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Messages - PaulieWalnuts
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126
« on: May 27, 2020, 13:17 »
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shutterstock-appoints-stan-pavlovsky-chief-120200966.html
And I think this says it all. The new CEO's focus is on customers and technology. No mention of contributors. Oringer does mention contributors but only in passing. "Shutterstock is one of those rare companies which has truly disrupted its industry through technology, and I couldn't be more honored to be its next CEO," Pavlovsky said. "We have a lot of opportunities ahead and a big part of my job is to start to deliver on the next chapter of our platform strategy. As we work to execute on our strategy, we will focus on providing adjacent services that our enterprise customers require to enhance their workflow, more fully leveraging our vast pool of first-party data, and continuing to develop industry-leading proprietary technology to help our customers drive top and bottom-line improvements to their businesses. I look forward to continuing to work closely with our excellent senior leadership team, along with Jon and our entire Board."
127
« on: May 27, 2020, 11:46 »
Long time lurker, first time poster.
While I am as PISSED at everyone else at how this came across, I'm surprised that no one is talking about the real enemy.
For years, photographers have been dumping all kinds of microstock onto free sites like Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay all either to stroke their gigantic egos or to enter the lottery that someone will miraculously come across their portfolio and hire them for a professional gig (which happens 0.000001% of the time).
I know a ton of small business owners. NO ONE goes to Shutterstock or Adobe or iStock anymore. They all go to these sites and download "free images".
Adding insult to injury, Canva has bought up Pixabay and Pexels and is now SELLING the images those photographers gave them for FREE. Contributors don't get 10 cents, they get jack sh*t.
Again, I'm not absolving Shutterstock (or iStock before it) from blame here nor making apologies for them. But if you know someone who's contributing to one of those free sites, tell them to STOP. They are taking money out of our pockets just as bad as Shutterstock is, maybe worse.
It's a valid point. These sites are contributing downward pressure on pricing. I've seen tons of posts online saying stuff like "Why buy from places like Shutterstock? It's expensive. Here's a list of dozens of free sites". It doesn't matter if the images aren't good quality or have copyright issues. There are a lot of people who dont know or dont care. And they know nobody is going to sue them for saving $2 and putting the image on a blog. In many cases, photographers and other creatives are our own worst enemies. And there is never a shortage of people to take advantage of it.
128
« on: May 27, 2020, 11:35 »
In my opinion... if Adobe was really smart they would take in editorial selectively both in stills and video. Editorial with editing, not only inspection. Next step would be to simply keep things more or less the same as they are doing with one simple addition... give all contributors a royalty increase, enough of an increase that they stand out from those A**holes at Getty Images and Shutterstock, then go into a full on marketing mode stating that while "other" agencies don't respect artists and devalue them and their work by insisting on reducing royalties blah blah blah, but at Adobe we make the products that artists use and we value that and stand by the very people that Adobe also depends on blah blah blah. At the end of the day, if this is done properly Adobe could essentially charge the same amount they are for images and I would like to think there would be a shift of creatives (buyers) to purchase and also support their fellow creatives. A you scratch my back and I scratch your back scenario.
Message: Adobe supports the creatives that support Adobe.
I think the buyers would come just by the results of treating contributors better but not the messaging. I'm sure some buyers care but not enough to jump ship just because contributors are being treated better. If Adobe offered better royalties more contributors would add products and the collection would grow which would attract more buyers. Add more products like you mentioned and again, better selection equals more buyers. More sales attracts more contributors. I do think Adobe has an opportunity to take advantage of this fiasco to grow its business. We'll see.
129
« on: May 27, 2020, 09:35 »
Found some old emails about it. It was named Photoshelter Collection and was a strategy to compete with large agencies. They threw in the towel after about a year in late 2008. Wish it had been successful. I remember being excited about it.
Photoshelter Explore still exists and allows search of multiple portfolios.
130
« on: May 27, 2020, 07:56 »
Perhaps, maybe, decentralisation is an answer.
Individual people's portfolios united in a big contributor, creators, artists, whatever we are called, INDEX by type: audio, video, photo, illo, vector, whatever other i forgot
kind of yellow pages,
perhaps, maybe,
Could attract some individuals to browse and negotiate some work or prices?
