i am just thinking of branching out...
find someone to supply me with marijuana so ss ppl will flip the switch for my portfolio
increase my sales in exchange i supply them with the stuff they have been smoking for months.

Many oversee that Shutterstock itself DOESNT HAS A PROBLEM AT ALL. When i read this it looks like Shutterstock is dying. But Shutterstock is growing every year. There is no way in near future that SS goes out of business. I guess they will only upgrade and expand. The problems mentioned here have nothing to do with Shutterstocks position.

It is a contributors problem. More competition.... more images....

Anyway i dont like in general that contributors are all the time pointing at other contributors. Complaining that there are to many and so on...... SS is for everyone and everybody has right to register and submit photos.

We know that Shutterstock doesn't have a problem with it's bottom-line profit. They are making more money than ever, when the contributors are seeing declining sales due to increased competition, both from other stock sites and an ever-growing library. That's business!

The point is though, that business strategies can be great in the short term and damaging in the long term. Sometimes a business needs to take a longer term view, and I really think this is one of those times, unless of course, they are looking to sell out and let a new owner sort out the mess they are making.

On a side note, I used an example portfolio to illustrate a point, and took care not to indicate in any way who the contributor was. I also don't like laying blame onto other artists or complaints of 'too many contributors' - competition is healthy and it forces us to strive for excellence, which is always a good thing. My problem here has never been to do with other contributors uploading 18000 icons - that is their prerogative provided they are staying within the guidelines set by the site. My problem is purely with Shutterstock's tactical change which now allows this to happen.

As a contributor who is also a buyer I find myself turning elsewhere for material, because the Shutterstock search presents me with pages and pages of images with minuscule variations, and my 'paid client work' doesn't afford me the time to wade through all of this in the hopes that I'll find what I'm looking for.

I will say this. First, Shelma is right. For me I do not attack others, disparage others because I choose to be anonymous.  But I will fire back when someone disparages me, it's human nature.  That being said, several posts here are spot on.  Rinder, like others, are very frustrated.  I have about 10 years in this business and 38 years in a specialty area of photography, but Rinder, for example, has a lifetime in this business. I can completely empathize with him, but I don't necessarily agree with everything he says.  Some newbies are killer artists and ARE willing to accept 38 cents.

For me, I consider my port to be what seems to be called here "average". Aside from some of my underwater work, as an average quality & concept producer in this for 10 years, I see huge declines, and SS is on that list.  I am getting $6 days, then $80 days, but mostly now $13-$18 days with almost 5,000 assets on SS. But, listening to my business side (I do continuous improvement and business process design for a living) I have made shifts in my strategy to create a wider breadth of subject matter and have delved into video to help offset what amounts to a 30% decline in revenue for my still work.  So even as an AVERAGE producer I am feeling the pinch of ROI.  This is not an "old timer", super experienced contributor issue.  I think most everyone who closely follows their business sees some decline....I said mostly not all. I think Rinder looks at others' work and compares it to his knowledge and talent and puts it in a category, whereas the artist is submitting something that is good in their eyes and, in fact, could be a nice seller even though it is called mediocre work by some.

Well said

... because I choose to be anonymous.  .

Mr. Mantis, I'm afraid you are not really anonymous as long as you publish the same profile picture here and on iStock. 

Quote from: Leo on July 14, 2016, 02:26

its good to hear from a pro that things are down (its not just me!)

No, it is not good. If things are down because of oversaturation it is much, much worse than in the case when you or somebody else are having a poor month or a quarter.
In the second case, things could always improve for you, you may increase your port, etc. In the first case it is more or less Game Over. I have seen quite a few sites fade away but I have never seen a site making a spectacular come back.
Therefore I'd rather have a situation when "it's just me" than when "it is bad for everybody".

it isn't really a saturation point. anymore than having 10 supermarkets in the same district. there is always sales to be made.
the problem here, as lauren points out to consensus widely, the switch is off the established contributors ie  those who earns a higher %age of commissions.
we still make, but make only as much as we did as a newbie in our earliest years, even though
our port has lifted the bar to much higher and numbers abound, our sales do not reciprocate to our inventory and standard.

as lauren says it so implicitly, "Jon, go please the 25 cts brigade ...of marijuana and apple and repititious vectors ports...
push the factories ...
penalize the ones who made ss where it is today.
..
all that to please some major shareholders now getting ready to short the ss stock.

by the time they take profit and go elsewhere to scavenge and leave ss as yet another roadkill,
you too will not be there to rescue Oringer.
he too might pull an Istock and leave with the money in his wallet

and all we will be left with is fotolia, alamy, whatever...

sorry sight. apocalypse now !!!

Quote from: MircoV on July 14, 2016, 08:07

Many oversee that Shutterstock itself DOESNT HAS A PROBLEM AT ALL. When i read this it looks like Shutterstock is dying. But Shutterstock is growing every year. There is no way in near future that SS goes out of business. I guess they will only upgrade and expand. The problems mentioned here have nothing to do with Shutterstocks position.

It is a contributors problem. More competition.... more images....

Anyway i dont like in general that contributors are all the time pointing at other contributors. Complaining that there are to many and so on...... SS is for everyone and everybody has right to register and submit photos.

I think you're reading things that aren't there. None of us "old-timers" (I've been with SS for 4 years) are saying all new work is bad (some of it is great), nor are we saying we're the greatest (I'm sure not, though I'm fairly successful); we're pointing out recent changes to the site that have been adversely affecting more established contributors.

