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Messages - ChrisGardinerPhotography

Pages: 1 [2]
26
Shutterstock.com / Re: How to do editorials on SS
« on: April 12, 2016, 12:25 »
http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/announcing-shutterstocks-new-editorial-guidelines

more or less goes like this;

CITY, COUNTRY - MONTH DAY YEAR : The remainder is a factual description of what the photo is showing. If it is an illustrative editorial, you need to include "illustrative editorial" in your description and in your keywords..

I think I remember seeing somewhere that they no longer require us to put a qualifying statement as to what makes it 'newsworthy' so you don't need to include statements that don't directly describe the image content.

27
Alamy.com / Re: Wedding Photography as RM on Alamy
« on: April 11, 2016, 23:28 »

Thanks for the input!  I have a few weddings that I license as commercial RF and have model releases for, but in all honesty I don't want to license much of my work in that way since I can't track the usage in any way and it can end up on sites like TheOnion for example.  I constantly have people that comment on social media about how they see my work somewhere big and they think I've earned a ton of money for it.  I don't want that to start happening with weddings too.  But, for RM editorial work I'd be happy to have a license that helps get my name out there and gains exposure for my work, while getting paid a little.  What are your thoughts on that?  And how many weddings do you shoot?  (or what percentage of your income comes from weddings?)  Weddings are the bulk of my business so I want to make sure that is first and foremost, as well as clients being happy to find out one of their images was licensed, rather than upset when they find it on a spoof site...

oh I see, that makes a bit more sense to me now, especially about not wanting your images to show up on somewhere like the onion.  I have no idea how well RM does in general, let alone how well a particular subject matter like weddings would do, so I think I am little help to you on that note.  If it were me though, I'd just approach each couple you've photographed and get their thoughts on the matter, then you're covering your bases.  but If you already had something in your contracts that allowed for that kind of usage then I'd probably just move forward with it since they've already agreed to it..  weddings and real estate are about 50/50 for me with a few things like microstock and art prints filling in the blanks, so you're probably more of a dedicated wedding photog than I am from the sounds of it.

28
Alamy.com / Re: Wedding Photography as RM on Alamy
« on: April 11, 2016, 22:29 »
i just updated my wedding photo contract this week.
I put in a bonus to the couple, 5% off your photo quote if bride and groom sign a commercial model release, and 1% off for each additional person in the wedding party that signs a commercial release to a maximum of 10% savings.   just an idea for you as you move into a new wedding season.
I think genuine wedding photos can have real value.  I also shoot weddings but so far have only submitted images of the cakes bouquets and rings  to any agency so I can't comment on the real portraits and their sales..
I see a lot of individuals who submit the portraits with cutting off faces at the neck. whether or not they sell - i don't know. I just got married in september and I specifically made sure my photographer wouldn't be putting a 100 image gallery even on Facebook of our day as we lean more towards privacy.

why not just go back to the couples you've photographed for and ask them straight up?  maybe use it as an incentive to throw in a 1-year anniversary mini photo session. ;) i don't know.   good luck!

29
if you plan to bring the photo into microstock, i'd suggest that you take it off IB first.
I am not the biggest fan of them.  A potential 'buyer' can put a brief out with little commitment, and then we, the photographers do the leg work for the 'human powered image search' or whatever their tagline is. and more often than not, I see the brief go quiet.   I think that place could convert a lot more briefs into sales for us photographers if they got a simple deposit from a 'buyer' for each brief they put out. 
Otherwise, the buyer is about as committed to the brief as a google image search.

30
they are for me.
haven't had a batch 'die' yet.

31
Newbie Discussion / Re: Do you want to make some bucks?
« on: March 10, 2016, 13:15 »
good to hear its all sorted out and accomplished for you!

32
Newbie Discussion / Re: Do you want to make some bucks?
« on: March 09, 2016, 15:56 »
i could consider helping you, and Douglas is with a good idea on building a code to do it into an web page opposed to a word document..
only thing is; theres no way it could be worth it for me to download full res versions of thousands of images. do you have them prepared as thumbnails? like.. 100px by 100px  or smaller?  i have piss-poor internet service and thousands of full res jpegs will take up two weeks of my bandwidth.. and I can only spend 2GB per day, so it would really drag the whole thing out for me if you don't have thumbnails/low res versions.


33
CanStockPhoto.com / Re: Canstockphoto - is it worth it?
« on: March 08, 2016, 17:08 »
I like them too but do feel sales are slowing and their site has not been so reliable of late hope they start to pick up

it definitely was quite slow over winter months, but i've noticed a pick up in sales last couple weeks.
i may be slightly biased too - they're one of the last Canadian agencies left in the industry, so for me, this is about as close as it gets to supporting a local business.

34
CanStockPhoto.com / Re: Canstockphoto - is it worth it?
« on: March 08, 2016, 14:52 »
the thing I like about CanStockPhoto is you can see what actually is selling there when it sells if you ever check the 'recently purchased' on the homepage.  also their upload process has to be the easiest of anyone i've sent to.  i joined in 2012 and kept a small portfolio until 2014 when I made a couple big sales.  Then I managed to get 5000 uploaded and through the queue in a very short time.

they keep chuggin' along for me, maybe slowly, but surely. i'm sure if i did illustrations or 3D renders they'd probably do even better for me..

anyways, i have no complaints myself, but i can understand your frustrations..

35
General Stock Discussion / Re: Best slideshow software
« on: March 07, 2016, 02:09 »
i shoot video for a company at figure skating events, and there is always a photog at the same events to sell photos.

from what i gather, all he uses is his main computer to dump cards, a router to connect all the computers, and then have iPhoto setup to browse images on the client computers.  seems easy enough the way i see them do it.

what about alternative of exporting lightroom web galleries? i'd wonder if the exporting time / gallery build in lightroom would drag you down time-wise though.. 

good luck. let me know if either of those ideas work out for you.

