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04/29/2004 03:22:03 PM · #1
I got a nice email from //www.dreamstime.com/ stating they had seen my portfolio and would like for me to join their young startup stock photography site. After looking it over, seems the photographer gets 50% from the sale of the images. The images are sold at a real low cost, so I'm wondering if it's worth my time to pursue. Has anyone here had any dealings with this company, or other stock photography sites that work under the same type of payment plan? And if so, how was your experience with them?

Thanks!
04/29/2004 03:25:06 PM · #2
You and your cam should be careful about exclusivity signing up to do stock. You're good enough to join a much better stock group if that's what you want to do. I think Corbis offers a much better deal.

M
04/29/2004 03:28:03 PM · #3
At a $1 per image to start, this is akin to giving your work away for free. You can do better elsewhere.
04/29/2004 03:44:23 PM · #4
they don't require exclusivity nor do they charge a fee for listing your images. seems to me to be a good way to get your feet wet with the stock photo business. you can deactivate your images with them any time you feel like it's not worth it.

looks like it would be fun to do.
04/29/2004 04:26:58 PM · #5
Hello everybody,

We've been notified by this thread and I can give you some directions about the site. I am new to Dpchallenge and am not sure about the site's policy, I hope this will not be seen as advertising.

Regarding our site: we do not require exclusivity, you can upload your images somewhere else too. You are the only owner of the copyright and hold entire responsibility about the shots, we are just providing you with the support for selling the shots to a RF-oriented community of designers.

The prices: minimum file size is 2MP , that is quite low in the DTP world. The quality is also at the beginning, although we are careful on accepting quality-based pictures. We just launched the site so the prices may seem low. When the community will be powerful the prices can be increased. We are getting a percentage form the sales so it is our own interest to provide higher rates. But you have to be sure that you'll still be selling in order to raise the fees. Even so now there are 3 levels: $1, $3 and $5.

The income will not be amazing in the beginning, but will allow talented photographers and people that are passionate about photography to increase their skills and improve their equipment.
04/29/2004 05:01:42 PM · #6
Hi, thanks for jumping in. I have another question, are these images for the client to use in print, or just online? Seems that if it goes into a major marketing campaign, then $.50 just doesn't seem enough to compensate for their huge marketing budget and our time involved in taking the shot and uploading it.

Thanks,
-danny

Originally posted by dreamstime:

Hello everybody,

We've been notified by this thread and I can give you some directions about the site. I am new to Dpchallenge and am not sure about the site's policy, I hope this will not be seen as advertising.

Regarding our site: we do not require exclusivity, you can upload your images somewhere else too. You are the only owner of the copyright and hold entire responsibility about the shots, we are just providing you with the support for selling the shots to a RF-oriented community of designers.

The prices: minimum file size is 2MP , that is quite low in the DTP world. The quality is also at the beginning, although we are careful on accepting quality-based pictures. We just launched the site so the prices may seem low. When the community will be powerful the prices can be increased. We are getting a percentage form the sales so it is our own interest to provide higher rates. But you have to be sure that you'll still be selling in order to raise the fees. Even so now there are 3 levels: $1, $3 and $5.

The income will not be amazing in the beginning, but will allow talented photographers and people that are passionate about photography to increase their skills and improve their equipment.

04/29/2004 05:04:36 PM · #7
I don't mean to be the pessimist, but those sale prices are rediculous. I can understand the desire to 'establish' this site as a viable business, but giving images away to do it is not in anyone's best interest.
04/29/2004 05:30:55 PM · #8
I upload a few images to istockphoto.com, where you only earn $.10 - .30 per image, and I manage to get a check for $100 every few months. It's a good place for my less popular images (maybe 50 or so of them) and supplements my "real" stock income nicely. This looks like the same sort of thing.

istockphoto makes tons of money because people download images like crazy due to the low prices. Of course, the quality is a lot lower than on a regular stock site, so the buyers need to be willing to wade through a *lot* of images for the chance there might be one that they can use.
04/30/2004 01:59:38 AM · #9
Originally posted by crabappl3:

Hi, thanks for jumping in. I have another question, are these images for the client to use in print, or just online? Seems that if it goes into a major marketing campaign, then $.50 just doesn't seem enough to compensate for their huge marketing budget and our time involved in taking the shot and uploading it.

