Well, this has been my hunch for a long time now. One of the biggest micro buyers in Scandinavia have reached the end of line with micros. Friday, last week I posted some shots to their Art-buyer/ Art-director,  known him for many years. His immediate question was, are these micro-shots? because we have stopped buying from micro agencis, no more.
Bad thing this, they buy micro shots for clients and by the thousands! Im sure. Whats the reason? well, everything is about quantity rather then quality, too time consuming finding the right shots and bad client-relations, etc,  "so we rather spend the extra for RF, even RM, if need be, you have a dialogue with the agency and get exactly what you want".

So for all these ppl, who are under the belief that agencies should accept everything thrown at them. Do yourself a favour. Think AGAIN! to some extent this is many contributors fault, putting preasure, etc on agencies to accept into their files any old rubbish and completely irrelevant material.
This might just be the tip of the iceberg, just the beginning and more to follow.

best

As long as micro has the lower prices in photography industry the microstock agencies will flourish ( from the costumer point of view ). Yes there is many crappy photos still accepted on all micro sites but i think this will be changed very soon.

From the contributor point of view to maintain a certain earnings level has become harder and harder.... two reasons:

- The agencies collections are huge, and our pictures are harder to be found among many millions of photos.
- The competition has become increasingly more between contributors.


Yuri said in his interview :... at 800 pics online i had manage to earn around $100/ day.  loooool try to earn today $100/day with 800 pics online )

Hear hear, especially about the rubbish, I've been saying it all along. But untalented photographers will of course be against it. It' so stupid and makes no sense whatsoever, it's like you'd say lets make a rubbish car and sell it for the price of a good car (for instance let's price a Corvette like a Ferrari;)

I have never found it that difficulty to find what images an agency has that could possibly fit the bill. The problem comes when the images aren't there at all. In my experience if your not after a shiny business man with a sh*t eating grin micro may not be the best place to look.

too time consuming finding the right shots and bad client-relations, etc,  "so we rather spend the extra for RF, even RM, if need be, you have a dialogue with the agency and get exactly what you want".

I know just about everyone will correct me if I'm wrong (LOL), but I seem to remember, some years back, someone was jumping up and down in MSG about the morality of selling the same shots at higher prices through Alamy.  IIRC, it was revealed then that Alamy provides a professional search and find service to their buyers, and that the service was the (perfectly reasonable) differentiating factor in the price, not the product.

It seems to me that this is what this buyer wants, no?

i.e.  although I agree that contributors ought to be more discerning in submissions, the real issue here appears to be a missing tier in the micro agencies service provision.

Well, this has been my hunch for a long time now. One of the biggest micro buyers in Scandinavia have reached the end of line with micros. Friday, last week I posted some shots to their Art-buyer/ Art-director,  known him for many years. His immediate question was, are these micro-shots? because we have stopped buying from micro agencis, no more.

I don't understand this.
You sent some shots to a buyer and hs asked 'are they micro shots'?
Does that mean:
You were sending them to him with a link to one of your micro portfolios, thereby doing the work but giving away a percentage of your income while you did all the work?
or
You sent him the pics, intending to invoice him yourself, and he refused to buy them because you had them on micros, heedless of their quality, because he can't be bothered wandering through the wealth of choice offered by the micros although you had saved him the bother of doing that?

In any case, if he goes to an agency which uses picture researchers, they'll pay directly or indirectly for that service and that's very good. Micros can't do that, it comes with the pricing territory. 'Twere ever thus. From a contributor's pov, you need to trust that the picture researcher is good at their job and there aren't backhanded payments or backroom agreements enabling some images to be included in the search put in front of the customer. You'll never know if your images have been left out, though perfectly suitable.

There are plenty of markets Micros don't want to penetrate. Horses for courses.

I'm happy if a buyer goes to an agency which (often) charges more and pays us a higher percentage.

Quote from: Lagereek on July 23, 2012, 01:32

Well, this has been my hunch for a long time now. One of the biggest micro buyers in Scandinavia have reached the end of line with micros. Friday, last week I posted some shots to their Art-buyer/ Art-director,  known him for many years. His immediate question was, are these micro-shots? because we have stopped buying from micro agencis, no more.

I don't understand this.
You sent some shots to a buyer and hs asked 'are they micro shots'?
Does that mean:
You were sending them to him with a link to one of your micro portfolios, thereby doing the work but giving away a percentage of your income while you did all the work?
or
You sent him the pics, intending to invoice him yourself, and he refused to buy them because you had them on micros, heedless of their quality, because he can't be bothered wandering through the wealth of choice offered by the micros although you had saved him the bother of doing that?

In any case, if he goes to an agency which uses picture researchers, they'll pay directly or indirectly for that service and that's very good. Micros can't do that, it comes with the pricing territory. 'Twere ever thus. From a contributor's pov, you need to trust that the picture researcher is good at their job and there aren't backhanded payments or backroom agreements enabling some images to be included in the search put in front of the customer. You'll never know if your images have been left out, though perfectly suitable.

There are plenty of markets Micros don't want to penetrate. Horses for courses.

I'm happy if a buyer goes to an agency which (often) charges more and pays us a higher percentage.

Blimey Sue, what an outlay!   No, I certainly did not send him some micro shots and no it wasnt a commissioned shoot. This is a 12 year old client so you can imagine we talk a lot when we meet.

I would have thought Micro wants to explore every avenue and markets, or else whats the point.

Why do you call this a "fear"? To me, this is great news! If all buyers would migrate to "macrostock" agencies, that would make the whole stock photo business 10 to 100 times (I cannot estimate this more specific) bigger!

Indeed, we'd be finally selling at a fair price. We'll most of the junk would be dropped, I'd say 80% if not more (95% of the pre 2008 stuff and at least 2/3 of what is ULed nowadays), so those of us that would be able to get at least a third of our ports on macros, would become filthy rich, even if the volume would only be 10-20% of what it is now (at 100x the price, we'd earn approximately 150% more with only a third of our port online)

I would have thought Micro wants to explore every avenue and markets, or else whats the point.

'Explore every avenue and market' doesn't mean 'decide to target and supply every avenue and market'.
Some textbook publishers don't use micros because they can't be sure that the pictures are unaltered (that may have changed with the introduction of editorial) yet iStock have sometimes rejected photos submitted as editorial, suggesting that some changes be made (clonings out) so that an image can be submitted to the main collection, even though the image is really an editorial image - losing 'serious editorial' buyers, but unlikely to gain any 'commercial' buyers.
That's a choice they have made.

Quote from: Perry on July 23, 2012, 06:00

Why do you call this a "fear"? To me, this is great news! If all buyers would migrate to "macrostock" agencies, that would make the whole stock photo business 10 to 100 times (I cannot estimate this more specific) bigger!

Oh me too, me too!  at this moment only SS and DT are worthwhile and thats simply not enough.

I thought you were doing great on the macros.
Surely you above us all should be rejoicing at this news.

Quote from: Lagereek on July 23, 2012, 06:45

This is a 12 year old client

Crikey.

Don't do that while I'm eating, please. 

Quote from: Lagereek on July 23, 2012, 06:46

Quote from: Perry on July 23, 2012, 06:00

Why do you call this a "fear"? To me, this is great news! If all buyers would migrate to "macrostock" agencies, that would make the whole stock photo business 10 to 100 times (I cannot estimate this more specific) bigger!

Oh me too, me too!  at this moment only SS and DT are worthwhile and thats simply not enough.

I thought you were doing great on the macros.
Surely you above us all should be rejoicing at this news.

Oh I am, I am! although Macro, is too small for me, I prefer RM my friend, thats where the real lolly is.