And if this worked, perhaps, maybe, some highlights, blogging, tips, creator highlights section, etc etc etc. Kind of Medium style
If this low cost, easy maintainable INDEX created some traffic, contributors
perhaps, maybe,
Would then thought more seriously to setup a shop in whatever platform.
What you're describing sounds like Photoshelter https://www.photoshelter.com/explore/. A bunch of individual portfolios connected with an agency style front end and unified search function. They also had a Virtual Agency function where you could combine multiple contributor accounts together. This concept never seemed to take off for them. If I remember correctly they said it was due to money. They would have needed to raise a huge amount to compete against the big agencies so they shut it down. I think it's a great concept with some challenges that would need to be addressed - Marketing - Large stock companies have millions to invest in sales and marketing which is why they're the biggest. You can see what happens with little to no marketing when you look at 123RF and similar small companies. Where would the millions come from needed for sales teams and marketing campaigns? Or is there a social media genius that could do it on a low budget?
- Curation - Some photographers can self evaluate. Others will submit 100 photos of the exact same scene with a slightly different angle which looks like the same photo. Buyers would be turned off by poor selection and quality so there would need to be some level of inspection/rejection. How would this be handled without angering contributors?
- Pricing - Would need to be simple and consistent. Buyers would be turned off by multiple pricing models and different pricing for each photo. What should the pricing model be that contributors would feel is fair?
Part of the greatness of stock is a huge network of talented people. Part of the downside is getting such a large group to coordinate and agree on anything.
131
« on: May 26, 2020, 21:33 »
ShutterStock are finished as a site, anyone who has any sense of their own worth is going to leave them.
The reality is they won't find this out for a couple of years, as the buyers move elsewhere.
When Getty introduced this type of structure, everyone called them the evil empire and vowed loyalty to Shutterstock. None of these partners can be trusted. But I'm sure Adobe will be anointed as the new savior.
Sadly, now we're going to see lots of unhappy SS contributors flock towards Adobe, just like they flocked to SS when iStock went crazy. These unhappy contributors will flood Adobe with millions of images, diluting any sales there as well. I predict the following years are going to be terrible. All I can say is I'm glad I'm not depending on stock revenue.
I cant remember the progression but I think Fotolia screwed everybody and people flocked to Istock. Then Istock did the screwing and people flocked to SS. Now here we are. Is it only a matter of time before Matt shows up here and doesn't have the usual good Adobe news to share? Or maybe Adobe will take advantage of this situation. Introduce some aggressive and innovative changes to attract disgruntled and fed-up contributors to crush SS out of existence. Would be nice to have a trustworthy partner again. Until then, investing anything in this business is a loser in the long term.
132
« on: May 26, 2020, 15:03 »
"Our new compensation model is designed to reward content creators for producing quality work that is fresh, relevant and in demand by our customers. By resetting the royalty levels each year, we aim to provide an avenue for contributors to be fairly rewarded for content that is performing well at the current time."
The only thing missing is it didn't start with "We have exciting news!"
133
« on: May 26, 2020, 14:49 »
SS forum is on fire. People are encouraging others to turn off licensing. Odds are good SS will deactivate this function so you either go along with the new program or delete your portfolio.
Interesting thing is for me, it doesn't matter. I removed most of valuable images years ago and left a small amount of generic stock. And as expected, monthly earnings have dropped over time. So I now earn a nice dinner a month which doesn't matter if I lose it. And now with this new program that will drop to a cheap dinner which really doesn't matter at all.
So one thing that may bite SS, is the fact that a large amount of contributors have been beat down so much over time that SS earnings are peanuts that no longer matter.
134
« on: May 26, 2020, 14:25 »
ShutterStock are finished as a site, anyone who has any sense of their own worth is going to leave them.
The reality is they won't find this out for a couple of years, as the buyers move elsewhere.
Sadly this probably isn't accurate. For every one of you or me who leaves, there are tens of thousands of newbies who are elated someone, anyone, is willing to pay them a few cents for their work. Hell, look at the tens of thousands of people on Unsplash giving away their work so they can just get attention. When Getty introduced this type of structure, everyone called them the evil empire and vowed loyalty to Shutterstock. None of these partners can be trusted. But I'm sure Adobe will be anointed as the new savior.