They are free to use for anyone we cannot control it. However we will be careful in the future about the sector it addresses to.
Some restrictions apply to printing a huge number of copies, but other than this we cannot put any limitations. You can read more about this here: //www.dreamstime.com/buy

Regarding the sale prices, indeed some of the files we have on the site deserve much more. Unfortunately, we do not make the rules in this industry. As I said we're equal partners on this, we do receive less than 50% per each sale. A few admins are having portfolios and you will see no difference between users' type we like to be equals in this. If the sales will be high and the members will request a raise, than the fees will be increased. So far we just started and the main aim is to build the database (photogs portfolios) in order to attract customers and to have them return.

Jodie, you're right the concept is similar to istock, though the percentage we give to the photographer is much higher.
04/30/2004 02:20:15 AM · #10
When someone publishes a picture purchased from your site do they have to credit the photographer?
04/30/2004 03:51:33 AM · #11
It would be nice to do that, but no they are not obligated to credit the photographer. They have paid for a Royalty-free license.
04/30/2004 03:57:22 AM · #12
Originally posted by dreamstime:

It would be nice to do that, but no they are not obligated to credit the photographer. They have paid for a Royalty-free license.

Can they in turn sell the picture again?
04/30/2004 04:13:48 AM · #13
Originally posted by dreamstime:


They are free to use for anyone we cannot control it. However we will be careful in the future about the sector it addresses to.
Some restrictions apply to printing a huge number of copies, but other than this we cannot put any limitations.

YIKES! I hope everyone values their pictures a little bit more than this. Especially if you get no credit, it does YOUR name no good, and who they can look for if they like YOUR work.
04/30/2004 05:50:56 AM · #14
Originally posted by peecee:

Originally posted by dreamstime:

It would be nice to do that, but no they are not obligated to credit the photographer. They have paid for a Royalty-free license.

Can they in turn sell the picture again?


No, they can't sell the picutre, they just can use it.

Regarding the other question, Dacrazyrn, as I told you it would be nice and some of them are indeed notifying the photographer.
But this is the regular concept of Royalty-free as it was created. Rights managed is even more restrictive to the photographer. Do you know a place where the buyer has to give credit after he bought the image?
04/30/2004 09:06:03 AM · #15
Your images sell for a buck a peice (which is essentially giving them away), you don't get credit, you have to sell 100 before the price jumps all the way up to $3. I looked at about a dozen pictures, they each say how many times they have been downloaded (sold) but none of the ones I saw had any sales at all. Seems like this outfit is trying to do a business start up without investing any capital. The initial investment is our pictures which we put on the site with only vague promises of meager returns.
04/30/2004 09:57:50 AM · #16
When you sell ANY photo for use as 'stock', you don't get credit for it. This is normal. Go pick up a magazine, look at the ads, and see how many photographer credits you see. You probably won't see any.

Where you run into trouble with something like this is when you do find a buyer who wants to pay a reasonable amount of money for your photo. If it has previously been published by multiple companies in advertising, your chances of ever selling it for a good price is practically zero. The companies who pay premium dollars for photos to use in their ads don't want to have a photo that has already been used elsewhere.

Selling your work as stock also devalues any 'fine art' worth it may have in the future.
04/30/2004 10:08:52 AM · #17
Originally posted by jmsetzler:


Where you run into trouble with something like this is when you do find a buyer who wants to pay a reasonable amount of money for your photo. If it has previously been published by multiple companies in advertising, your chances of ever selling it for a good price is practically zero. The companies who pay premium dollars for photos to use in their ads don't want to have a photo that has already been used elsewhere.

Selling your work as stock also devalues any 'fine art' worth it may have in the future.


Minalex we're not forcing anyone about this, it's your choice to do it or not, we're just providing you a tool, not buying your portfolio. As for the investment believe me that the site requires a lot of human and hardware resources and a lot of investment has also been made.

