Muscular tattooed young man looking over his shoulder

Merry Christmas a week early. I’m quite enjoying post production on a shoot I did recently with Steph, a new model I found through Model Mayhem. He was professional and pleasant to work with a gave me a good variety of looks and poses. The first few photographs from this shoot will be sent slowly to the agencies, because I do not want to hinder their chances by having them accepted during the big yearly holidays sales void and because I’m testing sending shots with tattoos. It will be interesting to see which agencies consider them copyrighted works of art and which others will say these belong to the model and should not require additional releases. Tattoos seem to be quite the gray zone at the moment. Just think how silly it would be to have to track the artist and get a release from him/her. So let’s see if this work. I can otherwise alter them in PS or remove them altogether. But let’s see…

UPDATE! Straight refusal at Shutterstock: they require an artist’s release for the tattoos. So, according to them, you do need to actually find out who did the tattoo and get a release from them. Ugh. Stockxpert and Fotolia, on the other hand accepted the shots without prejudice.

Photo by Terex

Christmas time is here. Year 2009 has reached its end. For Pixmac the year 2009 was a huge succes in microstock! And Vitezslav Valka, CEO of the company is glad to explain the most interesting and challenging parts of the story.

First of all: People

Well, I’m a guy that cares about life satisfaction more than money. And I must say that Pixmac gives me more positive energy than any other company before. We have really a great set of people at Pixmac. Various specialities and various nationalities is what gives me a lesson every day. I’m really happy to have those ladies and gentlemen on board, because without that we can’t meet my first requirement for a successful company: A great customer support.

All that is impossible without this bunch of people: Lucie Navratilova, Michal Prynych, Martin Talavasek, Martin Vlcko, Ondrej Valka & Ondrej Raska.

It’s always about relationship. In personal life same as in business. And at Pixmac, we’re doing our best to have same quality of relationship with customers as we have inside the company. We’re open and positive. Hopefully you feel that too.

Second: New features

We’ve started with reselling of Fotolia photos in 2008 along with our collection. That was our first non-conventional idea in microstock. But as we’re trying to be better every day, we weren’t satisfied with one advantage only. So we’ve added Celebrity content. Actually it was first introduction of traditional celebrity photos to microstock pricing. That was late 2008. In the year 2009, we’ve solved a few more thoughts from our wildest microstock dreams. Let’s look into the backstage of Pixmac. We’re proud of:

• One Stop Shopping – the easiest way to purchase photo online
• 10 million photos for one money – the greatest number in the industry
• Dreamstime – joined the collection
• Image Source – first traditional agency at Pixmac
• Yuri Arcurs – joined Pixmac collection

Third: New countries and challenges

But it’s not about features only. In this international world, not everybody speaks English and it’s not just PayPal and Credit Card what rules the world of payments. The world is sliced to many small parts and cultures. And that’s our biggest challenge at Pixmac. To learn those cultures and to serve them in the right way as a local friend. I must say, it’s difficult job. About ten times more difficult, that what I thought in the beginning. But, we made it! We’re successful in finding new territories.

We’ve started with English site in September 2008 at www.pixmac.com and then our beloved Czech version came in beginning of 2009. Right after that we’ve started all the other versions such as Finnish, Russian, Spanish, Brasilian, German, Dutch, Polish and Austrian. We’ve also experimented with French and Italian languages as we’re playing with UK English site. Some of those languages have also their own Twitter account: Finnish, British English and American. Well, that’s a lot of work for the first year. But we made it together with all the great people in the team:

• Merja Leppinen – lady that introduced Corbis to Finland
• Ania Menzel – loving mother from Poland
• Andrej Iurlov – photographer that lives in Prague is doing Russian Pixmac
• Cathy Mason – has left FedEx to join Pixmac US
• Fernando Cortes – our guy in Argentina
• Daniel Wiedemann – skilled microstocker that does Brasilian Pixmac
• Istvan Loerincz – Austrian Territory Manager speaks Hungarian & German
• Kiran Birring – our fresh & skilled representative in United Kingdom
• Frenk Kaufmann and his lady – Dutch version captains

Well and that’s just the beginning. Because we’re already working on few more territories to explore.

Contests & giveaways

We did a lot of contests over the internet and in the offline world. And also a lot of giveaways. Some of them on our site, some  via Twitter and Facebook. And you may bet on us, that we’re going to make it in 2010 too! Watch twitter.com/pixmac and join our Facebook page, because only there you can be informed about what’s happening inside Pixmac.

