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Messages - StanRohrer
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 ... 17
26
« on: August 18, 2020, 08:27 »
Alamy's Twitter feed says it is down and work is being done to recover. https://twitter.com/Alamy
27
« on: May 09, 2020, 10:43 »
Typing without historical notes here - so my opinion may be all wrong. I think during the 2008 recession the macro stock sales tanked pretty quickly. Big businesses didn't buy the high priced stuff. Micro stock sales went up, at least for a short while, as big business bought the cheaper images. In a sense the whole market shifted down a category and the lower buyers no longer bought.
This time I think the recession hit so fast that the whole stock image market has been hit across the board. As said above, the remaining buyers may be using up the last of the current monthly subscription and then bailing out. So we have a few lingering sales. But with businesses not only short on money, they also have laid off the workers who would otherwise be buying stock images. Projects that need images, buyers to get images, money to buy images, are all gone at the moment. I expect a serious drought of image sales worldwide.
I think the recovery side will be slow. Projects will eventually come back as companies reopen - but at different scale and with much lower spend rates. Employees will eventually come back to make businesses run and to buy images. However, the budget disaster of temporarily or permanently closed businesses will depress the image transactions for quite some time. Micro stock will start selling before higher macro stock. Though, today, pricing is not as separated as in the past so macro stock will still rise to a fair degree. So the big concern is how long it will take to get companies back open. (Something like 80% of businesses in Ohio, USA, should be open within this month - but we don't know how scared customers will be to visit, while wearing masks and taking precautions). And then, how long until image needing projects get restarted and purchase money is available. I figure July to August would be early for companies to get their feet back under them and start to make some projections for future projects. Maybe our sales could start a meager recovery as we go into September. Then let's hope the world can avoid a rebound of the virus and another round of shutdowns.
All above is novice guess work on my part. I'm not an economist and do not play one on TV. As an image supplier, I have to cut all arbitrary spending and try to catch up of the recurring bills. When Adobe went to monthly plans, this type of very small business low cash situation was my significant concern to get on board. I keep a fully paid old copy of Photoshop in my computer so I can avoid the recurring fees and still get my editing done.
28
« on: May 06, 2020, 09:53 »
OLD THREAD ALERT!!!!!
BarkBones9, I just saw a recent report that stock income is now at $0.49 (49 cents, USA) Per Image Per Year. What is your cost of creating images to sell? Car gas and car cost amortization, computers, camera gear, hotels, tickets, Internet service, work hours, tax accountant, repairs, and more are on the expense side of the math. How much do you hope to withdraw from your business as your personal income?
Hobbyists consider it is free to shoot digital after the sunk costs of buying a camera. But as a business, equipment and repair costs must be a part of the equation. Amortizing purchase and repairs over the estimated use/life of the equipment is a very back of the napkin calculation. But I figure, for pro gear, it might come in at, maybe, 10 cents per shutter click. If I get 1 stock photo in 10 clicks ($1), I'm having an awesome day. One stock worthy photo in 100 clicks ($10) it is still an awesome day. If I'm shooting boat racing at 10 frames per second ($1 per second) and come home with 2000 photos ($200), of which only a few will be unique action and stock worthy, they may still be only good for the audience of that day (not general stock sales at $0.49 PIPY). Time to sharpen your math pencil - but with some really fuzzy source numbers. What kinds of shots are you intending to sell, and is there a viable market of buyers for those shots, and how do you compare with the other photographers in your competition.
Thus ends the first lesson on the business of stock photography in the year 2020.
29
« on: February 01, 2020, 08:03 »
52 sales in the past year. Only 5 were Distributor. One of those Distro sales was for nearly pennies. A couple others were big enough to keep me in the game.
30
« on: November 18, 2019, 09:43 »
Consider the auction idea from the perspective of the customer/buyer. If the buyer is working on a project such as a calendar or book with a need for a lot of images, the auction buying would get very cumbersome. I.E. place bids on 12 images. Wait days or weeks, pay for a couple of winners but then search and start bidding on replacements for the losers. Wait days or weeks. Repeat until the image need is filled. I cannot think that image buyers have the available time line in their projects to buy images in this open ended timeline (may be multiple bidding failures to buy the last image for the project), if the sales auction bidding covers many days. If the bid cycle is, say, one day, then there is not sufficient buyer competition in the market to run the price up.
With a long bidding cycle, the buyers will have to track and juggle a significant database of images to be bought. Then eBay style sniping software will have to be generated to make those last minute high bids automatically. I can see buyers getting lost in what is bought, in bid, and failed such that their projects are chaos. It would take live databases for major buyers to track the auction buying status.
A newsletter editor may write a newsletter article today for the newsletter that goes out tomorrow. With a long bidding cycle the newsletter editor cannot be in the photo auction market due to time constraints.
In the end, after the image is used on something like a calendar or newsletter, the buyer likely has no need to hold copyright. So perhaps they set up a secondary sales site of their own and auction off the used images and try to recoup some of their costs. Now "my" images are competing against me.