The RF concept doesn't devalue fine art, it sells on a quantity basis while RM sells on a quality basis. You should decide which shots you upload and which ones remains in your portfolio.

Message edited by author 2004-04-30 10:11:51.
04/30/2004 10:26:06 AM · #18
I was not meaning for this thread to start bashing how stock agencies collect or perform their businesses, I just wanted a better understanding of how it works. I don't feel that at this time it's the right thing for me, but from my understanding some people make a nice living by doing stock photography.

@dreamstime, thanks for the invite!
-danny
04/30/2004 10:40:09 AM · #19
I'm not bashing the concept. There are a lot of photographers out there who make a living selling stock images. I'm just not sure how many of those are making a living by selling them for these prices.
04/30/2004 10:52:27 AM · #20
I uploaded 30 pictures there last night as a test to see how they do... It seems to be a very well-run site and they're sticklers for quality.

As a note, I make my living with stock photography, and dabble in a bit of art photography as well. It's interesting to me to see how different approaches work out, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. :)
04/30/2004 10:52:36 AM · #21
I am guessing that there are some images which will never sell at "fine art" prices (including many of mine), which might possibly sell at "clip art" prices. The "value" of something is what someone's willing to pay.

Such a stock site might also make it possible for people with more modest equipment to produce a saleable photo, due to the smaller size needed as compared to large-format prints.

I have no idea how to prevent the undercutting of fine art prices with low-cost RF art -- it seems it's hard to offer both within the same venue -- as we are finding out with DPC Prints as well. I want to support fine artists, but one of the defining features of that is its exclusivity, and I'm also into letting more of us break into the paid ranks as well.
04/30/2004 10:55:16 AM · #22
Originally posted by jodiecoston:

I uploaded 30 pictures there last night as a test to see how they do... It seems to be a very well-run site and they're sticklers for quality.

As a note, I make my living with stock photography, and dabble in a bit of art photography as well. It's interesting to me to see how different approaches work out, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. :)

So if you don't mind giving aid and comfort to the enemy, what types of photos do you recommend submitting? And I take it with a non-exclusive agreement, you can list the same image with more than one agency?
04/30/2004 11:02:30 AM · #23
I have always known that stock photography isn't a way for a photographer to promote his/her art, but to make money. There are companies that pay more, but they are more picky too.

I have a friend that shoots stock, never gets credit, just gets a check. If you want to get credit, you need to try another path. I think many photographers sell to stock just to support their photo habit! :) I haven't done it yet, but may join my friend in her endeavor to support her photo habit!!! :)
04/30/2004 11:15:40 AM · #24
Originally posted by GeneralE:


So if you don't mind giving aid and comfort to the enemy, what types of photos do you recommend submitting? And I take it with a non-exclusive agreement, you can list the same image with more than one agency?


Heck, there are no enemies in this business. There's a market out there for everyone. :) Yeah, it's all non-exclusive. I don't ever list my images anywhere that requires an exclusive contract - maybe someday, but I'm not there yet. I find that having my pictures spread out as diversely as possible works well for me. That way if sales are down one month at one place, I might make up for it somewhere else.

As far as what kind of images, I guess it depends on what you do best. I love taking landscape shots, but there are waaaaaaaay better landscape photographers out there than me, so the sales would probably not be worth my time investment to upload a ton of that kind of images.

I do really well with business concept photos - dollar signs, maybe a pair of glasses or a pen laying on an old map with moody lighting, credit cards, a cup of coffee next to the business section of a newspaper, etc.

Go with what you're best at. If you want to see what's really marketable, go to a site like gettyimages.com, click on their "catalogs" page, and look at what they're promoting in their catalogs. That's where they put the images that they figure are most marketable, and since they're the experts, that's what I tend to study when I need some ideas. ***Just a note in case anyone reads that wrong, I'm obviously not recommending plagerizing anyone's work, I'm just suggesting a good reference point for image concepts and seeing what the overall market is like. :)
04/30/2004 11:35:51 AM · #25
Awww... Geez. I shoulda mentioned PEOPLE, too. :) People are huge sellers.
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