135
« on: May 26, 2020, 13:52 »
Never let a crisis go to waste
136
« on: May 12, 2020, 17:35 »
I agree it's completely nuts that people go to the trouble to take great images, modify them in Photoshop, then spend all the effort to upload them basically for nothing, except to help the owners of the web sites. I suppose getting a lot of likes and attention is great for many people but they won't pay the bills. Totally bizarre.
That's because you underestimate the dopamine hit a million views or a 1000 downloads gives people. That's the reason people spend hours and even money on instagram liking and following other accounts (and buying likes and followers) while uploading their photos there even if they make no money from it. An ego boost or validation can be more valuable to people than a few dollars on microstock. The free sites offer those in spades.
Also sites like Pexels and Unsplash pick out images to showcase on its front page. They need not necessarily be the best pictures (or even good pictures) because the point of the exercise is to give people an incentive to upload more pictures. People like their pictures being showcased. That's the reason people kept uploading to flickr, in the hope that they would make the Explore page. So vast majority of people on the internet upload images for reasons other than money. And it, of course, hurts the people who do it because they want to make money.
I guess it's the new version of the old timers I've run into at local photo clubs. They spend a fortune on equipment to win ribbons at local fairs and be recognized as the "pro" at the club. They're happy to give away their work to local publications and get ooohs and aaahs from it. Their ego boost is pretty expensive.
137
« on: May 12, 2020, 11:27 »
I agree it's completely nuts that people go to the trouble to take great images, modify them in Photoshop, then spend all the effort to upload them basically for nothing, except to help the owners of the web sites. I suppose getting a lot of likes and attention is great for many people but they won't pay the bills. Totally bizarre.
I love doing photography and do stock mostly for fun, but I would not keep doing it if I didn't make at least enough to cover the costs of new equipment and some travel. I don't submit as much as I should just because the return on effort is no longer there - it is only when I have some free time and want a break from other activities. Doing it all just for likes or even the occasional sale is crazy, but there seems to be a ton of that going around these days.
Right, and I'd guess a large percentage of those people aren't in the greatest of financial shape and really could use the money.
138
« on: May 12, 2020, 11:22 »
Not familiar with P5 licensing but if they're giving extras for free that would imply it used to have a cost.
139
« on: May 12, 2020, 10:23 »
Exciting news?
140
« on: May 12, 2020, 08:31 »
The thing with the free sites that drives me nuts is the photographers who submit to them. I might be wrong though. I cannot really understand this new "community" driven world.
A lot of the community people seem to feel companies like Unsplash are a noble cause for the greater good. And for other people, the rush of seeing their photos get likes and views is better than money. Seems to be no shortage of these companies with warm and fuzzy mission statements looking for do-gooders and attention-junkies. It's a murky line between being noble and being taken advantage of.
141
« on: May 12, 2020, 06:41 »
I hate to say this and may get a lot of hate for saying this but, the future of microstock (at least when it comes to photography) is Pexels and Unsplash and the other "free" sites and the reason is, more photographers every day are uploading their premium high quality images there. More buyers with every passing day are realizing they can make do with what they get on those sites as long as they get them for free. And there's increasing funding for apps and websites which provide search algorithms enabling easier AI based search for clients who download from the free sites.
The only way the traditional MS sites are going to be able to survive is by reducing royalties, which means the people who upload make even less money until that money gets close to zero (or 0.02 as istockers will know very well). So if people are looking to make money off their photography with ordinary everyday photos on MS, they're in for it. They're going to have to supply images that make the pages of the National Geographic and even then, they would probably not get a sale.
Partially agree. I think there will always be a percentage of companies that will be more comfortable with more formal licensing and will avoid potential legal problems with the free sites. But yes, if you can get amazing images for free, why not? It's definitely not helping photographers who are trying to earn a living by driving already low prices further down. The thing with the free sites that drives me nuts is the photographers who submit to them. Some of the work I've seen is amazing and could probably be licensed at a premium or even be sold at higher costs as art. Statistics here in the USA show a majority of people aren't financially secure. A surprising amount are living check to check and are one problem away from financial disaster. Especially now with the pandemic the news is alarming everyone with "worst economy since the great depression". So why are a huge amount of photographers spending time and money creating great images only to give them away when they could be helping their own financial situation? Even crazier is that other people are making money from their photos and not them. I think it was Unsplash that recently changed their license to prohibit resale of art obviously because vultures must have been making a killing reselling it. Maybe there's an opportunity for someone to recruit these people away from free sites.
