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Messages - Epsilonth

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51
We all are tired of something huh? Glad I'm not alone. I usually come here when I'm stuck. Out of ideas. Also when insomnia strikes  8)

Stock photography is by no mean an easy job.(I thought it was!) I have many friends who tried. Some never pass. Some give up real early. Let's try real hard because you're not alone!

You guys really have inspirational stories. Thank you for sharing!

52
Thai is not available? I did translation for EA.

Edit: oh it's windows only. I'm on OSX :(

53
Interesting debate you have just started.
Why are we here? and what is important? and why is the artistic challenge so important to us?
It sounds like you are a little bewildered, and also that you have an urge to do something splendid.
It also sounds like you are asking for advice.
The last i can understand, it is called ambition and thats a good thing. ( in relevant doses).
Now adressing some of the questions you are raising: How to find art? and what do you have to learn to become an artist that has an impact.
You are talking about going to a photography school. So you can learn what? Photography? You can learn that on youtube.
Art? Im not sure you can learn art in a photography school.
It is characteristic that all great artists learned by themselves, because they couldnt help it, they were engaged and took great pain and effort to produce things they had to produce, so they need to learn from all kinds of sources to get knowledge so they could produce what they wanted.
I bet you, that da Vinci had both studied carpentery, so he could propose a framework for his amoured tank, and also masonery and mineralogy, so he could make a statue. not to mention pigments and varnishes.

Same with stock photography, you need to learn to cook to make food images, and you need to have studied biology to make butterfly metamorphosis pictures.
Plus more.
You need to know about the basics of art, and that is colours and media, in the meaning pigment, blending and prints.
I think you may benifit a lot from your ambition, since that can be the motivation to go and learn all kinds of different things that you need in your photography.
So Id say... forget schools, instead study things by yourself, and best by working with them. Get a job in the printing industry, or as a school photographer, learn about colours by working in the cobalt mines or as an auto varnisher. Or just paint you motorbike yourself.
Then there are two other aspect of art, that you dont come by so easily.
One is having something to say, or show, or display. A message so to speak. If you want to be recognized as an artist, the message should be relevant in time and culture. That is why a graphic photo of dandelion seeds does not have the same impact as the greeneyed Kurdish girl from National Geographic.
There are actually rules that can raise the impact of visionary art. Those are good to learn, start with Goethe and Newton, then proceed to game theory.
You as a person is also important, remember yoko ono, a famous artist, but what was she famous for?

And my story? Not interesting, Im not an artist, but I am a good mechanic and a polyhistor. I use microstock as a playground and learning place.
Yes! It's really important to have motivation. And you're right! But life is short. One can learn by himself like I have been but there's a limit to it. By going to schools you'll be learning faster. You'll have mentors readily for questions and critics. Schooling does in fact help with the progress. At least where I'm from, dept. of architecture produced a lot of well known photogs.

BH and Adorama youtube seminars are nice but I feel that they don't benefit me much anymore.

And you're right, I feel as if I'm approaching a next milestone but there's an obstacle in the way.

54
As OP, I'll go first. Here's my background. I recently graduated with bachelor's degree in nano engineering. It may sounds great but in reality, I found out I didn't really like engineering in my 2nd year. I dealt with a lot of chemicals especially during my last years in senior project. Also, I finished all the studies just to find out that bachelor's degree can do basically nothing and that I need master's or above.

I started stock photography around 4-5 years ago since my high school years from knowing nothing to knowing a lot of technical stuffs. I can claim this because I do occasionally hold small seminars for juniors at my university's photo club. Stock photography is a really great platform, a playground to learn photography. At least on technical side. I have to admit I lack a lot of artistic skills.

What amazed me was I had only around 350 images online and did not submit much images at all for the last 2 years. (last years of engineering was really hard. I barely had any time). Cumulative earning from that was a lot. A lot more than all wedding gigs I did when I was free. I should have tried harder. I wish I had few thousand images. This is the main reason I'm trying hard at this now.

Now, my goal is to use stock photography to fund my photography school as I lack proper photography education. Books just don't cut it when it comes to artistic view. This is because I don't want to sell images for pennies for the rest of my life. My life goal is to be really great at something. I think it's photography I really like so why not try hard at it? Also, Stock photo is a really good passive income. To work 9 to 5 is like wasting your life away in my opinion.

I don't know if I can achieve that or not. Schools in Japan are crazy expensive. Not to mention the the transportation cost and rent. Kanji is also really troublesome.

So, why are you doing stock photo?

55
Nicely done Leaf.  But you should not have to spend so much effort on editing posts separTing wheat from chaff.   If people could be adults it would be better. 

For example if people want to quote long articles and stats they found online they could just post a link to those rather than pasting the whole thing.  Isn't that proper nettiquette anyhow?

Let's not be too serious. I'm sure he's doing it with good will.


Now I barely want to upload to other agencies other than SS and iS. My images are types that do well on subscription model. This is like soft exclusivity.

