Jonathan Ross has been a long time supporter and customer at LookStat and I’m delighted to be able to congratulate him and his network of top notch photographers on the launch of a new RM/RF stock Agency, Spaces Images. The collection is initially available at Corbis.

The collection is focused on images of human environments (interiors, locations etc) that have nobody in them. There are some fantastic shots in the collection and it’s well worth your time to check them out. Jonathan’s long experience in RM/RF helped him discover an opportunity for shots without people in them and he created Spaces to take advantage of it.

LookStat’s Role

We provided a Back Office platform that allowed Jonathan & his contributors to focus on creating the images and shaping the collection while we handled keywording, property releases, metadata, image conversion and distribution. We simplified the submission process for contributors and greatly reduced infrastructure & technology costs for Spaces.

It’s a pleasure working with Jonathan & the team of contributors at Spaces and we’re looking forward to the success and growth of the collection in the days to come.

If you are interested in how our comprehensive Back Office solution can help you, please contact us for more information.

Congrats on having your image plastered on the home page of iStock this week, Steve!

Steve (who is a Diamond Exclusive at iStock) also has a great post on his blog about working with us. Thanks for the plug, Steve. We’re excited to be working with you too.

Well, I’ve got a great accountant & I hire a good stylist as I need one. So I wised up & starting sending my images to LookStat – they add all the metadata, keywords & descriptions. LookStat handles the releases & then uploads the images & releases to my agency, istockphoto. If you use more than one agency they can upload to multiple agencies as well.

It’s so easy, I shoot, adjust my images then send the images to LooksStat via ftp. Done.

I don’t think we could have said it better ourselves – thanks Steve!

If you’d like to see what it’s like to only have to focus on creating your images, please  contact us for a free trial.

Luis Alvarez, who shoots for iStock & Getty, has a great post on his blog about how he uses LookStat collections to track his shoot ROI.

It was only just recently, about 3 weeks ago, that I had a deeper look into LookStat.com, and was surprised to finally discover a tool to help me improve measuring return on investment (ROI). In LookStat you can set up a collection of pictures (suitably the results of one photo session) and LookStat will tell you how much money those pictures have generated. You have different viewing options and charts, making it easy to understand.

Luis’s approach is to invest in research and quality. This in turn means that he’s careful about tracking his return. His top returning series is shown below:

We created the collections feature to allow photographers to do just this. Stay tuned for more on this coming soon!

Luis also has another post about his Getty & iStock earnings trends. This too is well worth a read and his final chart on iStock vs. Getty RPI is fascinating. It lines up well with our thoughts about the rapidly fading distinction between microstock & traditional stock photography.

You can check out Luis’ work at iStock and you he’s @velaphoto on twitter.

We have been working with Ron Chapple Studios and they were nice enough to share their thoughts on our services.

“We find the team at LookStat to be incredibly efficient, communicative, and responsive to our needs.  LookStat clearly cares about their clients.  Not only do they take care of your images, but they work hard to stay informed with the latest information about SEO, stock sites and metadata.  We highly recommend their services.”

Ron Chapple Studios
www.ronchapple.com

Ron & iofoto need no introduction and I would like to say a special thank you to Sara, the Senior Editor at the studio who is a blast to work with.

We have been working with Aurélie and Morgan on their keywording and uploading for some time now. We love working with them and they were kind enough to share their perspective on using LookStat Back Office services.

“We finally have time to shoot again! And, we’re always amazed by the creativity and accuracy of Lookstat’s keywording and uploading. You will never do it better yourself or for a better price, especially when you consider the time it would have taken you away from your camera.”

Aurélie and Morgan David de Lossy
www.amdlphotography.com

They are fantastic, fun people and this comes through in their images. You should visit their website to see some great examples of their work.

Spend Your Time Shooting, not keywording & uploading

Freeing up our customers to spend their time shooting and creating great images is precisely why we created our Back Office services. To learn more about how we can get you more time to shoot, please contact us and we’ll get back to you immediately.

We would like to congratulate Chris Gramly for having his image featured on istock as the Photo of the Week!

You should check out Chris’s website and his istock portfolio if you haven’t already.

PS: As we’ve blogged about earlier, Valentine’s Day images should start going up now. Happy New Year and Happy Shooting!

Jonathan Ross has been one of our earliest LookStat users on analytics and was one of our earliest customers on our Back Office services. He has been a pleasure to work with and is always generous with his insight and experience.

RM, RF, Microstock, Video, you name it, Jonathan does it. He’s has been an advocate of operating at every level of the stock industry and we’ve been fortunate to work with him on his microstock endeavors. You can find Jonathan on Twitter – he’s @jonathanjross – follow him. you won’t regret it.

Thanks for the unwavering support Jonathan. We’re excited to be working with you!

Trinette & Chris have been some of our earliest customers for LookStat Back Office and we’re grateful for their support and input as we have developed our offering.

“When we first started in micro we did all of our own keywording and uploading.  To say it was a logistical nightmare is a gross understatement.  We were buried in the details and didn’t have time to shoot as much as we wanted.  Lookstat took over all of our keywording and uploading in February of this year and it was a total game changer for us.  We got our life back and can now focus our energy on making images.  The project management and customer service at Lookstat is outstanding as well.  They have added a huge value to our business and  our workflow.  As a photographer, I can’t imagine being able to work in the micro market without them.”

Trinette Reed/ Chris Gramly

Not only are they awesome photographers but they are also terrific people and we love working with them.

We were lucky enough to work with Tom Grill (CEO of Tetra Images & a Founding Member of Blend Images) on one of his micro submissions. He has written a blog post about his impressions of the service which you can read here.

Sure there is a fee involved, but when I factor in the savings of time and aggravation and apply that time to producing even more pictures, I probably come out ahead of the game…

…For me, the service is money well spent.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Tom and to be trusted with his images and we look forward to the opportunity to work with him again in the future.