Microstock Junction

Tear Sheet - World Junior Hockey Championships Programme

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:02:00 GMT

A relative recently attended the World Junior Hockey Championships in Saskatchewan, Canada. He was quite surprised to see my son in a full page ad in the Programme! Here's a small version that they e-mailed to me. Not very pretty in black & white, but we are stoked that he is in the programme of a world-class event!

2009 Microstock Comprehensive Survey

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:26:00 GMT

Tyler Olson has posted a 2009 Microstock Comprehensive Survey and will make the results public on his MicrostockGroup forum.

If you are a microstock photographer and haven't already completed the survey, you can Take Survey Here. You can request that the results be emailed to you if you do not frequent the forum.

23 Ways to Beat Photographer's Block

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:02:00 GMT

You're an artist. You've taken photos of paper clips that can make your own mother cry, but suddenly your inspiration has vanished. Sure, you've taken a few shots, but you haven't really connected with your shutter for days or weeks. Your camera feels like dead weight in your hand. Normally you are a very creative person, but it seems that you may have a case of photographer's block.

Perhaps you need a break, but more likely you need a little inspiration. I've put together a list of exercises that may help.

Find 10 objects that you take for granted; the coffee maker, the remote, your violin or perhaps your beloved Hummel collection and view them in a new light. Photograph them like celebrities. Vary your angles, lighting and settings.
Remove your everyday lens and replace it with a macro, fish eye, tilt-shift, Lens Baby or any lens that you wouldn't normally spend the day with and fill a card.
Flip through a magazine, find an eye catching advertisement. Study the mood and the lighting setup. Replicate it to the best of your abilities.
Go on a photo-walk with a friend or a group of friends. Compare your photos at the end of the day.
Take a dog for a walk. Every few feet it will stop to sniff around. Look down, look up, turn around. Take at least one photo every time your dog stops. Bonus points if you take 5 shots every time he stops to pee.
Become a snake. Take 100 shots from your belly. Think you can?
Become a child. Take 100 shots from the point of a 4 year old. I let my son shoot a full card at a family supper when he was about 4, and it was very interesting to see the world from his point of view. He took shots through the backs of kitchen chairs, and perfectly captured every glorious jowl, double chin and beer belly in the room.
Set your camera mode to black and white.
Look at your junk mail, do you see any catchy photos that inspire you?
Collect photos from the junk mail and magazines, glue them into a notebook and keep it for inspiration. Or keep them in an idea file. Or pin them to a bulletin board above your computer.
Tell a story in a photo or a series of photos. Set up a classic, Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice or Little Red Riding Hood. Visually tell the heroine's story.
Turn out the lights and try light painting. You'll need a tripod, a flashlight and a slow shutter. Paint an object with light and marvel at the results. Warning, light painting is addictive.
Go out after a rain storm and shoot everything in reflection.
Look at other forms of art. Visit an art gallery or flip through a coffee table book.
Look for a photography contest. Do make sure you read the fine print. Don't enter a contest that expects you to assign your copyright.
Spend some time on photo sharing site Flikr and browse through other photographers' galleries.
Browse through popular photos on microstock sites like Dreamstime. (Sign up while you are there... some people find making money selling photos very inspiring).
Join a camera club.
Re-read your camera manual.
Break some rules. Shoot into the light. Set the wrong white balance. Drag the shutter. If you dare, place your horizons smack in the middle of the frame.
Prepare a series of photos for a specific concept - such as e-commerce, green living, spirituality or even cooking basics.
Watch a movie. Get out a pad of paper and devise some shot lists for an imaginary marketing campaign. Find a stand-in and shoot one of the lists.
I saved the funnest exercise for last. (Yes, I know that funnest isn't a word, but it should be). Pick a theme and set out to fill up a card. You may do this while strolling through a city neighborhood, or by throwing on a macro lens and getting close to items in your house.
- Shoot only objects that are black or white or both.
- Shoot only a specific colour like red or blue.
- Shoot only numbers. Try to find 1 - 100 on license plates, signs and house numbers.
- Shoot only motion; cars, people, kids, animals, objects.
- Shoot only strangers, people on the street.
- Shoot only doors or windows or mailboxes.
- Shoot only closeups of vegetation; flowers, leaves, berries, grasses.
- Shoot only textures; tree bark, sidewalk, stucco walls.

There you have it! I hope there's a little inspiration for everyone. Please do drop a comment and share your own tips, we'd love to hear them!

Video Boycot at Fotolia

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:11:00 GMT

There is a revolution going on right now with video contributors. This month, Fotolia announced that "our subscription customers asked and asked - and now we are giving them what they want!" GIVING is the keyword here. Unrestricted photo sizes, Vectors, videos by subscription for ridiculously low prices.

Through this plan, a bronze artist will receive $3.60 for a video clip. Is this enough? Many videographers are outraged by this move and have begun to remove their footage from Fotolia.

