| I love to see my photos in action. The photo I call "Naughty Little Boy" appears on the cover of a new book released by Ulysses Press this month. Okay, the subject matter might be a little troublesome (he's not allowed to see it until he's 21) but I'm pretty stoked to have a photo of my son on a book cover about serial killers. Lord, what kind of mother am I? I think my son was 4 when I took this shot. It's a borderline photo because it is not brightly lit in true microstock fashion, but I like the intensity the uneven lighting creates. This one was rejected by both Istock and Shutterstock, but it does get attention elsewhere, so their loss. Due to the subject matter, Ulysses contacted me directly to ask permission to use this photo. (Agencies have a non-defamation clause in the purchaser agreements). Who knows, perhaps I have more book covers out there with less controversial themes. That's one thing about selling Royalty Free stock photos. You just never know where your photos will turn up. |
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Microstock agencies have evolved to require a model release for virtually any photo with a person in it, regardless of whether you can recognize them or not. It makes sense. How would you feel if you recognized yourself from the neck down on such a television program?
StockXpert takes it to the extreme and demands a release for a shot from the back, for parts of a person, and in many cases, a property release must accompany interior photos that are merely the background of another subject.

Editorial content has become an option on most agencies, and as long as a photo has not been manipulated, cloned or altered (other than levels, noise reduction, contrast) it qualifies for this category. Recognizable faces are often accepted in this category without a model's permission - but the end user is restricted to use the photograph in news worthy stories and definitely not for commercial intent.
Does your portfolio have shots of people from the back? Is their wardrobe/tattoo/hairstyle recognizable? It's not harming anyone is it?
In the Province of Quebec, Canada, Article 6 of the Quebec Civil Code recognizes that the use of a person's name, image, likeness or voice for a purpose other than the legitimate information of the public is an invasion of privacy. Ms Aubrey, a 17 year old girl who was photographed without her permission sitting on the steps of a building in Montreal, Quebec and the photograph was featured in an art magazine. The magazine was purchased by a friend of Ms Aubrey, the information was shared, and Ms Aubrey was subject to teasing by her classmates.
Ms Aubrey brought an action against the photographer and the magazine (originating in Quebec Aubrey vs Editions Vice-Versa Inc., [1998]) and the Court found that the unauthorized publication of Ms Aubrey's photograph was an infringement of her anonymity. Both the photographer and publisher were ordered to pay $2000 in damages, as well as court costs.
The Court cited an extract from a thesis by J. Ravanan; (translated)
"The camera lens captures a human moment at its most intense, and the snapshot 'defiles' that moment... A person surprised in his or her private life by a roving photographer is stripped of his or her transcendency and human dignity, since he or she is reduced to the status of a 'spectacle' for others... This 'indecency of the image' deprives those photographed of their most secret substance."
Do you have any grab shots with people in your portfolio?
This past week I sent out a microstock photo of a foot kicking a soccer ball. It happened to be a human's foot, and I do have a model release for the human attached to it, so I attached the release as well. Dreamstime replied "Please remove release and resubmit". This may have something to do with the fact that buyers on DT can search "people only". The requirements are somewhat blurred between agencies, but I would rather play it safe than sorry.