Prizes

As a proof of our quality assurance we’ve received Internet Effectiveness Awards 09: The Prize For Innovation and we also were silver at WebExpo 2009. And that’s not all. We’re now working on TRUSTe seal on our site and Verisign certification to become a trusted partner to anyone.

Future

For the future we already have few features in the oven. Oh, do you feel the Christmas spirit? Ok, there are some secrets that may be told only in Christmas time. The first one is iSyndica. We’re going to fully support the great service that helps photographers every day. We’re going to enhance all the scripts we have on site, either jQuery or HTML/CSS. All that is fast, but may be even faster. And we know how to do it. And we’re going to support visual similarity search with a great university help.

Thank you!

And for those that are still reading this blog post there is a one last message: “Thank you for being with us, you’re certainly one of those great people that is interested in Pixmac and that helps us become one of the greatest stock photo agency out there.” Thank you and I wish you peaceful Christmas and successful year 2010!

Now, keep in mind that November, December and January are notably the three slowest months of the year for stock photography, probably because of the holidays and everyone thinking about something other than investing in that new web design.

Well,  November was, again and for the third month in a row, my Best Month Ever! That’s right! Not only did I survive the thanksgiving slow down, but my income grew 7% compared to October.  So let’s see what happened at each agency:

My portfolio at Istockphoto did very well,  it was both my most sales and most income ever at that site.  To think that a year ago I was barely selling 30 photos a month — well, this month I sold 118 photos there. Way to grow. The tally was help by 4 photos selling like hot cakes, well on their way to become my next flames, plus a couple of pecan pie photographs. I didn’t know when I shot them, but they seem to be a seasonal delicacy in the states.  If all goes well, I’ll be crossing the 1000 sales mark later this week or early next week at the most.  That’s one nice milestone to reach. Especially with mostly figurative photos shot without much planning. I can only think how sales will explode next year with my freshly honed new skills!

Over at Shutterstock, things were pretty stable. I had my most sales ever, but arrived just a bit short of my best month (October) revenue-wise. Still, not a bad month, and helped near the end by the fast sales of my fog landscape series.

My performance at Fotolia was sucky as usual — what you read is true: bad acceptance ratio means bad search engine exposure, thus lower sales. I wrecked my stats by deleting my portfolio last fall and then putting it back only to find my deleted files became rejected stats-wise. So.. same portfolio (minus the nature shots which are incredibly hard to get past inspection at that site), but poor sales. Don’t know why I still bother with them, really. They’re lucky they have the fastest submission engine or I’d be gone in a jiff.

StockExpert is still surviving but my sales there were lackluster, no doubt because of the collection transfer at photos.com from Stockexpert’s to Istockphoto’s finally went live mid-month. I still like the site enough to submit my photos there, but I wouldn’t recommend it at this stage. The time used to submit versus the amount of returns is not really worth it anymore.

I finished one penny short of my Best Month Ever at Dreamstime, and enjoyed a 100% acceptance rate for the month. That’s right, none of my submissions got rejected.

Finally, at Veer, things are just not picking up. These guys are benefitting from having my most compact collection, but my best, filled with best sellers at other sites… and yet sales are not taking off. I’ve been there for only 2 months, so I don’t really understand how traffic work there, who the buyers are and what they are looking for.  All I know is that every shot featured in this blog get views, but the others generally do not. I’m nonplussed by this, to say the least.

So all in all, November proved to me that two sites are thriving – Istockphoto rules the single sales market and Shutterstock is king of subscriptions, with Dreamstime doing some nice business and the others ending up in the dust. I can’t really benchmark Fotolia, though, since I appear to be at such a disadvantage there. Perhaps you guys are doing better there? Care to share a few tricks?

Twisted tree silhouette in fog

It’s D-day minus 1 for me now. Again, me and my class are having our  graduation exhibit starting tomorrow and lasting three days (until November 28th) at the Gallery Gora (it’s actually in their second showroom, one floor above, called Creative Boost), here in Montreal. Opening hours are: Thursday: 6PM to 11PM, Friday and Saturday 10AM to 5PM. entrance is free. I will be showing one large print and my new portfolio (and there are surprises in there!)  as well as meeting everyone. Believe me, there’s some really interesting stuff to see. I’m proudly part of an especially talented group. So come if you can, it’ll be rad.

