Microstock Calendar

Veer have launched an aggressive campaign to boost their microstock portfolio ahead of a major site redesign. Titled ‘Veer Dash for Cash’, the heavily promoted program pays generous cash bonuses for approved files, ranging from $0.35 to $1.40 per image. The more images you get uploaded and accepted during the promotion, the higher your cash bonus per image.  The program started on May 5th and runs until June 30.  Details of the program including the requirements and limits are on the Dash for Cash page at Veer.

The offer coincidentally arrives hot on the heels of a similar campaign from new microstock agency, Polylooks, in partnership with Zoonar. Zoonar are paying €0.15 per file. Files are submitted to Zoonar, then through activation of a partnership opt-in they become available for sale on Polylooks too. They need to be accepted on Polylooks to receive the bonus payment at Zoonar.

The Same But Different

Fotolia pioneered the pay-for-accepted-files technique back in 2005. They paid between 20 – 50 cents per accepted photo depending on the total quantity. Comparatively, the Zoonar-Polylooks offer is lower but the Veer offer is significantly more generous.

Dreamstime also pays exclusive contributors 20c per accepted image. This is a permanent incentive and pays retroactively when contributors convert to exclusivity – the only program with these attributes.

Why it’s Needed

The top microstock agencies have a lot of stock and add to it at a rapid rate.  Newer agencies who are still building their buyer base don’t have the same selling power to attract contributors and build their portfolio. Most serious microstockers assess each new agency based on expected return on investment, with that investment being the time to upload and submit. Utilities such as iSyndica and the picNiche Toolbars help lower the cost, but for portfolios with a lot of releases to attach it can still be quite high.

Offsetting that cost with a cash bonus is an easy and fast way to overcome contributor resistance. Even for less serious microstockers, simply getting a cash bonus is proving to be a sufficient incentive.

Have you seen Microstock Charts yet?

On the heels of announcing a partnership that saw Fotolia as the first microstock to integrate an image add-in into Microsoft Office, attention is turning to another innovative product: Flixtime. A free site providing user-friendly web software to anyone who needs to create custom HD videos, www.flixtime.com has been upgraded to include:
• Image highlighting
• Video presentation speed control
• Unlimited copies
• Keeping or striping sound from uploaded video clips
• Sharing capabilities
• Text integration onto photo stills
• Voiceover capabilities by users wanting to personalize their videos

“Today, people are communicating visually. Flixtime offers a straightforward, free service that allows users to creatively share their stories in the digital world,” says Flixtime CEO Oleg Tscheltzoff. In fact, within the first month of being on the web, more than 20,000 members joined www.flixtime.com and created over 100,000 free videos.

Users create a free account on www.flixtime.com to upload their own photos and videos, or they can choose from a library of royalty-free images provided by Fotolia. AudioMicro also provides users with a selection of award-winning tracks, sound effects, and stock music.

The CEPIC New Media Conference in Dublin, Ireland is fast approaching. Lots of people have told me they’re planning to be there. Enough to justify making a list. Including the speakers, here’s who, from the world of microstock, will be there:

On the speaking roster:

Opening Keynote: Yuri Arcurs

Yuri Arcurs’s name is synonymous with microstock. He’s held the title as the world’s top selling microstock photographer since 2007 and has since branched out into other entrepreneurial endeavors within the industry.

Yuri will open the event with a keynote presentation discussing the convergence, or not, of microstock and traditional stock.

Making Millions with Microstock, One Euro at a Time

This session will cover microstock from many angles with a top agency CEO, a traditional stock photographer with microstock experience, a top microstock seller operating as a business, a successful solo microstocker with the industry leading forum, and an industry observer moderating.

Serban Enache	Jonathan Ross	Andres Rodriguez	Tyler Olson	Lee Torrens

Stock Video – Where the action is!