| Nice to see the number 1000 beside my recorded sales on Istock this morning! And the 1000'th sale belongs to..... School Lessons. As of today, this photo has sold 422 times on Istock. That's pretty incredible stuff with one image making almost half of my sales. It has slowed down considerably of late, but I think it will be a safe bet that it might be my first "red" flame sometime this year. Other photos that have sat dormant have enjoyed sales recently. It seems that to make sales you just have to get the first one sometimes and then image popularity grows from there. Unfortunately, with exclusives jumping the review cue in front of non-exclusives place in line we all have an immediate disadvantage and some of our best stuff is just never seen. Now, if I could just improve my acceptance ratio with Istock and make a few more popular shots like this, I would be a very happy micro stocker! |
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| Oh, I've been busy. That's a good thing, it's GREAT in fact, but it isn't doing much for my microstock career. I even have about 100 model shots in the can that need to be sorted through and would produce at least 20 uploads (I'm not a fan of too many similars) - but my microstock hobby tends to get pushed to the bottom of my to-do list when I have paying clients. Not uploading to Shutterstock in particular has been absolutely devastating. My sales have dropped by at least 50% because I haven't fed the beast. May sales have actually been quite disappointing everywhere so far, except for steady Dreamstime and Istock, and a few $5 sales at StockXpert. I wish I knew how much of the decline is due to my inactivity. |
![]() (My niece Carley who also models for me from time to time. She's the happy lady in the wheatfield on my current header.) |
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Now I've been a crazy woman creating thank you cards for the graduates. The new designs took a lot longer than I had estimated. (Maybe because so many of them were created after midnight when I wasn't so fresh!) I wanted each graduate 3 different samples to pick from, and the town that they live in has only 1000 people so I didn't want any of the cards to look too similar in any way. They will only use 9 out of the 30 that I made, but the upside is now I have about 30 fresh templates for next time! Now that the graduation shoot is in a bit of a holding pattern until the orders come in, I start shooting a soccer league. I shot 2 teams last week... just 51 more to go over the next three weeks. I can't foresee feeding the Shutterstock beast in the immediate future. |
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I can access the index page of this little book on wasps which indicates that Lorraine Swanson appears on page 17 within the chapter "Wasps Build Nests". Well - I just happen to have a stock photo of a nest! |
We are sorry to report that NaturalLifeStock is closing its doors today. April 1, 2008 was our one-year anniversary, and at the end of this period we have simply not had the returns we expected. The market is saturated with large and small stock agencies, and the competition is overwhelming.
We have found that image buyers are deluged with requests to "come see my stock site" and have little interest in startup stock companies. If we had millions to spend for marketing we might be able to make a dent, but as a Mom & Pop stock site our chances for success are very slim. Even the big guys, like Getty Images®, are having a rough time in this economy. Text in italics from their website.
I've joined the new sites Zymmetrical and Mostphotos, but I await to see how they perform over the next year. After the loss of LuckyOliver I am less than enthusiastic about the unproven sites. Zymmetrical has recently become quiet and the guys haven't been flogging their site in the forums like they once did. Hopefully they are too busy perfecting their site so they can soon transition out of beta and start marketing.
I have to let some of these lame ducks go so I can devote more time to the sites that actually pay me every month.
So long Albumo. Perhaps we'll meet again, once you get your groove back.
I'll leave you with a quote from user "ALBUMO" posted on MSG on March 5, 2008.
Still around... so, I guess it's a good news! Anyways, I think many of you expect sky rocketing sales; well, let me disappoint you -- ain't gonna happen over night, BUT... we're working on it, and YES we are spending tons of money on promoting your art. We will spend even more, but I can reassure you, you won't see numbers like at iStock or Shutter over couple of months. Give us a little bit more time, and then judge us.
The Good News -- Albumo is around for Good, and we are not planning on selling the company (not b/c we didn't get any sweet deal proposals, but simply b/c we believe in what we do).
Thanks for your hard work, we appreciate every bit of it!
Cheers, Co-founder, Maxim Basaraba
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It was a love/hate affair for many of us. The loyals fiercely defended LuckyOliver like crazed sports fans cheering their team through good seasons and bad. For the most part, I was one of them, and I will be forever delighted that they chose this photo of my little Jazz Man the winner of one of their early contests. It never earned any sales though. I guess that said a lot. The naysayers loudly warned that they would pull their photos if sales didn't pick up. Most of them did. But a lot of the Ubersensational shooters stayed there. Iofoto, Photoshow, Andresr, Yuri Arcurs to name a few. Oh, there will be a lot of "I told you so!"s when the news spreads in the morning. |
LuckyOliver was special though. They strove to keep it personal. Rejections were helpful, and not just a push of a button. Groupies hung out in the forum and in a motherly fashion steered conversations to a positive place. Bryan was everywhere....
...everywhere, that is - until recently. He was notably absent. No new blogs. No updates. When Logoboom asked in their forum (6 days ago) where Bryan has gone, he surfaced to respond:
"Hey gang- I've been spending a bit more time with the kiddies and refocusing. I needed to take some time away from the front lines to energize- two years of working through weekends has made me a little stale. Things are still happening, I just haven't been as vocal."
So where does this leave the industry? I don't get the impression that there will be much of a void left by LuckyOliver's demise. Can any new microstock agencies really make it in this market? Will the other young entrants like Albumo, Snapvillage and Zymmetrical fold to the likes of Istock, Shutterstock and the other big players?
Perhaps there will be a last minute investor to save the carnival, who knows, but it's still likely a good idea to spend your tokens before May 15th.
