The final one showed up just at the very moment of the "cutover" (as IS called it) and I lost access to any useful information at that point. The app iStock Stats seemed to suggest the last sale was also a credit sale but who knows if that's correct? Probably not even IS.

46
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 10, 2017, 12:54 »
I got that linkless email and managed to sign in to ESP with my Istock username and pasword...
Did work and immediately went to royalties because it would be nice to receive some info after two months waiting:


No data available
Royalties data will not be available until your first transaction has occurred. Please try again next month.

Looks like it's going to take another month before something shows up, if there were transactions.

Allegedly we're going to be paid on or around 20th Feb.
You can see how many files you're selling (credits, subs and GI/G+ [NOT PP}) if you're in ESP, by clicking on Account Management and riffling around a bit.
Deeply worrying (for me) if it's accurate - I seem to have sold 2 or fewer licences each day this week - including subs.

Where do you see these stats in Account Management? All I can find is "downloads year to date" under the Profile tab and I presume that's only credit sales.

47
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 07, 2017, 00:53 »
Again, over the years, most (all?) of iStock's communications have been extremely ambiguous; so much so that I can't believe it isn't intentional.

Hanlon's razor.  ;)

48
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 06, 2017, 15:32 »
Are we only going to get sales information with the monthly statements on the 20th of each month. If so, this page seems kind of pointless.

I've just found this page, with lots of 'official info' about Royalties access, I didn't know of before (been there since Mid-Dec, apparently!). However, I'm not sure which passwords/ID you need to see it.
https://contributors.gettyimages.com/HelpArticle.aspx?article_id=5191

The "official info" is confusing, as usual. According to my reading, we should start seeing the chart for the "current month" once the first transaction occurs -- i.e. today, in the case of my last sale. Which clearly is not happening.

I'm curious -- is ANYONE seeing charts on that page? According to the "official info," other people who make a lot more sales than I do should be seeing them.

If not, then what IS must really mean is that the "current month" is actually the 20th of next month. So my sale on Feb. 6 should show up on March 20.



49
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 06, 2017, 12:35 »
When I checked the profile section in ESP, under "Downloads Year to Date" I see that I made a sale today. At least the number today is one more than it was yesterday.

However, under the Royalties tab, I'm still getting the message "Royalties data will not be available until your first transaction has occurred. Please try again next month."

So, why am I not seeing anything about my first transaction since the switch to ESP? Has anyone seen updates here after you've made sales? Are we only going to get sales information with the monthly statements on the 20th of each month. If so, this page seems kind of pointless.

50
iStockPhoto.com / Re: ESP
« on: February 03, 2017, 23:49 »
I'm still using the same Getty Images Contributors Forum that I've been using for months, since the original iS forums closed. It's had posts today, so it hasn't ended, nor did I notice anything saying that that one was closing.

I've never been able to get in. Did you originally get in with your IS log-in? That didn't work for me and the new ESP account I got yesterday doesn't work either -- including the link from the ESP page. Do I now need a third log-in?

No, we were all sent new passwords (which we then changed) to get into the new forum as was.
I didn't even realise there is an ESP forum until I read it here.
If you're not getting iS/Getty emails (check spam/junk folder/s), contact their support.

I just tried clicking on the "Contributor Community" link in ESP again and now it's working. At least, I got into the "community" site where the forums are located but I still can't see any of the actual forum content. I guess there must be some trick to achieving that in the user guide, which I'll chase down eventually.

I just tried it out and it's the same forum as before, just a new route to get there.
If you can get to the Welcome page, you access the forum via the 'forum' link in the left hand column, then on the Contributor Community Forum page, click on the 'Enter the forum' link in the box on the right hand side.

I did that and I got into the forum page but there's nothing there. No categories, no posts, nothing. Just some headers.

When I click on the link "Enter the forum" at the bottom of the user guide, it says "access denied" and I don't even get the bare bones page I get by clicking "Click here to enter the forum" in the box at the top right.

I really don't have time for this nonsense. I'm not uploading anymore and all I really care about is getting the pittance they owe me.

ETA: Well, this is weird. On another thread, someone posted the direct link to the forum so I clicked on that and, voila!, I got the forum page with all the categories, posts etc. So I went back to ESP and clicked through to the Community page and clicked the forum link and, voila!, it worked.

MSG seems to have bigly healing powers on IS. This is the third time that things have automagically started working after I mentioned them here. :-)


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