56
Half my stock images are now from fuji X-T1 another half is from 5d3. I really hate carrying around heavy SLRs but fuji still haven't introduced real pro grade zoom lenses yet.

I only have 10-24 and 60mm macro. When 16-55 2.8 and 50-100ish comes out, it's good bye Canon. Avoid the 18-55 2.8-4 it has very good sharpness but suffers from focus plane curvature.

57
Judging from the poll and my own earning, I think it would nearly instant kill other sites but would that be good for the industry in the long run?

58
123RF / Re: Earn up to 60% of the nett selling price*
« on: June 26, 2014, 18:12 »
I think the bigger joke is that you have to sell 1,000,000 RC in the previous 12 months to get there - just a bit over 2,739 a day.

Maybe they should say earn as low as 30%... Which still is double what you start at with IS and comparable to the top tier at SS.

you'll have to make $1900 per month at lowest level to reach that in a year!

59
I think some types of images are not worth producing aa full timer anymore. Right now I'm in Japan. It would cost at least 1000円 in transportation to make some nice images which may sometimes randomly get rejected for focus even though shot on tripod/manually focused(I used in-camera DoF scale!).

I kind of understand your logic. I read one post where a 'Full Timer/professional' submits 200 images a month into the MS companies. Typically I submit from 50 to 100 images a month thus part time compared to him. 

My sales have increased each month for over three years so I feel that if I did do full time work it would be worth the effort- lot's of other variable to to consider- quality of work, type of images etc.

As long as you don't call me a Non-Professional I am okay with that  ;D

Then you'd be an amateur!  ;D jk
If you can produce that much keep your job. You'll have fun playing with new gears many times a year with some cash left over.

60
Somebody made one of these threads a month ago...

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/how-many-images-do-'we'-control/

I thought I would average the number from the poll then times by no. of forum member.
Sample space of 106 from 34336 members is low. From previous poll I averaged 4047 image per person. Which mean we have ~139,000,000 images. That's not possible. SS only have 38ish millions.

Is there a way to really gauge how much microstockgroup really represent?


I think the annual survey gets around 500 responses. That's probably more than most polls get, so that might be as close as you'll get. Tyler probably has those numbers if they aren't listed in the survey.

You can really only speculate about the rest of the contributors from MSG. I'm not sure how active some of them are. Not that you have to post a lot to be active here. I assume there are a fair amount of non-contributor accounts as well here.


Can you point me to the annual survey? If average is in fact 4000 then we collectively have at least 2million images.

61
Shutterstock.com / Re: Accepted at last
« on: June 26, 2014, 10:33 »
"I'm happy about this activity, but it also a bit nervous that it won't keep up.  From what I've read so far, sometimes uploads get immediate sales and then fizzle out.  I'm looking to find out if this is the case and what your experiences are so far with SS."


Just keep uploading and improving your quality and your sales will continue to raise - it's not rocket science. Just good ole fashion hard work... 8)

From my experience, if there's a lot of it already, it's luck. If photo is niche or unique, it will definitely sell again and again.

62
Somebody made one of these threads a month ago...

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/how-many-images-do-'we'-control/

I thought I would average the number from the poll then times by no. of forum member.
Sample space of 106 from 34336 members is low. From previous poll I averaged 4047 image per person. Which mean we have ~139,000,000 images. That's not possible. SS only have 38ish millions.

Is there a way to really gauge how much microstockgroup really represent?

63
Professional means main source of income is from stock photography. So yes, part timers are not professional. It has nothing to do with skills as you seem to imply.
That's your definition. There are others, and certainly no one accepted definition of 'professional'. Your OP should have said 'full-time' rather than 'professionally'.

By your definition
Last year Tom had a full-time job and supplied stock on the side. Not professional.
He became redundant, but still supplied stock. Professional.
Last month, he got another full-time job, and continues to supply stock on the side. Not professional.

Hmmmm.

Yes, but let's not escalate this into an English class and stick to the topic? The implication is clear. Then again, I'm not a native speaker.

64
I would like to know how much images we, microstockgroup netizen collectively have online. One member cited that we successfully removed 25% of DPC. How much power do we really have?

Of course, there are many contributors who are not in this forum nor speak english. I don't dare to hope much.

65
I used to earn a lot few years ago with little images. Now, I started pumping images in but income doesn't seem to directly follow my portfolio size. Images takes money to produce and selling them for pennies is kind of laughable. Now with SS inspector issues it is ever more discouraging.

For people with other main source of income or wanderlust people micro stock is always worth it in my opinion. But what about doing it professionally?

So, are you saying that the part timers are not professional? Maybe you should say - folks doing MS full time? I put in about 20 to 30 hours a week as a part timer and spend $$ on training in both photo taking and processing (photoshop) thus consider myself at least semi-professional...

Professional means main source of income is from stock photography. So yes, part timers are not professional. It has nothing to do with skills as you seem to imply.

