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Author Topic: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!  (Read 49942 times)

TOlson

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #40 on: July 21, 2011, 04:16:26 pm »

Hmm, where did I say that "no-one can make a living at micro-stock"? I know of one or two photographers who claim to do just that. The point is every time there's a discusion such as this the same one or two examples are quoted time and again. Where are all the others?

Again, you want figures, there are 39,000+ members in this particular photographic community, many of whom are represented on the micro-stock sites. Point me towards those here who are "earning their living at micro-stock".

Sorry I didn't realize I was supposed to use my real name.  I guess I should have read the instructions better.

You had said
There are 39,740 registered members on Luminous Landscape including those making a living in a variety of genre such as fashion, architecture, wedding, sport, photo journalism, fine art, product, social, editorial...

It would be a stretch to believe that a single one of these members is "making a living at micro-stock"


I took the last sentence to mean that you didn't think anyone was earning a living at micro.  I wrongfully expanded your supposition about 39,000+ photographers to include all photographers.

Regardless, I can hardly believe I am the first photographer to sign up on this forum who does earn the majority of their income from microstock.
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TOlson

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #41 on: July 21, 2011, 05:43:15 pm »


BTW, TOlson, I believe you are misguided, but whatever, welcome.

misguided?
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Rob C

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #42 on: July 22, 2011, 03:59:39 am »

You object to the Factory family naming their child Porridge?  ;D



No, I don't suppose he does, but it would be different if your name was Richard and your parents Mr & Mrs Head. Then you'd object.

Rob C

amsp

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #43 on: July 23, 2011, 11:29:19 am »

Ugh, I just did a test-search and it found my image on hundreds of blogs: Naturally not even one of the many sites I looked at credited me as the photographer. Fortunately I found no commercial uses, but I'm almost scared of searching on any of my other images.



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luceluceluce

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #44 on: July 24, 2011, 12:13:08 am »

Those who believe that photographers and photography are better served by the royalty free business model rather than the rights managed business model are misguided

Those who believe that photographers and photography are better served by the micro-stock business model rather than the rights managed business model are misguided.

Those who believe that there are anything like thousands earning their living from micro-stock are misguided.

Take your pick.


Misguided and loving it. Having a great time on microstock. Gives me enough money to live on, and more importantly, gives me the freedom to be whereever I want.  Such a criminal industry... must be stopped! : D

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Graham Mitchell

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #45 on: July 24, 2011, 07:10:34 am »

Misguided and loving it. Having a great time on microstock. Gives me enough money to live on, and more importantly, gives me the freedom to be whereever I want.  Such a criminal industry... must be stopped! : D



So convincing given that this is your first post on LL. Are you sure you don't work for iStock? 
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feppe

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #46 on: July 24, 2011, 03:20:33 pm »

From face to face conversations with istock contributors, often a blank look comes over their face when discussing the 'true' costs involved in supplying images - camera equipment costs, maintenance and repairs, computer equipment, insurance, travel and subsistence costs, time spent transferring images from the camera to the computer, RAW processing, specific captions and important key-wording and finally time taken to upload images. Having travelled the world and run a library full time since 1993 all of these cost have to be taken into account - when I run my car for business use the full running costs include depreciation, not just the petrol.

The reason for the blank stare is that they're not pros, so those concerns are trivial to them. They would incur most of those costs anyway on their travels and upgrading their hobby equipment. Getting paid (a pittance) for stock is just a way for them to recoop some of the cost of their hobby.

I believe the only way for pros to survive is to not compete with hobbyists. This means leaving stock, for some it means leaving photography altogether.

tom b

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #47 on: July 24, 2011, 08:17:08 pm »

I had a search to see who is making money from istockphoto and Lise Gagné's name came up. With over 1100 000 downloads she must be doing something right.

In another search which I can't find again they did a survey of people doing microstock and the majority were making under $4000 a year.

Cheers,
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Tom Brown

tom b

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Re: Reverse image search engines - your new best friend!
« Reply #48 on: July 24, 2011, 08:46:07 pm »

I found the Link about the survey. A quote from it:

"Nearly 60 percent of the 865 microstock photographers participating in the survey reported earning less than $1,000 per year."

I found this quote more disturbing though:

"Second, she is exclusive to iStock; she earns 40 percent of individual image sales, double that of nonexclusive photographers."

I thought galleries were greedy but this takes the cake.

Cheers,

PS The article links to a good blog: here Microstock Diaries
« Last Edit: July 24, 2011, 08:51:26 pm by tom b »
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Tom Brown
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