MircoV Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Hello fellow photographers, After years of trying different methods and even trying Alamy a time ago i have finally collected enough data for myself to make my decision. Even that i made money on microstock today is the day that i deleted all accounts there. I go on with Alamy and an other traditional stock agency. Like i said in one topic before.... i am not an professional and i just want to have a source for photography to have some small extra cash. Alamy is giving me that. Microstock also did but to much work to maintain micro and macro together. The time i spend to upload on multiple sites i prefer to use for better photography. Microstock was a nice experience.... i learned what are technically correct photos. But everything comes to an end. There is really no agency around that respects the contributors so much as Alamy. Really a big plus from me. Mirco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Good decision. Welcome back from the Dark Side. May the Force be with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MircoV Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Good decision. Welcome back from the Dark Side. May the Force be with you. Thanks John, The decision gave me a lot of peace in my head. On a certain point i was only busy with managing a bunch of micro sites loosing time of that what i loved to do.... photography. Next to that i caught myself being here and checking all your posts in this forum. Somehow Alamy feels more photography and micros are loosing it. Mirco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Hilarious photo of the toilet freshner next to the toilet bowl lol Knew exactly what it was referring to, and like most of your stuff it's pretty much on point. Wish you all the success fella. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Brook Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 "There is really no agency around that respects the contributors so much as Alamy" Myth "No crowd-sourced supplier respects its contributors as much as Alamy" True But you made the right choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arletta Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 The decision gave me a lot of peace in my head. On a certain point i was only busy with managing a bunch of micro sites loosing time of that what i loved to do.... photography. Next to that i caught myself being here and checking all your posts in this forum. Somehow Alamy feels more photography and micros are loosing it. I felt the same when deleted a dozen or so of my micro accounts. Since then I did a lot of good work for Alamy and I'm much more happy human now. And... watching what's going on with micros lately I'm more and more happy that I left. Later is better than never! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Congratulations, MircoV, on experimenting, and then evaluating your results and adjusting how you market your photography. ------ Years ago I had small ports on a few micros, and realized I was more mad than happy when images virtually always licensed for so little, through sites that stressed how little their images cost - so I stopped offering them on those channels. I think it can be easy to confuse submitting LOTS of unexceptional images to LOTS of low earning sites as progress, which then can stop one from finding way to capture and market images more effectively. Rather than aiming just for "More" of whatever - aim for "Better" - better images, better agencies, better routes such as working for direct clients, creating and marketing images on products such as cards.... - Ann Hello fellow photographers, After years of trying different methods and even trying Alamy a time ago i have finally collected enough data for myself to make my decision. Even that i made money on microstock today is the day that i deleted all accounts there. I go on with Alamy and an other traditional stock agency. Like i said in one topic before.... i am not an professional and i just want to have a source for photography to have some small extra cash. Alamy is giving me that. Microstock also did but to much work to maintain micro and macro together. The time i spend to upload on multiple sites i prefer to use for better photography. Microstock was a nice experience.... i learned what are technically correct photos. But everything comes to an end. There is really no agency around that respects the contributors so much as Alamy. Really a big plus from me. Mirco Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Dunno, the micros are what they are and I get that folks don't like licencing for peanuts. That said, acceptance standards are higher on the main micros and the returns are considerably better notwithstanding the low unit commission. OK my best nett sale here of $80 beats the best I've had in micro (but not by much) and individual images have earned far more. For the amateur, it's also nice that an image that doesn't sell is the exception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arletta Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 I asked few agencies (before leaving) why my sales dropped down, if they know what is the reason, some technical problem maybe, or whatta h..ll with my account... all they said I should upload more and more better images so sales maybe will come... L O L !! I remember many royalties cuts for advertising investments to get more clients and sales. They never came and authors are earning less year by year. One more thing is making me angry about prices cutting - technically agencies want bigger and bigger files, but the gear is not cheaper, not at all! More px means better computer and more hard disks, more money to spend. Less to earn... I've made calculations how many files I need to sell to buy new body like D800 (in Poland)... Well, I'll need to get around 8,5k sales for let's say 0,35$ to get only body! 8500 downloads just only for making bigger files! If we include life costs etc, we need to be stock masters to make it profitable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Brook Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 It muddies the