Archive for the ‘Photo’ Category
Friday, April 1st, 2011
Total earning went down 13% comparing to record breaking last month so I would say it is not bad at all. Usual leader SS also got less than in February but it is much better than at the beginning of this year. Most surprising are results from DT and FT. FT got 62% better results and DT 16% better. If I look back, last month, DT was 109% better than in previous month and FT was 50% better. It looks like both are growing. 123RF on the other hand is slowly declining. For a first time in many months it is not on a second place. When I look at further positions there is very little going on. IS is declining because of lower number of subscriptions sold on ThinkStock. I still do not have many hopes about SXP and CSP with few sales per entire month. Conclusion is similar to the one I got month ago, stick to top agencies.
| March 2011 |
March |
Mar/Feb |
RPD |
| SS |
59.56% |
83.61% |
0.58 |
| DT |
10.27% |
116.55% |
0.63 |
| FT |
8.69% |
162.28% |
0.56 |
| 123RF |
8.37% |
83.43% |
0.60 |
| IS |
4.53% |
48.73% |
0.94 |
| SXP |
2.86% |
33.70% |
0.25 |
| CSP |
2.31% |
403.23% |
1.25 |
| BS |
1.29% |
140.00% |
1.17 |
| Veer |
1.29% |
|
3.50 |
| YM |
0.74% |
|
1.00 |
| CS |
0.09% |
125.00% |
0.25 |
|
|
87.12% |
|
2011 March Microstock
Tags: breakdown, Dreamstime, earnings, Fotolia, images, iStockphoto, microstock, photography, results, selling, shutterstock
Posted in Internet, News, Photo, Stock | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
A little surprise at the end of month was selling one of my oldest photos on Shutterstock. In 2005 I spent a week in New Mexico and one of the places I visited was Carlsbad Caverns. It is a biggest cave I have ever seen.
Carlsbad Caverns
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park located in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico.The primary attraction of the park for most visitors is the show cave, Carlsbad Caverns. Visitors to the cave can hike in on their own via the natural entrance, or take the elevator (the exit for everyone) directly to the Underground Lunchroom some 750 feet (230 m) below.
Tags: camera, extended, license, microstock, nature, Photo, photography, pictures, selling, shutterstock, Stock, stock photography, stock photos
Posted in Internet, News, Photo, Shutterstock, Stock | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
My total earning from all agencies went up 53%, that great when you do not compare how each agency performed. Also comparing to January which was pretty bad start of the year means that it is only coming back to normal levels. SS as usual was number one with second best month ever. DT and FT rebound from very low results I have been observing for last couple months. 123RF is still slightly below average which is enough to score second place. IS is again showing its aspirations to claim fifth spot which was grabbed by SXP combined results from last 3 months showing as earned in February. Mentioned partner program on IS and SXP seems to be a total disaster. Not only they are always behind the schedule but also numbers are not looking too good. Accounting error again? Maybe they simple cannot provide volume of subscriptions comparable to SS. I opted out on IS and I will watch it only on SXP (no other option is possible). RPD is slightly up but again not as good as in couple last months of last year. What about others? I got nothing to say here. Everything below top 6 is just statistical error. I am uploading only to agencies that produce some result every month.
| February 2011 |
February |
Feb/Jan |
RPD |
| SS |
64.87% |
182.58% |
0.80 |
| 123RF |
9.13% |
74.43% |
0.66 |
| DT |
8.02% |
209.85% |
0.70 |
| SXP |
7.73% |
|
0.25 |
| FT |
4.88% |
150.57% |
0.60 |
| IS |
3.94% |
73.66% |
1.17 |
| BS |
0.84% |
500.00% |
0.63 |
| CSP |
0.52% |
67.39% |
0.52 |
| CS |
0.07% |
7.69% |
0.20 |
|
|
153.54% |
0.66 |
Microstock 2011 FEB
Tags: breakdown, Dreamstime, earnings, Fotolia, images, iStockphoto, microstock, photography, results, selling, shutterstock
Posted in 123RF, Dreamstime, Fotolia, Internet, iStockphoto, News, Photo, Shutterstock, Stock | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
This time it is a picture of my daughter playing on the beach. I wonder who/where it going to be used.