I'm not sure the auction idea will play out well in this form. But keep working on the ideas - we certainly need them.
32
« on: August 06, 2019, 17:19 »
Tondaxxx, did you actually press the camera button to start the recording every single one of those 21,320 videos? How many months has it taken to process and upload them all? This certainly is a big impressive portfolio. Your fingers must be tired.
33
« on: July 11, 2019, 06:12 »
34
« on: June 05, 2019, 06:55 »
I use iMatch by Photools.com. I needed a Digital Asset management system long before Lightroom was on the scene and this does a very good job for my 160,000 current images. It has a bit of a steep learning curve but is incredibly capable of indexing, searching, categorizing, and keywording. The thesaurus can be set up for pulling out a common keyword and then also bringing your added synonyms. For example, if I add Dayton as a keyword, I have the thesaurus set to also bring out: city, Ohio, USA, United States. I always select all images from a given shoot and add the common and "generic" keywords and description. Then I come back to smaller groups and individual files to add specific keywords and description sentence for that image. This will enter the detail into the database and another click will set in motion the write-back to put all the IPTC fields into the actual image files (JPG) and/or side-car files (raw). iMatch is worth a review for your use.
35
« on: April 25, 2019, 10:54 »
The livelihood of the average paparazzo is threatened by major changes in the publication industry. The photographers manage idiosyncratic risk by forming unstable alliances, but the larger systematic risk that could wipe out their jobs is harder to manage. They could form a union and demand better terms from the agencies, but historically they struggle to cooperate with one another. And the paparazzi are not the only ones who face the risk that their jobs will no longer be viable.
Sounds like our discussions here in other threads when trying to figure out how to apply pressure for higher photographer income.
36
« on: April 19, 2019, 12:26 »
Put up some of your "benign" or "less controversial" work and maybe people will contact you for commissioned images for their projects. Perhaps you would feel better suited for fiction use as opposed to political commentary. You would have more control with a commissioned work than just anybody that could by from a stock agency. If your work is controversial, then commissioned work is against the project and maybe not so much your personal boundaries.
37
« on: April 06, 2019, 07:53 »
Done.
38
« on: March 26, 2019, 10:51 »
I am RF Exclusive at iS but also report Alamy RM. So my numbers may not be helping the iS Exclusive counts over to the right.
On another note, I didn't reach iS payout for January. (There were months back about 2010 where I was getting between $1500 and $2000 some months). February just came roaring back (ha!) to be about triple my ugly January (met payout with Jan included in the account - but still not great for today). So my very aged portfolio (since 2003) is struggling but still buying a few Cokes and hamburgers for this month.
ETA: fix monthly $ - too many zeros.
39
« on: March 19, 2019, 09:01 »
The article sidebar notes are a bit interesting.
"Hellman & Friedman bought most of Getty Images in a 2008 deal that valued the targets equity at some $2 billion, with around $400 million in debt."
"The Getty family is paying $250 million for Carlyles 51 percent stake, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the deal. Getty Images has more than $2.3 billion of debt." "The deal puts the enterprise value of the company at slightly less than $3 billion..."
So I don't know if the reported "equity" and "value" are the same net numbers. If yes, then the size of the company grew from $2B to almost $3B. If no, then we are dealing with apples and oranges comparisons but implying a bigger value company.
The real significance to me (not being in the banking or investing business) seems to be the increase of debt load from $400M to $2.3B. The helpful private equity "investors" have stripped a lot of value out of the company.
Indeed the second paragraph of the article says "Tuesdays deal values Getty Images equity at just a quarter of its worth when Hellman & Friedman bought it in 2008. One major reason for the decline is that before selling it to Carlyle four years later, the buyer saddled it with additional debt, some of which was used to finance dividends." So the actual equity value of the company has nearly crashed via the investors, who seemingly grabbed the money and ran.
So is this a severe detriment to Getty Images? Is this just a bankers ruse to move around money to the benefit of the top players and game playing organizations? Are the gamers * just enough blood out of GI to not kill it - but to use the blood for some other corporate games?
I think these financial moves are all a big shell game among the GI people who are bankers (not photographers) at heart. I doubt they want to kill, or let die, their cash cow GI. But the situation certainly puts the squeeze on finances and certainly on payments and percentages to us photo suppliers as they milk this cow.
Does someone with better accounting knowledge and Getty history have a better thought?
40
« on: March 11, 2019, 09:21 »
Add to the above I couldn't submit monthly poll vote either. Tried twice and it just took me back to an unfilled page for February. Obviously a few site issues tonight.
I can pull up the Poll screen successfully (February). I still cannot view the History Graph (blank).
41
« on: February 20, 2019, 12:00 »
I think I worked by Submission groups. Click a group. Go down a few groups and Shift-Click a group to get the whole range. Check the selected file count at top right. Click the Only On Alamy box and Save. Worked pretty quick. I later came back to search and find a few individual files that were not exclusive and reset the box. You will have to eyeball the number of files in each submission and do the mental math so you don't exceed the file count capability.