36
Adobe Stock / Re: Weird review times at Fotolia
« on: March 07, 2016, 02:01 »
i noticed as well..

what i think is:

the have reviewers who may be attributed to certain categories. i.e. - some reviewers get anything tagged as food, some get anything tagged as nature, and so forth.. it would explain why certain types come in batches together for me either that, or some reviewers see a batch, and skip over it for something they'd rather review instead. which is another way that the chronological submit order would get mixed around.

realistically, I think its smart to have certain reviewers for certain categories, if that is in fact what they are doing.

37
well I've seen his sales, and mine haven't earned him a whole lot of money,
but I was concerned for some of the other photographers, with images that I recognize as popular stock images,

to put in perspective; he's made about 1000 sales maybe more (just on easy alone),
I found my sales to be less than 5 of the total, so just a flash in the pan..  but there are some images that must have sold hundreds of times for him. Hopefully someone who has produced an image like that is able to launch their own offensive a little better than I can.

in any case, thanks Substancep,

38
Image Sleuth / Etsy Selling Large Format Stock Photo prints
« on: March 04, 2016, 08:57 »
This is an Etsy shop selling large format prints of microstock photos. I've recognized a lot of them. I've contacted SS about this a long time ago as it was the only place that exact version of my image was available.. they said they would look into it and it nothing became of it - and that was months upon months ago, possibly >1year

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/ModernWallDeco?show_panel=true&page=7

when I was doing my own personal investigating, I found the owner to live in Toronto using a mixture of his business name, and some whois requests.  Im sure any savvy internet use can do the same as I did. 

I even used my Etsy account to compliment his photos and ask where he got them he never replied to me.

i recognize a lot of stock on here.  +1,300 individual sales as you can see by the Etsy stats.   look for yours.


39
I don't know if anything gets any easier for editing video than FCPX - final cut pro X. only for macs though.
i like it better than paying to subscribe to the cloud. one time fee. everything you'll need - for stock anyways.

if you have a mac already, open iMovie, its like a higher powered version of that with better export options.

40
Pond5 / Re: Pond 5 Review Outcomes
« on: February 28, 2016, 14:02 »
scratch that, i just found it.

thanks anyways.

41
Pond5 / Pond 5 Review Outcomes
« on: February 28, 2016, 13:59 »
Hi,
Firstly, I tried searching the forum but with no luck so hoping someone can answer my quick question:

is there a place where I can find the review outcomes of my pond5 submissions?

I finally had the batch I sent through in december get a look over, and just trying to find out what the reasons for rejection are. Can anyone help me find out what particular reason each clip has been rejected for?

Thanks in advance.

42
General - Stock Video / Re: Stock movies with smartphone?
« on: February 12, 2016, 23:45 »
just uploaded my first smart phone clips in January, and one of them actually sold faster than any other clip I've uploaded at SS.  (from acceptance to first sale).

43
the camera itself will do just fine. I've gotten clips from Point and shoots, and cell phones accepted - and have them sell.

just imagine everything you used to shoot for stock photo, and now shoot that as video. a good place to start - i remember someone saying when i started with photos, is 'shoot what you know' which in most cases is going to be what you do for work, and then if you feel like you've shot that sufficiently, move on to shooting your hobbies - do you snowboard, mountain bike, surf, hike, sew, etc  and as it was mentioned already - its all about making it look good and smooth camera motions.

I've had a very positive experience with video and has certainly helped me ignore sometimes-dismal photo sales.
don't bother with spending your time on a million different small agencies. do what is worthwhile with the big ones.


44
i have yet to get a photo from my mobile accepted to SS. (i've only submitted 2 so far though, both rejected)

video on the other hand - sold my first UHD clip just today, which was shot on my cell phone. and i have more than a handful of those available... so cell phones can count for something..

good luck.

45
General - Top Sites / Re: Fotolia vs. Shutterstock in 2016
« on: January 26, 2016, 23:27 »
this is how fast FT has grown for me;

Starting in early december I uploaded to them again after hearing in another forum about their sales uptick,
went from ~300 images then to about 2700 today in that month and a half.

my SS who gets all of my stock and has for long time is at 6000 files, including video. If you don't count sales on video, then my FT and SS are already tied in $$ a day. So when I get the other few thousand photos through the queue, I've got high hopes for FT. 

46
I'd say send it at the source resolution.

I have a camera that shoots 120 and 240 fps at standard definition and those even sell at that resolution.

47

I use Lightroom also. In fact, on initial upload and when viewing in SS's "images to be submitted" the keywords aren't broken up, it is only upon actual submission that this happens.
I also do all my uploades via ftp.

ahh i see, right you are... just goes to show how much I look at my images after they've been accepted.

48
how do you enter your keywords?

I do mine in lightroom and have always used 'multi words' or whatever you want to call them, and they've always survived the upload process into the SS content editor staying as "national park" or "evergreen tree" for example. I just checked.

maybe it's the program you are using. if the software automatically converts a space between words into a comma or semi-colon, that would probably be the source of the issue. Have you tried making quotations around your 'multi-words' in your software? That should fix the issue.

49
General - Stock Video / Re: How is sales from Go Pro ?
« on: July 25, 2015, 12:23 »
I have had gopro cameras for a few years now.
The footage does sell, including clips from the HD Hero (aka the first one with HD video )

I have a mix of sport footage (mainly snowboarding, and downhill MTB) and I also use it for some random, non-sport stuff - for instance, dealing with water, dirt, small spaces, or situations where I'd rather lose my gopro than my DSLR, and other times when you just don't want to carry a lot and look as serious as you really are about your footage.

I enjoy them for what they are.

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