Steve Valentia

Thank you, I'm now in touch with Amy about it.

I am experiencing a number of Processing Errors, with submission to the Live News feed. I had one today (10 minutes ago) and another in the early hours of this morning, both the same set of images, via AIM, on my desktop – it has never failed previously in several years. I have also had some when using a mobile app in the last month. I'm using (as always) the IPTC "Headline" and "Caption" metadata fields with the "Alamy Plus" metadata set in Lighroom, on the desktop. For the mobile uploads the Lightroom apps does not have the "headline" field and I used the "title" one, which I understand works. Any suggestions as to why this is happening, are welcome.

That's been happening to me for over 30 years. Send an editor 5 of your most outstanding images, plus a "filler" for the half-dozen, and they'll print the filler! It's just one of those unfathomable laws of publishing. On the obverse side of that coin, as someone (for the last 7 years) involved in a well-known UK camera magazine; I've known page layouts of amazing images by a single photographer to be responded to with a request to change them for other, very mediocre shots. Go figure.

As a semi-retired person (and professional photographer for 40 years), I currently have more time to devote to stock photography than I have had since I joined Alamy in 2004. My rate of submissions have increased dramatically in the last 2 years, along with my rate of sales and income (although it's not close to a living-wage by any means). For the first 11 months of this year, I worked hard to improve this situation and planned to do even more about it 2019. However, I can say that I have not felt more annoyed, disappointed and let-down by anything in years than I was by James West's @Alamy rambling and unconvincing video posted yesterday, basically informing us of his (in my view, totally misguided) decision to poop all-over his loyal contributors. I sold my first photograph (a 10x8 B/W print) to a magazine at the end of the 1970's, for more than I got for an Alamy sale last week. But, I have continued to show my faith in the company, because I considered it to be more reputable and more concerned about contributors than many of its competitors. But, now, it's time for a change, I think. When I sold that first image, there were only a few picture agencies around and they were extremely difficult to join. I remember selling a few 6x6cm transparencies to Tony Stone and others, but no one took me on as a regular contributor. So, I sold most of my work by direct contact with the "market" (book publishers, magazines, calendar companies etc). I spent many hours a week sending stiff-back envelopes with slide sheets and 10x8 prints all over the UK and abroad. The rest of the time was spent researching markets using 'Artists & Writers Year Book'; 'Photographer's Markets Annual' and the 'BFP' newsletters. Things are much easier now. Buyers are contactable by email. Images can be submitted via the cloud and a simple URL link. So, it occurs to me: Why not go back to "knocking on doors"? Cut out the middle-man and make the initial contact with potential buyers myself? Maybe not all of the time, and maybe not exclusively, but enough for me to stop being upset that my loyalty to Alamy for the last 14 years was totally misplaced. Take back the reins and become an architect of my own stock photo destiny. If enough of us do that, James may re-think his decision. But, if he doesn't (as I expect), we may not care as much. Stephen Power Associate Editor, Cameracraft Magazine

Just got my first sale of December: Worldwide, web advertisement, media and publishing. Nice $$$ fee. Also, it's the 9th time this image has sold in the last 12 months. It's an 8th Century treasure that was found in a field half a mile from where I lived for 11 years. So, I'm hoping for 11 sales before the end of 2018!

Don't know about you, but at my age every reminder to check something is valuable. Is that gas....????

Thanks for the feedback, everyone, it's very helpful.

I've not had a QC fail for about 6 years (thankfully) and I'm submitting at least once a week. I have a *** QC rating and I usually expect the Good News email within 24 hours. However, for the previous 3 submissions I've noticed that the email lags behind the actual "Congratulations" notice on AIM, sometimes by up to 2 days. Case in point, today, after uploading at the weekend I had no email, but when I looked on AIM my images had passed. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Thank you. I hadn't seen it, I was expecting it to be posted in the same thread (I'm not always on the forum - too busy key-wording! ) It was nice to be shortlisted.

Thank you - it was good to get shortlisted.

When and where was the winner of November announced please? There's little point in bothering to enter if we dont find out who won (and lost) and why.

Well said. Many years ago the editor of the Sun, at that time, said that his photographers were there to record life events and not to take part in them. So that precluded them from helping at natural disasters, or accidents or even giving money to the needy. He was wrong. You are right.

I once put "skin disorder" as a keyword on a portrait of a female Viking re-enacator, who had the worst case of excema I've ever seen. She found the photo (or was told about it, actually), on Alamy and asked me to take it down, as I was putting her in "a bad light". She was happy to have the photo taken in the first place (in the Viking context), but did not want the negative association with the skin disorder. Just sayin'.

As per my last post (above), I wouldn't use any of those keywords. I'd use...Man, lying down, ground, beach, fully clothed, eyes closed, beer cans...etc

I would suggested you do not use potentially pejorative words like "homeless", "drunk", "drunk-looking" or anything else that you can't be sure is factually accurate when describing people. When I studied Analytic Psychotherapy at university, in another life (stay with me, this is relevant), my supervisor bollocked me for using technical or medical terms about patients, like "he's depressed" or "she's demonstrating counter-transferential ideas". "That's not useful as they can mean one thing to one person and something else to another person, and if it's not true you've misdiagnosed them and they might sue", I was told. "Just tell me what the patient is doing" was the best advice I ever got. On becoming a professional press photographer, it has worked perfectly for captions. Say what you see. Don't decide what it means.