Yesterday, coming back from a busy day preceded by very little sleep, I was happily surprised to check my sales at my stock agencies and discover I’ve had my best day EVER with over 30 sales in one day.  I’m glad to see interest is still growing despite the fact that I haven’t produced as much in the past two months, due to all of the college assignments and responsibilities. This sudden surge is largely due to my new Fog Series, which I shot last week. It sold madly yesterday, with 6 different shots getting multiple sales in their first day in the search engine at Shutterstock. This makes it my fastest selling series ever at that agency. I find it funny that success would come to a landscapes series since they are notably slow to sell usually (and hard to get passed inspection – Fotolia accepted only half of the 4 I submitted).  I guess I did my job well on these. I do love them, and will actually put three of them on walls at home.  So here’s a second photo from the series. The first of my trees in fog stock photo is here.

Come to the expo!!

START HERE:

Dear Stock Photography Professionals, Amateur Photographers, Illustrators and Graphic Designers

“Success” is relative …

It was just over two years ago I started to research how to sell my photography when I caught “The Bug” to start selling my images online. In September of 2007 I decided to dedicate two years to explore the possibilities of the incredible world of stock photography. I felt that two years would be enough time to give me a chance to sink my teeth into training myself from any and all sources and to get up to speed, starting basically from scratch, on this rapidly expanding and growing industry. At the time I had never even picked up a photography book or taken a photoshop tutorial. It is now two years later, and while I feel I have come very far and achieved many successes, I find that there is always more to learn. I absolutely love this work !

In July of 2007 I relocated to Washington State after accepting a transfer to work at The Boeing Company’s Commercial Airplane Headquarters in Renton, Washington just outside of Seattle, Washington. Analyzing Market Research was my specialty. Driving out to Washington from Colorado during the course of my relocation I captured a few thousands pictures on a Canon SD750 camera. At that time I was interested in seeing if I could market my images by selling prints of them at festivals, art shows and galleries. It was during this period of research that I discovered the world of commercial stock photography.

My first site that I was approved as a contributor at was BigStockPhoto in September of 2007. For that reason alone I will always have a special place in my heart for them. I found that their entry criteria was not as strict as some of the larger sites. The same applies for 123rf so these are both excellent places to get your first exposure to in selling your photography online. That being said you will want to get into Shutterstock and iStockPhoto as soon as possible. This took me many months to achieve as I was starting from nearly complete scratch with the exception of strong information technology background.  FYI: Recently BigStockPhoto was acquired by the subscription based microstock giant Shutterstock .

Stock Photography Sites are often referred to by short abbreviations. It was more than a little confusing to myself when I first started researching microstock on the various forums so I will list a few abbreviations that you may find useful to know your first time encountering them:

• SS = Shutterstock
• IS = iStockPhoto
• DT = Dreamstime
• FT = Fotolia
• BSP = BigStockPhoto
• MP = MostPhotos
• BME = Best Month Ever
• WME = Worst Month Ever
• BDE = Best Day Ever
• MSG = Microstock Group
• EL = Extended License
• RF = Royalty Free
• Glass = Camera Lens for a DSLR Camera ex. Canon 55-250 IS
• IS = Image Stabilization

My first sale came from the second site that I was approved at as a contributor which was Dreamstime. I initially sought out DT during a time when BigStockPhoto was halting uploading over the weekends. This is just one small example of the kind of roadblocks one faces when it comes to trying to build up an approved portfolio at a microstock agency.

At its most basic level, getting started in microstock photography takes just a few basic steps …

• Check-out the various stock photography links on this blog
• Browse the microstock sites and become familiar and get a feel for the photography on them
• Prepare 3-10 of your best images in accordance to the respective standards of the site you wish to join
• Submit your applications to become a contributor (a.k.a photographer) and get approved to contribute
• Shoot Pictures. Post Process Images in Photoshop. Upload Photos to all sites for review. Repeat.
• Collect the revenue from sales made each month across all sites over the years for the life of the image. Large subscription based sites such as Shutterstock will ultimately produce daily sales for you after your portfolio of approved images grows to a modest size of a few hundred images however credit based sale sites such as iStockPhoto will yield higher commissions at a much slower rate. There is constant debate over which is best. Most stock photographers submit all of their work to each of the most profitable microstock sites.
• Receive your payout after reaching a threshold for each respective site. (ex. $50, $75, $100)

I believe a quick recap of where my interest in photography as a child came from will prove insightful to some readers …

