I am still a fairly new photographer (and college student) and have been using zenfolio for the past year. The subject of 500px comes up often enough in online conversation I thought it would be beneficial to write down some of the issues I’ve had over the years and communicate why I no longer participate in sharing, voting, or viewing there. Like you, I signed up for 500px a few years ago, was fairly active for the first year or so, and then I stopped it using it. Upgrade now. It becomes a game. How does decreasing the reward for use on the Bing homepage to $0 work as a first step towards exposure to eventually make money? One of the drawbacks of 500px is that subtle work, or that which might take a few seconds to savor and enjoy is often ignored there. I believe the hotlinking they allow to be the reason they won’t (after 2 years) delete my image files from their servers – they have people still loading them on other sites, or don’t want to close off access to them in that way. The Terms of Service you agreed to when you signed up no doubt cover this – I’ll bet if you give them a read ou’ll see all the things you’ve agreed to. There have been a lot of popular photographs on 500px showing wild, unfledged baby birds out of their nests and being fed by parents. I feel your pain, but in a slightly different way (I never signed up for a paid account there). You can't directly download a photograph from 500px for free, but if you need to save a photo for legal use, there are some tools that will help. -Chromatic aberration Thanks for your time and this excellent post! 500px is a photo sharing website, meant to compete with flickr. Limited time only: Get Pro member benefits for $71.88/year. so I’d start there. Pulling my files — if they let go of them!! Sometimes I have been able to block use of an image if they are hotlinking it from my website. We will, so you might as well do it first. -Use at least five keywords for your photos, but the sweet spot is between 15 and 20. Could you maybe do a post on which photography websites are best for different types of photographers? I’ve had a number of people ask me where I DO recommend hosting photos. Selling your photos requires updating your licensing settings, which can only be accomplished on … -Include location details in your keywords. 500px will sell your photos if it can keep most of the cash. I wanted real criticism, from real photographers to help me better my craft and also a place to offer my experience. Sure enough, I was able to reconnect to my account only to discover that all my images had disappeared without a trace. 500px ISO is home to the best photo stories on the web. I’ve done tests to see what kinds of images capture attention. It's in the upper-right corner of the web page. That isn’t really much of an answer, but regardless of platform what are you hoping to get out of it? Thanks for publishing your thoughts Michael. From what I’ve seen on G+ your work SHOULD fit in just fine on any photo sharing site. My personal philosophy on selling stock now is that I will never use microstock licenses (such as those at iStock which you mentioned), and I’ll avoid Royalty Free in favor of Rights Managed only. I’m following your lead, Michael. Shutterstock is one of the largest photo libraries online. -Without keywords, nobody will find your work. Well, not really. 500px Team they banned my account with no warning (even tho their own terms specify that first, they must give a warning), and they refuse to even answer. If you find any photo of yours, take a … My account was terminated by them for violations in their term agreement, (I stupidly posted my new domain name which pointed to their marketplace). I, like many of the others, have been toying with joining 500px but I don’t think it’s for me. While the motivations may be understandable the organization’s attitude towards photography and its customers has lead me to believe their website is not the place for me. Royalty-free means a buyer pays a larger, one-time fee to use your photo multiple times on multiple types of media. They aren’t thinking ahead all that far? I haven’t seen your work but a low score on 500px can mean a number of things. On first glance it appears your images are for sale for a $250 RF license or $50 for web and social media use, even though that is not the case. Thanks. We had a back and forth about exactly what they required, and I gave them a quote of around $400 USD for a Rights Managed License. On with the list! All content was evergreen service details etc. I also intend to write longer and better descriptions for images going forward, as most relevant text on the page can only help the SEO there. More print sales? Keeping an eye out on our trend related blog posts and staying on top of different articles that are shared in our Contributor Newsletter is key. I’ll just say that since I left 500px I don’t miss comments simply consisting of “V+F” or the emails I had saying that they would vote for my images only if I would vote for theirs first. Shoot that. The trouble is, to be honest, that there seems to be a pro photographer’s blog about “why I’m no longer using X” about pretty much every stock photo agency. . Trends are constantly changing, and buyers are always looking for fresh content. Great write up. Do you know of any reliable way to find one’s photos “out there” that are being used and linked without the artist’s permission? I’m glad I stumbled up on it. This was at a time of crossroads for analogue and digital photography. I have not opted into the 500px Prime licensing site, and yet sometimes these have appeared below my own images. Three years ago I signed up for an account on 500px – an online photo sharing website. I’m not really surprised their policies are as such and would urge others to do as you have done given their tactics if this is truly the case. So, I copied all the followers and all of those that I follow to a Notepad file and then to an Excel spreadsheet. How is it better than Flickr or all the other free sites? 500px may have an offering of stock that is usually good quality – but will buyers head there to look for it? Joined solely for the purpose of seeing good images from photographers around the world and sharing my images. Feel your pain, but it is asking for an explanation that indeed this was at a of... Photography 500px sell photos believing all I get is automated response t have that banner semblance honesty! Still have my photos again without permission “ privacy is golden ” which was my to. Purpose of seeing good images from photographers around the world and sharing it on your! 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