I found this statement on MicrostockGroup forum quite well put: "Fotolia just started with Video-Clips and are not an important moneymaker at all in this segment at the moment, because of this I can see for the first time that a boycott could be success-full. They really need your clips but you don't miss anything if you don't give it to them. Everyone who knows a producer of Video-clips should tell them about it and invite them to this boycott. Would be great to see one success-full boycott at last in the Microstock-Business. And Fotolia though success-full is definitely one of the most contributor-unfriendly agencies they really need to be set to their limits."

Another stated "This will depreciate the stock footage market VERY soon. I think that we must act on the bitter lesson learned with subscriptions and protect the video pricing."

If you provide video content to Fotolia please fully evaluate this situation and decide *for yourself* if you support Fotolia on this. If you want to discuss with other videographers, you should visit this discussion at MicrostockGroup forum.

Something that Isn't Soccer

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:35:00 GMT

It's soccer season, and boy I'm busy! I'm in the middle of shooting about 600 kids and when I'm not shooting it's editing or sorting out prints or making receipts for the 3rd week of June. I thought I had a very well planned season, but there's been so many rain delays I'm a little behind and now have little time for much else.

So.... it was the wee hours of this morning that I finally managed to whip together an invitation to my son's birthday party. The little bugger wouldn't change his clothes for the photos earlier, so this is what I got.

The street scene was a free photo from SXU. (With recognizable faces a-plenty and no "editorial" restriction!)

I used a combination of TopazLabs Adjust and Simplify filters, a few masks, layer blends and voilà! Gosh, he almost looks hung over with those bags under his eyes, and I hope the other 8 year olds don't notice that his shadow is going the wrong direction - but we'll keep that little detail between you and me.

He saw this this morning and said "Do I have to be a giant?" Too bad kid, I ROES'd them to the lab at 3:30 AM, and quite honestly - the creative juices ain't exactly flowing with all the lack of sleep. Next year we'll start them in February.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. the Memory Card

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:06:00 GMT

My camera takes its fair share of abuse, but my memory cards are treated with the highest regard. Well, except for the time I ran an Ultra II through both the wash AND dry cycles; that minor incident aside, you can show your cards a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T. by practicing a few simple habits:

Format brand new cards in your camera before their first use.
Handle cards by the edges; avoid touching the contact points.
Store your cards in their little plastic cases. Keeps them dust free. Keeps the lint from your pocket out of the contact points. I've been seen carrying cards in sandwich bags on many occassions.
Reformat your cards often. EVERY time you put it into your camera is not a bad habit. This deletes the photos, file names and any miscellaneous data from the card so that left-over data won't corrupt your new work. Using the delete button in your camera or deleting files via the computer is not the same as reformatting in your camera. Leftover data may corrupt your new work.
Never bend or force a card into the slot.
If the memory card is close to being full, STOP shooting; don't risk losing any data when you run out of room.
Always turn the camera off before inserting or removing the card, but
Make sure the buffer is empty before turning the camera off... did you just shoot in burst mode? Are photos still being written to your card?
Magnets: no, no, no.
Don't forget the card in your computer; remove it immediately after backing it up. The computer will keep accessing the data on the card, prematurely wearing it out.
Keep your camera up to date with the most recent firmware.
Make sure the battery in your camera is full. You don't want it to fail while it is writing an important shot to the card.
Transfer before you edit. Editing directly from the card will reduce its life expectancy.
Avoid water and humidity (or so they say). The aforementioned adventure in a jeans pocket through a full wash cycle and a tumble in a hot dryer proved to be no big deal for one of my Sandisk Ultra II's . It was in its plastic case, somewhat protected, but there were drops of water inside - even the dry cycle did not destroy the card or the data. Perhaps the "Tide" helped, the card performs just fine and I've actually heard many similar stories.
SanDisk's standard flash cards are designed to withstand temperatures up to about 140 F (60 C), and the Extreme III's are supposed to function in any environment that a human can. But, why not show a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T. and keep your cards at room temperature, not on the dash of your car.
Normal airport X-ray machines and metal detectors do not harm full or empty cards, although SanDisk does recommend that you take the card out of your camera before passing through these devices.
Did you delete a photo or reformat a card without backing it up? Don't take any more frames. Visit SanDisk.com and try out their recovery software. But if you've already written over the lost file, you are S.O.L.
Purchase the real thing. If you see a price on eBay that seems too good to be true, you are more than likely purchasing a counterfeit card. The card may or may not work, or it may work, but writing speed is painfully slow. If it is a real brand name from a unauthorized dealer (gray market) you will have no warranty. Real cards from authorized dealers are so affordable these days, why take the risk?

Can you tell that I prefer SanDisk? I've had just one corrupt photo that came from an Extreme III - and I think that the photo was actually fine, but... duh, I was editing straight from the card at the time so we'll never know. I've heard good things about Lexar, but never used them. I've heard not so good things about many economy brands. For me I need a card that will write fairly fast. I switch between Extreme's for action and Ultras for affordability. They both actually write faster than my speedlights recycle for posed team photos and that keeps me sane.

StockXpert Buckles Down on Copyright

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:51:00 GMT

They warned us, and the cull has begun! StockXpert a'la'Getty is reviewing their entire collection and is removing photos that may infringe on trademark.

