Getting images noticed

[Dylan_Larking]

Hello!

So I have had several photos on Alamy for around a year now and even though all of them are on sale and optimised, I still don’t get much exposure at all and no sales. Does anyone have any tips for people like me or could help my photography get noticed?

 

Thanks,

-Dylan

[Martin B]

Upload more photos.

 

[Inchiquin]

21 minutes ago, Dylan_Larking said:

Hello!

So I have had several photos on Alamy for around a year now and even though all of them are on sale and optimised, I still don’t get much exposure at all and no sales. Does anyone have any tips for people like me or could help my photography get noticed?

 

 

You have 7 images out of 125 million.

 

Alan

[John Richmond]

Did you do any research before you started uploading to Alamy?  Have you done any subsequently?

 

If you had you'd have understood that even moderate levels of success requires large numbers (thousands) of well shot, well processed, well captioned and keyworded images to meet the needs of the editorial and commercial marketplace in which Alamy operates.  You don't have to upload thousands straight away.  You do need to have a plan to take and upload good numbers on a regular basis to build up to those sort of numbers within a realistic time scale.  7 non unique images in 10 months of uploading means that you are lost in the vast collection of similars and that, I'm afraid. is the route to certain failure.

[John Mitchell]

All of the above plus add more description to captions and improve keywording (e.g. delete irrelevant tags and replace with relevant ones) for starters.

[Martin B]

5 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

All of the above plus add more description to captions and improve keywording (e.g. delete irrelevant tags and replace with relevant ones) for starters.

Yeah, hadn't read his key wording. "plant pot", "animals", and "floor" have what to do with wild daisies in a field? And yet there is not " wild daisies in a field" as either a caption or a keyword phrase. (it should be in both) More photos, more verticals, better captions, more relevant keywords, and, if you are posting images of plants or animals, scientific names in both the caption and the keywords. Do those things and sales will eventually come.

[MariaJ]

1 hour ago, Dylan_Larking said:

Hello!

So I have had several photos on Alamy for around a year now and even though all of them are on sale and optimised, I still don’t get much exposure at all and no sales. Does anyone have any tips for people like me or could help my photography get noticed?

 

Thanks,

-Dylan

 

 

Just to echo what everyone else said - you need more images, better keywording, and they must be saleable images.   Buyers are looking for specific content for various uses.  See the sales thread or the "found alamy images" thread for examples.

 

It also takes time.  My first sale was with 321 images in my port, and over 6 months after I started uploading. And that was 4 years ago when there was less competition.

[Sultanpepa]

There's no point in having optimized images if half the tags are irrelevant. Your images offer nothing to the customer that isn't already plentiful on Alamy and better tagged. 7 images are like a raindrop in the ocean. Sorry to be blunt but if you make a sale this year it will be akin to winning the lottery. Load many many more images and tag with only relevant keywords. Ask yourself what would a buyer search for that would interest them in your particular images. eg. If a buyer searches for "animal", would they not expect to see an animal of some sort?

[Betty LaRue]

For instance, pink flower with a green background won’t get you a sale.  If you can’t identify the flower by common and scientific name, then don’t upload it. You’re wasting your time.

Buyers here search for specific plants by those names.

I have sold several trumpet flowers, orange trumpet flowers, Campsis radicans.  Names in both tags and caption. And most of the time my flowers were searched, it was by the scientific or Latin name.

Betty

[spacecadet]

Seven images equates to about one sale every 14 years, I'm afraid.

[Russell]

I agree with all the above, but re. keyword accuracy J9G8K8 is not a honey bee. It's some species of bumble bee, but the I can't identify it fully from the image.

[hdh]

Also agree with all of the above and to make things worse: 

 

Irrelevant Keywords result in your pictures shown more often but not zoomed, as they are not relevant to the clients search. 

This adversely affects your rank and at which position your pictures are shown. 

 

Hence the average of 14years between picture sales may become - now using british understatement - slightly worse.    

 

[Kelv]

Thank you all for the information as well, that has helped me too, mind you finding some plant names takes an eternity, but I'm up to a heady 200 images.  Taking an image is only a part of the process, taking an image that someone wants is the hard part. 

 

 

[Kelv]

4 minutes ago, funkyworm said:

 

Its a lot quicker if you take photos of plants with labels... and take a photo of the label before taking the photo of the plant. (Always corroberate afterwards making sure the label belongs to the plant.)

Thank you, that might be the way to go as my knowledge of horticulture is poor  I get strange looks crawling through hedgerows.

[hdh]

47 minutes ago, funkyworm said:

 

Its a lot quicker if you take photos of plants with labels... and take a photo of the label before taking the photo of the plant. (Always corroberate afterwards making sure the label belongs to the plant.)

+1

Especially the part in the brackets is important. 

The label may not belong to the plant you take a photo of for a variety of reasons

a- Label appears to be in front of a bush but refers to something that will only be growing in in front of that bush in July and the picture is taken in , say, March 

b - the label is a leftover of something that grew there in the past and the label-man wasnt able yet to put up the new label 

c- beware of the trolls mixing up the labels to confuse unsuspecting stock photographers like me  

 

[andremichel]

I feel for you. You must have worked so hard building up your collection only to face such bitter disappointment. 