Playing on the beach
Tags: camera, extended, license, maya, microstock, Photo, photography, pictures, selling, shutterstock, Stock, stock photography, stock photos
Posted in Internet, News, Photo, Shutterstock, Stock | No Comments »
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
This time usual stuff, landscape shot taken at Bodega Head. Three days of February and two extended licenses already. I wish I got got one every second day 
Bodega Head
Tags: buy photos, buy pictures, camera, coast, extended, graphic design, high resolution images, illustration, image library, landscape, license, microstock, nature, pacific, Photo, photo bank, photo library, photography, pictures, royalty free images, royalty-free, selling, shutterstock, Stock, stock agency, stock images, stock photo, stock photography, stock photos, subscription, vector art, web design
Posted in Internet, News, Photo, Shutterstock, Stock | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
It looks like this year’s start was quite slow. All top 5 agencies results, besides 123RF, were below expectations. My total earning went down 25% from December. Unfortunately IS partner program result are always late so I might be missing half of earnings there. It’s interesting that IS got usually one of the highest RPD when only earning reported are from main site when I add lots of 25 cents subscriptions from ThinkStock RPD drops to one of the lowest. SXP failed to post results from November, I guess I have report them in February. We got huge mess here. I can only hope Veer would generate more to cover losses I got at SXP. I do not have many expectations for any other sites. Results are at most random to see any potential.
2011 JAN Microstock
| January 2011 |
January |
Jan/Dec |
RPD |
| SS |
55.15% |
83.26% |
0.46 |
| 123RF |
19.05% |
148.27% |
0.81 |
| IS |
8.30% |
65.72% |
1.33 |
| DT |
5.93% |
50.99% |
0.60 |
| FT |
5.03% |
101.26% |
0.74 |
| Veer |
2.37% |
433.33% |
1.52 |
| CS |
1.36% |
1040.00% |
1.30 |
| CUT |
1.35% |
|
1.29 |
| CSP |
1.20% |
5.45% |
0.58 |
| BS |
0.26% |
25.00% |
0.50 |
|
|
74.97% |
|
Tags: breakdown, Dreamstime, earnings, Fotolia, images, iStockphoto, microstock, photography, results, selling, shutterstock
Posted in Internet, News, Photo, Stock | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
Never in almost 3 years of doing microstock I got extended license sold on first day of the month. Also I am happy that for a first time it a photo of cake I made, strawberry tiramisu.
Strawberry Tiramisu
I think I am going to post translation of this recipe I got from knedlik.blox.pl.
Ingredients: 400 ml of sweetened condensed milk (I added about 200 ml), 500 g of mascarpone, 3 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1 large package of lady fingers biscuits, 3 / 4 kg of strawberries, juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons sugar, fruit vodka or plum brandy.
Wash strawberries, cut into quarters, add sugar and lemon juice, let stand for half an hour (at the time should come off strawberry juice). Mascarpone (taken out straight from the fridge) put into a bowl, add vanilla extract, whipped and fluffy. Gradually add condensed milk. Biscuits placed in a spring form pan, soak them in plenty of vodka. Put half the strawberries (with sauce), so half of the curd. Repeat these steps. Garnish with strawberries, or leave the cheese smooth. Put into the fridge for 8-10 hours.
I used apricot brandy instead of fruit vodka.
Tags: buy photos, buy pictures, camera, extended, graphic design, high resolution images, illustration, image library, license, microstock, Photo, photo bank, photo library, photography, pictures, recipe, royalty free images, royalty-free, selling, shutterstock, Stock, stock agency, stock images, stock photo, stock photography, stock photos, strawberry, subscription, tiramisu, vector art, web design
Posted in Diet, Health, Internet, News, Photo, Shutterstock, Stock | No Comments »
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Today Fotolia accepted my 2000th image. Fotolia had more than 800,000 members who had uploaded more than 4.2 million images so I am still small fry in a big sea
Overall rank 8900
7 days rank 10250
Maya's Christmas
Tags: bank, bfotolia, image, imagebank, photographs, photography, photolia, photos, portfolio, royalty-free, sell, Stock
Posted in Fotolia, Photo, Stock | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
I have been submitting to microstock agencies for 32 months and still I am feeling like very serious hobbyist. Starting with my collection of landscape and travel shots I learned that it’s not most profitable niche in microstock. Your images got buried in a pile million images from all over the world. Still my two best earners are representing this category:
NYC
Mission San Francisco de Asis
Later I realized that microstock best images are actually model released photographs. I was not ready to throw money and hiring models so I decided to shoot me and my family.
Father having fun with his daughter on the beach.
Mother is feeding little girl
When you have infant at home your travel options are limited but still I was able to get some sales from the stuff I did before.
Lake Tahoe
Then your child start walking which again opens possibilities for exploring outdoors together.
Assisted walking
You cannot go very far so your are happy that old stuff still sells.
