Harry Harrison

Sorry, I didn't mean to divert your thread and I haven't really been on Alamy long enough to give you any meaningful critique. Still, not feeling that you can include people is clearly a problem for the type of photographs you would like to submit to Alamy but does seem to be particularly local to Quebec in terms of its severity. I see that in terms of France this has already been discussed on this forum here back in 2013: https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/65-street-photography-in-france/ Do you have professional photographic associations there that can offer you any guidelines?

Yes, I suppose it needs a lawyer, the other scenario would be going to Quebec (or France?), taking pictures without releases and putting them up on Alamy from the UK. Are you then out of their jurisdiction, could those people at the very least get them taken down. Note I'm just thinking of pictures with incidental, albeit recognisable people in, nothing to harm their reputation.

This article from the photographer Edmond Terakopian's site rather suggests that the situation is similar in France, but it dates from 2012, has it really been tested in terms of stock photography I wonder? https://photothisandthat.co.uk/2012/02/15/the-french-privacy-law/

Always wondered about this sort of regional variation, would you know whether that would mean that a potential customer of Alamy in Quebec (or Canada as a whole presumably) wouldn't be able to use an editorial picture that had no releases releases but was taken in a country where there was no such restriction, like the UK for example? I think France is potentially the same but I'm not sure.

I trust you didn't rope in a family member to shoot this one! What a mess.

Ok, I just wondered if you could tell by looking at a image, a random image if you like, not as a result of searching, if there was some hidden data field that I'd missed. I struggle a bit with this blurred people/disembodied hands business, important for commercial work with model releases probably but irrelevant for where there is no model release, and gives misleading search results if carried through to the letter, still that has been discussed before here. Thanks

Bryan, I've missed you saying this before but how can you tell if the number of people field hasn't been filled in on an image?

Interesting, quite possible as you say, I wonder what other options it gives them.

That's a great bit of detective work, I'm sure everyone will pleased to know that information, particularly as it was thought that the Location field wasn't searched.

No, in AIM you just comma separate each keyword or phrase if you are entering more than one at a time.

I'm not sure if you are in fact shooting RAW, but hopefully you are, particularly if exposure is a problem. Does your camera offer a highlight warning on the rear screen? If this is switched on then highlight areas flash if they are overblown with no detail. That can be a useful guide against under exposure, if you are shooting RAW then a small amount of 'flashing' is OK because the flashing indicates no highlight detail in what is effectively a jpeg, the RAW file will have detail. You can experiment of course but it will mean that you will be getting the maximum exposure in the shadows so making detail easier to recover.

I read that also, but then that raises the question of how do they do that? It would mean that they have a totally different interface available to them in the office. A programmer can query a database in any way he or she likes but day to day researchers need an easy to use system. I wasn't at the meeting but wondered if somehow there had been a confusion with the Alamy Stock Categories which is a different animal altogether - or are they somehow related in some mysterious way? I also think that since everyone is entering their categories 'blind' as it were, and there is little guidance from Alamy then there is unlikely to be any large degree of consensus in how they have been entered which would make searching on them a bit of a mixed bag.

Got you, I will definitely fill it in then, fortunately it's quite easy to find images in AIM as I usually put it in somewhere. Actually it makes sense for it not to be searchable given your other advice about not including the location for generic images where it is immaterial.

Can I infer from that then that the vast majority of images, those added before the AIM won't have a category anyway? In Alamy's defence I can see that of course they have to try stuff out and time's change, their competitors introduce things also that they have to match. It's not easy I imagine.

I am just that kind of newbie - I don't want to waste time doing things that are pointless, rather be taking pictures!