Being an exclusive I feel scared by this new best match.

Make a search for t-shirt. If a buyer wants a t-shirt, he usually wants a t-shirt and not people wearing them. At least there should be a balance between people wearing t-shirts and t-shirts only. But this is just rediculous. I bet this is again scaring buyers away - when will istock realize that they have to please their buyers and ask them what they want instead of assuming what might be right.

Maybe they did ask - there was a survey lately (not the contributor survey). But they asked me too whether I wanted to take part and so did they ask other contributors that occasionally buy images. Of course those contribs were asking for newer files to be given a bigger priority. But people who are mainly contributors shouldn�t be asked and allowed to take part in buyer surveys that are meant to get an idea of the markets demands.

Oh well...

Giving new files a chance is a good thing, but the way it was implemented last week is really really frightening. I hope it will be rolled back pretty soon.

It has become way more difficult to make money with stock. And especially for a beginner it�s hard to understand why some images are in the libraries that would now get rejected - even for copyright reasons. Why are some product shots in the library while new ones get rejected (e.g. the ever so popular mac computers - lots and lots in the libraries but if you upload a new one with removed logos it gets rejected for copyright reasons, even if it�s only part of the image) - very hard to digest.

Anyway - if you have the slightest optimism that you might make money from some of your images in the future, you MUST NOT give them away for free. And even if you don�t have any hopes - please try to keep in mind that some people are trying to make a living from SELLING images. It�s definitely tempting to know other people like your images and download them, but history seems to be repeated here.

A few years ago some big traditional agencies refused to open the gates to their libraries for some photographers. Being turned away, some of these photographers started selling their content on some upcoming small agencies that sold images way cheaper. So the later called microstock agencies were able to gather a pretty good stock of growing quality images in very short time. That new competition has quickly become a big threat to a once flourishing business nowadays called macrostock.

We fellow photographers only put our work up for sale on those microstock and macrostock agencies we are not the ones rejecting your work. Even if some of my collegues above seem to be a bit arrogant, please help feeding our families by not giving away images for free.

Interesting read. I pulled my portfolio of 1.000+ files from fotolia two or so years ago because of their subscriptions. They called me twice and asked me not to if only I had a little patience. Well, my patience lasted 6 months, and several email reminders.
If they wouldn�t have acted like that I might start uploading again. But they just don�t seem to be a fair and honest partner. Who knows - maybe they just want to gather more clips in a rush and then they reduce royalties again, or introduce new subscription plans. For me they never made enough money to even justify the time it takes to upload the videos.

Austria:

http://www.amriphoto.com/istock/regionalSearch2011-08-15/business.jpg
http://www.amriphoto.com/istock/regionalSearch2011-08-15/cityscape.jpg
http://www.amriphoto.com/istock/regionalSearch2011-08-15/food.jpg
http://www.amriphoto.com/istock/regionalSearch2011-08-15/people.jpg

As far as I can tell (and I don't really pay any attention to what he does because I operate in a completely different market) Yuri has identified the biggest selling sector of stock, analysed exactly what it is that makes pictures in that genre desirable, and churns it out in huge quantities and at a quality level that is at least as good as anyone else's, while relentlessly promoting himself.  It's a brilliant strategy but it's not one intended to produce anything particularly unique or irreplaceable.

I�m usually not the cult type of guy, but I�m also not envious. I respect people - especially if they achieve something I haven�t. No matter if it�s because of talent, effort or whatever.
In regard to quality: he is shooting with some of the best equipment available. Sure equipment alone doesn�t make a good picture, but at least it adds to the quality you�d have to admit. So I honestly think his work is better than most others (not all). One element would be flash recycle times - if you can shoot multiple frames (per sec) when shooting with models you might much more easily get the right timing than shooting one every 2-3 seconds. Using professional models too adds to the quite long list, so does knowing the market and competition.

Best Match should look similar to the search by downloads with weighting on searched for keywords.  New files are not the best matched files until buyers decide that, the problem was that new fiels (Vetta and Agency) went straight to the top.  They didn't represent the best match at all.

Not if the buyer doesn�t see the image. I for one will wait how things develop before I upload some more new content. I have lost too many images with changes like that. But I really do appreciate the change - can�t have all at once I guess.