May 5, 09 As you know, StockXpert.com was recently acquired by Gettyimages as part of the Jupiterimages acquisition. The StockXpert team is now working closely with our new friends to align our application and submission policies to ensure a legally safe and sound marketplace for selling your images.

In the upcoming weeks, we are going to review the entire Stockxpert collection in order to identify and remove any images that infringe on someone's intellectual property. At the same time, we will be tightening our image approval process to filter out images that we simply do not feel comfortable with

Many of my colleagues have had photos removed, and today I was notified that one of my own files is getting it's pink slip.

This file includes content that may be subject to copyright or trademark protection.Certain uses of this file may be problematic. We regret that it must be deactivated. Comments from Administration:

John Deer
The colours of the equipment enjoy trademark / dress protection

Kind regards
StockXpert Content Review Team

Dude, there's 3 e's in Deere. Get your trademarks straight.

But, they may be right. John Deere's green and yellow colour scheme is trademarked. I wonder if I applied "Massey Ferguson Red" over the yellow stripe and applied some "New Holland Blue" to the wheel wells if it could remain in the collection?

For 30 cents a download, who cares? This shot was downloaded 49 times, once I was paid $25, but most of the remaining sales were 30 cent subs. So I'm estimating I made $50 bucks with this shot. Imagine if it had sold 49 times on a site like Zymmetrical, it would have netted between $500 and $1900. If they were only small size sales, that would be 1000% more!

It may be just a mediocre photo of a tractor, but it reminds me of this whole 30 cent subs crisis and it makes me consider cutting loose from SXP. They didn't sell subs when I joined them, yet now it appears SXP is nothing but a source of content for Photos.com and JI.

Maybe I should just be thankful for any source of income. Just 29,996 sales and I can get a D3X!

Dealing with Rejection

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:02:10 GMT

Are rejections eating you alive? Do they shake your confidence, or are they immediately forgotten like what you had for dinner last night? Chances are, the longer you sell microstock, the less rejections will bother you.

1. Don't take rejection so damn serious. Rejections happen. An editor doesn't care if this is the first photo you've ever submitted or if you are a famous portrait artist with canvases hanging in the National Art Gallery. They rejected the photo, not you.

2. Shake it off. If you feel the hair start to raise on your neck each time you think about a specific rejection, it's time to go for a walk to the fridge or the corner pub. Nothing personal. But..... what if you are right?  If the editor clearly has bad taste or if there is a chance he just got dumped by his girlfriend and is taking it out on you, don't kick your dog. Put the photo aside for a few days and reevaluate. Ask yourself if your attachment to this photo is personal or if you believe in your heart of hearts that it has potential to rock the design world. Is it worth a resubmit to sell a couple times?

3. If the agency says the photo has limited commercial value, it has limited commercial value. Trust them on this. Once a distributor has a few million photographs in their collection they get pretty good at judging these things.

4. Learn from it! Most rejections contain valuable advice that will help you improve as an artist. It's becoming a cliché, but ask any experienced microstocker and they will tell you that they have learned soooo much from their rejections.

5. Calibrate your monitor. Do it now, and every week at the same time. I can still remember my horror when I saw some early non-calibrated work on another monitor. My perfect background was full of streaks and pen strokes. In my case, the editor on duty couldn't have calibrated their monitor either and I was fantastically fortunate that the photos were approved. Or was I?

6.  Know your place - but don't be restricted by it. A niche is a good thing, but eventually it may lead to your demise. Are you responsible for that "overabundant category" refusal? Have you become direct competition to yourself?  It's wise to be a master of a specific topic, but you are not betraying anyone if you stray over to new subject now and again. Might even spice up your approach to your niche.

Sure, once you have an agency all figured out they sometimes hire new and ruthless editors who cause masses of contributors to moan and complain. Historically proven, those new editors should loosen up a little bit but more surely you will find yourself adapting to the new rules. Like the man who must untangle the Christmas lights, maybe it's how we stock photographers handle our rejection that sets us apart.

Burn Baby Burn

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:31:00 GMT

Don't you just love to see those flames appear on Istock?

If you have no idea what I am talking about, Istock Photo adds an orange flame to a photo once it has reached 100 downloads. It turns red when it reaches 500, and blue when it reaches - hmmm, 1000? I'm no where near blue, but my best selling photo is pushing 500 with download #467 today.

This microstock photo of a farmer in a durum wheat field is my fourth photo to reach 100 sales at Istock; so, burn baby burn!

Do the flames have any relevance other than to give photographers a cheap thrill? I doubt it, but maybe I'll know when I've hit the big time in this biz... when I stop blogging about little milestones.

Find a shot below of this microstock photo in action.

Free Photo of the Week at Shutterstock

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:00:00 GMT

I was contacted last month by Shutterstock to see if I would consider donating a photograph to their "Free Photo of the Week" section. I must admit, I have mixed feelings about giving away photos for nothin', but because it was SS it seemed like a good opportunity. They gave me the option to exclude 4 photos from their selection (I decided I didn't need to exclude any), and in the end they picked the photo below that was only a few days old at the time.