Photography had been an interest of mine since I first began taking snapshot photos with “hand me down” cameras from my parents I was about 9 or 10 years old. It was probably around 1979-1981 ish when I first started using 110 film cameras that I usually borrowed from my mother. The first camera that I actually owned was a Polaroid One Step instant camera. I remember having to pay for my own film. Early on I mowed lawns and later on I worked for the family gas station starting at the age of 10 working for $2.00 / hour. At the very least I know I was responsible for paying for the cartridges of film which were very expensive for around ten photos if I remember correctly. This limited my ability to take pictures as I was saving up to pay my way for a $750.00 30-Day bus tour trip across the country with the Boy Scouts to the National Jamboree in Virginia in 1981. Since the film for my instant camera was so expensive my mother allowed me to borrow her Sony Disc Camera. I took both cameras on my 30-day bus tour “Reunion with History” to the Jamboree. The Statue of Liberty was getting a makeover during our tour but it was still amazing and one of my favorite subjects. However, when I went to the top of the “Twin Towers” World Trade Center, that was my favorite scene. The bridges and skyscrapers of New York City fostered my love for architecture and structures which I later studied at length. I plan to dig up a couple of those first photos of mine from that trip, scan them, and post them here as a point-of-reference …

TIMELINE FOR KEY EVENTS THAT HAD AN IMPACT ON MY STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY:

1981 “Reunion With History” 30-Day Bus Tour of various historical sites of United States with Boy Scouts. Kodak Disc Camera borrowed from parents when I was 12 years old.

1985 Exposure to Mac Paint Graphic Programs on first Macintosh which parents bought 1986 Drafting  1,2,3 Architecture & Architecture Classes 1987-1991 Travel the world while serving in the United States Navy taking photos every step of the way. 1991 Leave the Navy to study Architecture at the University of Arizona. Learn AUTOCAD. 1999 First Photoshop and Image Ready exposure working with web design. 2000 Graduate University of Phoenix Bachelor of Science in Business  Major: Information Systems

2005 May Bought Digital Camera: Canon SD750

2007 July: Relocate to Washington State road trip from Colorado. Research Selling Prints / Selling digital files online.  Research Selling digital negative files

2007 September: Accepted into BSP

2007 October: Accepted into DT / Forum participation

2007 November: Thanksgiving Day 2007 was my 1st Microstock Sale at DT Accepted into Fotolia . BME across all sites. Joined Microstock Group Forum (MSG). 1st SS Application Rejected. Read Photography & Photoshop Books. Study free tutorials from The MIZ and many others.

2007 December: Join Featurepics. Make plans to buy my first DSLR camera by April or May 2008. New BME across all sites. Bus Travel  from Seattle Washington to Denver capturing many photos on this journey. Caught severe flu and ear infections after many winter weather related travel delays.  That took me out of action for most of January and the first part of February …

Illness contracted from December / January travel …

2008 January: New BME across all sites. Stock sales happen even when your down and out sick …

2008 February: Joined MostPhotos . Joined Zymmetrical.  BME’s at DT, BSP, SXP, Met stock photographer suwanneeredhead (Stacey Lynn Brown) through interactions as two of the first few Americans on MP . New BME across all sites.

2008 March: set-up first home studio. Continue to improve work for next SS and IS applications as these are the two largest revenue producing sites for a microstock photographer.  BMEs at DT, FT, 123RF, MP . New BME across all sites. 5th BME in a row.

Got my first DSLR …

2008 April: Buy first DSLR:  a used Canon Rebel XTI a.k.a 400D continue to shoot and begin working with fractals for part of my SS applications.  Not a BME … streak broken …

2008 May: Accepted into Shutterstock the last week of the month after to many applications to count.

2008 May: BME at DT.

2008 June: BME’s at SS, BSP, 123RF, MP. First Full month of Revenue from SS. New BME across all sites.

2008 July: BME’s at DT, BSP, FP, FT. WME at 123RF. Begin using Cushy Stock management software

2008 Sep:  September 25th propose marriage to suwanneereadhead (Stacey Lynn Brown)

2008 Oct:  Mark Payne (mwp1969) & Stacey Lynn Brown (suwanneeredhead) married in Seattle, Washington. First Extended License Sale on SS …  it must have been a belated wedding gift

2008 Dec:  Canon 55-250 IS lens received as Christmas gift from my beloved wife

2009 April: Accepted into iStockPhoto

2009 May: Upgrade to DSLR Canon Rebel XSI a.k.a Canon 450D

2009 June: Began doubling and tripling my upload efforts to all of the sites that I was behind on …

2009 September: Achieve my 300th image approval at SS.

2009 October: BME for number of sales at DT. Close to BME at SS & IS. Past 400th approval at SS …

2009 Nov: Achieve next level raise at SS . BMEs at both SS & IS. Roll-out initial microstock related blog.

2009 Dec: Achieve 500 stock images approved as SS.  Pass 1000 images online at MP. BME achived already at DT by Dec. 12th …

I am always happy to help someone that is new or “a newbie” try to break into stock photography by submitting their own  images or illustrations for approval to be sold online.  This is a painstaking task if you try to figure  it all out on your own. I offer my own  trials and tribulations to you so that you might be able to avoid some of  them yourself along your way. Thank you in advance for checking out my image and design portfolios.