Limited choices and mine isn't one of them. Are you trying to control the results by 1 yes and 2 negative?

 Yes, definitely
 So-so, if it get worse than this I'll stop
 No, I should have stopped/stopped uploading already

So-so but I'll keep going or So-so, I'll stop uploading but leave photos on some agencies.

Doesn't the middle choice also imply if it get better I'll put more effort in it? It's an if clause. It does sound negative though. May be I wasn't clear.

66
Illustration - General / Re: use ipad as writing tablet
« on: June 22, 2014, 11:14 »
Just get a wacom they're cheap nowadays. I have bamboo and cintiq 13HD. Definitely worth it. It'll make you process images faster, a lot faster.

Lower end bamboo doesn't seem to be much different from my cintiq. This is from a photographer's perspective.

67
I used to earn a lot few years ago with little images. Now, I started pumping images in but income doesn't seem to directly follow my portfolio size. Images takes money to produce and selling them for pennies is kind of laughable. Now with SS inspector issues it is ever more discouraging.

For people with other main source of income or wanderlust people micro stock is always worth it in my opinion. But what about doing it professionally?

68
Yup I was naive not to put some watermarks. Unlike crated, 500px still offer some form of protection.. a bit troublesome though.

69
Print on Demand Forum / Re: Weird e-mail from Crated
« on: June 19, 2014, 17:27 »
Just pulled my stuff, too. I had a direct mail exchange with a staff. They don't seem to care about piracy.

That's exactly right. In my early-June exchange with a Crated staffer, he indicated they *might* someday consider adding a watermark to the images "in the size we care to protect." Clearly, they don't share an artist's desire to protect *all sizes* of his/her images.

I'm very happy to be gone from Crated.

That's exactly what my guy said. Adding watermarks script is simple so I figured they just don't want to do it. They just want to encourage sharing via pintherests and such. Free advertisements for them vulnerability for us. I had my lessons from 500px. Not gonna take another chance.

70
Print on Demand Forum / Re: Weird e-mail from Crated
« on: June 19, 2014, 15:12 »
Same email here. I'm actually going to pull my stuff. I am not yet comfortable and probably should have held off.  Lots of people nabbing my unwatermarked images.

Edit: I just deleted all of my images. Maybe I'll give them a chance later when they get some traction. For now, I'll go to the back of the line.

Just pulled my stuff, too. I had a direct mail exchange with a staff. They don't seem to care about piracy.

71
Recently I found 10 pages of one of my image by google reverse search engine and i can't do anything about it. I know where the source is. 500px. never ever upload anything without watermarks. Sites that refuse to have watermarks by default and encourage sharing like 500px and crated should be avoided.

72
iStockPhoto.com / Re: PP May started
« on: June 19, 2014, 01:23 »
Don't worry they are just going backwards

iStock is never boring

+1 always exciting at iS land

73
I have few hundred images online. So far no sale.  Don't waste your time.

74
iStockPhoto.com / Edit multiple files with iS
« on: June 14, 2014, 10:42 »
Is there a way to edit multiple files at iStock now?

edit: whoops. I just realised deepmeta can do that

75
Here's the thing... it won't be dead for buyers, just contributors.  People in areas of the world where you can survive on a few dollars a day will be happy to keep cranking out new images for pennies, and buyers will love it, paying less and less.

Those of us who have made a decent living off this for the past few years will slowly pull away from microstock, and there will be plenty of people willing to fill the void for a tiny fraction of what we're used to making at this.

This is already happening.  Some of the veterans on this board are already pondering dropping out if and when their income drops below a certain threshold (me included).

But back to your question, what's a good alternative for photographers and designers to make up this lost income?  There's portrait and wedding photography (... er... no... everyone's uncle now has a cheap digital camera and thinks he can produce work as good as a pro.)  Or there's freelance design work (... er... no... fiverr and similar sites will design your client's next brochure/calendar/logo for five bucks.)

OK, there's always McDonald's.

I think there is not such place over the World where you can buy equipment for several thousand dollars and then start your life in "survival mode of living" only with a few bucks a day... ::)
You still need some good equipment!
Microstock won't die, it can evolve but not to die... Microstock as a model of image licensing will survive for sure, because it shows more than ever a true value of photography especiall in modern World...
Microstock shows to all of us that photography business is not reserved only for "pros" with some "secret knowledge", because science of image shooting and retouching is now on every corner of Interent...
So many spoiled "pro" photographs (they earned more money than their effort was), who also swallowed microstock threat earlier, now are talking about new post-apocalyptic era after the fall of microstock!
That era won't come, for sure!
People will need photos for their business, and there has be someone to make photos and to sell them...

Wow, I think that's really true. Photography used to be only for people with a lot of money. Camera bodies and films used to be really expensive so if you want to learn you gotta pay a lot. Now cameras can be had for just few hundreds dollars and it costs nothing to shoot. I've already seen some older photogs who cannot keep up went out of business. If we don't keep improving I think someday camera phones will kill us.

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