SoniaVadlamani

@mpessaris I love your work, and from what I see you must've sunk so many hours and ingredients to get work done, of this good quality. It's saddening that SS would do this to several thousand longtime contributors.

@FernandoZ I like what I see a lot! I'm a food photographer and stylist, so the only feedback regarding your pics from me would be to get a bit closer to the food. At least most of the pics I saw - the food looks delish but it's as if I see the plate from a distance, whereas as a viewer I should be able to see those colors, textures, drips and sauces up close. About the sales part - I've been lazy here and have only 76 images so far, but SS does make me decent sales, given my portfolio is very small. In June, even after the disastrous announcements I got 3 sales so far - $1.66, $.10, $.22 so I decided I'll upload more images and see how it goes. The timing could be wrong, but quality images sell. Yes, there are some brilliant food photographers here so we do what we do to keep learning, refining our craft and up our game. If it doesn't seem worth the effort, I'll stop uploading once I'm convinced. For me, AS, Alamy have fetched a neat zero in 3 months, and surprisingly BS has gotten few good sales. I wish you all the best for your stock ventures

Yep, this reaffirms my intuition to not upload on EE. Aside from here I'm on AS, Alamy, DT and BS. BS, surprisingly got me good sales (for a start) despite a very small portfolio. And despite the meager commissions, SS does bring me traffic (37 DLs off 70-odd images) so I can't yet decide to quit here. I understand how betrayed long-time contributors feel - can only wish those shifting to EE make an informed and weighed decision.

June 2020 seems to be a blowback in many ways, what with SS's devastating payment models and now I read on microstockgroup about Eyeem and GI deleting the accounts which have common pictures. Mind you, this is with accounts which were non-exclusive at iS and Eym, and yet over 7k accounts (allegedly) were deleted. I see several of you inquiring here as to which other sites are recommended, and market-model sites like Eym and Wstnd61 are being recommended widely. My question is this: if I have similar content on websites like SS, P5, AS as well as the aggregator sites like Eym, do I risk deletion of my account sometime in future? Is this risk something we keep in mind while applying as contributors there? Thanks in advance for all your helpful insight. P.S. the spelling shortening was intentional

THAT I did not consider. I'll hunt for a few and see if I can get a good bargain. Incredible inputs here and on your videos. Thank you for taking the effort to offer such in-depth insight.

Thanks for the useful inputs, Doug! I'm in similar place - am a photographer yet to get started with stock footage. Is there a Panasonic/ Nikon equivalent of a video camera that doesn't break the bank? I'm looking at GH5s but even that is steep for me and can be bought after I keep saving for over a year. Any suggestions would be useful.

Your portfolio is exemplary! If you say that GoPro Hero 6 videos can sell, maybe I have hope of delivering 4K content too. I feared I'd have to buy GH5s for good quality film and clips.

That's super helpful. I much prefer reading on Kindle, too. Will need to see if it's available on the Indian Amazon, though as downloading from .com extension doesn't seem possible for a device registered on .in . I will still get the pdf file if that's the case.

@Foodio And may I add I love your portfolio - the crisp lines and simple efficiency that each image portrays is something I look forward to develop in my work too. Thank you for the kind encouragement. I shall try on to convey my artistic sensibilities into every pic I upload.

Thank you for the kind praise and helpful inputs I'm going to add some fresh ingredients as well.

@PlopandShoot Those are some valuable suggestions, and I see you share my concerns too about the artistic quality of my pictures. Thing is, as I'm learning food photography I've only focused so far on creating well-styled and composed picture. Now that I'm getting started here, maybe I need to produce some generic-use pictures as well that are more relevant to stock photography. Your point about Offset compels me to think - may be I should reserve the artistic ones more for Offset and Stocksy, while I click and upload simpler pictures here. "Variety, quality, good keywords (especially on-trend keywords) plus volume are what should drive sales." - This is solid gold! I'm going to concentrate my efforts on strengthening these factors. Thank you for the kind critique and valuable suggestions. Off to check out your ebook

What's your advice for people who've just started with stock photography - Individual uploads or StockSubmitter paid version? The free version only supports 33 uploads a month - way too less for me, and I'm not sure the paid version will even lead to breakeven for me. How do you proceed into uploading on various sites?

I'm a food photographer and stylist, still learning. Have just set up an account and am still in the process of uploading. I've had 2 downloads within 2 weeks of starting here, but I need wayyyyy more to accomplish my goal of making USD 10000 by Dec.2020 from Shutterstock (Kindly do ignore this if the money-talk seems crass to you). I also travel extensively and intend to post some landscape pictures. Here's my portfolio: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/SoniaVadlamani I specialize in concept pictures, and wish to know if that's what sells in the food stock photo niche. Or should I also do generic ingredient shots like cereal, pasta shapes, salt and sugar shakers etc. NOT demeaning the latter by any means; just testing the waters as to what will help me maximize my reach to potential buyers. If you could cite from your experience as to what kind of food pictures sell more, I'd be grateful.