Photoshelter.com????? Anyone??

[mfr301]

Has anyone had any experience with the new aspect of PhotoShelter.com as a stock agency? So far I have that warm and fuzzy feeling with them as the site "reads well" and operates smoothly. With only my sample 10 images being up so far, I haven't gotten any sales (of course it's only been 8 days).

Has anyone had any experiences with them? Do they have a lot of buyers yet? Or are they still too new?

I don't like contributing multiple places and always thought that I should support an agency that supports me.

Any thoughts?

Mike

[vdao1972]

Mike,

I have a couple of friends who use Photoshelter but not as a stock agency. They mainly use Photoshelter for submission to clients. I previewed their site along with Digital Railroad but decided to stick with Digital Railroad because of a massive discount given to me by one of their sales people. In all honesty, I would have went with Photoshelter mainly because they support RAW files and DRR only accepts JPEG's and TIFF's. Both companies have just recently joined the stock business so they have a smaller client list than say Getty but I think there is potential in it.
I think you will have to be patient with them (8 days is a bit short in duration to start worrying about selling stock) and yourself. In all honesty, you should research into some of the more reputable micro stock agencies. Hope this info helps!

[mfr301]

Thanks Vdao....

I definately understand the patience part and I know it's early.... It was more of a general inquiry before I start uploading hundreds of photos. But on your recommendation of researching other agencies made me think of this question....

Is there any legal issue with submitting the same photo to more than one place?

[robgr85]

Is there any legal issue with submitting the same photo to more than one place?

no, unless You upload photos to some exclusively. Can you show us Your photoshelter gallery? How long did You wait for review? (I'm currently in review mode there)

[milleker]

I have 32 images on mine, nothing statistics wise but a few views. I've been on PS since before the release and have just been too busy to really toss up any more photos.

My PSC gallery is here:
http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/jmphotography

[mfr301]

no, unless You upload photos to some exclusively. Can you show us Your photoshelter gallery? How long did You wait for review? (I'm currently in review mode there)


My photoshelter link is: http://my.photoshelter.com/publicsafetypictures (http://my.photoshelter.com/publicsafetypictures)

[vdao1972]

Nice fire photos Mike. You working for a newspaper at all? Maybe you should let some of the local newspapers know that you have some stock footage that they can pool from. In my experience, I have found that editors like to use local photogs rather than grab one from an agency.

Vinh

[mfr301]

Thanks Vdao! To be honest I don't submit outside trade resources. I use to submit for years and then I realized there was a problem. I could have the best photo in the world of firefighters, cops, emts, saving lives, property or whatever..... Say I had a photo of a firefighter rescuing a kid with flames blowing out of a window.... Then the headline reads... "Firefighter Saves Kid - Critisized for Response Times".... Or something like that...

I've realized over the years that the media is a 1 way street. Moreso in the printed version as there is no benefit of immediate reply or even more importantly defense. A headline like that will slam a fire department without the firefighters being able to say "We got there late because people don't pull over for lights and sirens" for example....

So, in order to provide a better service to my clients (the public safety professional) I do the following:

1: I make sure that none of my photos will get guys in trouble at work.
2: I make sure that I only promote the positives of the services that I serve.
3: I make sure that people viewing my photos have absolutely NO misonceptions of what is going on by the people in the pictures.
4: I write clear, concise captions that don't slander any departments operations.

That's just the basics...... What do you think?

[robgr85]

My photoshelter link is: http://my.photoshelter.com/publicsafetypictures (http://my.photoshelter.com/publicsafetypictures)

Very nice photos there. I'm approved... here are some of my photos (over 50 waiting for verification :P)

http://my.photoshelter.com/robertgrubba

[mfr301]

Nice shots Rob. How long did you take for the first 10 to be approved and how long have you been waiting for the subsequent 50?

Mike

[robgr85]

Nice shots Rob. How long did you take for the first 10 to be approved and how long have you been waiting for the subsequent 50?

Mike

Thanks! The time of application review was about 5 days..., there are limits 50images/day and maximum of 200/month. Still waiting for acceptance of my pending files.

Cheers,
Robert

[mfr301]

I talked to customer service today and she stated that because of that special they were running and the holidays it was running a little longer than usual. The special was where they doubled the daily allowance for uploads or something like that.

[New Hobby]

It looks like they are getting back to their normal time frames again.

[mfr301]

Yeah the girl said it would take a little while with so many photographers AND the holidays. I'm in no rush as when they're up, they're up.... it's not like I have a hot story that is now old and unusable.