142
« on: May 08, 2020, 12:31 »
I'm not familiar with the company. How do you feel about companies taking this firm of a position in politics? Reading further into this shows it's not really about supporting Biden but removing Trump. Would you continue to support them if they firmly were against your preferred candidate? What if it was one of the top three micros wanting to get rid of Biden? I have a feeling this will quickly go off the rails into hate but I wanted to see if we could have some debate on companies openly trying to influence elections. https://www.featureshoot.com/2020/04/introducing-photographersforbiden-a-new-project-by-feature-shoot/
143
« on: May 06, 2020, 06:19 »
Uncle Pete is right micro-stock have paid for much throughout the years. I have not uploaded since 2018 but my income is almost the same today. The horrendous quantity factor especially on SS and Adobe have sort of killed off any incentive I'm afraid.
I haven't uploaded in about three years and my income is one-third of what it was at last upload. Need to get out the hamster wheel. But yes microstock, and photography as a whole, has paid for a ton of stuff and brought a lot of happiness for which I'm grateful.
144
« on: May 05, 2020, 23:19 »
This boat is sinking. So why aren't we jumping?Blast from the past. Most people dont jump. They stay in the boat and stop rowing while tons of new enthusiastic people jump in to grab the oars. 
145
« on: May 01, 2020, 05:26 »
Excited to see the results of the exciting news
146
« on: April 28, 2020, 05:04 »
What Cobalt said. Your search placement and earnings on IS will likely drop bigtime. So you wont just drop in commission. It will be close to starting over. When you turn in the crown you go to the back of the line.
147
« on: April 27, 2020, 08:24 »
AS for .99
Two weeks in. Seems the time for review is taking a while now. I've been a professional photographer since 2000 so a lot of this is going through old hard drives. I've got about 200 images up on 5 sites. I'm going to try shooting original content just for stock from here out and consider it another wing of my business ( I shoot advertising and corporate events ). I know financial prospects aren't high but the plan is when I have free days ( which are endless currently ) I'm going to go out and shoot specifically for stock based on some of the concepts or timely images that are in demand. If in a year or so it can be like $500/ month I'd be happy. Is that unrealistic?
Stock photo pros, if you could tell a newbie one lesson what would it be? And please don't say don't bother lol
Don't bother. Oh wait... You've entered at a time when the gold rush is long over and the competition is extremely high for pennies. But successful people will always find a way to be successful. Regarding $500 per month. It depends on the salability of your work. Highly sellable images may only need a few hundred. If you're like most people you'll need thousands of images to hit $500 p/m.
148
« on: April 27, 2020, 08:14 »
It's been a few years but if I remember correctly any premium type of mirrored collections get dropped to regular collections and removed from Getty.
I learned the hard way that all metadeta should be in your files through Lightroom or other program. Maybe check DeepMeta for an export tool.
Getty seems to have lowered the bar to getting in but the question is, should you bother? Do you have highly value exclusive content to submit there that will sell at higher amounts? If not, you'll be earning micro cents per download and in some cases even less than iStock.
I would never do anything exclusive again unless I was offered a fortune.
149
« on: April 17, 2020, 17:03 »
You're with the top selling micro sites so not many options beyond that. Maybe Alamy but they've declined to micro prices along with low volume.
Consider selling art prints on Print On Demand sites. Nature is saturated there as well but your work seems more artsy than commercial so you may find opportunity there.
I have been thinking about doing this. I read somewhere about selling framed prints, but I can't remember the site they said you could do this. What are some good sites to sell prints on?
There are probably hundreds of POD sites. There's another discussion already going at https://www.microstockgroup.com/product-resale-forum/pod-sites-in-2020/msg547944/?topicseen#newFrom what's I've seen people see different results on different PODs. The best thing to do is try several of them and see which ones you do well on.
150
« on: April 17, 2020, 07:07 »
You're with the top selling micro sites so not many options beyond that. Maybe Alamy but they've declined to micro prices along with low volume.
Consider selling art prints on Print On Demand sites. Nature is saturated there as well but your work seems more artsy than commercial so you may find opportunity there.
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