If your interested in submitting your own images and want to try and get started right away  you can do so through the my referral links which I have provided below and elsewhere on this page.  These links will help you get started with some of the very best, most favorable, and profitable microstock photography sites available on the web. The commissions from the sale of your own images will pay you again and again for the rest of the life so start exploring these sites today ! Thank you in advance for visiting them first through my links.  Signing up through someone’s referral link is one way of saying thank you for the helpful information.

For anyone that is approved to sell their images online after visiting through one my links … please be sure to contact me through the site, and I’ll be happy to assist you in anyway I can when it comes to understanding the nuances of that respective site.

Best of Luck !

-Mark

My Referral Links to Top Producing Microstock Photography Websites:

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery.mhtml?id=144463

http://www.dreamstime.com/Mwp1969_info

http://www.istockphoto.com/mwp1969

http://www.123rf.com/profile_markpayne

http://us.fotolia.com/partner/200479231

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=HW16kzhvJX

Midstock Photography Sites:

http://www.mostphotos.com/mwp1969

Our Website:

www.PayneImages.com

]]> http://artfinephotography.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/rosa-autunale/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:20:09 +0000 artfinephotography http://artfinephotography.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/rosa-autunale/

Rosa autnale foto di morgan capasso

Rosa autunale foto di morgan capasso

 Stampa su tela 50×50

Serie limitata di 5 stampe prezzo €250

Foto di Morgan Capasso

 http://www.fotolia.com/id/3006998

Un po’ meglio questa settimana l’incasso ma solo grazie a un colpaccio su CanStock e una giornata eccellente su Fotolia … il resto nebbia fitta in Val Padana.

Dreamstime sembra fermo, il sito ha pure il singhiozzo, i tempi di revisione si fanno biblici (siamo oltre le 150 ore) e le vendite languono almeno da me, poche e soprattutto subscription. Sta perdendo posti nella mia classifica è stato superato da iStock!

Unica vendita oltre i 2 crediti: (7 per la precisione)

© Photographer: Milacroft | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Rispetto il mese di ottobre sono sotto del 50%

Referral code Dreamstime

Buona la settimana su Fotolia, soprattutto la giornata di Martedí. Stanno vendendo bene le apine natalizie, vendute appena messe online!

Referral code Fotolia

Shutterstock continua a volare basso, ho pure poche immagini natalizie quest’anno

Il database ha raggiunto i 9 milioni di immagini .. altro che sgomitare per vendere!! Solo 2 On Demand questa settimana, so che stanno facendo cambiamenti sui vari pacchetti ma ancora non ho avuto tempo per studiare la cosa anche perchè pare stiano facendo prove solo in alcuni paesi mentre in altri i pacchetti restano gli stessi .. bho …

Paella On Demand:

Referral code Shutterstock

iStock registra un’altra settimana discreta, un poco alla volta le vendite aumentano e visti anche gli scarsi risultati di altri siti si piazza al terzo posto! Su iStock vendo bene le foto agricole, sará che mi hanno mandato a zappare?

Referral code iStockPhoto

123RF dorme come Dreamstime, poche vendite e poche viste .. bho ho provato a rimettere molte immagini in download gratuito per qualche giorno vedremo se serve. Il sito è lento e ogni tanto zoppica, e ció non aiuta le vendite.

Anche qui qualche vendita “agricola”

Referral code 123RF

StockXpert è stato lasciato in modo definitivo da Photos.com, resta ancora Jupiter ma non so per quanto. Le vendite sono inferiori al mese scorso e non promettono bene, tra l’altro continuano a bocciarmi foto che su iStock accettano e vendono.

Immagine acquistata 2 volte con Pay-per-Download

Su CanStock colpaccio con una vendita su Fotosearch da 19.80$, unica vendita della settimana ma ce ne fossero …

Referral code CanStockPhoto

Su Veer 2 vendite da 60 centesimi, uniche vendite del mese: due cartoline di Natale prese dai files inviati l’anno scorso su Snapvillage

Su Panthermedia ancora niente anche se nella mia bacheca vedo 4 vendite per sottoscrizione con data di ottobre, ma che dicono verranno “contabilizzate” alla fine di questo mese .. oh io sti tedeschi mica li capisco eh .. vendono le foto per corrispondenza tipo catalogo PostalMarket??