This photo was added to the front page sometime after midnight this morning.

It had only 11 downloads in 3 weeks online. Funny thing is, it had 3 paid downloads today.

My sales today were quite high*, I must be benefiting from increased visitors to my portfolio. I enjoyed both increased subs and on-demand downloads.

*Note: when I say "quite high" I mean back to levels of the good old days; my first 6 months on SS.

The number of free downloads do not appear anywhere in my account, so unless they inform me at the end of the week, I will have no idea how many freebies have been issued.

Yes, I'm looking forward my overall numbers at the end of this. Hopefully there will be an afterglow effect!

Just for the record, have you ever heard the phrase No sky - no photo? The sky was ugly and this photo sucked, but it's not every day I come upon a momma giraffe and her baby, so I figured it would be worth the time in PhotoShop to drop in a sky.

When is it NOT okay to Shoot?

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:41:00 GMT

Recently my husband called on his way home from work.. As soon as he said "A house is burning down on Pritchard Farm!" my brain switched into some other mode. My thoughts immediately rushed to my gear: Do I have an empty card?  What type of lens do I need? Should I bring a prime? How fast can I get there?

The kids were home from school so I bustled them out the door and as soon as we got outside we could see the smoke billowing across the sky and we headed in that direction. So did, apparently, everyone in East St. Paul.   When we arrived it looked more like a mid-afternoon street party than a tragedy.

The kids were in the backseat, possibly as excited as I was and as I tried to park the car, the questions began.

"Why is their house on fire?"

"I don't know."

"Do any kids live there?"

"I don't know."

"What happens to their stuff?"

I thought about that for a moment. I thought that it was almost the end of the working day, and the home owners were likely on their way home from the office at this very moment and in all probability didn't even know that their precious plasma tv with surround sound and the $11,000 ATV in the garage have vaporized into a billowing black cloud being expressed over East St. Paul right now.

"Well," I replied, "Surely if a little boy lives at this house, he has lost all of his Pokemon cards, and all of his clothes and the other stuff that he left lying on the floor of his room, and hopefully he didn't have a puppy dog in a kennel, or a fish or a cat because they might be lost too."

"What kind of dog does he have?"

"I don't know... I was just saying.... It's all just stuff. It's important that everyone is okay."

"Dad said we can get a dog if we can talk you into it. I really really want one. Can we?"

Clearly, I have said the wrong thing, but my seven year old can't see that.    A car pulls away and I actually have to parallel park on Pritchard Farm Road. I reach for my camera and my extra lens. And then it hits me.

This is someone's home burning to the ground. It's new, too. I'm guessing it was built in the past 4 or 5 years. Maybe worth a half million dollars. I don't know who it belongs to, but it must be a young family. Someone my age. Might even have kids who go to school with my boy.   Maybe their son is on our hockey team. A whole lifetime of memories is vanishing into smoke.

This is a small bedroom community of 7000.   Mostly young families. I have likely taken soccer or ringette or hockey or basketball photos of three-quarters of the population under the age of 9.    For a second, I thought what if I know them? or What if I've taken their photo?

Thank GOD it's not me!

Suddenly the journalist in me sulked off to slit her wrists. My Nikon was a shameful appendage. I opened up the trunk, locked her safely inside, took my kids' hands and proceeded to watch from the grass next door.

"Did his Pokemon's really burn up?" my son asks.

"Maybe not if his bedroom is in this side of the house." I reply. "It looks like the fire started in the garage, and the fireman is trying to keep it from spreading to this side." But he has lost interest. "Can I go play with Alex?"  There's lots of other 7 year olds around.

My friend Lori is there. She has a point & shoot camera in her hand and her face is covered with ashes.   Even though she lives about 8 houses away she has no idea who's home is lost. Like me - she can only imagine.

"Where's your camera?" She asks.

"I thought about bringing it." I say. "But it didn't feel right."

"Yeah, I got some pictures." She says. A man with a CTV camera rushes by. He is so excited by the event that he throws his tripod on the grass; it's holding him back. He raises his video camera to his shoulder and rushes to the burning house. I become a part of the mob, but I worry that someone might nick his expensive tripod.

Even though I'm the chick that everyone around here knows as "the one with the camera" I didn't take any photos. And that's okay. Sometimes it's okay NOT to shoot at all.

Goals

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:18:00 GMT

My son's hockey coach has a catchphrase:

Our number one goal this season is to have fun!

And, our 7 & 8 year old Blackhawks DO have a lot of fun. They also show up for practice and games on time. The coaches have well planned drills and positive pep talks before and after games.   They've had a lot of fun AND if I'm not mistaken, they've won all of their regular season games to date.

So here I find myself in 2009 wondering if I dare set any goals.   I had a very busy year with my photography business. Sole proprietor. Home based. I came out of 2008 overwhelmed and exhausted. My bookwork is backed up, my desk is heaped high and my first month of the year looks like catch-up.