Those of us who've been with the site for several years and have relatively large portfolios can spot issues because we've been at this for a bit and pay careful attention to our rankings, new work, competition, industry trends, and the functionality of the site.

well said shelma, you read my mind.
and for those smug newbies who think they are doing well ,
let us remind you, all newbies are given a honeymoon where they too think they
are suddenly as good as yuri , sjlocke,etc..
sell big time.

but that's only because you are given that flip of the switch to make it look like you are the
flavour of the month.
once you fed the beast with more new work, you will not be as smug as you are now,
the moment they flip your switch and give that honeymoon suite to the next
newbie batch.

As has been already mentioned, it doesn't matter if you use your phone or an expensive, high end camera, or are young and new to microstock, or have been here for years...talent is talent. The problems at SS are a combination of things, mostly WAY out of the contributors' control.

As far as diversifying one's port, there are plenty of people who are doing that, and sales are STILL tanking. Blaming Laurin or any other contributor for the problems just doesn't make sense. If you are critiquing a person's port one-on-one, diversifying might be a perfectly legitimate criticism. But the sales problems are so widespread among all different portfolios, I just don't think that is what is going on here.

I agree with everything you said here, except one thing: nobody attacked Laurin before he attacked others, in his very first sentence.
As I said before, I admire Laurin and learned a lot from him just by reading his posts during the years. Most of all, I admire his ability to revigorate and create commotion on both forums.

SS since 2006 - 8000 files, and yes, in the same boat as Rinder.  Declining sales since 2012.  One difference however :  I ALWAYS expect declining sales (even in 2012), simply because I'm a pessimist in nature.  So when everybody is talking about diversifying, I do that, but not within microstock, not even within stock photography.  When I left my day job end of 2011, I did not have the guts to put all eggs in 1 basket, so I started a portrait business.  Right now, I spend 90% of my time photographying belly&baby portraits and I love it.   And when I see an opportunity to shoot something fresh/new, I will shoot it and submit to SS and other agencies.  So I submit less than the early days, but no typical stock stuff anymore.  I'm glad I did, because if the decline in stock (not just SS!!) goes on like this, I'll be so happy I still have those bellies & babies 

I think it's an interesting phenomenon that some veterans seem to think the work of a veteran is automatically of higher quality than the work of a newbie could ever be.

This can't be further from the truth, whether we're talking music, photography, videography, etc...

The simple truth is that the tools are now available to almost anyone who wants to record music or take professional quality pictures. That was not the case 20-30 years ago when the so called veterans started and there was virtually no competition compared to today.

I see many talented 15-year-olds creating amazing high quality work while the work of some veterans looks like they discovered the Shadows and Highlights sliders in Lightroom for the first time and applied them to all their work...

As someone here posted a while back (don't remember who) - the time of making serious $$$ selling mediocre images is over, but the industry is definitely not doomed!

Up your game, competition is serious.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on July 14, 2016, 10:14

I think it's an interesting phenomenon that some veterans seem to think the work of a veteran is automatically of higher quality than the work of a newbie could ever be.

This can't be further from the truth, whether we're talking music, photography, videography, etc...

The simple truth is that the tools are now available to almost anyone who wants to record music or take professional quality pictures. That was not the case 20-30 years ago when the so called veterans started and there was virtually no competition compared to today.

I see many talented 15-year-olds creating amazing high quality work while the work of some veterans looks like they discovered the Shadows and Highlights sliders in Lightroom for the first time and applied them to all their work...

As someone here posted a while back (don't remember who) - the time of making serious $$$ selling mediocre images is over, but the industry is definitely not doomed!

Up your game, competition is serious.

Show us your work.

Why?

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on July 14, 2016, 10:14

I think it's an interesting phenomenon that some veterans seem to think the work of a veteran is automatically of higher quality than the work of a newbie could ever be.

I don't think that anyone is trying to imply that. There are fabulous and poor contributors, be they newbies or veterans.

I would consider myself a veteran, as I've been a submitter for over 10 years. The only advantage I have over a newbie is meaningful statistics over time with which to back up my arguments.

We all know the heady days of uploading the contents of your hard drive for instant gratification are long since over. But time in this industry gives me an insight into past and new trends, sales patterns, seasonal uploading, etc. that a newbie has yet to experience. Upping my game has been something I've striven to do every step of the way, both in terms of content quality and business strategy.

When my income halves overnight, and I now longer earn sufficient to cover my outgoings, I am most certainly going to attempt to up my game. However, as many will attest to, the new stuff isn't selling - it is getting buried in searches under slew of mediocrity.  It doesn't really matter how much you up you game if your work never sees the light of day.

Excellent post.

When my income halves overnight, and I now longer earn sufficient to cover my outgoings, I am most certainly going to attempt to up my game. However, as many will attest to, the new stuff isn't selling - it is getting buried in searches under a slew of mediocrity.  It doesn't really matter how much you 'up your game' if your work never sees the light of day.

that's true!
except for the handful here who insist you /we old f@rt$ should learn to make better images
since we do not have the clout to be cousins' cousins' cousins of those
elites who are immuned from mass rejections regardless of the slew of mediocrity they produce.

but they also refuse to show their portfolio here to back their walk is as loud as their talk
...
c'mon cousin, we need to learn where we are going wrong!