Sally

7 minutes ago, James Lupson said:

Sorry, but I must disagree, I am not inactive, astrophotography takes a long time to plan out and is dependant on location, time of year, and weather, and living in London doesn't cut it. I might not have uploaded lots of photos in a year, but I have most certainly not been inactive. Is there any way I am able to see how many people are seeing my images, so I know if it is a matter of people seeing my images or wanting to buy my photos?

I think you have misinterpreted the word inactive, which clearly and simply meant inactivity uploading photos. If you go to your dashboard and click on Alamy Measures/Your Images you will find a wealth of information about searches and zooms. T took me a while to realise that this was there, so I’m not surprised you haven’t seen it.

See the other thread about how big portfolios were when first sales occurred. And, if you have a very specific niche of astrophotography, then a relative lack of diversity many mean few sales even with a large portfolio.

58 minutes ago, AndrewP said:

That would have made a good shot for Live News!

Yes, if I had been a contributor then. So many places around the world I have been to in the last ten years that I regret not having photos of taken with a proper camera. 

3 hours ago, MandyD said:

but there should be some record of what they downloaded, no? why isn't this tracked and added directly to their account?

News images aren’t downloaded. They are sent to news desks. Then the newspapers decide if they want to use any as far as I understand the process.

1 hour ago, LawrensonPhoto said:

No, but some do get missed, make a note on your spreadsheet for 4 months after the date you took it, if it hasn't been reported drop Corin or Shelley an email

It was reported on December 22nd, just not cleared yet.

7 hours ago, losdemas said:

I was doing a search on a certain subject and came upon this image.  I clicked on it just because of the doubtful caption and discovered even more doubtful tags......but that's not my point here.  Before I clicked away, I noticed the pricing for PU: £21.66.  At first, I presumed that Alamy had had a change of heart regarding the multiple and continuing obvious abuse of this licensing option and seen fit to raise the standard calculator fee - but apparently not.  Most images are still set at the standard lower rate (currently £9.99 in the UK).

 

The agency that supplied this image seemingly has this higher price set for all it's images when licensed as PU.  Where's the opt-in button so that I may join this exclusive club?

With a caption like that, will it ever sell? 

This chap is 96 years old and was stationed at RAF Drem during World War II. He unveiled a new information board today and it was quite an emotional experience for him. Drem played an important part in the war, inventing the Drem lighting system to allow spitfires to land safely at night, which was adopted by all RAF airfields, and also had the first ‘kill’ of a German Junker plane in the first air raid by German bombers.

I have an outstanding news image payment from The Sun still waiting to clear from December 22nd 2017, nearly five months ago. Is this normal?

Thank goodness I’m so far away I don’t even have to think about it. I’m sick of the whole thing already. I shall not even look at the news next weekend. I had a surreal experience in 2011 when Will and Kate tied the knot of seeing it on a TV screen in a shop at Lake Canaima in Venezuela. The whole world will be watching.

4 months after I started uploading in February 2017, with around 800 images.

Definitely new wording, which is better. I usually pass QC too within 24 hours. It’s now been nearly 48. I expect it will happen later today though.

No recorded sales so far this month - not happened since the start of 2018, but I did find a couple of my news photos today, no doubt to be reported later.  Here is one.

Timing seems to be key.  I uploaded only 4 news photos on Sunday during the heatwave.  Two of them found their way into a newspaper the next day.  I must have got the timing just right since there must have been loads of weather photos that day.

Some fantastic images here so far.  My three attempts.  All in Edinburgh.

Camera  Obscura and The Hub (EIF headquarters) at the top of the Royal Mile

St Giles cathedral and a lot of roofs!

Bank of Scotland now Lloyds Banking Group, Scottish headquarters at Xmas time

Family fun during the heatwave

Bass Rock sparkling white with gannets, and clouds of gannets circling it

Found these Alamy photos in The Telegraph Monday 7th May

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/11782630/A-guide-to-primroses.html

 Tim Gainey / Alamy Stock Photo BK8NR6

Aflo Co. Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo  E796P2

Just now, John Richmond said:

It's a Viola, Sally - but I can't tell you which one other than it's likely to be one of the seed strains grown as annuals.

Thanks - just goes to show the limited knowledge I have of plants!

