Steve Valentia

The buyer is not in charge of the fee if they buy here. Alamy is or YOU are. I can't see the problem (and I've been doing this for a VERY long time).

What's the problem with telling us the amount? Actually it may do some good, and warn others to keep away from NU. I do.

I came at stock photography (over 30 years ago; and nearly 15 of those with Alamy) from a different starting point than you. That is; I avoided Microstock like the plague, since it's inception (I can remember the first adverts for FREE iStock images in US based digital imaging magazines). It's only in the last year that I decided to test the waters of Microstock with less than 200 images. I have sold 77 images so far, and made a grand total of €22.80. With Alamy, In the last 6 months, I sold 58 images, with total sales of $1700. No contest. The crunch came with the Microstock images when, only 2 weeks ago, a perfectly good, creative set of model released images (that I had gone to some lengths to take and have MR'd), were rejected on the grounds that the original artwork of the model's tattoos was not similarly "released". No furhter images of mine, of any kind, will be "released" to that library. As far as Alamy goes; I have had years when I sold virtually nothing. But in the last 3 years, I have made more of an effort to contribute, sending at least 30 images a week as a minimum. I have seen my sales increase exponentially as a result. I have broken my all-time record for sales 2 years running (I'm currently 10 sales above the record set last year, with 5 months to go). My revenue reached a peak in 2009, and I'm currently about 10 more sales short of breaking that too, so it seems that fees are climbing back up, slowly. It's certainly true that the more you (or at least, I) put into Alamy, the more I am getting out of it. Unfortunately though, numbers count, and the right sort of images are very important. Your current set of images is more than 10% backgrounds and/or patterns, and I'm not sure that keeping up that balance will provide regular sales. To quote one of the most successful Alamy contributors, Keith Morris, what seems to work best (at least for him) is: OPDOT - one person, doing one thing. There are exceptions to this rule, of course and one of my biggest repeat sellers is an image of an Irish antiquity photographed in a museum (with permission). However, this one is of OPDOT; and made a healthy $50 this morning. Good luck with your Alamy adventure.

Only 1 of my 3 pseudonyms are showing. My main one (about 6000 images) is missing along with another, that I only use occasionally. The one that is showing only has 300 images associated with it. No one has mentioned contacting Contributor Services (probably the most useful thing to do), so I've done it. I'll let you know if I get a reply.

Thanks Mark, that did it.

I also have FF as the browser, but no joy for me. I just get a blank window when I choose the one I want to upload from.

At least not on my computer. I have had no problems finding my images to upload using the "browse images" option until recently. Now, I can only upload images via drag-and-drop on my macjine (Windows 10 x64 bit). Has anyone else noticed this? Apologies if it's been asked previously.

I won the 2007 Guru Award for Photoshop Excellence (Photography category), from Scott Kelby's NAPP, so my input may be a little dated. I do have the current Photoshop CC though. Here are my top 3 tools, that I use all the time: Spot Healing Tool Levels Lightroom Classic

On your dashboard, Alamy Content Tweets are on the right hand side. On Twitter, go to #Alamypicneeds to see them all in one place. Also, see my post above about a forthcoming change to the dashboard.

We can submit better quality images, less "similars" and VERY accurately caption and keyword images so that buyers aren't sent to the wrong imagery.

How very dare you. Of course, the best way to improve the quality is to submit your own images. Let me know when they're up.

Her name is Marj. She's my partner

I totally agree, except I was assuming (maybe wrongly) that when Alamy Content put out a request, that the client is prepared to wait for the images to come in (maybe not). I also assumed that they won't be looking to pay for a shoot (maybe they will). Searches in Alamy measures strike me as being too late to do anything about, as the client won't be doing another search (but maybe they will).

Which one?

When I started in stock photography, in the late 1970's, I bought an excellent book on freelance photography by Ed Buziak (I now have a cherished B/W print on my kitchen wall by the great man, and a signed copy of the book). In it, he listed numerous ideas for stock shooting and also suggested keeping an eye on "wants" lists supplied by stock agencies such as Tony Stone. I always interpreted these in my own way and sometimes just used them as a springboard for shooting, when I had otherwise run out of ideas. So, I agree with you that it's useful to interpret such requests. But, I was under the impression that in the case of Alamy Picture needs, the client may have had a specific image in mind. They may, of course, just want to see what comes in and pick the best from the 400 or so submissions. In which case, I'll stick to winning the lottery.