Everyone wants to know what’s going on with video. How much more lucrative is it than stills? How fierce is the competition? Are sales growing or declining? What does a stock photographer need to know to achieve success with video? We’ve put together this session with the CEO of one of the top video specialist agencies, a senior director of a video-enabled microstock agency, a top selling microstock videographer and an equally successful photographer-turned-videographer. If you ever wanted insights into stock video, this session is the place to get it.

Andy Goetze	Dittmar Frohmann	Tom Bennett	Simon Krzic	Pavel Losevsky

What’s next? How will the stock media business evolve?

Nicknamed “THE FUTURE”, this session is all about the difference between the stock photo market of today and that of tomorrow. We’ve lined up the head of the most innovative microstock agency, an entrepreneur with experience creating successful stock collections in both tradition and microstock, an industry association president and traditional stock shooter himself, one of the most respected strategical thinkers on stock photo industry and technology, and heading it up the industry’s best connected consultant and new author.

Ellen Boughn	Shannon Fagan	Kelly Thompson	Cathy Yulet	Taylor Davidson

Using new media tools to get business, not just more friends, followers and fans

While everyone is spending lots of time and money on social media, not everyone is using it to increase their bottom line. This session, run by two stock photo industry veterans, concentrates on demonstrating how companies and individuals are using new media tools for real and measurable success and how those methods can be applied in the stock photo industry.

Marco Oonk	Beate Chelette

IPTC Photo Metadata

The standards that make it possible for us microstockers to enter our metadata just once, directly into the photo, come from these people! They’re going to discuss current issues with metadata standards and how to keep ownership information intact within images in online use. This session is presented by the IPTC Managing Director, legal counsel to PACA & adviser to PLUS, and an IP and licensing legal specialist.

Michael Steidl	Nancy Wolff	Dr Christian Donle

Attending

Also attending the event, greatly enhancing the networking opportunities, are many well known microstock industry people and service providers:

• Robert Davies of picNiche and the recently and exciting picNiche Image Deck beta
• David Mail of ProStockMaster and the recently launched image management service Pixamba
• Peter Hamza, founder of StockXpert and shortly a fresh new microstock agency
• Mark Milstein of Northfoto and microstock reviewing service Microstock Solutions
• Daryl Lang, staff writer for Shutterstock & BigStock and former PDN editor
• Amos Struck of StockPhotoPress, FotosVerkaufen and GuteWolke
• Roberto Marinello of MyStockPhoto.org, prolific Italian microstock blogger
• Olivier Yiptong of CaptureShot, a new search venture with very interesting plans
• Richard Thomas – aka RTimages, pro microstock photographer
• Mark Butler, manager of the Monkey Business Images distribution business
• Ted VanCleave, CEO of ImageRights.com image monitoring service
• Vitezslav Valka, CEO of the innovative and rising microstock agency Pixmac
• George Doyle, former StockByte executive and current iStockphoto exclusive contributor
• Hugo Angelmar of iSyndica, the rapidly expanding microstock distribution utility
• Matthias Reichel of pixolution.de who have some very cool image sorting technology
• Olivier Lantzendörffer, aka Opla, rising microstock photographer
• Sarah Hipwell, avid local Dublin microstock photographer
• Jean-Marie Guyon of CandyBox Photography, high production microstock contributor
• Mikhail Lavrenov, aka MikLav, microstock photographer and blogger
• Tony Rowland of Imense, providing automated keywording services and much more
• Offir Gultezon, CEO of PicScout, creator of the new Image Index, Registry and Connection
• Robert Walters, CEO of dynamic German midstock/microstock agency PantherMedia
• Holger Mette, the traveling microstocker

These are just the people who’ve let me know they’re coming. If you’re coming too, let us know in the comments.

Access to the Conference is included in the Congress, so you can expect most of the Congress visitors will also be present at the New Media Conference. If you’ve registered for the Congress you’ll have access to the participant lists to see who else will be there.

If you haven’t booked your ticket yet, booking is now open online via the CEPIC website here. I hope to see you there!

