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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Photoshelter users
Alex Menendez, Photographer
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Orlando | FL | USA | Posted: 2:59 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> I am not going to ask specific dollar amounts but how many of you are using photoshelter to sell your images and how has been? I just signed up last week and want to start selling images from the site, I was just wondering how many of you have had "hits" from your photoshelter account.
It seems the way to go for someone like myself who does not work for a wire service or agency.
thanks in advance for your response1
alex |
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Peter Gaby, Photographer
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Madison | WI | US | Posted: 6:14 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> I unfortately don't get to shoot as much as i'd like, so I'm not getting any sales or hits as of yet, but I do know that you will get interest if you keyword and tag your images.
I've done a google search every no and then on subjects that I have on photoshelter or by my business name, and I consistantly come up in the top searches.
Hoping that this will improve my chances of getting sales.
Hope that helps a little
Pete |
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Gordon Grant, Photographer
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East Hampton | NY | USA | Posted: 6:49 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> Does the information in captions get searched, or only keywords?
gg |
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Jason Rice, Photographer
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Fort Collins | CO | United States | Posted: 6:56 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> I get sales through PS, but it's from events I shoot and promote. If anyone is getting editorial business coming through searches I'd be interested to hear about the setup. If I google my name my PS page comes up top 5, but I don't get any images I've keyworded to show up when I search for them.
Also, the FotoQuote implementation went live today. Haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but it should help with this very situation.
Jason
http://www.jrice18.com |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 7:35 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> I have had PhotoShelter for some time and it is a great tool for so much more than just print sales. I have not used it fully yet at all. But I have been using it for file delivery and display to ad clients, archiving and some misc other uses.
I am really pleased with the latest plug in for Aperture. I just used that for the first time. I did a slection of my selects with a smart folder in Aperture and then did a direct upload to PhotoShelter. So I could not only deliver to my client from there (controlled, pw protected) but now my selects are backup up offsite.
Makes me very happy! |
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Jeff Snyder, Photographer
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Metro DC Region | MD | USA | Posted: 7:50 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> PhotoShelter, has not only increased my images sales, it has revolutionized the way I archive my images. In the past few months, I have licensed images to a few "major" websites and I recently licensed images to Simon & Shuster for a book that is due out in April.
Keep in mind that all of theses licenses are "agency free"....NO commissions are being deducted from my negotiated figures.
I am receiving inquiries from editors far and near that would never have found my work.
Now, with PhotoQuote built in, how can you go wrong.
I feel like I could be the poster boy for PS..... |
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Peter Gaby, Photographer
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Madison | WI | US | Posted: 7:56 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> Hi Jeff: have a question for you in regards to your licensed images
How did these companies find you - were you already in contact, or did they find the images they needed becuase of searching on photoshelter
Thanks
Pete |
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Jeff Snyder, Photographer
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Metro DC Region | MD | USA | Posted: 8:00 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> Pete-
I'm sorry, I should have been a bit clearer. I was not in contact with any of the buyers at all, prior to them contacting me. They found my images on PhotoShelter. It seems that many editors are now seeking out PhotoShelter as a source for images.
Hope that helps-
Jeff |
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Peter Gaby, Photographer
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Madison | WI | US | Posted: 8:49 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> Jeff: That's exactly the answer I was looking for.
Thanks
Pete |
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Robert Catto, Photographer
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Wellington | NZ | New Zealand | Posted: 9:02 PM on 01.15.07 |
->> Same here - just had a magazine in Europe find me through PhotoShelter and license a number of images for limited editorial print-only one language use, really easy & smooth to deal with them.
We did the negotiation / delivery outside of PhotoShelter (as at that time I wasn't signed up for merchant services or client downloads), but there's no real question that they found what they were after by searching my archive there. Great stuff.
Also, in case you haven't noticed it, the Fotoquote integration went live yesterday - so they now have integrated pricing using the full Fotoquote database, which you can scale up or down by % based on the market it's being licensed into - helpful in small places like New Zealand, where the USD$ values are a bit high for the local market.
How amazing it that? And it's only a 10% commission...