The problem is:
most buyers can add the copyspace themselves on isolated obects, others can�t because they are no designers and such, they just want to put some text over the image. Some agencies might see that potential, others don�t. I guess they know their clients better than we do.
On the other hand: the buyers that can put the copyspace there themselves might be angry if they buy too much white space around an object. So I suggest you produce a very tight image you upload to most agencies and add a little extra white space for uploading to dreamstime in PS.

Quote from: gostwyck on April 27, 2011, 13:21

I'm just grateful that Shutterstock appear to be taking up some of the slack.

Yes indeed.  Also true for me (I'm very happy to say).

Well, that�s just the problem. Even if buyers are leaving iStock and others are taking up SOME of the slack, it takes money from the whole industry. Shutterstock mostly sells subscriptions and compared to the price per image on iStock that�s way less.
On the other hand - we had a similar situation last year when a lot of people were complaining about a very bad April after a BME March (for almost all contributors) if I remember right.

My stats (I�m counting DLs because becomming exclusive in June might otherwise change the stats too much if I count $):

34% this year (incl. estimate till the end of the year)
32% 2009
22% 2008 (took a deep hit in best match by that time of the year)
46% 2007 (my first year - and even then I didn�t manage to get to 50% although I had almost 0 sales in Jan and Feb)

If they don�t revisit the goals, I�ll miss mine by around 11% and get a huge paycut.

Quote from: snappyhappy on January 15, 2010, 19:19

If I don't make a cent on my photos during this little adventure, that's ok with me. The thought of complete strangers looking at and buying my photos sounds thrilling, so I want to try it.

I also want to learn and grow as a photographer, and take even better pictures. This method seems like a good way to do it, since it really seems flexible time wise.

Then you should join flickr, or another website when people comment on each other's images.  Licensing stock imagery is a business that should be taken seriously, even more nowadays then a few years ago. 

I can only second that. It seems to get more and more popular to use microstock as some sort of photocourse. Don�t get me wrong, I don�t know you, and I don�t know your images either, so please see these lines as some sort of general statement.

I have been an inspector at an agency quite some time ago and you wouldn�t believe your eyes what images are uploaded. The word snapshot is rather farfetched for these.
So here is my advice:

• Try to get an honest opinion (which isn�t all that easy) of your friends and families whether the like your images and what could be done to improve them
• If they like your work you could assume that you�ve got some talent, (which definitely not everybody has just because he/she thinks so - remember all those casting shows on TV??? There�s nothing wrong with not having talent singing, modelling or photography - you usually have some other talents and should concentrate on these to be successful) . Go and read some books on photography or take a course or something similar
• Once you did that look at images your really like in magazines or elsewhere. Try to figure out how the images were shot (what makes it stand out, how was the light set up and which perspective did the photographer use).
• Again ask the friends that have been honest with you from the beginning wether you have improved.
• If you did, start uploading to the biggest agencies iStock and Shutterstock

Please be aware, that when someone takes the direct route and just uploads to an agency expecting to learn from their rejections, he will not only be much slower in his learning process. Unless he is a very very talented photographer he also exploits others. He uses the time of inspectors and therefore the time and money of the agency without paying for it (as long as you don�t produce sellable images). I think nonone of us has an idea of how much it actually costs the agencies to review all those images that are just uploaded with the goal of learning from rejections. That increases the image prices in the longrun, which is good to some extent - but as long as it�s solely done to cover the costs for the increasing number of rejections there�s no benefit for contributors. So in fact that someone does also exploit other photographers that invest a lot of time and money into the business venture microstock (btw: people submitting just for learning also slow down the approval process). Most of them are more than willing to share their knowlodge in other fields, writing blogs and helping in forums, so please value their help.

OK, that�s my 2 cents - once again this is not adressed to anybody personally, just a general statement - here I stand waiting for the first stone to be thrown.

Hi Jonathan,
thanks for the input! No thanksgiving here in Austria ;-). But have a nice holiday over there - even though it seems too late now.

Cheers,
Wolfgang

OK, just read this post and deleted all my video files in the transfer queue. It seemed crazy enough that they only accepted images below 300MB, but now they finally show that they don�t have a clue about the footage market.

Too bad, fotolia!