Needless to say, my microstock portfolio saw very little growth in 08. I was fortunate that my 2007 photos continued to sell and combined with raises at many of the agencies I still saw my earnings increase by about 50%.   Considering what a poor contributor I was last year, I am happy with my earning (but the boss shoulda fired this slacker by about the second week of January).

I have some goals in mind, but they are not written in blood. I'm incapable of writing any numbers beside my goals, but my first goal should be easy enough to reach if I have some kind of a plan.

Double 2008 earnings. It's the only numeric goal I have. After the first week of January, I'm already failing short here.
Shoot more. I know, rather obvious, isn't it?
Submit more. (See #2.) I actually mean to self-edit less and send more shots in from a series.
Think LongTail. Submit technically good shots even if they have limited sales potential.
Mark it on the calendar. Do I dare block a whole week aside each month for stock and *gulp* plan in advance?
Log ideas. I'm not a big fan of structure, but I do often find myself scratching out shot lists on napkins. It's remarkable the way ideas flow when you begin with a single concept and it morphs into two pages of shots. This would be a good habit to get into on a daily basis.
Overflow. Keep a folder of edited and keyworded photos so I can still submit when I'm tied up with the day job.
Learn Illustrator. If I have time. Yeah, right.
Shoot more. Oh, I already said this.
Have fun.

# 10 is really the core of my goals for 2009. Just Have Fun (and ~~get rich~~ make some income doing it.) Perhaps I can learn a few things from my son's hockey coach. Stick to a schedule, hone my skills, and keep it fun. I don't want to enter the next decade burnt out and resenting my Nikon.

Extra info that really doesn't belong here, but I'll add it anyway...
A first post of the year wouldn't be a first post of the year if it didn't have a pie-chart. I've slapped down a chart that displays how my 08 microstock income was split last year. The agency legend is on the bottom. My top three (Shutterstock, Istock, Dreamstime) are still the same position as last year, but in the last months of 08 Dreamstime and Fotolia really gained momentum. I wonder what the pie will look like in a year?

Where Do You Buy Backgrounds?

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:54:00 GMT

Here's a quick little visual quiz for you:

Which background is brown and which one is orange?

Or - are these two backgrounds so close that you can't see a difference?

Which one would YOU buy?

Or how about this: Would anyone who isn't colour blind have any use for an orange background????

Yes, I've made another bad purchase from the Internet. This one is courtesy of BackdropOutlet.com.

I have collected a few muslins, but at 10 feet across the nicest ones just aren't wide enough for large families or groups. I found this one on backdropoutlet. com, and lucky me - they e-mailed about a weekend sale. I liked it so much that I ordered 2 - one to run wide and one for a floor cloth.

I thought that the browns were a nice neutral colour that would work nicely with most anything. And, I even expected that the browns might be slightly darker or lighter. No big deal, right? Well, I have to share with you, THIS MUSLIN IS UGLY, UGLY, UGLY and it is not even remotely brown and was totally misrepresented by BackdropOutlet.com.

...And if BackdropOutlet hadn't censored me, I would still be disappointed but I wouldn't be ranting...

You see, they have reviews on their website that customers would expect to be honest representations of their products.  So, I wrote an honest review. Of course, the don't tell customers that they censor. They only let purchasers see 4 or 5 star reviews. In the case of this product, my review and no other reviews exist.

Why do they have reviews then?   Oh, I get it, so they can misrepresent their products.

My review was 1 star. I said was it was 5 stars for quality but that the colour is nothing like the ad, it is not brown whatsoever, and that the pumpkin tones render it useless for portrait work.

Now I have 2 orange 10x20 backgrounds.   Just another bad purchase made on the Internet. My last bad purchase at Backdrop Outlet.

It doesn't help that I still need two 10x20 backdrops. Does anyone have experience with muslins from Denny?

Farewell to The Miz

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:13:00 GMT

Today, I was saddened to learn of the passing of Robert Mizerek on September 29. The Miz was a microstock legend of sorts who possessed a unique style and acerbic wit.

I first noticed "Rjmiz" a couple years back and bookmarked his Dreamstime portfolio as a source of inspiration and awe. His work was bold and unusual. Strong concepts with beautifully saturated colours, with graphic silhouettes, numbers, hands, time pieces, anything but ordinary. He once said he could take a picture of any old thing lying around his house and squeeze a concept out of it. And to top my hat to the guy, it would likely become a best seller too.

It seems that everyone knew The Miz. He was a larger than life character who frequented many microstock forums. Even if you loved him, you were sure to butt heads upon occasion. He was known as confrontational with a warped sense of humor that leaned toward visuals of dirty underwear.

I looked through messages of condolences, and some words jumped out:

Controversial, priceless, cranky, great tutorials, crazy, humor, expert, inspired, taught me, outspoken, opinionated, colorful character, caustic, dedicated artist, offbeat, wacky, provocative

And that was The Miz exactly as I knew him.