Microstock Group – a meeting place for microstock photographers

The CEPIC New Media Conference in Dublin, Ireland is fast approaching. Lots of people have told me they’re planning to be there. Enough to justify making a list. Including the speakers, here’s who, from the world of microstock, will be there:

On the speaking roster:

Opening Keynote: Yuri Arcurs

Yuri Arcurs’s name is synonymous with microstock. He’s held the title as the world’s top selling microstock photographer since 2007 and has since branched out into other entrepreneurial endeavors within the industry.

Yuri will open the event with a keynote presentation discussing the convergence, or not, of microstock and traditional stock.

Making Millions with Microstock, One Euro at a Time

This session will cover microstock from many angles with a top agency CEO, a traditional stock photographer with microstock experience, a top microstock seller operating as a business, a successful solo microstocker with the industry leading forum, and an industry observer moderating.

Serban Enache	Jonathan Ross	Andres Rodriguez	Tyler Olson	Lee Torrens

Stock Video – Where the action is!

Everyone wants to know what’s going on with video. How much more lucrative is it than stills? How fierce is the competition? Are sales growing or declining? What does a stock photographer need to know to achieve success with video? We’ve put together this session with the CEO of one of the top video specialist agencies, a senior director of a video-enabled microstock agency, a top selling microstock videographer and an equally successful photographer-turned-videographer. If you ever wanted insights into stock video, this session is the place to get it.

Andy Goetze	Dittmar Frohmann	Tom Bennett	Simon Krzic	Pavel Losevsky

What’s next? How will the stock media business evolve?

Nicknamed “THE FUTURE”, this session is all about the difference between the stock photo market of today and that of tomorrow. We’ve lined up the head of the most innovative microstock agency, an entrepreneur with experience creating successful stock collections in both tradition and microstock, an industry association president and traditional stock shooter himself, one of the most respected strategical thinkers on stock photo industry and technology, and heading it up the industry’s best connected consultant and new author.

Ellen Boughn	Shannon Fagan	Kelly Thompson	Cathy Yulet	Taylor Davidson

Using new media tools to get business, not just more friends, followers and fans

While everyone is spending lots of time and money on social media, not everyone is using it to increase their bottom line. This session, run by two stock photo industry veterans, concentrates on demonstrating how companies and individuals are using new media tools for real and measurable success and how those methods can be applied in the stock photo industry.

Marco Oonk	Beate Chelette

IPTC Photo Metadata

The standards that make it possible for us microstockers to enter our metadata just once, directly into the photo, come from these people! They’re going to discuss current issues with metadata standards and how to keep ownership information intact within images in online use. This session is presented by the IPTC Managing Director, legal counsel to PACA & adviser to PLUS, and an IP and licensing legal specialist.

Michael Steidl	Nancy Wolff	Dr Christian Donle

Attending

Also attending the event, greatly enhancing the networking opportunities, are many well known microstock industry people and service providers:

• Robert Davies of picNiche and the recently and exciting picNiche Image Deck beta
• David Mail of ProStockMaster and the recently launched image management service Pixamba
• Peter Hamza, founder of StockXpert and shortly a fresh new microstock agency
• Mark Milstein of Northfoto and microstock reviewing service Microstock Solutions
• Daryl Lang, staff writer for Shutterstock & BigStock and former PDN editor
• Amos Struck of StockPhotoPress, FotosVerkaufen and GuteWolke
• Roberto Marinello of MyStockPhoto.org, prolific Italian microstock blogger
• Olivier Yiptong of CaptureShot, a new search venture with very interesting plans
• Richard Thomas – aka RTimages, pro microstock photographer
• Mark Butler, manager of the Monkey Business Images distribution business
• Ted VanCleave, CEO of ImageRights.com image monitoring service
• Vitezslav Valka, CEO of the innovative and rising microstock agency Pixmac
• George Doyle, former StockByte executive and current iStockphoto exclusive contributor
• Hugo Angelmar of iSyndica, the rapidly expanding microstock distribution utility
• Matthias Reichel of pixolution.de who have some very cool image sorting technology
• Olivier Lantzendörffer, aka Opla, rising microstock photographer
• Sarah Hipwell, avid local Dublin microstock photographer
• Jean-Marie Guyon of CandyBox Photography, high production microstock contributor
• Mikhail Lavrenov, aka MikLav, microstock photographer and blogger
• Tony Rowland of Imense, providing automated keywording services and much more
• Offir Gultezon, CEO of PicScout, creator of the new Image Index, Registry and Connection
• Robert Walters, CEO of dynamic German midstock/microstock agency PantherMedia
• Holger Mette, the traveling microstocker
• Daniel Laflor, a bloke bitten by the stock bug