R |
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Landon Finch, Photographer
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Colorado Springs | CO | USA | Posted: 10:16 AM on 01.16.07 |
->> Jeff & Robert,
What type of images (sports, news, political, celebrity, still life, scenics, etc.) were you able to license usage for?
Were they time sensitive images (late breaking news/events)?
Just trying to get a feel for what type of images are being licensed and more about who the photo buyers are. |
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Tom Sperduto, Photographer
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Piscataway | NJ | USA | Posted: 10:52 AM on 01.16.07 |
->> I have had success with PhotoShelter by sending galleries and lightboxes of images I shot directly to buyers.
It's easy, and the buyers receive a thumb nail glimpse right in the message body.
I have not had any unsolicated sales as of yet. |
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Tom Theobald, Photographer
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La Mesa | CA | USA | Posted: 12:18 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> Like Tom, I have had some success also with Photoshelter... Am hardly in the same league as say Brad Mangin or Thomas Witte. I cover just a very narrow band of the sport spectrum and only a few small Olympic sports that are not mainstream media at all (nothing like NFL, NBA, MLB). To date editorial sales have been outside of PS (I do use the lightbox feature with certain editors). Actual jpeg sales via PS have been with the royalty-free pricing mode and for private collectors, personal use only (they make their own prints etc). In my case few customers use the print option (ezprints), but then I am not really an event photog anyhow. Still it's a steady supplemental income and pays back 20-30 times PS's yearly subscription fees. Believe they are finding the images via google and my own website linkage.
Now with today's major Fotoquote upgrade, a new phase begins. I have told one colleague who covers mainstream celebrity, red carpet, rock & roll etc, better check it out now... -T |
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Robin O'Shaughnessy, Photographer
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Amarillo | TX | USA | Posted: 1:18 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> I have not sold images through Photoshelter yet, but I have been hired for freelance jobs from the site.
For me, it is the archiving capability (and the fact it is affordable) that I love about it. No more searching around folders or external hard drives for the images I have created.
I hope to sell from the site in the future but I am not there yet. |
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Robert Catto, Photographer
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Wellington | NZ | New Zealand | Posted: 6:10 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> Mine were tourism images of the city, not time-sensitive news images or anything.
Of course, I don't actually know whether they found me through Photoshelter, or Photoshelter through my site; but judging by the fact that they were also ordering images from another PS member (mistakenly, as it turned out), I think they went there first - but maybe not.
Either way, if I hadn't had a searchable archive hosted there, they wouldn't have found the images they did...
R |
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Alan Look, Photographer
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Bloomington | IL | United States | Posted: 6:14 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> I'm in about the same situation as Tom T. I use it mostly for archiving. Most of my editorial licensing is done elseware. I have had some print sales. I no longer have anything marked at RF on PhotoShelter. I had marked about 4 dozen as that just to test the water. The water was cold.
I am hopeful that the FotoQuote integration, along with all the publicity and new photographers will start to change the photo buyers habits. It's time they looked in other places than the ones they are used to for their art.
The Fotoquote integration is a Godsend regardless. It now gives a PhotoShelter member a state of the art pricing mechanism. No more wondering if "Am I cheating myself" or "Am I pricing myself out of a sale" questions will be in my mind. |
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Jim Fridenmaker, Photographer
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Portsmouth | OH | USA | Posted: 6:17 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> Hi.
I sold a photo to Star Magazine in March as the Nick Lachey serial dating guy took a swing through Southern Ohio. The photo on SportsShooter was a local beauty pageant contestant crowning a new winner from a couple of years back. A google search by an editor turned up the fully captioned image on SportsShooter which led to a phone call to my home, pager and cell phone from my contact info posted. I got the call from New York on my cell phone.
I went back to the year she won and used PhotoShelter to display images to select from to the editor and then walked the photo editor through click-by-click, issued an invite, agreed on a price and she downloaded the high-res photo. Invoice was done "off-Photoshelter." Everything was tracked by IP Address so I had proof of viewing, etc...got paid promptly.
