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27/365 (semi-)underwater, that proverb “pot”… “kettle”

Posted by Arno on September 25, 2014
Posted in: color, copyright infringement, industry, photography, underwater. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

A proverb, I’m sure everyone has heard of. And I’m sure it comes in any translation.

The pot calling the kettle black.

Wikipedia explains it as follows: The phrase “The pot calling the kettle black” is an idiom used to claim that a person is guilty of the very thing of which they accuse another.

By coincidence I ran into one of my images this morning on a website called Stockvault. They claim to be a website for free stock photography. I think most of you know my sentiments about “free” and “my work”.
The image referred to is one of my most recent underwater photography, so I was quite surprised to find it already “out there”. Upon closer investigation my image being on this website IS illegal: they downloaded it from 500px, saved it to their own server under a different name. But… they at least had the decency to credit the picture with my name and link back to 500px.
I’m still not happy with it being on their website, though, because I do not fancy my images being associated with free stock photography.

Anyway… While on the Stockvault website, I did a Google search on that particular image, and found it on another website still, a website called Smashingreaders. This is a website that basically copies content straight from other websites. So they don’t save it to their own servers, but “hotlink”.
Google shows a neat little thumbnail of my image in the search, but the ironic thing struck me when I went to check out the page. All of the page were images from Stockvault, replacing the hotlinked images with one image reading “The page you are browsing is stealing images from us!” with the Stockvault logo under it.

I couldn’t help but grinning about that.
Here’s a website, offering free stockphotography, stealing images from photography portfolio websites like 500px, then accusing other websites that do the same, of stealing THEIR images?
Yep… That’s a clear “pot”… “kettle” thing.

See below the screenshots:

Screenshot of the Stockvault and Smashingreader websites.

Left Stockvault, with my stolen image. Right Smashingreaders with Stockvault’s “stolen” images.

My own personal stock site

Posted by Arno on May 26, 2010
Posted in: photography, stock. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 comment

So after my positive rave about PhotoDeck yesterday, I’d like to move the attention a bit more to my own side (site) again.

As you may have noticed, there’s no longer the “search for my pictures on Photoshelter” box on the right side here. It has changed now to a box that will search for my images straight from my own site, which is how I have envisioned it to be.

Stock @ arnoenzerink.com

Stock @ arnoenzerink.com

The library is growing every day and you can purchase online with PayPal and your credit card, without a hassle. If you want me to make a (discounted) quote for the use of one or more images, you can also contact me straight from the site.
The advantages? You get a better price and I get a better price, because I don’t have to pay commission to an agent (unless of course you have a good bulk deal with one of the agents, can’t fight that kind of discount 😉 ).

Ordering single prints is also possible. It’s not yet implemented in the features, but will be soon, so for now if you’d want a print, it’s going to be good ol’ manual labor 😉

So… head on out to the stock site and see if there’s anything you want/need.
I don’t do micro stock, so it’s going to cost you a tad bit more than 5 bucks, but still… You get good stuff for a good price.

PhotoDeck, the new and better Photoshelter?

Posted by Arno on May 25, 2010
Posted in: photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 9 comments
PhotoDeck

PhotoDeck

I’ve been in several stock agencies now for a bit over a year and although it’s been slow and far from making me rich, it’s made me a nice little extra. But the chunk of commission that the agencies take out of your sales is handsome. It hovers between 40% and 60% (and no, I’m not talking about those thieving microstock agencies where you get a penny and they keep four). Sure, they do the marketing and everything, but still. Ever since I started this whole photography business I’ve been wanting to be able to sell straight from my website, but the solutions just weren’t good.

I signed up for Photoshelter, but after they took the stock selling out of business and it basically just turned into a portfolio with a commercial back-end where you have to do your own marketing, it didn’t really do anymore what I hoped. It’s got a hefty price tag for storage space AND they still take 20% off any sales you make through their website. It is, at this point at least, the only thing that really works as a commercial outlet as an extension of your own website.

And then a while ago I came across the name PhotoDeck. I think I read it somewhere on a forum, I can’t even remember. First thought: oh, another one of those. I went to check it out anyway, but found that they were in BETA testing and I needed to put my email address in just for the hopes of getting through to the stage where I could actually test and use it. And -initially just for the “what the heck” of it- I put my name in. Didn’t hear back for a week or two, came across the name again, and read up on it some more. I put my name in the hat again and promptly received a mail back that I was now part of the circle of people with a BETA account and I was welcome to try it out. Which I did immediately.

And guess what…? First impression? I can’t say anything else than WOW!
I got a gig of space to start with, uploaded my pictures and started fiddling around with the application and I’m totally impressed, I’m totally sold. Oh, and then they added 5 gig without me asking (seriously, hook, line and sinker 😀 )
The ease with which everything is customizable is just SO relieving! No more hassle of trying to find the right positions and right coding in a stuffed php template, but just a simple, effective user friendly WYSIWYG user interface. Straight-forward, easy to adjust pricing profiles, auto-watermarking upon upload, galleries, collections and a lot more features still to come, if we may believe the rumors.
And even if you’re a complete idiot (like me) and have some problems with a few things here and there, the response to the question is quick and helpful.

It’s in BETA still, and you can sign up for an account, but things should be going all live in a month and a half or so.
I don’t know what the prices are going to be like, and I assume they will have different types of accounts. I’ve been so rude as to ask what level of pricing I’m going to have to expect and without naming any numbers they said it will be more affordable than the direct competition.

I’m not paid for advertising (unfortunately) and I’m not working for them (unfortunately), but I would seriously recommend giving this a try.

To check out how the visual implementation works seamlessly with the rest of my website, go have a look at my shiny new web store at http://stock.arnoenzerink.com. Oh, and while your there, don’t forget to buy a picture or two! I’ll give the first 100 people buying a picture a 50% discount if you contact me for a quote! *LOL*

You need a witness!

Posted by Arno on November 18, 2008
Posted in: photography. Tagged: , , . 3 comments

I’ve been confronted with it now several times.
After uploading an image with a model in it to a stock agency, WITH model release, I received a message that the image was rejected because the model release didn’t have the signature of a witness.

One of the images happened to be of my better half walking on the beach. We were on the beach pretty much by ourselves, and certainly not in the position to ask any of the other early walkers to come and co-sign my better half’s model release.
So what to do?
Well, they said. Just get someone over (it can be any time, doesn’t have to be at the time you shoot the picture) and have them co-sign it.

So for all you co-photographers out there who weren’t familiar with this: make sure you have someone co-sign the model release as a witness, otherwise your images will be no-good for stock photography.

My first quasi-significant sale through some stock images website

Posted by Arno on November 10, 2008
Posted in: photography, stock. Tagged: , , . 1 comment

So… now that I know that I don’t know a lot about photography, I started applying to a number of stock agencies. And even if I knew better, I also submitted a number of images from my previous life. I guess some were crap and got rejected by most of the agencies.
Not by all, though… And guess what…
After a first super sale which brought in a whopping $.30 (WOOOHOOO!!! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not greedy or ungrateful or anything, but yeah… start wondering why I don’t put my best pictures in there when I get a magnificent $.30 per download) I was notified with a significantly better sale through another website. Another one of the images from my previous life made it into the sales books. At almost $5.
So yeah… For all generic images that don’t have that WOW factor it’s an easy little extra that builds up unnoticed over time.
I’m not going put that image here, because I don’t want everyone to copy my …. ahem… Just kidding  😀

D200, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/5, Sigma 28-200mm

D200, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/5, Sigma 28-200mm

National Geographic here I come!!!! 😀