To many of us, Robert was a great and generous teacher. He freely posted tutorials on his website Unnatural Photos and shared the links on microstockgroup. I can say with certainty that I learned more about PhotoShop from Miz than I learned from any other source. But inevitably, his tutorials were met with criticism by a few seemingly "expert photoshop users"; and with his screw-you-then attitude, he informed us that we'd have to come to his website if we wanted to watch his videos.

But sadly now, his website was undergoing a change and it states "We should be up and running in 1 or 2 days".

Bless you Robert: your voice will live with me forever. Thank you for teaching me. For humouring me. For sometimes annoying me.

Book of Condolences.

Photo Illustration by Rjmiz:

10.3.08 The Story Breaks

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:02:00 GMT

Photographer James Nachtwey, one of the world's greatest journalists, has a story to tell and it will be revealed on October 3rd. Over the past two years he has been documenting the story as part of winning the TED prize in 2007. “I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”

The story breaks on October 3. Nachtwey wished for help in breaking a news story in a way that demonstrates the power of news photography in the digital age. Bloggers are requested to help spread the word. Note the clickable badge above.

I normally do quite well ignoring this type of viral targeting, but in a moment of weakness I watched his presentation to TED and I was blown away by his body of photographic work, so much so that I am eager to learn what he has to share with the world in 3 days.

About the TED prize:

The TED Prize was created as a way of taking the inspiration, ideas and resources that are generated at TED and using them to make a difference. Although the winners receive a prize of $100,000 each, that's the least of what they get. The real prize is that they are granted a WISH. A wish to change the world.

For more details on the 2008 winners -- including blog entries and updates on their wishes -- visit TEDprize.org.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader, with one mission: Spreading ideas.

Digital Workflow: Patrick Lavoie, Photo Retoucher

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:13:00 GMT

Ah, the dreaded digital workflow that drives me insane.

Here's an interesting stat for you: digital photographers spend only 10% of their time taking photographs. The rest of our time is split between meeting with clients, marketing, bookwork, lab pickups... and most of our precious time goes into that dreaded digital workflow.

Sometimes at the end of a project when all the layers are blended together I will sit back and feel really satisfied. Most of the time, it's a chore.

Microstock photographers are not be dealing with the same day-to-day responsibilities, but they have the task of cloning out logos, erasing pimples, keywording, uploading and "disambiguating" (another one of those words that Istock contributors will relate to.)

Ever wonder about the workflow behind those polished photos in fashion magazines?

Here is a quick link to an interesting post on photo.net: My Life as a Professional Photo Retoucher and Digi-Tech by Patrick Lavoie.

Wow, That Sold?

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:42:00 GMT

This prairie wakeboarding girl actually sold last night. The buyer used the keyword "ski" to find this forgotten (rarely downloaded) shot from last summer.

I like the photo; parallel lines pull attention to a pretty surfer girl in the middle of the prairie with no water in sight.

But of what use is a photo like this to a microstock buyer? There is certainly no concept here other than "out of place" perhaps. Youth? Adventure? Maybe all she needs is a suitcase by her side to signify the beginning of a journey.

Looking back, this shot would have been a better fit with Alamay or the now-defunct PhotoShelter than with the micros. It's just a little too "artsy" (if you can call it that) to be useful to designers.

Selling in the micros is all about volume. You don't want your photos to sell a few times, you want them to sell hundreds of times. You need strong themes that are relevant to today, isolated shots that are easy to drop into a layout, or photos with uncluttered backgrounds and plenty of copy space.

Selling in the micros is also a little bit about luck. If your photo arrives at a time when it is favoured by the search engine gods and gets immediate sales it should have a pretty good life. If it sticks on page 10 of new searches instead of page 1 it may simply die.

My prairie surfer girl has enjoyed views, but few sales. She really has little to sell. Although many other shots taken during this session have been fairly successful, she has become one of those photos that sells a few times a year and makes up a portion of my Long Tail earnings.

I haven't crunched my own numbers, but I appear to be "normal" (insert laughter here); about 20% of my portfolio earns about 80% of my income. But what about those photos that rarely ever sell? As a body of work grows to a larger mass, these infrequent sales can become quite significant. A company like Amazon, for example, sells millions of niche books just a few times each year.

The collective group of small earners can become pretty significant to your sales each months, and we can't exclude the small agencies who at the bottom of your prioritized submission list. Fotolia, Bigstock, 123rf and StockXpert don't bring me a lot of money each month, and many times I wonder why I bother, but at the end of the year they do add up to almost 20% of my microstock earnings.

As important as my Long Tail is at the end of the month, I'll save future shots like the one above one for Alamay where it still won't sell very often, but when it does it will be for a higher value. I want all my microstock photos to sell hundreds of times, not just a few.

What are "Subs", anyway?

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:20:00 GMT

Yesterday Sean asked, You've mentioned 'subs' a lot -- what do you mean by that?

I mean Subscriptions.

Ugh, I said it... it's one of those ugly little words that microstock photographers loath....

...but why?

The only one who benefits from subscriptions are the agencies. Certainly, not photographers. Buyers also benefit, although subscription plans are based on a 7 day week and seriously, how many designers do you think go into the office on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays to download their quota? Agencies depend on the fact that daily quotas will not be filled; and they pay very little to the artist.