Referral code Panthermedia

Crestock si è perso nello StockSpazio …

Referral code Crestock

Statistiche Globali > >

i raccomandati

Frad su Dreamstime

Thestalker su Dreamstime

Saledan su Dreamstime

Famon su Dreamstime

Riccardo su 123RF

Cristina su 123RF

Slowdog su 123RF

Acies su 123RF

Cristina su Shutterstock

Nikoniano su Crestock

Lolloj su Crestock

Jordache su Crestock

© Photographer: Pdtnc | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Description:
Stock Photo: Bright eyed white dog looking attentive on grass background.

Keywords:
animal, attentive, black, bright, canine, collar, dog, eyes, grass, green, mouth, nobody, nose, obedient, outdoors, pet, playing, red, tag, toy, white

Also available at one or more of the following excellent stock sites:
www.istockphoto.com/pdtnc
www.shutterstock.com/?rid=59135
www.dreamstime.com/resp131585
www.fotolia.co.uk/p/47653/partner/47653
www.stockxpert.com/?ref=pdtnc
www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=jqNKkUDsgl
www.canstockphoto.com/?r=16050
www.123rf.com/src_pdtnc
www.yaymicro.com/register.action?referredBy=pdtnc

Heute mal eher was für die Bild-Käufer: Mit folgenden Gutscheincodes lässt sich beim Bilderkauf ein bisschen was sparen:

Fotolia:
Mit folgendem Code erhält man beim Kauf von Credits bei Fotolia einen Bonus von +20% (nur gültig bis 30.11.09)
Gutschein Bonuscode: U7Z6YWQP

Neukunden erhalten mit diesem Code 3 Gratis Credits (nur gültig bis 31.12.09)
Gutschein Bonuscode: magicpage3

Link

Shutterstock:
Beim Abschluss eines Abos erhält man mit diesem Code 10% Rabatt. Bei einem 1-monatigen Abo macht dies eine Ersparnis von 19,90.-
Gutschein Bonuscode: PE710
Link

Auf Wunsch von Herrn Frohmann (iStockphoto Europe) wurde der Abschnitt in diesem Beitrag, in welchem ich auf seine Aussagen (abgedruckt in der aktuellen Visuell-Ausgabe 6/2009) eingegangen bin, gelöscht. Er wird dazu in einem Interview auf diesem Blog Stellung nehmen.

(gelöscht)

„Wenn die Menschheit keine Phrasen hätte, brauchte sie keine Waffen. Man muss damit anfangen, sich sprechen zu hören, darüber nachdenken, und alles Verlorene wird sich finden. (…) Jede Gedankenlosigkeit, die man spricht, war einmal ein Gedanke.“

© Photographer: Morgancapasso | Agency: Dreamstime.com 

A bunch of white grapes and a big bread
Photo taken on: October 16th, 2009

As of this week, my Mum is no longer the holder of my best selling photo.  That honour has been taken by one of my images from New Zealand – a view across Queenstown looking all the way down Lake Wakatipu with snow capped mountains and a beautiful blue sky for a backdrop.

While it was Fotolia that kicked this into my best seller position with 2 sales of it this week, it was Dreamstime that started the ball rolling with 3 sales over the last couple of weeks.  Hopefully it will have many more sales in the future!

Dank eines wieder einmal sehr starken Fotolia-Umsatzes war der Oktober 09 für mich mein persönlicher Rekordmonat bisher.

Bildagentur Einnahmen Oktober

BODY ART WOMAN WITH VEIL 

© Photographer: Morgancapasso Artwork by Micaela Barbarossa| Agency: Dreamstime.com 

And so my Best Month Ever ends… again! There’s something really cool in seeing my income rise month after month now for 4 months in a row. And this time, I’m delighted to report, the growth is by a whopping 28% over my last BME, September. I didn’t expect that much, and I’m having a hard time figuring it out. Could it be that my ports are getting larger? My quality improving? This blog? The economy? H1N1? Growth in the industry? No matter what it was, thanks to everyone and let’s hope this keeps going.

My portfolio at Istockphoto did very well this month. The most sales ever (despite a very so-so first 2 weeks) and accordingly the most revenues (up 14% from September). I’ve taken the time to make brand new private lightboxes and re-classify all my photos. One of the most boring things ever, but it looks so much more professionnal now… Maybe it did have a positive effect on sales.

