2025 Goals

1. Staying POSITIVE
2. Find a Niche
3. Concentrate on images that have a high commercial value
4. Be nice to others

Video, video, video

try to do at least two real with camera shootings a month including video

even more video�.

meet up with people for shootings

look for new niches

do more editorial

VGA....

2025 i will take a break. Stop shooting and rebuilt my home studio.
This will take a few months. Doing more sports at summer. Maybe shooting stock images again at autumn.

 

2025 Goals

1. Staying POSITIVE
2. Find a Niche
3. Concentrate on images that have a high commercial value
4. Be nice to others

Nice goals.

My goals are similar:
1. Maintain a positive attitude, even if it's difficult nowdays
2. Stay focused and motivated
3. Find my area of expertise and improve further my skills
4. Make more ���

2025 Goals

Focus on 3D simulations and animations�push myself to create better, more marketable work.
Do more film photography and video shoots�at least one real-world project a month.
Explore niches with high potential and stick to what works commercially.
Keep learning and stay inspired.
Here�s to a creative and successful year for all of us. Let�s make it happen! 🎥✨

Happy to share with you all my year-end report/review with goals for 2025.

https://brutallyhonestmicrostock.com/2025/01/01/2024-year-end-review-good-bad-and-ugly/

You rock!

@Alex

That is a really excellent write up.

I would also love to follow your poker journey, if you start tracking and reporting it.

I would like to add that all those disappointed with losses at SS and p5, I would lay blame with the management that seem to have neglected their core business in favor of a hype driven ai adventure.

At some point they will have to get back into it, or their share price will keep dropping and somebody else might buy them. Or shortsellers destroy them.

(SS and P5)

At some point they will have to get back into it, or their share price will keep dropping and somebody else might buy them. Or shortsellers destroy them.

Would you go out in the ocean, to buy a sinking ship? SS has other businesses, has profits from shares, that made Jon a millionaire. They reduced our pay to below the minimum, and that's why we get the 10�, not less. SS is not going to make a change or come-back. They own Pond5 and we all saw the new reduced pay rates there. That's how SS makes more money. By paying us less. And people still upload millions of new images a year.

Just remember nothing at a lower level still equals nothing lol!

100% of nothing is still nothing.  I'll take my 15% of something.

I'm still going to try to stay positive, find more for subjects that have less coverage, have fun, and keep working at other things, because the best I can say for myself is, this is Microstock is only a hobby.



There's also the real side and Pond5 cut commissions, plus SS "Man meets Reset" 

Happy new year!

Some motivation for you:


The stone is not the destination or the goal, but the path itself is the stone. Every step, every effort, every challenge we take every day is the stone that drives us forward. It is the opportunity that we have every day to grow, to learn and to improve ourselves. Keep going and know that you are not alone.

one of my favorite essays,'the myth of Sisyphus'  --

"This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither  sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.�

Camus

Prioritize quality, quality, quality, and diversity. 

Continue my caffeine-free journey, remain calm, and minimize stress. 

Stay fit by exercising regularly. 

Enjoy the journey.

The problem is that ai income is a hype trend and the ss  ai tool is low quality.

They can sell the library for dataset training for how long? Another two years?

Their library is being poisoned with ai content, so how long before clients prefer to license from Adobe or istock?

Anything they try to do Adobe can do better.

 And now quality exclusive content is moving to adobe. And with the content will be more client contracts.

They still have a good editorial library and only compete with getty on that.

But ss is already being attacked by shortsellers because when you analyse their public data, things don�t look good.

Their share price has been dropping for quite a while now.

We will see what happens, but they have lost the brilliance that made them great.

They spend 600? mio dollars buying up agencies and still have less revenue than before.

This is extremely unusual.

I do want them to survive and do well. It is not good for us if the market is more concentrated.

The situation at Shutterstock feels like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

I'm glad you see it too!

some of you suggest I also upload to other agencies,but the truth is that it's no longer worth it.

some still manage to earn on SS perhaps even more than before because they have been contributors for decades,someone still manages to do it and I can only say that I'm happy if they succeed.

I started on SS in 2018 and peaked in 2021 then when in 2022 I earned less than 2021 I started abandoning SS,and I earned even less in 2023 and even less in 2024.

the truth is that the only serious agency is Adobe,and maybe some exclusive agency like Stocksy perhaps?

Istock is like SS if not worse,it's just a matter of selling off your time and work for pennies,with no guarantees of growth.

at least with Adobe if you work consistently,there is a guaranteed increase over time.

my situation is different,because time is the only thing I can't afford,I need to see "faster" growth,but if I were at least 10 years younger,I wouldn't have any problems.

the only agency left is Adobe,everything else is falling apart!