Robert M Estall

I know half price for re-use was the norm thirty years ago, but from ten or fifteen years ago many started quoting more like 20% or perhaps 25% discount. Just yesterday I quoted 15% off to an American text book publisher and they didn't complain. Unfortunately you and I were in the travel brochure sector and getting them to pay for re-use at all was hard work. As for popping into a pub or cafe and suggesting "my usual" at a discount, nice idea. I'll let you know how I get on! all the best Robert

I recall enjoying steak & pawpaw for early breakfast in the northern coast of Queensland many years ago. I'm sure there were more bits & pieces on the tray. Certainly set one up for the day. It was going to get so hot during the day you wouldn't want to tuck into a lunch. Air conditioning hadn't arrived and dinosaurs roamed

27 inch iMac pretty well out-of-the box OK. Do turn the brightens down a bit. Extra RAM from Crucial a bargain. Real world tests like sending test images to friends on Windows PCs and willing clients cheaper and simpler than calibrating. And they look fine on Alamy. Time machine simple enough, but second back-up system best plan.

I'm really hacked off about this K3 announcement because I upgraded my K5 to a K5IIS (without any anti-aliasing filter) earlier this year at considerable expense. If I hadn't done that, I'm sure I would be lining up for a K3, but I don't think I really need 24 mp, and haven't had any problems shooting without the anti-aliasing filter. Surely the on/off aspect is a software fix rather than anything physical? Anyway, there wont be any around except a few revue examples for a month at least. The new £400, 55-300 sounds interesting and I will certainly be looking for revues when that becomes a

I have something like 5 or 6 hundred archival/reportage images on my portfolio. They are all RM. When searched, they do come with a health warning that they might not be quite up to scratch (!) as far as quality is concerned but I don't get the sense that clients are put off. They account for a good slice of sales. Some of them are scans from film stock dating back a good few years and might just struggle a little to make QC but certainly nothing to worry about at most repro sizes.

Sorry I didn't check that zero images didn't actually mean that Olive didn't have anything up on Alamy. My mistake. We really don't have enough information to make a useful guess or suggestion. Big country,little country? Third world or modern industrial? Montage or significant usage? Bottom end $500 but $5000 and rising according to the answers of the above questions. Used to be we knew a few agents well enough to ring them up and ponder a bit. We don't know each other well enough or trust each other enough anymore, more's the pity. And anything smells of price-fixing is illegal which al

mmmm, first post, no images. what do you reckon?

I normally have the sound off or right down on my desktop. Most laptops hardly do sound worth listening to. But we all must have some old headsets lying around from the days of our walkmans. Pop the mini plug into your machine and problem solved. Volume set to about half way was fine for listening to James a second time. I'll use it more for other things perhaps.

Sounded OK on my big imac with you tube and built-in volumes up full. A descent mike at James end might help with both volume and clarity. They are cheap enough! James manner of speech wouldn't quite hack it for a broadcast test but I can't see how anyone could call that an odd "accent". The key to listening is, don't panic, just tune into what whoever is actually saying. When I first came to the UK some people seemed to have trouble understanding me; I know I was speaking pretty clearly with perhaps a bit of Canadian twist, just that they weren't used to it and shut down their ears enough

Poor month to be a Robert. Like Robert Convery, a $180 refund wiped out my few modest sales and only a last second $50-and-a bit sale saved me from being in the red for the month. A little discouraging but a common tale.

No, No, No. Do not say NO. Name a price, say £250 or more and spell out very limited rights and insist on a byline "after a photograph by Jools Elliot" That should be the end of the matter, but if they do take a chance, you have some leverage. You would probably succeed with a 100% uplift for flagrancy if push came to shove. What do you suppose his solicitor charged them for his cynical advice?

