Rating the worth of a picture by the amount of effort used in producing it

[Steve F]

Food for thought. Something we're all probably guilty of at some point....

 

 

[Gervais Montacute]

I wouldn't imagine many people get that forensic for stock photos. At 40% contributor commission?

 

It's the kind of thing a hobbyist would be into or a full time professional. But for stock photos? Not unless you don't have a life imo.

[Steve F]

13 minutes ago, Gervais Montacute said:

I wouldn't imagine many people get that forensic for stock photos. At 40% contributor commission?

 

It's the kind of thing a hobbyist would be into or a full time professional. But for stock photos? Not unless you don't have a life imo.

 

Lol, I hope we don't get too attached to photos. I think you need to be at least slightly obsessed though to keep going with the prices we're getting today! Some of mine take a fair amount of time to set up and I was speaking to another contributor outside the Forum recently and they said for one particular image they did 40-50 takes before they got one they were happy with.... I do see people on the Forum sometimes complaining about low fees for shots that were very difficult to get or have 'rarity' value. The buyer or viewer doesn't know that, they just see the end result...

 

Wasn't much of a life during lockdown! 😛

Edited September 4, 2021 by Steve F

[meanderingemu]

Actually i think from a business perspective, the opposite is true. 

 

47 minutes ago, Steve F said:

 

 I do see people on the Forum sometimes complaining about low fees for shots that were very difficult to get or have 'rarity' value. The buyer or viewer doesn't know that, they just see the end result...

 

 

sorry, but a business model that doesn't recognise the cost of production and acquisition is doomed to fail. Look at all these businesses (at least in North America) complaining about the lack of cheap labour to support their model, and they blame the labour not their model.  In the end something will break

 

 

If the cost of rarity is not covered by the model, in the end you will not get it. 

 

 

 

I can honestly say that Alamy's decision in the past 2 months have lost them at least 2 sets of images that now potential clients will not find on their database (i checked, no one else has provided them).  

Edited September 4, 2021 by meanderingemu

[Phil Crean]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

Actually i think from a business perspective, the opposite is true. 

 

 

 

sorry, but a business model that doesn't recognise the cost of production and acquisition is doomed to fail. Look at all these businesses (at least in North America) complaining about the lack of cheap labour to support their model, and they blame the labour not their model.  In the end something will break

 

 

If the cost of rarity is not covered by the model, in the end you will not get it. 

 

 

 

I can honestly say that Alamy's decision in the past 2 months have lost them at least 2 sets of images that now potential clients will not find on their database (i checked, no one else has provided them).  

+1

[Robert M Estall]

In commissioned work we always balanced time and talent against extent of usage; in Stock you simply find the image define the usage and  agree a price (which is getting less and less) Complexity and effort is simply not an issue tempered perhaps a little by how hard it might be to find it elsewhere.

[geogphotos]

Unfortunately, we are now more or less in the micro stock 'volume' model. 

 

I keep a spreadsheet of 'All Sales' and there are images which have been licensed 20-30 times.

 

So, really we need to think of the lifetime earnings an image can bring rather than the big bucks in one lump sum. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by geogphotos

[Mr Standfast]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

Unfortunately, we are now more or less in the micro stock 'volume' model. 

 

I keep a spreadsheet of 'All Sales' and there are images which have been licensed 20-30 times.

 

So, really we need to think of the lifetime earnings an image can bring rather than the big bucks in one lump sum. 

+1 with bells on. I try to look at the value of my portfolio as a whole rather than individual pictures. Monthly results are interesting but rolling averages are more telling. 

[Mr Standfast]

5 hours ago, Steve F said:

Food for thought. Something we're all probably guilty of at some point....

 

 

Haven't watched it but is the common problem pointing your camera at the sky not the subject???

[Michael Ventura]

It has always been this way with stock.  Effort has little to no bearing on stock price.  Having said that, I do think that  higher quality photos (which can still be made with a lot or little effort) can fetch a higher value only in they may be used bigger or with more prominence, such as a book or magazine cover, two page spread, billboard display, advertising  etc..... Usages where a buyer may spend more time culling through photos to find that perfect photo for their needs...as opposed to "this will do".

