flickr, SmugMug etc?

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Larky

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Hello.

I've decided to move fully over to flickr pro or SmugMug, or one of the other ones, instead of hosting my pictures on my hosted space, and I'm wondering which one to go for. I currently have a free flickr account and was thinking of going pro, however to me flickr doesn't have that look that shouts professional. SmugMug is twice the price but does really look the part.

I wondered is anyone using any of these services as the main place to host content could offer up any advice? What would you use to promote yourself?

Cheers.

A.
 
Larky said:
Hello.

I've decided to move fully over to flickr pro or SmugMug, or one of the other ones, instead of hosting my pictures on my hosted space, and I'm wondering which one to go for. I currently have a free flickr account and was thinking of going pro, however to me flickr doesn't have that look that shouts professional. SmugMug is twice the price but does really look the part.

I wondered is anyone using any of these services as the main place to host content could offer up any advice? What would you use to promote yourself?

Cheers.

A.
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I put my photos on Flickr, and I have a pro account. I do not use it to promote myself, but I have sold a number of photos that people found on Flickr - the key is to tag and add metadata such that buyers can easily find your photos when they search.




I get requests to use or license my photos on average about once a month. I just got this thank you yesterday:

The book "Pervasive Games: Theory and Design" is now published. I'm writing to you as you let us use a zombie walk photo in the book. Unfortunately we can't afford to send complimentary copies to everyone we'd like, but we wanted to thank you once more. The book would not have been as good without your help.
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I have no experience with SmugMug, but Flickr has been good to me - it essentially bought my Sigma SD-14 and Pentax K200D, and I did nothing to intentionally make sales but put photos online and label them.

NOTE: I also find it exceptionally easy to embed my photos in my blog and other places from Flickr. Bit of a breeze, actually.

http://www.wigwamjones.com/
 
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I'll second that... I used to host my own photo's on a pay-per-month gallery site that let my customers order prints and mugs etc and in the year I was with them I sold exactly ZERO prints. Within a week of switching over to flikr I've gotten two jobs referred to me and two of my pictures in the newspaper just from random people browsing my stuff. My old gallery site was lucky to get a dozen hits a day... my flickr is cruising about 300 on a bad day and 2-3K on a good day. I think flickr is quickly loosing the stigmata of being a snapshot repository... hell... even Getty uses it to troll for talent.
 
I use flickr but I'm not pleased with the way how some of the black and white photos look on its white background. Perhaps I could make up for this by applying frames of some particular style but I'm not fascinated by playing with frames. So I signed up for a trial at SmugMug when I had a series of b&w landscapes to show and it worked well for me. I can't imagine myself switching over to SmugMug though as its audience is much smaller.
 
bmattock said:
I put my photos on Flickr, and I have a pro account. I do not use it to promote myself, but I have sold a number of photos that people found on Flickr - the key is to tag and add metadata such that buyers can easily find your photos when they search.



I get requests to use or license my photos on average about once a month. I just got this thank you yesterday:
Click to expand...
Could tell us a little more how you sell photos on Flickr. Do folks just see a photo and then inquire if they can purchase it?
 
I really like the look and options that smugmug provides. I upgraded to a power acct for only $40 a month after using a coupon code. If you search around on google for codes you are sure to find one that works. I don't really use it to advertise, but nonetheless appreciate the more professional custom look of it. Plus they allow Tiff files, not sure about flickr pro. My smugmug link should be in my signature.
 
I would like to be able to move things around easier in flickr. It functions like a blog with the newest additions staying at the front, and things you might want people to see more are buried underneath. Is there anyway to move older photos back to the front and still keep the views and comments?
 
Thardy said:
I would like to be able to move things around easier in flickr. It functions like a blog with the newest additions staying at the front, and things you might want people to see more are buried underneath. Is there anyway to move older photos back to the front and still keep the views and comments?
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I agree, this is a real pain, but last year my photo of City Lights bookstore in SF was used on the cover of a book about The Beats, thanks to Flickr. So I think I'll stay with them despite the very limited presentation options.
 
kshapero said:
Could tell us a little more how you sell photos on Flickr. Do folks just see a photo and then inquire if they can purchase it?
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Yes, that's how it works for me. I have all my photos listed with a Creative Commons license - I allow non-commercial use of my photos for free if they give attribution to me where they are using it. However, you can set any copyright you wish. For commercial use, people email me on my Flickr account and ask if they can use the photo, what they want to use it for, and what they're willing to pay for it. I am not in the business of selling photos, per se, so sometimes I accede to a request to use one of my photos for free if they are a non-profit or if they just ask me nicely. However, I've been paid and paid well for some of my shots. I will admit it is an ego boost to see your photo on the cover of a magazine or made into a poster on a museum wall, or in a scholastic textbook, etc. I've got a small but growing collection of printed material with my photos in them for my 'I love me' scrapbook.