If you have a moment to leave a comment, please let me know what you plan to do with your LuckyOliver portfolio? Will you keep it live, or will you immediately delete?
I acheived a couple milestones this week.
- I broke $1000 in sales on Shutterstock yesterday, took 12.5 months, but I did it!
- I blogged twice in one day. (Today)
- I received my third flame on Istock - Two Bull Elk. (School Lessons has 92 to go until 500 sales!)
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I've handpicked this screenshot of their landing page because, aw, shucks, it is my first featured photo on a site's splash page (that I know of). |






As much as they frustrate me over at Istock, I do love the way they sell photos. I have only 10% of my portfolio on there, yet their volume of sales make them my #2 earner. This week I received my second flame for individual photo sales over 100, and much to my surprise, it wasn't the elk photo (which sold daily until abruptly stopping in December at 90 dls), - but a rather unremarkable photograph of my brother Garth waist deep in a durum wheat field. (Uploaded August, 2007 - 793 views/104 downloads.)
Admittedly, I don't have a large portfolio on Istock, but when you take a quick look at the following screenshot of my best sellers, it is obvious that my agriculture themed photos have a certain momentum. This is also true on other sites; they are slow but steady sellers that may have a slightly longer shelf life than a fashion or business shot.

I do live on the Canadian prairies and I come from a farming family. In the summer I'm surrounded by thousands of miles of crops. Canola, sunflower, wheat, flax, you name it. Yet, it's a bit like that old cliche - can't see the forest for the trees; I am so surrounded by agriculture that I barely think about photographing it.
While some photographers swear by becoming specialists in one subject or another, I believe that you will have greater success being a bit of a generalist, while still photographing what you love and know. By that I mean - definitely shoot your pure stock images isolated on white, pretty models in headsets, and business men shaking hands - but also take a good look at your world. Shoot what you know. Is it music, books, medicine, ballet, little league? If it is something you are passionate about, this will show in your work. Do you work in a library, a coal mine, fishing boat or a construction site? Take advantage of your unique situation by taking honest photos from the inside. Your little niche may not be the most popular subject, but your work will surely be noticed if it is an underexposed category.
I took several agricultural photos last summer while driving around with my brother. I took almost as many notes as photographs. Having a technical description of anything you photograph automatically increases the possibility of it's success. I'm quite sure reviewers open up my photos and say "Oh, great, another closeup of a head of wheat".. but when they read the description "Spring Wheat - Hard Kernelled Red Spring Wheat Variety" it is no longer just another closeup of a head of wheat.
Sometimes "what you know" can be tough though. This is Canada after all, and we know winter - so I promised myself I would shoot lots of it this year (winter that is!). Although I've managed a few photo days here and there, I haven't exactly lived up to my own expectations. Last week it was -51C with the wind-chill. I didn't leave the house unless I had to, let alone put on the fingerless gloves and parka. Sure, I know winter, but I'm not very passionate about it, so I doubt I'll be adding many new winter shots this year.
There may be another benefit to shooting what you know. You may soon develop a reputation as an insider on the particular subject and magazine editors or corporations will come directly to you to photograph their next project.
You are the expert of what you know, and perhaps you can use that expertise to produce a collection of steady earners that will compliment your stock portfolio.






You wear your seatbelt while you drive your car and your helmet when you ride your bike, but what are you doing to protect yourself while navigating the microstock arena?
Recently an established microstock photographer announced on the Talkmicro forum that his Fotolia and StockXpert accounts had been hijacked and emptied. He knew very quickly that something was amiss and contacted both agencies. StockXpert stopped the transfer of funds to a MoneyBookers account, while Fotolia had found his credits converted to purchase photos. It's unclear what led up to the hijack. The photographer works in IT and is confident that his spy sweeping and antivirus was secure.
The contributor who was hacked at Fotolia and StockXpert suggested that others consider cashing out their earnings more frequently. That way, if their account ever falls victim to a theft, the loss will be smaller than at the end of the month when accumulated earnings are much higher. In the past I always treated my earnings as a payroll, but going forward, I will begin collecting earnings as they come available.
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Individual Image I took a series of photos of students in a classroom and uploaded first to Dreamstime in February, and in March to Istock and Shutterstock. (The numbers are quite insignificant on the other sites.) I don't know when one photo in particular reached 500 sales; it may have been mid September as it has now reached over 600 individual sales. If I could just add 20 more photos with such appeal! |