42
« on: February 06, 2019, 15:53 »
Somebody pointed me to the download. Go find the Tax Interview and the statements are below the Start Interview button at the bottom. Account Management / Profile / Tax Interview.
43
« on: January 28, 2019, 12:52 »
After the site changes a while back the images no longer have accessible descriptions. All is sold on the title and the image. It dawns on me they are just trying to make iS more of a "clipart" cheap site. Tomatoes on white. Check. But they don't want images that interfere with other Getty collections.
Got it Stan. I don't know about clipart or descriptions? You mean my file descriptions are not used in the search or just invisible for any purpose.
Just like the rest, my view, my main sites, every one has better and worse sales for different kinds of images. Mine runs like this, SS Photos and Editorial; iStock (after they wiped out 3,657 Editorial images) a mix, but mostly old photos: Adobe illustrations are first, photos come in second. Each place is different for what does best for me. For Me 
Not only that, my best selling image on AS, and I haven't been there long as a returning artist, has only one download on SS in the same years. I think it has more sales on iStock also. One of my top images on SS has only 3 DLs on AS.
What I'm getting at, is some of the comments about best site are not about the site but about what we personally make and upload. The same images don't bring the same returns at all sites equally.
ps I don't do vectors, my illustrations are rasters, not the "real thing".
IS is a love hate relationship for me too. I'll take the money but they are one of the least friendly sites in the business.
I don't know if descriptions are used in searches or not. Because of the controlled vocabulary that translates the keyword tags, I suspect the search does not include descriptions. I've not tried to suss this out. Many of us complained back when iS made the current page layouts that there was no description. I sell some city skylines but a buyer now cannot know the date of the skyline and whether it is no longer current (e.g. with a new building). I've made a few quick reviews of the data in DeepMeta. I don't have full proof but it certainly appears that editors are adding and removing keywords so they are different than what I submitted. There are now keywords that I know I would have not considered (because I didn't think of them - not because they are necessarily wrong) and there are missing keywords that I'm sure I would have included to describe the image. I used to sell a lot of clipped car images. When iS quit accepting cars they didn't remove those already in the collection. So my good sellers are still there - albeit I'm seeing keywords removed for make and model of the car. So if a buyer is looking for a 1968 Chevrolet 396 Convertible, only keywords 1968 and Convertible appears to exist. Fortunately the search might get them from the title. Unfortunately Convertable is a wrong spelling in the title and I would have to open a ticket to get it fixed. The keywords displayed on site don't even include Red (I will have to go back and see if I included Red when uploaded). So people won't find my image even searching for the generic Red Car.
44
« on: January 27, 2019, 20:19 »
After the site changes a while back the images no longer have accessible descriptions. All is sold on the title and the image. It dawns on me they are just trying to make iS more of a "clipart" cheap site. Tomatoes on white. Check. But they don't want images that interfere with other Getty collections.
45
« on: January 09, 2019, 17:23 »
I've seen footers suggesting the use of TapaTalk but I never investigated. I don't need another app taking space on my phone.
46
« on: January 09, 2019, 07:53 »
Figure out which of your images are best selling. Then do a Google Image search (as well as other image search engines). If you can find where your images are used you can determine how they were used and why your image was significant to the buyer. This might help you "think like a buyer".
47
« on: November 23, 2018, 19:28 »
Where do I see the 2019 rate card? I don't know the answer yet.
48
« on: November 21, 2018, 15:49 »
It appears the OP, Christ2237, has checked out of this forum. Toss in a grenade and run away to watch from a distance.
49
« on: October 09, 2018, 11:33 »
OLD THREAD ALERT!!!! This discussion is over 1 year old. The info might still be very valuable but may be out of date.
50
« on: October 01, 2018, 17:57 »
Downloads by month:
2014-01 59
2014-02 59
2014-03 57
2014-04 64
2014-05 55
2014-06 57
2014-07 52
2014-08 49
2014-09 47
2014-10 45
2014-11 56
2014-12 39
2015-01 24
2015-02 19
2015-03 42
2015-04 28
2015-05 47
2015-06 29
2015-07 24
2015-08 23
2015-09 31
2015-10 26
2015-11 35
2015-12 21
2016-01 20
2016-02 31
2016-03 25
2016-04 21
2016-05 20
2016-06 19
2016-07 12
2016-08 17
2016-09 8
2016-10 9
2016-11 10
2016-12 6
2017-01 48
2017-02 73
2017-03 69
2017-04 83
2017-05 70
2017-06 75
2017-07 73
2017-08 73
2017-09 74
2017-10 66
2017-11 73
2017-12 69
2018-01 60
2018-02 66
2018-03 65
2018-04 72
2018-05 65
2018-06 66
2018-07 65
2018-08 66
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