I understand that Getty has an agreement with Flickr to market photos to their clients, but no one from Getty has contacted me with interest in buying rights. It's just been onesie-twosie type stuff from individual buyers. With government buyers, I sent them an invoice and fill out a W-9, and at the end of the year, they send me a tax form - I do have to pay taxes on my profits.
 
Thardy said:
I would like to be able to move things around easier in flickr. It functions like a blog with the newest additions staying at the front, and things you might want people to see more are buried underneath.
Click to expand...

Granted, but most of my sales are the result of searches people have done on Flickr (or via Google), and I can track that with Flickr stats. So no one usually goes to my 'front page' and starts digging through the dross to get to what they might like. Therefore, for me, that front page is not that useful.

And for my friends - I use the Flickr sets and collections feature.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/

Alternatively, if you have your own website (many of us do), you can easily embed the Flickr photos without having to host the space or the bandwidth yourself, and naturally you can arrange the photos to your heart's content. So it is very much like what you're describing.

Is there anyway to move older photos back to the front and still keep the views and comments?
Click to expand...

Not that I am aware of.
 
gerbilthemistake said:
I really like the look and options that smugmug provides. I upgraded to a power acct for only $40 a month after using a coupon code. If you search around on google for codes you are sure to find one that works. I don't really use it to advertise, but nonetheless appreciate the more professional custom look of it. Plus they allow Tiff files, not sure about flickr pro. My smugmug link should be in my signature.
Click to expand...

I don't know about TIFF files on Flickr Pro, but it only costs $24.95 per year, not $40 per month. That would be a dealbreaker for me, right there.
 
Thardy said:
I would like to be able to move things around easier in flickr. It functions like a blog with the newest additions staying at the front, and things you might want people to see more are buried underneath. Is there anyway to move older photos back to the front and still keep the views and comments?
Click to expand...

When you're viewing the photo you'd like to move to the front page of your Flickr, look under Additional Information and you'll see "Taken On." Click on the link there for "(edit)." Then go to the "Date Posted" information and you can use that to manipulate which photos are sent to your first page since the stream is just organized in descending order of how recently the picture has been posted. I think this will give you your desired results...
 
kshapero said:
I have used both. Flickr works best for me.
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Ditto. I have more contacts on flickr. On flickr there is just more of the good, more of the bad and more of the ugly. Just more. The only thing I don't like about flickr is that you can't make your account have a certain colour for a background. I would like my background to be black, so on flickr I had to use the View-on-Black function for each photo, but it is not as effective as having my entire account page with a black background.
 
Flickr is so well known that many people looking for a photo to use -- for free or for money --will turn there. Other online photo sites are much, much less known among the general public. If someone is looking for the "Best Cat Picture Ever" and you've got a photo on Flickr labelled liked that, odds are strong they will see it.
 
IMO, promoting your work professionally would be best served by keeping and developing your own site and avoiding Flicker Pro's association with the Flicker multitudes:). If you want to sell photos, I think you'd be better off by developing a business plan that goes beyond waiting to be "discovered" by customers' or users' Internet searches (that's a compliment).

I checked out your Flicker, Blog, and Site. I'm generally not a fan of strict photo sites (and the way that most people use them.) The free Flicker has disadvantages that are well-known and often discussed. Your Blog is pretty interesting, but certainly not designed for the breadth of your photo interests. Your "Site," is tastefully presented and seems the best and most professional medium to show off your work.
 
MartinL said:
IMO, promoting your work professionally would be best served by keeping and developing your own site and avoiding Flicker Pro's association with the Flicker multitudes:). If you want to sell photos, I think you'd be better off by developing a business plan that goes beyond waiting to be "discovered" by customers' or users' Internet searches (that's a compliment).

I checked out your Flicker, Blog, and Site. I'm generally not a fan of strict photo sites (and the way that most people use them.) The free Flicker has disadvantages that are well-known and often discussed. Your Blog is pretty interesting, but certainly not designed for the breadth of your photo interests. Your "Site," is tastefully presented and seems the best and most professional medium to show off your work.
Click to expand...

It is extremely easy to embed Flickr photos on a private website. In this way, a person can have the best of both worlds - focused private promotion and general "hope they find my stuff" Flickr stuff.

The biggest complaint I have heard is that people find no one looks at their photos. That's because they don't tag them properly. Tags and descriptions are absolutely required, or no one will find your stuff. Too much dross to slog through, no one will bother. You must be SEO. And if you don't know what SEO means, that's the problem.
 
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