I've been with PhotoShelter from the beginning but I've just played around with it. But it was that familiarity that allowed me to walk them through it on a very tight deadline.
I've always admired the work of Jason Burfield with his programming and features built here on SportsShooter. How much ever work he does on PhotoShelter (along with his team, I know) for all the features makes his work here look like "nothing" in comparison.
And, like SportsShooter, they keep adding features and value.
I use(d) ExposureManager for my "day in, day out" sports images sales, but with Paypal/Merchant Account integration along with the backup capability, Photoshelter rocks. (I stopped shooting in January of 2006 to write computer programs for my "side" and "day" jobs.)
Jim |
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Thomas Boyd, Photographer
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Eugene | OR | USA | Posted: 7:00 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> Today I needed to find an image. I knew I had it on my hard drive, but I didn't know what year it was shot. All I knew was the guy's name in the photo. Spotlight found a low res version I didn't want but told me the year it was shot. I went to a folder that hundreds of tweaked photos from that year. I opened the folder in PhotoMechanic. While it was chugging away, I thought maybe I had it on PhotoShelter. I launched Safari, logged in, and did an image search. It popped immediately. I found it, downloaded it and opened it in CS before the thumbnails were up in PhotoMechanic. I closed the window before it was even done processing.
It surprised me could I search, find, download and open an image in PhotoShelter in less time than it took me to do the same thing off my own system.
I just wanted to share that. I thought it was remarkable.
(G5 2.7DP) |
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Craig Mitchelldyer, Photographer, Assistant
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Portland | OR | USA | Posted: 7:37 PM on 01.16.07 |
| ->> I have been using photoshelter for sales for just the last couple of months. and In that couple of months it has paid for itself over and over and over again. While I do not have images up that are publicly searchable, I do have a lot of wedding and portrait clients up there that sell. Also another thing I have found a good use for is corporate re-sales. Example, shoot an editorial portrait for a newspaper or magazine, subject says "Hey can I see those, we may want to buy one" I say sure, I'll send you an e-mail. I go back to the office, upload full res files to photoshelter via photomechanic, create a gallery add a price profile and send an e-mail to the subject. They can browse, buy and download the image without any further action from me. Took me about 10 minutes to upload and send an e-mail. They can put in a credit card and download the image right away and they love that. I have done this kind of sale numerous times and it is a fantastic thing, the best thing is waking up in the morning and seeing that lovely PS email, collecting money without having to do anything is the best. Now with the fotquote integration, it will only get better. |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 7:43 PM on 01.16.07 |
| ->> omg thomas, upgrade your computer! |
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Alex Menendez, Photographer
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Orlando | FL | USA | Posted: 9:37 PM on 01.16.07 |
->> Thanks for all of the responses. I am glad to hear so many shooters doing so well. I will definately take my time and caption the images and such. This is the exact reason I am an SS member, most folks here truly care about what they do and how they act.
Thanks again,
;
Alex |
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Thomas E. Witte, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Fashion Heights | OH | USA | Posted: 4:33 PM on 01.19.07 |
->> Alex- Captioning is crucial, as well as having the images "publicly searchable".
For the most part my sales through PS are split down the middle. Half the buyers find my images while searching and the other half inquire over the phone or email. For the latter, I'll immediately go check to make sure I have what they need on PS (If I don't I'II upload what might be missing) then send them a link to a private gallery displaying what they're looking for.
Sometimes when I'm driving I'll just walk them through it on the phone and have them see if they can find what they need.
As you can see, the underlying point is making sure that your stuff is on PS in the first place and easily searchable. |
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Ian L. Sitren, Photographer
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Palm Springs | CA | USA | Posted: 12:32 AM on 01.20.07 |
| ->> I just spent some time today at the convention for the North American Nature Photography Association. PhotoShelter is there and Grover showed me how the integration works with FotoQuote. To mis-apply a common phrase, IT ROCKS! PhotoShelter is just a great tool. |
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Jeff Martin, Photographer
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wellington | OH | usa | Posted: 11:49 AM on 01.20.07 |
| ->> Ian, "it rocks" seems appropriate at a nature photo show. |
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