Hello all
I have been both a computer and photography junkie for a while. I have wanted for years to start an online gallery that serves as an outlet for advanced amateurs who can't get published in print (like myself), to publish and sell their work online. After several months of programming on my laptop evenings and weekends it's finally done. So far people have posted a little more than 200 pictures. There are many sites that let people upload their work for critiquing. There are many sites that let people upload their work for sale as stock photography. What I have in mind is to let photographers upload their work for display and to sell individual prints to art lovers, without giving up the copyrights.
first of all congratulations. I'm sure it was a considerable project to program.
So you have differentiated yourself by making it an art gallery, not a stock photo site. another good idea.
one thing worth considering...
the watermark should cover a much larger part of the image.
it would be easy to copy these images, and use them on a website with the small watermark you have.
one way to retain your marketing idea, is to make the watermark much bigger, covering a much larger portion
of the image, but make it transparent. then at least you won't be giving away small stock images for websites,where
they could easily crop out your watermark.
eventually you will need to get your own server. might as well be thinking about that now.
there are some affordable options out there.
I would think you might do better by having an annual fee for the photographers,
rather than $3 per image. maybe charge some flat fee, like $49 per year, or $99 per year...
and then limit the gallery size... 25 images, 50 images, whatever the expenses require.
and let them interchange the images, as it helps the system to find the best, most sellable images
and take down the unproductive ones.
15% seems a reasonable fee, if combined with a reasonable membership cost.
I'm still undecided about how I'm going to develop
my own site, as I have a lot of images myself, as to whether I will create
a site just for my work, for other photographers, or possibly a portal for many websites.
someday I'll figure it out.
I have priced having the programming done to create the system for a stock photo website,
and have found a talented and affordable programmer... but
still haven't made up my mind.
best wishes,
mark
www.stills.com
I would like the input of all of you on:
1- The look and feel, the interface, the first impression it makes on a new visitor, etc. I am trying to maintain an editorial balance between only accepting good work, so I can build a good reputation of high quality, while at the same time giving a chance to as many photographers as possible to display their work.
2- Since I'm starting this on my own, i.e. on a shoestring budget, I had to be careful with using disk space on my hosting account. So I require photographers to optimize their pictures to under about 100k. Many people have complained about that as restrictive. They gave examples of places like shutterpoint.com which does not impose limits on file size, but (apparently) does the file compression on their server to be of a size that would load in a reasonable time on the web browser. I disagree with those people, mainly because any reasonably computer literate photographer should know how to optimize a picture. Also shutterpoint.com charges people according to how much disk space they're using. So it's not really a free lunch.
3- In my model, right now uploading is free, but when I build considerable traffic and membership, I plan to let people host, say, 4 -6pictures for free then charge something like $3 /picture /year OR a flat fee. And when a sale is made, I plan to charge 15% or so. I am not done yet with online payments processing, but should be soon. Which model do you think I should go with?
4- Do you think I should include a discussion board for critiquing?
Please take a look at it and let me know what you think. I consider that site a labor of love rather than a business project. www.1PhotoStreet.com
Khaled