My great photographs for sale at Shutterstock did also very well. The most sales ever for me (although only up 4% since my last BME) but a huge mark-up in revenues (a 25% increase over September) no doubt due to the 24% raise I got at the end of September. Two scary things for November though: there was a lot of talk on the forums about SS ending its on-demand download offering (and indeed I haven’t had one in 9 days, which is very unusual). If that is the case that would eat up my mark-up right away since I make about 25% of my SS revenues from these sales. Some say it’s a glitch, some say it might be a strategy to push buyers into their Bigstockphoto brand. I do hope it’s a glitch and that I’ll come back on this post to erase these last few words. The second thing is that compared to last year at the same time, my number of sales has not grown all that much, despite my portfolio being more than twice as big. I do notice that recent files sell a whole lot more, but unlike Istock, good sellers seem to drop out of sight only weeks after they were introduced at the agency – they then go on to sell only marginally.  This means I have to keep production up to keep my numbers – which I won’t be doing in November, with my upcoming exhibit and the end of program rush at the college. Getting ready to crash…

Over at Fotolia, as I expected from last month’s unexplainable sales surge, things went down 43% to bring them back to my regular ho-hum monthly performance. I guess my aesthetics just aren’t their thing. Since my revenues there represent only 3% of my total number, I’m certainly not going to adapt to their tastes.

StockExpert and their affiliates did a nice comeback this month (+200% from September), and I’m so happy the site is showing signs of longevity. Although they are going through issues with their clunky review process (sometimes you get files unexplainably stuck in the queue for weeks), numbers speak for themselves and I hope this means the brand will survive the Getty takeover.

My photos at Dreamstime have also sold more than ever (+28% in revenues from September). I have sold a large copy of an exclusive file there which played a lot in the final tally. These rates are extremely interesting and make me think I should produce more exclusive assignments shots for them.  I’ll look into that in the new year.

Finally, at Veer, my first month as an active contributor ended with modest sales and revenues, as I was expecting. I’ll have to see if things pick up and whether I’ll continue contributing there. It’s all about the third month for me.  If I compare to other sites after the first month, their performance is on the low end, far below SS, but also lower than IS, FT, and SXP. It fared better than my first month at DT. We’ll see if revenue grows within the next 2 months. They did beneficiate from my uploading my best selling files first, which wasn’t the case at the other agencies, where I first submitted files with very limited knowledge of the business. So they should have had an edge… Anyhow, we’ll see.

Did this blog have an effect? Well I can see right away that all the stock images that have been featured as photo of the day have had, accross all agencies except Fotolia, a clear advantage in their number of views and have been proeminent as well in their sales numbers. Again we’ll see how it goes later as hopefully I get more and more readers…

Non è stato un mese da fuochi artificiali ma tenendo in conto il poco tempo che ho dedicato ai microstock questo mese direi che non posso lamentarmi. Quasi tutti i siti sono andati bene, tranne Shutterstock che ha perso in modo sensibile tanto da scendere a una percentuale al di sotto del 30%.

Fotolia è andato molto bene superando anche il mese di Settembre e senza licenze estese. Moltissimi abbonamenti ma anche molti formati vettoriali. Il miglior mese fino adesso. Ho venduto molto illustrazioni per bambini, anche da colorare.

Anche Dreamstime registra il miglior mese fino adesso, molti abbonamenti, quindi RPD bassa (0.87) ma molte vendite e qualche formato addizionale a 12 crediti che alza la media. Questo mese ho mandato poco materiale e solo illustrazioni quindi per la prima volta ho anche un 100% come percentuale di immagini accettate.

Venduta 3 volte in vari formati:

© Photographer: Milacroft | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Shutterstock è stato una spina nel fianco per tutto il mese, è vero che ho mandato poco materiale nuovo ma anche quel poco è passato pressoché inosservato. In questi giorni sto mandando blocchi di foto su tutti i siti ma sono di carattere “agricolo” e qui venderanno poco purtroppo ma spero che diano una smossa a tutto il portfolio, ho 1200 immagini online ma le vendite questo mese sono state 400, in marzo e aprile con metá portfolio vendevo oltre 600 immagini…

Sto vendendo soprattutto “most popular” immagini vecchie che avevano venduto bene, che nel mio caso non sono molte purtroppo. Continuano a vendere bene i pannelli solari, che hanno venduto bene su quasi tutti i siti questo mese, e qualche brochure sempre in tema energia. Poche OD e nessuna EL.

