Hey all,
I posted this question on istock a while ago, and I thought I'd ask the stock shooters here. If you put your camera down for a month, and you concentrated on only submitting photos to your stock sites from what you have on your hard drive that you haven't edited / keyworded / uploaded yet, how many pictures (in your best guess) would you be able to submit? In other words, how many decent, stock-worthy shots have you already taken, but haven't submitted? I'm reasonably sure I have over 200 (and my stock portfolio only has about 260 in it now).
So 'fess up! How far behind are you on your editing and keywording?
I don't know anything about stock websites, but I can tell you that I've been thinking about submitting to some local galleries for consideration. I'm having trouble coming up with 20 or so images that I'm both happy with and would look good in a collection together.
Wow, I don't feel so bad now! Funny thing is, I got the same response on istock. Even the big dog diamond-level shooters have gigabytes worth of shots on their computers that need some attention to get into the istock portfolio. Of course, everybody knows that shooting is a LOT more fun than editing and adding keywords, so I guess it's not too big of a surprise.
I have about 400 images in a folder waiting for editing and keywording. I try to do 100 at a time, but I'm really behind right now. I despise keywording, its so monotonous.
I'm both happy with and would look good in a collection together.
Sort of off on a tangent, but how often to you go shoot on a particular common theme ? Do you work on long term or short term projects at all ?
That seems to be a good way to start pulling together consistent bodies of work. Otherwise you'll maybe have lot of great one-hit wonders, but nothing cohesive.
Now back to the regularly scheduled stock discussion...
I'm both happy with and would look good in a collection together.
Sort of off on a tangent, but how often to you go shoot on a particular common theme ? Do you work on long term or short term projects at all ?
That seems to be a good way to start pulling together consistent bodies of work. Otherwise you'll maybe have lot of great one-hit wonders, but nothing cohesive.
Now back to the regularly scheduled stock discussion...
I don't really care what PD rates my images as long as they're 7 or higher. With the volume of images they have to rate, I doubt they spend much time on each one. Kinda like some DPC voters that people complain about.
I have a year and half I need to go thru and pick out the gems. But I decided to stick with This year to keep up to date and when time allows or I run out of pics to edit...(ya right) I would work thru some of the older ones. (or when a specific request calls for it I will rummage thru them.) Problem is, the first 6-8 months I only shot JPG and not the highest quality setting either. I may have a few salvagables in there but I doubt very many. I have got to back up everything off my hd and get them to an offsite location. That is taking me a LOT of valuable time. I also need to get Alamy library up to par with my PD library. (procrastinating on that one)
jeeze, so much to do, so little time!
Okay, since this conversation has taken a slight turn, let me ask you all how is PD working out for you? Are you making decent money there on a regular basis? Do they take photographers that also submit to microstock? Thanks!
Okay, since this conversation has taken a slight turn, let me ask you all how is PD working out for you? Are you making decent money there on a regular basis? Do they take photographers that also submit to microstock? Thanks!
No, they don't. They are very ... ahem ... 'outspoken' about the evil that is microstock.
Okay, since this conversation has taken a slight turn, let me ask you all how is PD working out for you? Are you making decent money there on a regular basis? Do they take photographers that also submit to microstock? Thanks!
I haven't been with them long enough to answer the 1st two questions, but as to the third, no, they will not take anyone selling images via microstock.
I've pretty much quit submitting to microstock... just waiting for payout amounts (particularly on the slower sites - 123RF) and then I'm getting out of micro... going with PD and getting stuff ready for Alamy.
I've pretty much quit submitting to microstock... just waiting for payout amounts (particularly on the slower sites - 123RF) and then I'm getting out of micro... going with PD and getting stuff ready for Alamy.
What? No more rubber ducky on Shutterstock??
BTW, I quite 123rf completely. I requested that my portfolio be deleted. I only had 40 images up there to start, but I made a whopping $6 since last August. No thanks...