water somewhat when crowd sourcing photo sites as referred to as 'agencies'. They are not, unless it says so in the terms and conditions, and unless the company offers a representative function. Thus we hear how terrible agencies are, when in fact there are some very good real agencies around that provide a good service for photographers. For example: not taking images that are very similar to other photographer's work, encouraging photographers to develop an individual style, getting work into good collections around the world, promoting work, enabling contributors to achieve high returns on a per image basis, potentially far higher than any crowd-sourced operation is likely to achieve. Of course, there is a caveat: photographers have to be able to provide the kind of work that agencies want, and be prepared to be both self-critical and accept criticism, or at least sound advice, from editors and CDs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Gaul Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Much like others here, I took a look at what my pics were earning and decided not to continue supplying the agencies where revenue was in the cents rather than dollars. A couple of my recent Alamy sales have been for less than some of the micros are paying me, so I am sticking with them. However, I generally supply a different, more generic, type of image to the micros; the exception being historical images which would not pass the normal alamy QC as I don't have access to the archival route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 I asked few agencies (before leaving) why my sales dropped down, if they know what is the reason, some technical problem maybe, or whatta h..ll with my account... all they said I should upload more and more better images so sales maybe will come... L O L !! I remember many royalties cuts for advertising investments to get more clients and sales. They never came and authors are earning less year by year. One more thing is making me angry about prices cutting - technically agencies want bigger and bigger files, but the gear is not cheaper, not at all! More px means better computer and more hard disks, more money to spend. Less to earn... I've made calculations how many files I need to sell to buy new body like D800 (in Poland)... Well, I'll need to get around 8,5k sales for let's say 0,35$ to get only body! 8500 downloads just only for making bigger files! If we include life costs etc, we need to be stock masters to make it profitable Yes, buying expensive new equipment is a real gamble these days with prices for images being so low. It can take forever to recover your costs. I try to do the best with what I already have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I asked few agencies (before leaving) why my sales dropped down, if they know what is the reason, some technical problem maybe, or whatta h..ll with my account... all they said I should upload more and more better images so sales maybe will come... L O L !! I remember many royalties cuts for advertising investments to get more clients and sales. They never came and authors are earning less year by year. One more thing is making me angry about prices cutting - technically agencies want bigger and bigger files, but the gear is not cheaper, not at all! More px means better computer and more hard disks, more money to spend. Less to earn... I've made calculations how many files I need to sell to buy new body like D800 (in Poland)... Well, I'll need to get around 8,5k sales for let's say 0,35$ to get only body! 8500 downloads just only for making bigger files! If we include life costs etc, we need to be stock masters to make it profitable Yes, buying expensive new equipment is a real gamble these days with prices for images being so low. It can take forever to recover your costs. I try to do the best with what I already have. Excuse me, Arletta, but Alamy's minimum file size has gone down, not up. And, John -- do you not routinely downsize your images to insure more sharpness? ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I asked few agencies (before leaving) why my sales dropped down, if they know what is the reason, some technical problem maybe, or whatta h..ll with my account... all they said I should upload more and more better images so sales maybe will come... L O L !! I remember many royalties cuts for advertising investments to get more clients and sales. They never came and authors are earning less year by year. One more thing is making me angry about prices cutting - technically agencies want bigger and bigger files, but the gear is not cheaper, not at all! More px means better computer and more hard disks, more money to spend. Less to earn... I've made calculations how many files I need to sell to buy new body like D800 (in Poland)... Well, I'll need to get around 8,5k sales for let's say 0,35$ to get only body! 8500 downloads just only for making bigger files! If we include life costs etc, we need to be stock masters to make it profitable Yes, buying expensive new equipment is a real gamble these days with prices for images being so low. It can take forever to recover your costs. I try to do the best with what I already have. Excuse me, Arletta, but Alamy's minimum file size has gone down, not up. And, John -- do you not routinely downsize your images to insure more sharpness? ??? Not routinely, but I do downsize if it makes a significant difference to an "iffy" image or at least eases my ongoing QC paranoia. Editorial uses are seldom larger than one page (A4) anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I do too, John. I was questioning Arletta's point that we all have to keep updating our gear to create larger and larger files. We don't. Not for Alamy stock, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I do too, John. I was questioning Arletta's point that we all have to keep updating our gear to create larger and larger files. We don't. Not for Alamy stock, anyway. Right. Continuous upgrading can become an expensive fetish. I imagine that really big file sizes are an advantage for some types of commercial photography. However, most of my sales are