H Mark Weidman Photography

Alex was the main photographer liaison for at least ten years; I think she left last April. I have twice used the same email address you noted in your post, but, no response.

Does anyone know if Alamy has hired someone to fill Alex Bortkiewicz’s position as photographer’s contact? Alex was wonderful, I dealt with her many times over the past years. I referred one of my local clients to my work on Alamy, they licensed several photos, but they never appeared on my sales Statement. I have emailed “contributor relations” twice about this over a period of two weeks and have not had a response. Thanks in advance. Mark W.

Not exactly certain what you mean by "join the queue". Do you mean join the queue to wait for a response from someone at Alamy? Cheers, Mark W.

That is a loss for Alamy but hopefully a good change for Alex. Does anyone know who has taken her position at Alamy?

Does anyone know if Alex Bortkiewicz has left Alamy? I sent her a couple of emails and both prompted auto responses as Undeliverable. Thanks Mark Weidman

For about six years I owned an Epson 7900 and three or four Epson R3000 printers (they kept dying with clogged ink nozzles). I live in a very dry climate in Colorado and actually installed a whole room humidifier in my studio in an effort to minimize the clogged Epson ink nozzles (very frequent with both printers). Very long story short when it was time to replace the two Epson printers I did a fair amount of research and went with Canons, a PRO-1000 (max 17x22") and PRO-2000 (24" wide roll paper). The Canon printers, which are now about a year old, are absolutely fantastic. I have never had a single clogged ink cartridge with either Canon printer. All inkjet printers are happier when used on a regular basis and my printing on the PRO-2000 is just occasional. Last November I was traveling for over a month and both printers sat, unused. Upon return they both fired up and printed beautifully with no clogged nozzle issues. Paper feeding with both Canons is superior to the Epsons. Both printers, unlike their Epson counterparts, switch automatically between the black matte & black gloss inks; so there is no wasted inks purging the lines. The PRO-2000 is designed such that when an ink cartridge gets extremely low you get an automated warning and you can actually change the empty cartridge while the printer is running (unless you ignore the warning and let it run dry). The Canon inks are about the same cost as the Epson inks, maybe a tab more, but the cartridges seem to last longer than my old Epsons, though that is not a scientific measure. The ink heads in the Canon printers are user replaceable, unlike the Epsons which require a visit by a service tech to replace the very expensive print head. I am so glad my dealer (Alex.com in midwest USA) convinced me to go with the Canon printers - the output is beautiful and I am extremely happy.

I have used an Epson 750 flatbed scanner to digitize both 120mm and 4x5" transparencies. I use the "wet" or oil bath method of mounting the transparencies. This takes more time to set up each transparency but results in a cleaner scan requiring less retouching/spotting. I've never had a digital file from one of these scans rejected by Alamy QC, and have scanned at least 2,000 transparencies. The Epson 750 is not sufficient for producing quality scans of 35mm transparencies. I use a Nikon dedicated film scanner for 35mm.

Folks, thanks very much for the mostly constructive comments. As expected, there are a few insulting comments (Ed), which is precisely why I rarely take the time to post on this Forum. Based on Ed's comment I won't take the time to post sample files online, since he succinctly points out "Alamy is not a co-op agency. Forum members have nothing to say about which images of yours past or fail QC." Sincerely, Mark Weidman

Well, you are correct in that if I was with Getty I should be considering pulling my images from them. But, I did not like the way they were treating their photographers and pulled my images from Getty about two years ago. Mark Tomorrow I will create an online gallery and post some of the sample images that failed QC.

I really was not looking for an opinion on whether the image files were good enough to pass QC, but, since someone asked, I am happy to share sample files. I could not find a way to attach JPEGs to this Reply - I see the "My Media" icon, but how does one upload image files to the "My Media" library?

Thank you for the post Jill, I appreciate it. Mark

I should have clarified in my recent response that I am not much to spend time on Forums, and not really interesting in diverting from the topic. I am simply looking to see if anyone else has had similar experiences with QC. Thanks. Mark

The decision would not be based on just the two fails. Even at that, I have to take into account the considerable time (days) of work to prepare the batches of images that failed (hundreds). The decision has more to do with what I perceive as Alamy's stubborn refusal to admit a mistake, along with the low usage fees. I am not inclined to commit to yet more days, or weeks, of work preparing new images, on the chance that their QC department may make yet another mistake. I do not feel I was given a fair shake. One of their reasons for the QC failure is that it is not a reasonable comparison between a digital file examined at 100% on a computer monitor, with a large color print blown up to the equivalent of the 100% file. My argument was if the print is beautiful, with plenty of sharp detail, then the file must be fine. A bad file cannot produce a quality enlargement. Nothing was done to the original files before printing them, except adding an Output Sharpening Layer specific to the printing paper (and I told Alamy that). And, to answer John's question, I have not changed my digital workflow other than occasional upgrades in Photoshop. If anything, the image processing software is better than ever and my cameras are better than ever.

Some of us base our business decisions based on principles; not just on the "bottom line". I rarely, if ever, post on this forum but rather spend my time shooting and submitting images to my three agents. It was not that many years ago that my images sometimes brought four and five figure license fees. My absolute minimum license fee was $200 at that time. My thought to pull my collection from Alamy would be based on the decision that I did not want to be part of an organization that is contributing to the severe decline in license fees. I do not intend to single out Alamy alone for this trend, as there are many other factors to consider.

I have contributed to Alamy almost 10 years now and have well over 15,000 images online. I average a minimum of several image license sales every week of the year. I have been shooting professionally for over 30 years, using digital capture and Adobe Photoshop for almost 15 years, and have never had a digital image rejected for quality reasons by any other stock agent, including Getty, except by Alamy. In recent months I have experienced what I perceive to be inconsistencies in the Quality Control measures. After going years without a QC Failure, I have had two batches of images fail in recent months. The images were captured with a Canon EOS 1DX and Leica M9-P. In both cases I made (from the original files that Failed QC) beautiful 16x20” prints and sent them in to Alamy for further consideration. In both cases Alamy QC said the images were not up to their standards. I completely disagreed with their assessment, but to no avail. I am seriously considering pulling my images from Alamy. The amount of time spent properly preparing & submitting images against the increasingly low fees is not providing a very good return on investment. I am wondering if anyone else is having similar, inconsistent, problems with the quality-control group? Mark Weidman _______________________________ H. Mark Weidman Photography 24 Trailside Circle Salida, CO 81201-7011 USA Studio: 719-207-4713 Mobile: 719-221-5585 email: mark@weidmanphoto.com web: http://www.weidmanphoto.com/