Are You in a Rut?

[Jay D]

2 hours ago, Sally R said:

I am in a kind of rut but I think I would describe it better as disorientation. Until the contract change announcement I was very focussed and dedicated to increasing my Alamy portfolio. So I feel in a kind of confusion more than anything else, as it no longer seems to make sense to continue with that focus and dedication. In 20 months I have managed to upload 735 images and was very keen to continue to increase the size and variety I upload, but it isn't quite making sense now. So like Martin above, I am reassessing what I am doing with photography and looking at various other options. I understand people with many thousands of images here not wanting to just pull them and leave, but with my 735 it is not such a big deal to finish with Alamy and start other photographic endeavours. What I will miss is this forum, but the idea of continuing to upload images here is not feeling practical or sensible.

 

 

 

Sally this is exactly how i feel, disorientated and lost me mojo...To stick or bust!!! Not knowing wether to stay and fight to achieve the annual minimum of $250 threshold with my even smaller port just because i really enjoy Alamy or stick up the two proverbial fingers to them in total disgust...

Edited June 5, 2021 by Jay D

[MizBrown]

5 hours ago, Sally R said:

Yes, the whole thing just feels weird. It's like a rug has been pulled out from underneath us and we are left struggling to make sense of it and figure out what to do. The Clash song Should I Stay or Should I Go has been going around in my head.

 

Is what Alamy's proposing useful to meeting your goals and aspirations?   Figure out what you want from the relationship.  If doing stock gives focus to your photography, and the money is not critically important, then maybe stay.   If you find doing stock work is getting tedious without a payoff that works for you, quit.  Or wait. 

[Phil Robinson]

In the last two weeks I have barely taken a still photo (one day in London, not very productive). I have discovered video and am really enjoying it. Mostly wildlife, will it sell? I hope so and I'm willing to devote more time and effort to see if it pays off.
I'll be going to London again next week to lurk in Downing Street with the Nikons but bumble bees and wagtails have made a very pleasant change.

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Phil Robinson

[Phil Robinson]

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Edited June 6, 2021 by Phil Robinson
duplicated

[Phil Robinson]

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Edited June 6, 2021 by Phil Robinson
triplicated!

[Steve F]

I'm feeling a bit mixed about the whole thing at the moment. The commission drop is very demotivating and it's broken the pyschologically important 50% barrier. I was happy being exclusive to Alamy before and selling less pictures than I would with other agencies as the fee per picture is (generally) higher and I felt like Alamy was fairer towards its contributors. I'm certainly considering other options at the moment, although none look hugely appealing. I think Alamy still pays a higher proportion than other agencies (apart from specialist agencies that I have no knowledge of?), but it's disturbing how often the % commission is dropping over the years.

 

I'm wondering if I should maybe do something with a large POD website in the States together with my own paintings website and maybe add fine art photograpy to that. It would be a copmpletely different style of photography, with much more time spent setting up a single image and much more time editing it. And also editing it differently to a photograph used for normal illustration purposes. And then these POD websites don't generate customer traffic towards you so you have to spend a lot of time running around on social media trying to sell yourself, which I'm not hugely interested in. I have the feeling that I'd have to be constantly generating new paintings / fine art photos to keep people interested and suddenly the whole thing isn't so fun anymore.

 

I don't want to stop doing stock photography, I love thinking of new things to photograph and setting it up, or capturing scenes I think might sell when I'm out and about, but I wouldn't be doing all this just to put images on e.g. Instagram.

 

Finally, it's really hard to get time to do any photography at all when you have two young children. Photos and videos of the children on the smartphone are the order of the day!

 

So changes in my life and changes in the stock market (saturation of the marklet and continually dropping prices) are giving me food for thought...

Steve

Edited June 6, 2021 by Steve F

[Ed Rooney]

Any of us can fall into a rut with or without the pandemic, contract issues, or falling $% from sales. And each of us have our own selection of other issues to deal with. I will be focusing on a plan to expand my stock subjects and trying to look away from what I can't do.

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[Steve F]

Hi Sally,

Yes, it's great that Alamy accept almost any subject so I get to be quite diverse with what I shoot (although I wish they were hotter at clamping down on the technical requirements for contributors). I actually started in stock as a means of still being creative and not spending so much time painting. Although I've ended up spending loads of time on stock, but at least I can stop and start easily - contribute and edit when I've got time. I'll continue as before with Alamy for now, but I'm waiting to see the final contract - unfortunately there seems to be no budging on the commission change.

 

Thanks, I've been toying with doing something with the painting for a while now and mixing in photography could kill two birds with one stone. Selling prints rather than doing painting commissions sounds great - I do commisisons, but they're very time intensive. I guess you get out of these things what you put in. I have been seeing improvements with my sales figures and income with Alamy as I grow my collection, but then with the commission change which is going to knock us all back, I have to ask myself if it's really worth the time and effort involved. It's not like I need the money and I could be doing other things with my time. That's what it all comes down to essentially - use of time... Maybe concentrating on fine art photographs will improve my photography editing skills and leave more time for other pass times.

 

Speaking of which, I was doing tennis lessons before I came to Austria. I'm doing guitar lessons for the first time when I come back to England soon - should be interesting because I'm self taught and I've got a load of bad habits for sure! Plus badminton and squash, reading, French and German pratice, watching films (big fan), going out with friends, wife and children and a full time job..... Not enough time in the day!! Hence the appeal of stock because you can dip in and out of doing it... I'll probably have to give up some hobbies at some point soon...

 

Anyway, enough rambling... Need to edit my pictures from Austria 🙃

Steve

Edited June 6, 2021 by Steve F

[John Mitchell]

Personally, I think that stock photography itself is becoming a rut. I'm certainly not as keen on pursuing it as I once was. The recent contract/commission kerfuffle has really put things into perspective for me. Assuming that I stick around here after the promised contract rewrites have been revealed, I'll continue to upload images to Alamy  (or what remains of Alamy) now and then and perhaps to a couple of other places that still have fair 50/50 splits. However, I'm going to step back and reevaluate what I've been doing. In some ways, I feel that pursuing "stock" has taken me away from what I really enjoy and value about photography. As I believe Bill B. suggested in another thread, money can become the worm in apple.

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by John Mitchell