I've got a couple of the little Manfroto ones which I picked up at a very special offer, otherwise I would have gone for a much cheaper brand. They are NOT VERY POWERFUL so dimmable is not a feature likely to be useful unless you are wanting to use them for close-up work. The light is a little cool, but you can fix that later. I guess video is their main attraction but unless you have several, you wont be able to illuminate much of a range. They do stay cool which is handy, and don't gobble batteries in minutes like modelling lights on the bigger flash units. Buy a couple of cheap ones and se

I was mostly an agent for about thirty years, but have pretty much reverted to being a photographer these days. Put together a quite a few deals over the years; every one was different, but the format remained similar. Actual buy-outs were rare, extended rights over a longish period more likely. Perhaps I might have been a little hasty in suggesting any figures; might be too high, might be too low, only you and your client have any idea about the potential earnings of the photos. Do lots of other photographers have coverage? Non-mainstream historic buildings can make sales, but the pix do

Your ship may have come in! But go about it the right way for best outcome. Do quote them on a per image basis and perhaps a bit of a sliding scale. Try to get them to select their "must have" two or three at six or seven hundred pounds each. That leaves the possibility of adding extra images and indadvertedly upping the total nicely Certainly don't bundle up the whole 150 image package and agree to a couple of thousand all-in. worth a try and hold your nerve! Just throw out the figures and wait for their reaction. Do not phone them up and ask "what do you think?" good luck!

A tiny tiny person or silhouette count as PEOPLE as far as Alamy are concerned. A judge in a compensation suit would probably take a different view, but I would prefer to avoid the hassle and so would Alamy it seems. It would be the publisher who would be in the front line but the ball would keep bouncing.

I would guess that at least two thirds of my sales have not been zoomed. It's perhaps encouraging to see some clients have had a closer look at our snaps but it doesn't mean they are going to turn into sales, nor that lack of zooms means your prospects of sales are doomed.

I've only indirect experience when a Danish mate gave it a try. We had some very amusing correspondence using it! I think it got better as it learned his delivery but he dropped it in the end.

cheap or knock-down-price is one (bad) thing but free-good-for-your-portfolio is something else. This can't just be a Welsh thing, getting clients out here in East Anglia to part with a descent fee isn't easy. But I don't think I can recall anyone seriously or even unseriously asking me to work for free. Or even donate an archive shot. I'm not suggesting some photographers might have a big "sucker" sign hanging around their neck, but they must to some extent be giving off a signal to clients that it could be worth a try. No, I tell a lie! There was a New York publisher tied up to the Coust

As the description field is no longer searchable, if you are simply trying to motor through your submission. you can leave it alone. If, on the other hand, you think there might be a benefit in demonstrating that you know what you are on about and that your photograph has some thought behind it or authority through research then it can do no harm and may well do some good. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon perhaps? My experience over the years has been that publishers prefer to leave the cerebral side to writers and the quick jab of the shutter to photographers, but scoring a few cr

as English is not your first language, I'll assume you don't really mean to exactly COPY Wikipedia information. First of all, take note that Wikipedia should not be taken as 100% reliable, but is certainly worth a look. By all means use it, but engage the brain as well, buyers will recognise if they are just seeing lifted information. What is definitely against the rules is simply copying captions from fellow Alamy contributors

The phrase "piece of string" comes to mind, but if you can can come up with both three ISBN Book numbers and three ISSN Magazine numbers and have been at this for a good few years, the remuneration can get up there around the £1000 level. There are six bands of usage for each category raging from just a few to lots & lots. Definitely worth getting started. For too many years, I didn't bother wih DACS, thinking it would be peanuts like the Public Lending scheme. Sadly, a whole bunch of magazines are trying to escape the scheme due to concerted rights-grabbing terms in their contracts an

I think RF has largely had its day unless you photograph yet more oranges and bananas. The Alamy IQ model seems a little in the RF direction while remaining RM

John, we have similar sized portfolios on Alamy. If you find the time to trawl though mine pointing out the duff info, there's a beer in it for you. No make that a case of 24! Robert

my thoughts too! but then, there are quite a few forum nom-de-plumes look dodgy where they seem to turn out OK. It's not a game I play or even begin to understand. Robert

upwards and onwards, and YES, please do think about ditching microstock accounts. They must be the root cause of so much pricing misery.