Sally R

For me it is mostly solitary. At other times I enjoy being sociable, but I really love the peace and total absorption of just being out on my own taking pics. It is like a meditation. If I'm travelling with others I tend to feel like I'm being annoying if I keep wanting to stop to do photography. I have enjoyed doing night photography with other photographers in a small group though. The main thing is taking care to not get in the way of each others' shots!

I have been wondering about this as well. I decided to go RM as when I joined Alamy a few months back I already had some images RF with another agency, so I thought I'd do things differently with Alamy. Have left the other agency now and just selling through Alamy, and unsure whether to stick with RM only. Still too early for me with just one sale to have much idea yet what is best. But it does seem from peoples' comments that it may not make a significant difference, and there are many other factors at play. If I were to trial some as RF, I think I'd go for some of the more generic or commonly seen images, as Sally above mentions with her nature shots.

That is a wonderful idea to plant a butterfly bush. It is great to think of local creatures and what might attract them. When I was small, Mum and Dad turned the front yard which was mostly grass into a native garden, and so we had plenty of native birds coming in for the flowers, and I'm sure that fostered my love of birds. I've noticed a reduction in butterfly numbers here too, as well as dragonflies and earthworms. There's been a move here to build bee hotels to provide shelter for bees, preferably near some pollen rich food sources https://www.backyardbuddies.org.au/habitats/build-a-bee-hotel Even though the commonly seen bee here is the European honey bee, there are a number of native species and the blue-banded bee is my favourite (one is pictured in the above link). They are so cute and don't sting.

That is so lovely, that you took care of the chrysalis and protected it and now the fully-fledged butterfly is on his or her way. We actually have the Monarchs here in Australia. They are not originally native to here, but apparently established themselves here in the late 19th century once one of their main food sources, milkweed, also became established here. I've heard them also being called Wanderer butterflies here.

Enjoying seeing everyone's pics. Here are my three... The Breakwater, a restaurant and functions venue in Perth that has a roof covered in solar panels. Also, the cruise boat in front of it is the Lady M which has eco-certification from Ecotourism Australia for ecologically sustainable tourism: The wind turbine at Rottnest Island (Western Australia) at sunset: A solar-powered light:

I've been doing stock photography for just a few months. I chose Alamy because they seemed to be a reasonably decent company. I hope all the things that are good about Alamy can be recognised in the acquisition and not lost. This forum too is constructive and positive, and you don't always get that on internet forums. Some cultural change is likely with an acquisition by a bigger company, but I really hope they don't lose sight of everything that is valuable about Alamy. But as others have mentioned, we will be in a state of flux for a while, so no use getting too stressed about it. I think we have to hope for the best, and that some positives may come out of it for us as contributors, hopefully 🤞

Beautiful Blue Jay photo Betty! I love the red and blue contrast in the image. Ah sorry, I had the wrong jay and wrong part of the world (and now managed to quote you twice by mistake as well which I can't seem to delete). I'd only heard of the Blue Jay, so have much to learn about birds beyond Australia. There's an intersection here in Perth where I'm often in my car at the traffic lights, and corellas (a variety of cockatoo) have enormous fun hanging upside down and swinging from the street lights. They are also very good dancers and I was at a fundraising concert once where a man brought his pet corella along who literally joined in on the dance floor with great enthusiasm. I found a clip of a corella demonstrating dance moves (only watch if you want to spend 2 minutes watching a dancing bird!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bt9xBuGWgw I think it depends on the city you are in. Most of the bird images I've contributed here are from the metropolitan area. I was in Adelaide in South Australia two years ago and the city has been designed with a green belt of parks surrounding it, so I had a chance to see a variety of birds including crested pigeons which are not normally seen so close to the city here in Perth. I was lamenting the fact I didn't have my telephoto zoom with me 🙁

Hello and welcome Franc. You have some lovely nature images with interesting textures and patterns, and also some great abstracts with light effects. It will be great to see your images from Slovenia. I love nature photography too.

Blue Jays look like stunning birds! I would love one day to see one. I did visit Canada 25 years ago and got to see woodpeckers. I heard this repetitive tapping and followed my ears and sure enough up in the tree was a woodpecker tapping away. I remember learning about woodpeckers from cartoons as a kid, and then it was exciting to see them in real life. I imagine it's the same when someone visits here in Australia and sees a kangaroo bouncing around for the first time.

I'm so glad planting the tree finally brought in the waxwings even if it took 8 years! Yes it can be so frustrating being so close to getting a great shot of something rare and exciting, but wonderful that you are providing them with a food source. I just looked up Cedar Waxwing to see what they look like and they are beautiful birds. There is a beautiful blue wren here called the Splendid Fairy Wren. I'm still trying to get a decent photo of one. If I'm without my camera they hop all about me, easily in view. But if I'm carrying my camera with wildlife lens they always seem be semi-obscured behind some twigs, or showing themselves for a microsecond before disappearing again. It feels like they are having a mischievous time teasing me!

Thanks Kent re: the 'what to shoot' page. That's great to work on a project documenting where you grew up. Those images can be really meaningful decades in the future when people want to look back and see what things were like in the past. And yes it is interesting how we are drawn to photograph some places more than others.

Yes I think a book is a good idea. I wish my Dad could still be here to see it. He couldn't do much photography in the last few years because of illness, and had done some very preliminary slide scanning, but only a tiny portion of his total collection. And yes it is true, photo prints are almost a thing of the past now. But I do quite like flipping through an actual photo album, a bit like reading a physical book as opposed to an iPad or Kindle.

Cool! I particularly like the stain-glassed effect of the first example on the door, as well as the slide dress further down.

I can relate to this as my Dad died in 2016 and has left thousands of slides. He has images from when he worked all across Western Australia including some remote places in the 1960s, from when he worked in the UK in the late 60s, and has other images from visiting Europe in the 1970s with my Mum (I was actually there too but in utero so I didn't have a view). I feel that his images are pieces of history, and that as the other photography nut in the family it is incumbent upon me to digitise them. He usually wrote a year and location with each slide, so it will at least make my job easier knowing where places are. But I know it will be emotional too, and that includes all our family photographs as well taken with his trusty Agfa Ambi Silette. I also very recently found he had another camera I never knew about in the bottom of a wardrobe, a Braun Nurnberg Gloria (medium format). Both from the 1950s, these vintage cameras seem like graceful machines of a bygone era.

Thanks Betty, yes I can relate to the feeling of being "in the place". I have a few favourite nature spots I like to return to including a favourite lake. I often just sit there with my wildlife lens. Sometimes I come away with a decent bird shot, sometimes not. I'm usually there early in the morning or late afternoon to sunset, and yes colours and reflections on the lake make it all worthwhile being there. A year ago I was in NZ and was very lucky to see a kiwi in the wild. I heard something shuffling about off the path and was so excited to see it was a kiwi. He or she didn't seem to even notice me and just went about foraging. I got a few photos, but was so overwhelmed at seeing a rare bird in the wild none of the images were sharp. But it was so nice just sitting by the path hanging out with the kiwi. It's lunchtime here in Western Australia and your mention of crispy, freshly caught fish is making me hungry. I better go and eat!