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RF or RM for nature Photographs


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Philippe, in my opinion, "elsewhere" should be as close to everywhere as possible. I have RM images in small, specialist agencies and RF at the micros. All reach important segments of the marketplace. I wouldn't turn my back on any of them.

I don't submit to micros.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

 

Why not? I hear some photographers are making money there.

 
In addition Phillipe, I don’t think Alee is trying to prove anything. Alee just lacks your vast esoteric knowledge of keywording that lands arterra images on the last page of the search.
 
Alee do not be discouraged by anything you read posted by arterra. Keep asking questions.
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Philippe, in my opinion, "elsewhere" should be as close to everywhere as possible. I have RM images in small, specialist agencies and RF at the micros. All reach important segments of the marketplace. I wouldn't turn my back on any of them.

I don't submit to micros.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

 

Why not? I hear some photographers are making money there.

 
In addition Phillipe, I don’t think Alee is trying to prove anything. Alee just lacks your vast esoteric knowledge of keywording that lands arterra images on the last page of the search.
 
Alee do not be discouraged by anything you read posted by arterra. Keep asking questions.

 

 

Whoa. I don't give red arrows but I'm very tempted. Philippe pointed out an image that did NOT contain many of the things that are in the keywords. That doesn't take esoteric knowledge. He can be blunt but very, very helpful.

 

Paulette

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Philippe, in my opinion, "elsewhere" should be as close to everywhere as possible. I have RM images in small, specialist agencies and RF at the micros. All reach important segments of the marketplace. I wouldn't turn my back on any of them.

I don't submit to micros.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

 

Why not? I hear some photographers are making money there.

 
In addition Phillipe, I don’t think Alee is trying to prove anything. Alee just lacks your vast esoteric knowledge of keywording that lands arterra images on the last page of the search.
 
Alee do not be discouraged by anything you read posted by arterra. Keep asking questions.

 

 

Whoa. I don't give red arrows but I'm very tempted. Philippe pointed out an image that did NOT contain many of the things that are in the keywords. That doesn't take esoteric knowledge. He can be blunt but very, very helpful.

 

Paulette

 

It was by no means the worst example of inappropriate keywording amongst the set of images either.

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Depends where you submit elsewhere. If you submit to one agency as RM, you have to submit the same images elswhere also as RM. Some nature specialist agencies only accept RM.

 

Btw what are you trying to prove with this?

 

autumn-season-on-the-green-mountain-scat

 

alps, art, background, beautiful, beauty, blue, blue sky, bright, canyon, cloud, clouds, country, environment, female, field, forest, girl, grass, green, health, healthy, highland,hill, hipster, horizon, lake, land, landscape, landscapes, lifestyle, meditating, meditation, morning, mountain, mountains, natural, nature, outdoor, outdoors, pasture, peak,people, relaxing, river, rock, rural, scene, scenery, scenic, sitting, sky, spring, summer, sunlight, sunny, tourism, travel, tree, valley, view, water, white, woman, young    :wacko: 

 

Again, Alamy, isn't it about time you also take a peek at newbies' keywords?  :mellow:

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

Why stop there? What about EA65R4?

 

This is apparently a garter snake, a whip snake, a boa constrictor and a corn snake.  It's also dangerous, Honduran and green (among various other inaccuracies). 
 
No wonder textbook sales are falling through the floor; they don't know what to believe.
 
 
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Agreed, Philippe. It's hard to understand people who don't realize how important keywords are. They should only reflect what's actually in the image. Nothing more, unless it is a well-understood concept word. Such as loneliness, anger, abandonment , happiness. But if that concept isn't there, don't use it!

New contributors, at least some of them, don't seem to have a grasp of the fact that if their image wrongly comes up in a search that it actually hurts their brand and reputation.

Once you lose the trust of buyers, it's hard to get it back. They will find their images are treated as worthless, not to be trusted. I guess we should quit trying to help, and allow them to metaphorically cut their throats.

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I've always thought that Alamy should encourage contributors to report inaccuracies in keywords and captions. It would be beneficial for all concerned. I've made mistakes and haven't discovered them for months, even years, in some cases. It would have been great if someone had alerted me to them sooner. Having a forum segment devoted to this type of thing sounds like a good place to start. However, reporting keyword spamming might be trickier since there's often an element of chastisement -- i.e. "you're being sneaky" -- involved.

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Phillippe, I have given my first arrow ever - a green one of course. As an underwater natural history photographer, I go to almost extreme lengths to get a correct ID for subjects. I regularly badger experts around the world and where they can't agree, I'll state in the caption, "possibly ABD or XYZ". Or where something has been reclassified, I'll write ABC, previously XYZ. Then I check where my image comes in the search results to find images before mine where the keywords name just about every fish in the ocean.....and I can feel the steam coming out of my ears!

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I want to know should i RM or RF for my nature shots, Which one license type should be more profitable for me 

 

Some difficult or unusual nature subjects might take weeks to photograph effectively, in which case choose RM I suggest. Sadly Alamy and other agencies do not allow us to differentiate on price according to the time and effort involved, which is why nature photography will probably never be profitable. I would only choose RF for generic wildlife ID shots personally, but there are plenty of those already.

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Phillippe, I have given my first arrow ever - a green one of course. As an underwater natural history photographer, I go to almost extreme lengths to get a correct ID for subjects. I regularly badger experts around the world and where they can't agree, I'll state in the caption, "possibly ABD or XYZ". Or where something has been reclassified, I'll write ABC, previously XYZ. Then I check where my image comes in the search results to find images before mine where the keywords name just about every fish in the ocean.....and I can feel the steam coming out of my ears!

Same here. If I'm not 100% sure of the name, I don't upload, but place them in a special folder where they wait for me to have time to do further and deeper research. Some mushrooms are in that folder for more than 10 years. Still didn't figure out what they are :huh:

 

Just did a little check for one of the most recognisable and widely encountered mushrooms: the fly agaric. Who doesn't recognize those? :D But guess what's on place 6 of 5,947 images? :blink: ...... a panther cap.

Another one? Check the little wading bird "red knot". Guess what's on place 3 of 559 images? ..... a ruddy turnstone (have distinct ORANGE legs) :wacko:

Try the very common "peacock butterfly". N°11 of 4877 is a small tortoiseshell butterfly. You must be blind to miss the four distinctive, black, blue and yellow eyespots B)

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

I agree wholeheartedly with all that is said here. I'm wondering whether those of us who care about accuracy in our captions should use some common wording in the description: "special care was taken in establishing the accuracy of the information in the caption and keywords of this image" or something like that. If buyers become familiar enough with this, perhaps they will start looking out for that wording. Probably this idea is a bit pie in the sky, but I feel we need to do something! 

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New contributors, at least some of them, don't seem to have a grasp of the fact that if their image wrongly comes up in a search that it actually hurts their brand and reputation.

Once you lose the trust of buyers, it's hard to get it back. They will find their images are treated as worthless, not to be trusted. I guess we should quit trying to help, and allow them to metaphorically cut their throats.

 

 

 

The problem is that the damage is not done to the individual contributor but to Alamy as a whole. 

 

If a buyer sees lots of irrelevant images, he will not blame the contributors, but Alamy. Alamy, because they presented the search results. Alamy, because they don't do enough against keyword spamming. Alamy, because they don't clean up their library. This hurts Alamy and all of us alike.

 

I understand that with such a huge library it is very challenging for Alamy to clean up and check contributors' keywording and images. Even more so I hope Alamy would accept our help with this cleanup. 

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