These are just the people who’ve let me know they’re coming. If you’re coming too, let us know in the comments.

Access to the Conference is included in the Congress, so you can expect most of the Congress visitors will also be present at the New Media Conference. If you’ve registered for the Congress you’ll have access to the participant lists to see who else will be there.

If you haven’t booked your ticket yet, booking is now open online via the CEPIC website here. I hope to see you there!

Microstock Group – a meeting place for microstock photographers

If you happen find yourself in Sydney, Australia on May 27th, you should check out an interesting new show that features 3D portraits created with two Nikon D90 cameras.

Entitled "Stereo Portrait Project," the show is the work of visual artists Alex Fry and Jamie Nimmo who mounted two D90s closely together on a custom wooden camera rig to emulate the distance of a pair of human eyes.

They shot the portraits using three synced SB900 Speedlight flashes and then sorted the pairs of photos in Apple Aperture.

The shots were exported to Nuke, a compositing software, where final edits were performed before they were combined into Anagylphic 3D images. (Yes, that means you have to wear those funky two-color glasses to get the 3D effect when viewing these portraits.)

Along with the show, which will run at the Oh Really Gallery in Sydney until June 8th, the artists have produced 25 books of the 3D portraits on Blurb.

More details on Nikon Rumors.

Ever wonder what's it's like to be a real pro photographer? Well, now you don't have to shell out all that money on expensive camera gear and studio space.

Just get the new Photo Shootout App for your iPhone or iPad and you'll quickly learn how much fun it is to shoot gorgeous models in exotic locales and then sell your pix for big bucks to magazines.

Just like the pros do. ;-)

The app goes on sale May 27th for $2.99. "Beauty, bikinis, fortune and fame" awaits you!

May 20th, 2010

The Dominion Post of Morgantown, West Virginia altered a front page news photograph on May 15 to remove three public officials from the image, West Virginia Public Broadcasting has reported.

The paper's editor explained that The Dominion Post has a policy–in effect during the political campaign season–against publishing photos of officials running for re-election.

The photo shows a bill-signing ceremony that was attended by six people: the West Virginia governor, two citizens with a personal interest in the bill (which toughened penalties for hit-and-run accidents) and three Democratic legislators who sponsored the bill.

The three legislators, all running for re-election, were digitally removed from the photograph published by The Dominion (above, right).

The original photograph (above left) was shot by Martin Valent, a photographer for the West Virginia Legislative Reference and Information Center. "I've never seen anything like this," Valent said, referring to the altered version of his photo. "This is beyond my comprehension."

West Virginia Public Broadcasting says the editor of the newspaper expressed surprise that anyone would question the alteration to remove the three legislators, given that it was election season.

The paper did include the words "photo illustration" in the photo caption to indicate that the photo had been altered.

May 20, 2010

What do you get when you pose the bride, groom and entire wedding party on a rickety old dock for a group photo? A total wedding FAIL. (Don't try this with your next client.)

FAIL. (Don't try this with your next client.)

What do you get when you pose the bride, groom and entire wedding party on a rickety old dock for a group photo? A total wedding FAIL. (Don't try this with your next client.)