Hang gliding
You start visiting places like museums and aquariums.
Chrysaora fuscescens
It seems like my other subjects never got much traction. Still I am mostly selling my old collection of nature and travel shots.
Lake Shasta Caverns
Racetrack Playa
Bodie, California
Bixby Bridge
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
Big Sur
Inca Trail
Tags: breakdown, Dreamstime, earnings, Fotolia, images, iStockphoto, microstock, photography, results, selling, shutterstock
Posted in iStockphoto, Photo, Shutterstock, Stock | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
Portfolio size.
It is getting harder to get images accepted in every agency nowadays. All my top 5 agencies rejected much more images than before. Only Fotolia seems to have higher than average acceptance rate. I am sending exactly same images to all sites and images are randomly accepted or rejected. Most of these agencies sit on millions of images so I expected they will keep rejecting more images to save on storage costs.
|
2010 |
2009 |
|
|
| Shutterstock |
3555 |
2668 |
887 |
33.25% |
| 123RoyaltyFree |
6105 |
5297 |
808 |
15.25% |
| IStockPhoto |
297 |
213 |
84 |
39.44% |
| Dreamstime |
2250 |
1906 |
344 |
18.05% |
| Fotolia |
1919 |
990 |
929 |
93.84% |
| StockXpert |
2211 |
2201 |
10 |
0.45% |
| YAYMicro |
4993 |
4970 |
23 |
0.46% |
| BigStockPhoto |
1064 |
610 |
454 |
74.43% |
| CanStockPhoto |
2638 |
2015 |
623 |
30.92% |
| Veer |
982 |
522 |
460 |
88.12% |
| Crestock |
502 |
467 |
35 |
7.49% |
| Cutcaster |
1399 |
1399 |
0 |
0.00% |
| FeaturePics |
4629 |
4629 |
0 |
0.00% |
| MostPhotos |
2868 |
2868 |
0 |
0.00% |
Earnings.
Overall, I earned 43% more than in previous year. Not every agency contributed to this result. Shutterstock continues to earn over 50% of my royalties. 123RF is balancing around 15% as it was before. I lost around 10% of income since Getty purchased StockXpert. Images transferred to ThinkStock earn only 2% in comparison to 12% before this change. Also Dreamstime went down from %14 to 8%. On a bright side Fotolia keeps generating errand 5% and IS gives additional 8%. Few smaller sites that did not give any results in 2009 start generating sales which are usually very weak but combined give around 9%. I am not feeling well about depending mostly on income from two agencies. Dreamstime high rejection rates and lower sales make me think that they might next one that is going to sink. I am hoping that somehow Fotolia, CanStockPhoto and Veer would continue to build up momentum. Another question is IStockPhoto. Obviously they start generating me some income but at the same time they drastically lowered contributors royalties so next year might be not as good as it looks now.
Downloads.
The only agency that provides me with some sort of volume is Shutterstock. Others from top 5 are roughly 2/3 of it combined. Volume is one thing but more interesting factor is how much agency pays for each image sold. For me RPD is usually below $1. Ironically agencies which give better RPD do not generate enough sales. I started suspecting that RPD is inversely proportional to sales
|
Sales |
|
RPD |
| SS |
2820 |
56.18% |
$0.60 |
| 123RF |
563 |
11.22% |
$0.96 |
| IS |
419 |
8.35% |
$0.67 |
| DT |
325 |
6.47% |
$0.78 |
| FT |
258 |
5.14% |
$0.64 |
| SXP |
212 |
4.22% |
$0.25 |
| YM |
205 |
4.08% |
$0.75 |
| Veer |
109 |
2.17% |
$0.73 |
| CSP |
47 |
0.94% |
$1.15 |
| BS |
30 |
0.60% |
$0.80 |
| CS |
25 |
0.50% |
$0.35 |
| FP |
5 |
0.10% |
$0.15 |
| CUT |
2 |
0.04% |
$2.28 |
| MSP |
0 |
0.00% |
$0.00 |
Goals for 2011.
- Keep trying to improve results on Shutterstock
- Make serious effort to increase portfolio size on IStockPhoto
- Continue to upload to Veer
- Continue to grow on Fotolia
- Test if it is worth uploading to Dreamstime with growing rejections and declining sales
- Verify if there is a sense uploading to 123RF. Right now portfolio is huge but sales are stagnant.
- Keep trying more with video.
Tags: breakdown, Dreamstime, earnings, Fotolia, images, iStockphoto, microstock, photography, results, selling, shutterstock
Posted in Photo, Stock | 3 Comments »