Are these petunias?  If so, does anyone know the variety?  I haven't been able to find them.

3 hours ago, spiegel said:

Thank you for your time and help.
So, more pictures and above all more interesting pictures, with people. 
I will try, thanks again, is an unusually nice forum here. 

 

@JeffGreenberg

Such photos, without MR,  will be quite seldom after May 25, I think.

At least from german contributers.  

 

 

 

GDPR will apply in U.K. too even after B*****.

How exactly it applies to stock photos, I don’t think anyone is sure yet.

27 minutes ago, Richard Gray said:

I've been wondering this for a while, but just checking the Live News photos now, aren't some contributors playing the system a bit by submitting single photos from the same event in independent submissions, knowing that each photo will get its own feature on Live News? This obviously clutters up the feed so other sets of photos perhaps get overlooked.

I suspect it’s more a case of errors not making the headline exactly the same for each photo - easily done. What I have seen is that the news team group them together.

1 minute ago, spacecadet said:

 I said "other taxed income". I though it was clear enough. You can offset a trading loss against tax paid under PAYE.

Yes, thanks understand that now. 

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Your problem is that there's a requirement to register for NI within three months of starting. You could do it now, and have your year end on February 4th. and still be within the time limit. You could then declare pre-trading expenditure for the previous 7 years. Of course if you have other taxed income you can show a loss and get a refund. If not, you can carry forward losses to reduce future taxable profits.

Sounds as if you can forget the £1000 hobby exemption.

Year end doesn't have to be the same as the tax year end. Mine is Dec 31st.

That’s helpful, thanks. I’ll have to give it some serious thought...quickly. But my understanding is that you can’t  offset expenses against a different source of income. Each ‘business’ remains separate. I have been self employed in a completely different capacity, and was told by HMRC that I couldn’t do this.

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

There is a new £1000 exemption.

However if he is starting a business he can deduct pre-trading expenditure and offset any losses against tax on his other income and get a refund. I'd call it financially incompetent not to show a loss for the first couple of years of trading.

You can't do both, though- it's either the £1000 exemption and keep records of the income, or declare it and fill in a SA return.

The difficulty is knowing whether you will, eventually earn any decent income.  If you have several years of earning less than £1,000, then it might be difficult to maintain that you are starting a business. But I see that it is advantageous to do so in the initial years when the expenses are probably greater due to buying equipment.  I earned almost nothing 2017/2018 but had a lot of expenses, but if I project for the new tax year based on the first three months of 2018, I'd be over the £1,000 cut off. I don't know if it's too late to declare myself as a business for 2017/2108.

2 hours ago, funkyworm said:

 

 

This is why it is important to cover your backside and hedge your bets as much as possible. ('scuse the pun.) Then if the news doesn;t sell, well maybe a few GV's may as stock, or images concerning vetenarians, or some abstracts of this on a POD, or, or, or... The more possibilities the less risk. And sometimes staying at home and doing other work is the best choice.

BTW it may help your chances of sales of sports subjects if you have the names of the riders and horses in the caption.

Yes, I know it would be better to have riders and horses names; I wasn’t able to get a programme since I didn’t go into the stadium itself. The beauty of Musselburgh racecourse is that it is on council land so you can just walk across it, even during races. Next time I might have to try and beg a programme from one of the grounds people.

scrub that, have just found you can get all the information you need from betting websites. Thanks for the tip.

Some photos from flat horse racing in Musselburgh today. I do love horses.

3 hours ago, RedSnapper said:

When doing news stuff, it's always good to have in mind some reason for the papers to want to run it...

• first
• only
• biggest
• smallest (book / house / cinema / car....)
• hottest (day / chili / sauna...)
• wettest (day )
• coldest
• oldest (man / tree / woman / book / )
• strangest
• last (mission / journey / day )
• longest
• shortest
• windiest
• etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.

And do your research *before* shooting

 

 

km

It must also depend on the variety of news on any particular day.  Ive just been uploading some photos of flat horse racing. But there is so much news today, I doubt it will be of any interest.  The Badminton horse trials, tennis championships, election results fallout, bank holiday weekend, cricket championship, table tennis competition, Tour de Yorkshire, sunny UK weather etc etc

There is a lot of stuff happening out there....