StockXpert ha mantenuto la sua media, moltissime le vendite in abbonamento su Jupiter come al solito e qualche buon Pay-per-Download. 5.00$ per questa:

iStockPhoto fa un po’ meno del mese scorso ma, tenendo conto che il mio portfolio è di 298 foto e nessuna illustrazione, che non sono esclusiva, che non sono un’artista, che scatto con una reflexina da due soldi, che non faccio parte di nessuna “cricca” … mi stupisce aver fatto 152 vendite in un anno. Peró se volete qualche dritta su come muoversi bene su iStock vi consiglio il blog di Giorgio Fochesato: Un Italiano su iStock

Qualcuno per la modica cifra di 3.00$ si è comprato una torta di mele, in realtá l’ha pagata 12 crediti, a me e al cuoco spettano i 3.36$

123RF come iStock fa un po’ meno del mese scorso ma è comunque accettabile viste le medie.  Un acquisto dell’ultimo minuto da 2.50$

Veer chiude il mese con 4 vendite e 5$ di guadagno … sí insomma ci si aspettava qualcosa in piú da questo sito. La miglior vendita: 2.00$ per questa:

CanStockPhoto e Crestock chiudono con 2 vendite ciascuno e PantherMedia con nessuna … no comment.

Il grafico delle vendite complessive da gennaio a ottobre in Euro quindi tenendo conto anche della svalutazione del dollaro:

Il grafico delle vendite per sito sempre in Euro

Questa settimana salto il report visto che coincide con quello mensile, aggiungo il link alle statistiche globali aggiornate al 31 ottobre e i link ai miei Referred Photographers, ossia i raccomandati (se manca qualcuno fatemelo sapere)

Statistiche Globali > >

i raccomandati

Frad su Dreamstime

Thestalker su Dreamstime

Saledan su Dreamstime

Famon su Dreamstime

Riccardo su 123RF

Cristina su 123RF

Slowdog su 123RF

Acies su 123RF

Cristina su Shutterstock

Nikoniano su Crestock

Lolloj su Crestock

Jordache su Crestock

Winter Landscape with footprints

Relax! This was shot last year. I chose it for today’s photo because, along with beach photographs, winter landscapes had a big upsurge in sales this month. I went to the Botanical gardens in Montreal one fine December afternoon last year, just after a big snowstorm, to try my brand spanking new 5d mark II. I did a profitable series of about 20 stock images that day, of which this is the best seller. I did not send it to Fotolia, since it’s a landscape and they tend to systematically refuse those images, like Veer actually did, stating this is not quite what they were looking for. Apparently, at the other agencies, a lot of people are looking just for that. Must be the snow-covered trees. Perfect for compositing.

Typical crap-shoot microstock submission process: you just hope you don’t get the tired, moody, cynical reviewer who’s seen everything and bulk rejects whole batches of good material based on what he or she is interested in as a photographer at the moment.  Meh.. sometimes you do and there’s little to do but to do minute changes and resubmit hoping you get a happier, more open fellow to review it the second time around, although I don’t usually resubmit on subject matter refusals. Since I spread my photos around, I don’t really care if one or two agencies don’t go for a particular one, such as with this image.

Can’t wait for the next snowstorm!!

Ve fotobance Pixmac nyní najdete fotografie dvou velkých mezinárodních mikrofotobank! Představte si místo, kde naleznete téměř jakoukoliv fotografii, která vás napadne. Budete překvapeni jednoduchým a rychlým uživatelským rozhraním prezentujícím fotografie za velmi příznivé ceny. A to ještě není vše.

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Tím se stal největším tržištěm fotografií na celém světě a tomu u nás říkáme pravý microstock!

Myslíme i na ty, kterým v mikrofotobankách chybí tradiční fotografie. Statisíce fotografií od Image Source nabízíme v kolekci “Extra“, nové zdroje rychle přibudou. Neustále pracujeme na získání dalších tradičních fotobank, abychom mohli nabídnout více kvalitních fotek a mít je pro vás na jednom místě.

Vítězslav Válka říká: “Je to složité dostat tolik zdrojů fotografií na Pixmac, ale jsme dost silní, abychom to zvládli. A to již brzy!”

Další novinkou na Pixmac je nové Rozšířené hledání. Je jednoduché na používání a funguje velmi spolehlivě!

Lightbox jsme přejmenovali na “Oblíbené” aby jeho funkci rozuměl každý přímo z názvu. Další podobná vylepšení se na Pixmac jen hemží, přesvědčte se sami!

Představte si jedno místo, kde naleznete jakoukoliv fotografii. Představte si jednoduchý web, kde nakoupíte fotografii za 3 minuty. Představte si svět bez registračních formulářů, kreditových balíčků, svět bez expirace. To není sen, to je Pixmac!