The following table is a snapshot of the basic subs packages out there right now. Please take a look at the tiny dollar amounts in the column down the right. That is the amount that the agencies are paying photographers and illustrators right now for each download.

Shutterstock	1 month	$249	25 downloads per day	Pays .25-.36 per image sold
Dreamstime	30 days	$99	10 downloads per day	Pays .35 per image sold
Fotolia	1 month	$249	25 downloads per day	Pays .31 per image sold
StockXpert	1 month	$219.95	25 downloads per day	Pays .30 per image sold
123rf	1 month	$209	26 downloads per day	Pays .36 per image sold
Istock	3 months	$909	10 credits per day.	Calculation based on credits and % of daily limit used.

Doesn't that make you want to weep?

Subscription packages sound pretty generous to a purchaser at first glance, but they allow a restricted number of photo downloads per day and unused downloads do not roll over to the next day. Agencies rely on the fact that buyers will abandon a high percentage of their daily limits.

Agencies claim that subscription purchasers are an entirely new client and that their regular client base is not purchasing subs plans.  Buyers of subs packages are normally heavy users; design firms and corporations with ongoing projects.   (Many of us speculate that they are not new buyers, just buyers lured away from Shutterstock.)

Subs buyers are not mom'n'pops, part-timers, or freelancers. This type of buyer benefits the most when purchasing a bulk credits packages (that often never expire).

Shutterstock is the granddaddy of subs content. Until recently, they have sold subs, lots of subs and only subs*.   Even with the poor commissions paid to the artist, this site is the #1 or #2 earner for most. It is not unusual for photographers to sell 20, 100, or 200 photos in a day.

StockXpert faced a contributor revolt when they first introduced their subs program, and they compromised by making artist participation optional. They have since joined up with photos.com and jiunlimited.com and offer StockXpert content through the subscription channel of these affiliates.

Fotolia recently had to compromise with contributors to allow only large or smaller files for subscription download, a slightly higher commission than originally offered and to permit every fourth sub sale to count toward contributor status.

Dreamstime does not allow artists to opt-out of their program, however; each subs sale counts to raise the level of individual photo prices.

My sales are so insignificant at 123rf that mandatory participation in the subs program is hardly relevant.

Istock's subs package is based entirely on credits and is generally approved of by the artists.

I can't say that I know of any photographers who are satisfied with subscription plans in their current form.

Yuri Arcurs, one of the world's leading microstock photographers, has coined the phrase "picture pooling":

This phenomenon is normally used as a criticism against subscription agencies. It describes the fact that buyers that have a subscription will download more pictures then they use and will sometimes download pictures for future purposes. The result is pools of pictures that the designer can use instead of buying new pictures. Picture pooling is a real threat and it is confirmed by multiple users that if you opt out of subscription selling at Stockxpert for example you will actually earn more almost immediately, despite not getting any income from subscription sales. This can however be caused by more factors then just the result of picture pooling.

Another real threat is that buyers with less than honest intentions can download hundreds of photos for very little cost, place them on cd and mass distribute. Even though this is a wild contradiction of rights, it is a crime that is difficult to prosecute, especially in many countries where copyright abuse is wildly rampant.

Disappointed with the strong arm tactics that boldly change the terms of the agreements between us, many contributers feel pushed to abandon the micros and to send new content to mid and macro agencies.

Microstock is still a young, evolving industry. Hopefully next year at this time, after the main sites have had 12-24 months to evaluate the effect that subscriptions have had the prices will begin to inch higher.   I do not agree with the subscription models as they now stand and especially hate the fact that they are offered at the expense of the artist.   Subs are a real threat to the future value and marketability of our work.

*Note: Shutterstock also frequently sells enhanced licenses paying $25 to photographers. They also tried to sell single photos through an external site, which failed. Recently they have added a 5 images for $49 program directly on the Shutterstock site.

Goodbye Photoshelter Collection

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The death of yet another stock agency.

Today Photoshelter announced that they are calling it quits as a stock agency, and will go back to focussing on their original product, The Personal Archive.

From their blog: (Also see: The Official Statement)

A Difficult Decision and Refocus

We have typically used the blog to inspire and congratulate. Today is atypical.

When we started to envision The PhotoShelter Collection in early 2007, we went out and conducted research to understand the needs of photo buyers. We consistently heard from a myriad of sources that they were disappointed with stock photography because it lacked diversity and realness. We talked to a number of photographers that wanted to get into the stock photography game, but didn't know where to start. They were good photographers, but not full-time stock photographers, and therefore they were largely ineligible to play with the traditional agencies.

We believed that we could create a more democratic system - a marketplace for stock photography where virtually any one could participate. And a few months later, The PhotoShelter Collection was born. Upload your images, keyword & price, attach the appropriate releases, and voila! You were now a stock photographer.

Despite the naysayers, the photography was actually quite good. A number of stock executives and consultants corroborated this fact, and we felt good about being able to provide imagery that had largely been unseen and unlicensed before. The pricing was fair, and photographers received the majority of the sale.