[Stokie]

1 hour ago, Kelv said:

 Taking an image is only a part of the process, taking an image that someone wants is the hard part. 

 

 

 

How very true!

 

John.

[Dave Richards]

12 hours ago, Dylan_Larking said:

Hello!

So I have had several photos on Alamy for around a year now and even though all of them are on sale and optimised, I still don’t get much exposure at all and no sales. Does anyone have any tips for people like me or could help my photography get noticed?

 

Thanks,

-Dylan

Heed all the advice already given. Do a search and take a look at similar images to yours to see what you are up against. You really must put in the effort required. If you aren't prepared to do the necessary work then you will get nowhere.

[Sally]

42 minutes ago, Stokie said:

 

How very true!

 

John.

That bit is largely unpredictable, though.  I have sold images that I didn't think were my best. And, a constant comment on the sold images thread is the surprise that something sold.

[Stokie]

30 minutes ago, Sally said:

That bit is largely unpredictable, though.  I have sold images that I didn't think were my best. And, a constant comment on the sold images thread is the surprise that something sold.

 

I know, that's why I upload anything and everything, as you just never know what is going to sell.

[Kelv]

52 minutes ago, Sally said:

That bit is largely unpredictable, though.  I have sold images that I didn't think were my best. And, a constant comment on the sold images thread is the surprise that something sold.

That's interesting,  I suppose if the subject fits what client wants and it tells the story, this is what I'm having trouble with, easy to take a picture of a poppy to add to the thousands of other pictures online, but making it different and interesting is another matter. 20-30 years ago I used to work with a cameraman who also took transparencies for image libraries and the level of quality was exceptional the slightest flaw meant rejection , nowadays a lot of people think Its easy to sell pictures, and suddenly find how difficult it is, I've realised it takes a lot more than a pretty picture and you have to work at it.

Just from this post I'm aware from just how important tagging and wording is, so I'm in the process of updated that, once again thank you for the help here, if anyone wants to look at my images and give constructive criticism I'm happy but bracing myself for negative words. 

 

[Stokie]

1 hour ago, Kelv said:

That's interesting,  I suppose if the subject fits what client wants and it tells the story, this is what I'm having trouble with, easy to take a picture of a poppy to add to the thousands of other pictures online, but making it different and interesting is another matter. 20-30 years ago I used to work with a cameraman who also took transparencies for image libraries and the level of quality was exceptional the slightest flaw meant rejection , nowadays a lot of people think Its easy to sell pictures, and suddenly find how difficult it is, I've realised it takes a lot more than a pretty picture and you have to work at it.

Just from this post I'm aware from just how important tagging and wording is, so I'm in the process of updated that, once again thank you for the help here, if anyone wants to look at my images and give constructive criticism I'm happy but bracing myself for negative words. 

 

 

You have some good images - another couple of thousand and you will be making regular sales.

 

You have put the latin name sometimes on your plant images, I would advise always to put the latin name and also the common name and cultivar.

 

A few too many similars (angelic ceramics eg) but not too many.

 

Also most of your images are tightly cropped. That's fine but sometimes it's good to leave space for copy if the image is to be used in a magazine or newspaper. I know I mentioned too many similars, but you could upload a closely cropped image and one with more copy space of the same subject.

 

Hope this helps and isn't a criticism at all, but hopefully some friendly advice.

 

John.

[Kelv]

13 minutes ago, Stokie said:

 

You have some good images - another couple of thousand and you will be making regular sales.

 

You have put the latin name sometimes on your plant images, I would advise always to put the latin name and also the common name and cultivar.

 

A few too many similars (angelic ceramics eg) but not too many.

 

Also most of your images are tightly cropped. That's fine but sometimes it's good to leave space for copy if the image is to be used in a magazine or newspaper. I know I mentioned too many similars, but you could upload a closely cropped image and one with more copy space of the same subject.

 

Hope this helps and isn't a criticism at all, but hopefully some friendly advice.

 

John.

John, Thank you so much for the advice ( and being gentle ) , that makes a lot of sense,  I'll shoot a wide shot as well, and get the dictionary out too  see you in a couple of thousand shots.

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, funkyworm said:

 

Its a lot quicker if you take photos of plants with labels... and take a photo of the label before taking the photo of the plant. (Always corroberate afterwards making sure the label belongs to the plant.)

 

Fine if the names on the labels are correct. I've found that you can't always rely 100% on the ones in grocery stores and flower shops, not here anyway.

[Dylan_Larking]

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

I think I mostly underestimated how popular stock images were and didn’t even realise how little I had uploaded. I have heaps of photographs that I haven’t done anything with so I’ll try and upload more.

While on the topic, can anyone help me identify the plant? and excuse my stupidity for mistaking the bumble bee for a honey bee (I captioned it about 11 o clock at night). Also, my initial thoughts were that people didn’t really care much about specifics and would search very generic things, so thanks again for the advice.