[FocusUno]

agree with point in video, for stock, grab ordinary & above-ordinary, but...don't over-linger for either, get them & move on...

better (100) total combined keepers in a day of roaming than sacrificing (50) ordinary keepers to wait for (1) above-ordinary...

as to video site, I'd a been one & done, then go looking for people to be in those scenes;

oddly the pizza "prop" could'a been most frequent seller than just scenery...?

 

this August 2021 licensed image was indisputably ordinary, even cliche:

Country: Florida Usage: Indoor display Media: Shop/restaurant decoration Industry sector: General business services Print run: 1 Image Size: up to full area Start: XX August 2021 End: XX August 2026 Duration up to 10 years

$ 1387.50

Edited September 4, 2021 by FocusUno

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

If the cost of rarity is not covered by the model, in the end you will not get it. 

 

 

Buyers will if photographers are silly enough to dump their "rare" images on microstock sites.

 

Since "exclusivity" ended on Alamy, I've been uploading images to a couple of sites (which I won't name) that allow you to name your own prices, and I'm constantly amazed at how low many photographers will set their prices, even for really good images. They seem to be their own worst enemies. However, I guess if you're used to getting $0.10 an image, $1.50 seems like a fortune, and $10 a cause for jubilation.

[geogphotos]

30 minutes ago, FocusUno said:

agree with point in video, for stock, grab ordinary & above-ordinary, but...don't over-linger for either, get them & move on...

better (100) total combined keepers in a day of roaming than sacrificing (50) ordinary keepers to wait for (1) above-ordinary...

as to video site, I'd a been one & done, then go looking for people to be in those scenes;

oddly the pizza "prop" could'a been most frequent seller than just scenery...?

 

this August 2021 licensed image was indisputably ordinary, even cliche:

Country: Florida Usage: Indoor display Media: Shop/restaurant decoration Industry sector: General business services Print run: 1 Image Size: up to full area Start: XX August 2021 End: XX August 2026 Duration up to 10 years

$ 1387.50

 

When did Alamy start naming Florida as a country?

 

 

[John Mitchell]

20 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

When did Alamy start naming Florida as a country?

 

 

 

Florida is a country. 😄

[Phil]

5 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Florida is a country. 😄

 

It's trying to be like Texas!   🤠

[Vincent Lowe]

6 hours ago, geogphotos said:

 

When did Alamy start naming Florida as a country?

 

 

 

My very first sale with Alamy, in October 2003, was to:  Country: Colorado

 

For the record, it was A16C3A - $121.35

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

 

It's trying to be like Texas!   🤠

 

... or Alberta.

[Gervais Montacute]

On 04/09/2021 at 16:15, Michael Ventura said:

It has always been this way with stock.  Effort has little to no bearing on stock price. 

 

That's completely right.  I wasn't trying to be funny with my original reply to this subject btw.

 

As an analogy, I know way more about the music business than photography; specifically the tv and film music business. I can produce a fully orchestrated track played by an orchestra in a studio and all the time and money that constitutes. It will get paid exactly the same amount of royalties/usage/mechanicals as a track that some bozo that sticks his or her cat on a keyboard and the resulting recorded drone gets used on the same programme.

 

The end result to anything quality-wise is totally subjective. At least that's the excuse that you'll hear from users that pay for whatever it is they buy. Put simply, when spending an inordinate about of time on say a music track, it's worth remembering that 99.99% of the time it's going to get covered in dialogue and efx. Same kind of thing with photography in a way.

[ManfredG]

On 04/09/2021 at 15:17, geogphotos said:

Unfortunately, we are now more or less in the micro stock 'volume' model. 

I keep a spreadsheet of 'All Sales' and there are images which have been licensed 20-30 times.

... but without the "volume"

Good photographers on microstock have images being licensed several 100 times.

[geogphotos]

52 minutes ago, ManfredG said:

... but without the "volume"

Good photographers on microstock have images being licensed several 100 times.

 

 

But, even with reducing fees, at much lower average price points than via Alamy. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by geogphotos