We knew that sales would be challenging, but we honestly underestimated the complexity of sales. Licensing photography isn't like selling a widget on eBay. It's intellectual property fraught with clearance issues. Here are a few key learnings:

1.   Stock photography is a slow growing market dominated by a single player
There was a single moment for a company to capitalize in stock photography, and Getty took it. The use of stock imagery isn't growing fast enough to create a displacement opportunity, and Getty is far too aggressive (and smart) to allow secondary players to displace them in any fashion.

2.   Research Requests move too quickly for individuals to react in a timely fashion
We believed that using the crowd to fulfill research requests would give us an enormous advantage over the competition, but the nature of the industry is such that many research requests are due within a day, making it nearly impossible for non-fulltime stock photographers to react. Research requests are therefore relegated to what they've always been - namely the locating of existing images within an extant library that are ready for immediate licensing.

3.   Buyers desire more diversity, but convenience (aka subscription deals) triumphs this desire
The largest consumers of stock photography are often locked into subscription deals, which makes it very difficult for them to consider alternate sources. Subscription deals are very bad for photographers, but great for business.

4.   A crowd-source model for stock will likely never work
Licensing a photo is not a simple proposition. It is not like selling a widget. There are huge intellectual property issues, technical issues, and meta data issues that are difficult for even full-time pros to grasp. Companies that represent collections of stock photography have to build entire divisions of staff to deal with rights clearances and lawsuit that arise from improper clearance.

Despite these odds, we did make incredible in-roads to agencies and publications alike. But when we viewed our growth over the past few months, we became all too aware that our trajectory wasn't putting us on the right path. And despite repeated attempts to alter our trajectory, we were unable to substantially change it. Even though we are in the midst of our best month ever of sales, we believe that the growth trend isn't step enough to sustain the stock photography business in the long term.

So we are exiting the stock photography marketplace, and getting back to our roots with the Personal Archive, which still gives individual photographers the tools to market and license their images themselves. That business is doing quite nicely, and we look forward to continuing to support photographers and photography.

The pundits will surely say "I told you so." And maybe we will end up being just a tiny footnote in the history of photography, but on the other hand, we were also the largest aggregation of photographers participating in stock photography ever (And no, I do not count those places where a photo sell for $1. I remain defiantly stubborn on the microstock front as ever). We never assumed that this would be easy. Quite to the contrary. And yet, it was a goal worth fighting for. Tonight, I'm going to bed knowing that we tried something that had never been tried - a way to provide photographers with something they hadn't had in a long time: a fair deal and respect.

Update on Zymmetrical

rainchild@shaw.ca (Lorraine Swanson) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

It's time to post an update about Zymmetrical who I first wrote about in March. I am especially motivated by 3 sales last month at this mid-priced agency that have earned me a commission of $49.70. (Only my top 3 sites earned more than that last month).

Keith Tuomi sent me a nice note to let me know that each inspector hand picked a favourite submission for the homepage, and Keith picked this shot of a typical Canadian grain farmer.

I must note at this point that one of my 3 sales was for the shot on the screen capture below. Did I receive a sale because a buyer liked it, or did Zym pay everyone who has a photo on their front page? I expect the latter, but in March I didn't receive payment for a front page photo (perhaps they've changed this policy).

(more after image)

Some quick updates since my last post.

They are still in beta and are very responsive to suggestions to help grow their site.
Yes, they're new, but no, they aren't desperate. Zymmetrical is not trying to artificially plump up their collection by approving everything you've got. Be selective with your submissions; you will get rejections.
Put "Buy Stock Photos" in any search engine and Zymmetrical will appear on the first page.
I was wrong about referrals in my last post. You only receive a commission for new purchasers, not new photographers. You can still use my referral link though, I just love to be popular. but...
Zymmetrical pays 70% commission. WOW.
Like Shutterstock, you are not privy to details about views or sales. I would find these numbers useful to help determine future price updates.
Flash uploader is FAST, but...
I'm finding the submissions area a pain in the butt when I try to edit out of order. You apply descriptions and are taken back to the top of the page.
You don't have to apply categories. If you can't find an appropriate category, leave it blank and they may create a new one.
If you are confused about setting your own prices, leave that field blank. Zymmetrical will apply a price.
Photographers hate describing photos, and Zymmetrical has omitted descriptions: but I truly think the lack of a descriptive field will hurt them as a midstock supplier. Sites with higher pricing, like Alamay or the macros, normally require a very detailed description. At Zymmetrical my Hard Kerneled Red Spring Wheat is just another wheat photo. If my Durum Wheat was to appear in ad for bread, any farmer who saw it would say right away that "That's Durum and (insert something about the amount of protein here) so you can't make bread with it."
Keith mentioned that they will accept editorial content in the future.

Yes, there seems to be room for a midstock agency in this market. Out of all the new microstock sites that have appeared recently, it seems that Zymmetrical is getting a lot of things right. Hopefully they don't deploy recent tactics of the microstock agencies by introducing subs or forging bad partnerships.