editorial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I asked few agencies (before leaving) why my sales dropped down, if they know what is the reason, some technical problem maybe, or whatta h..ll with my account... all they said I should upload more and more better images so sales maybe will come... L O L !! I remember many royalties cuts for advertising investments to get more clients and sales. They never came and authors are earning less year by year. One more thing is making me angry about prices cutting - technically agencies want bigger and bigger files, but the gear is not cheaper, not at all! More px means better computer and more hard disks, more money to spend. Less to earn... I've made calculations how many files I need to sell to buy new body like D800 (in Poland)... Well, I'll need to get around 8,5k sales for let's say 0,35$ to get only body! 8500 downloads just only for making bigger files! If we include life costs etc, we need to be stock masters to make it profitable As has already been mentioned, you don't need bigger files in stock. 50MB is enough and that's what sensors were producing maybe five years ago. My 5D2 is from that sort of time period and produces a bigger file size than I can send to aggregators who place them on G/C/M et al. So I downsize for the most commercial work I produce - ironic. When it dies, I will replace with something similar (won't lie, I did have a ponder about the rumoured 5DS). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arletta Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Excuse me, Arletta, but Alamy's minimum file size has gone down, not up. And, John -- do you not routinely downsize your images to insure more sharpness? ??? Ed, Geoff, exuse me guys but I was talking about micros here Micros pay less and less and want more and more px... Please, read carefully Arterra I use d700 as well and I'm not going to change it fast for long time with acctual earnings-costs situation. Old good stuff from 2008, premiere. Btw, I have some images from Fuji 6500fd, but they are to small even for Alamy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Excuse me, Arletta, but Alamy's minimum file size has gone down, not up. And, John -- do you not routinely downsize your images to insure more sharpness? ??? Ed, Geoff, exuse me guys but I was talking about micros here Micros pay less and less and want more and more px... Please, read carefully Arterra I use d700 as well and I'm not going to change it fast for long time with acctual earnings-costs situation. Old good stuff from 2008, premiere. Btw, I have some images from Fuji 6500fd, but they are to small even for Alamy Arletta, the micros are no different to any other agency (and btw, I have work at all the big micros FYI). I've never seen any evidence that producing bigger files makes for any real signifcance to them. All agencies want you to produce work that sells - Istock are no different to Getty to Alamy. Since micros have generally smaller MB requirements, that suggests the opposite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Excuse me, Arletta, but Alamy's minimum file size has gone down, not up. And, John -- do you not routinely downsize your images to insure more sharpness? ??? Ed, Geoff, exuse me guys but I was talking about micros here Micros pay less and less and want more and more px... Please, read carefully Arterra I use d700 as well and I'm not going to change it fast for long time with acctual earnings-costs situation. Old good stuff from 2008, premiere. Btw, I have some images from Fuji 6500fd, but they are to small even for Alamy Arletta, the micros are no different to any other agency (and btw, I have work at all the big micros FYI). I've never seen any evidence that producing bigger files makes for any real signifcance to them. All agencies want you to produce work that sells - Istock are no different to Getty to Alamy. Since micros have generally smaller MB requirements, that suggests the opposite. <post deleted for contravening forum rules> Alamy will just remove or edit the post. No need to worry about red marks. Since Aalmy just want fan boys on the forum, I'm requesting them to remove my account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alamy Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Excuse me, Arletta, but Alamy's minimum file size has gone down, not up. And, John -- do you not routinely downsize your images to insure more sharpness? ??? Ed, Geoff, exuse me guys but I was talking about micros here Micros pay less and less and want more and more px... Please, read carefully Arterra I use d700 as well and I'm not going to change it fast for long time with acctual earnings-costs situation. Old good stuff from 2008, premiere. Btw, I have some images from Fuji 6500fd, but they are to small even for Alamy Arletta, the micros are no different to any other agency (and btw, I have work at all the big micros FYI). I've never seen any evidence that producing bigger files makes for any real signifcance to them. All agencies want you to produce work that sells - Istock are no different to Getty to Alamy. Since micros have generally smaller MB requirements, that suggests the opposite. <post deleted for contravening forum rules> Since Aalmy just want fan boys on the forum, I'm requesting them to remove my account. We allow lots of criticism of Alamy to be discussed but promoting other agencies on our own forum is against the rules, for obvious reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Since Aalmy just want fan boys on the forum, I'm requesting them to remove my account. Bye then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I'm requesting them to remove my account. Well I think that is a great shame and a big loss. Geoff is one of the most knowledgeable and intelligent people on the forum. I must say I enjoyed my discussions with Geoff and he made me even more pedantic than usual making sure what I said was accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 A Big Step indeed. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 What a revolting development this is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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