Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

Pete Bax · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 1238 Location: Brighton England

Variety Is the Spice of life and that was one of the best sales features of SS.
Perhaps our photos lacked a bit in quality when compaired with the rest but
we had nothing on here that couldn't be fixed by a designer.
Now we are getting pictures of a higher quality than most other agencies and to do so we have thrown out the baby(variety) with the dishwater.
I believe that variety on usable images is better than quality and I think the
designers agree with me. This new policy means that designers will be forced to go to other sites to get the variety they are seeking.
I think that since the change none of my photos would have got on that I got on originally, some of which are on the all time best sellers.
I wrote this not to be confrontational but to give an honest oppion of something that as just happened. If you see someone walking over the end of a cliff I think it is time to get confrontational.

StanMcKenzie · Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 42 Location: Canada

Pete,

Mobile camera phones have very small and cruddy sensors and optics. I really think they are more of a gimic than a viable tool to be used by a photographer. I guess it depends on your definition of photographer though. I don't see a camera phone ever being developed to be good enough to even post to sites like this. I may be wrong but I think camera phones are silly and will never be of any real use to anybody; they are nothing more that a cheesy selling point to convince people to run out and buy new cell phones. Just my humble opinion.

fncdigital · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:47 am

fncdigital · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 3:48 am

Pete Bax · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 1238 Location: Brighton England

The theme of this thread is variety and how if will effect our sales. Personnally I think mobile cameras are in their infancy and that they will one day replace cameras, but that I hope is a long way off. However to return to the subject I think setting standards for photographs that exclude variety is a mistake. This will lead to loss of sales and in time another agency will start up
to offer the variety that all the stock agencies are failing to offer at the moment. This other agency may indeed be led by one of the mobile phone giants.
SS did have standards before we decided to reject variety to go for quality and they worked well. I would like to point out to Dywane that you may have shot yourself in the foot because by rejecting variety and insisting on professional quality you are driving away the very customers you need to be a success. Just give it some thought, this world is changeing and if you don't change with it you are left behind, its no good holding onto professional standards the computer has changed everything; Nasa's computer is a better
photographer than you will ever be and it knows nothing.

LuvThatVert:) · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:10 am

It is up to us the photographers to post variety.
If SS sticks to viriety only, that means they will get low quality images.
It will include straight from the camera or a bad PS job.
With variety that means I will need to be able to include unusual but still legal keywords in order to not be at the end of a large search result.

With quality we can grow more slowly the immage database into a variety of quality pictures. Quality will force me to outdo the others and SS will stay in bussiness.

In conclusion if SS wanted say one million pics it would not matter what method they used, variety or quality. Both will reach the same goal just one faster than the other, one does not exclude the other.
I suspect SS is not interested at the moment in growing the number of immages at any faster rate.

Keep it manageable, many businesses gone bankrupt have done so for growing too fast.

mikeledray · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:56 am

Pete
sorry but I dissagre with you
I keep loading (and being accecpted) a large variety of various diffrent types of shots and styles
I dont think ss is limiting the variety they may be limiting the quality from medioker (?) to a better quality of shot than before.
I dont blame them infact.
Gosh when I go through my old files and see what I had (and still have on other older stock sites I cringe and wince and think to my self "Did I Take That Photo with a Camera Phone?")
Pete you need to think quality and toss the Camera Phone and use it to Talk instead of take photos.
Hey what do I know, I only have Excellent Sales and Fantastic Images and sell pictures every day.
Mike
Hey if your ever in So California and want some pointers (and you dont use a Camera Phone) I may be avaliable For a Price
:)
Check out My section of ShutterStock
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery.mhtml?id=426

dkgilbey · Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Posts: 724 Location: Hampshire - UK

There is only one place to look for an excellent example of variety on ShutterStock and that is in my portfolio - hell even I think I have a split personality...

If, however, by variety you mean a variety of quality in images, then Shutterstock doesn't (IMO) have that, most of images I've browsed are fantastic (even some in your portfolio Pete :-p). Then again, I'm no art critic or uber photographer.

I would like to know about all these 'significant' changes that have been made here though - they all seem to happen without me noticing or anything changing...

EDIT: I've just consulted myself & thankfully I don't have a split personality...

StuartE · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:29 am

Pete, I know you can see way more doom and gloom here than I can, I just really find it hard to see it myself - I keep uploading images, I'm not getting more rejections - I keep getting downloads, from all over my gallery, from the first shots to my most recent - I had a top 50 image for two, maybe three days this week, and it wasn't with a 'new' image - it was in the latest 1/3 of my gallery, but not within the last week or two... I've had good days (32 downloads), quiet days (8 downloads, even one 1 download day) and lots of inbetween - but my average is higher and I'm over the downloads I had in February already, even considering the week with 125 downloads in Feb... The 3c raise means I'll get paid even more for the sales this month, and I've been able to add plenty of 'editorial' images... how exactly am I supposed to see ShutterStock walking off a cliff??

Cheers,
Stuart

fncdigital · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:59 am

Shutterstock isnt denying variety, you can have variety, and uphold a standard.

Now, I have started a critique thread so we may all see the variety we are turning down.

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11675#11675

Enjoy.

D

Pete Bax · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 1238 Location: Brighton England

To be specific about my problem Stewart. When I first came to SS I got 80% accepted now I get 30% accepted. I have to ask myself why have I suddenly become such a poor photographer. One rejection recently was for a shape image that was rejected for being out of focus. As a result of this new policy my sales are down and I think it will also effect SS but they claim to have doubled sales this month.
The question is was the old system so bad? I have not had a single unique creative idea accepted since the change and most of these are created in vectors and some of these are rejected for noise.
All my best sellers are creative photographs but now I have been forced to give these up. The main reason, I think, I have for rejection is photography spite, but that is just my opinion, and the cause of this spite is, " I am a professional and so I will demand professional standards regardless of what these artistic people like myself do." It will be interesting to see just how this new attitude effects sales if I am right time will tell..... I think they are shooting themselves in the feet and I am hoping to convince people to go back to how it was.

shutterstock · Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1883 Location: New York, NY

Standards will be increasing...

It's competition. It happens everywhere.

Jon

dkgilbey · Joined: 08 Jan 2005 Posts: 724 Location: Hampshire - UK

To quote one of the more sensible posts I've made...

fncdigital · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 11:53 am

southpaw · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:18 pm

If you really think shutterstock is treating you badly, or they are rejecting your photos because of spite. Why on earth do you stay here?
If you cant accept that shutterstocks standards have changed and it has made it harder for you, then all the complaining in the world isnt going to change thier minds. Especially when everyone else doesnt see a problem...?