Inchiquin

My advice would be to get lots of photos uploaded, for editorial use without releases, and worry about the question of releases when you have a better idea of how Alamy and the market work. Alan

You don't need to worry about releases unless you want your photos to sell for commercial use (e.g. advertising). For editorial use, which is what Alamy is mostly about, all you need to do is tick the correct boxes in the Image Manager. If there are people, or even tiny parts of people, in the photo enter the number of people and answer "No" to "Do you have model releases?". The same goes for property releases. Because it's often hard to determine whether there is property in a picture (most things, from buildings to fields have an owner), personally I always err on the side of caution and say that a property release is required, and I don't have one. Provided you make the release status perfectly clear then it's the publisher's responsibility to ensure that images without releases are only used for editorial purposes. If on the other hand you do want to allow pictures to be sold for commercial use, and the property in the picture, and all rights associated with it, belong to you, then yes, you would need to sign a release yourself, plus model releases for any people in the picture, including you. Alan

I think that's probably quite normal. I sold one in my first year and none in my second. Since then they've just gone up and up year on year. Alan

From tests I did a year or so ago, it appears to have diddly squat effect on the positioning of images in searches, so as far as I'm concerned it's a complete waste of time to add less relevant keywords just to achieve a green bar. Alan

I like it. Varied subject matter, colourful, a good eye for composition. They look saleable to me, if someone is looking for pics of Brazil. Alan

Next time it might be green... Alan

That's what has kept me hooked on photography since I was a teenager. I can look at a photo I took 40 years ago and remember the feeling the prompted me to take it in the first place. Alan

Damn! If I'd been able to make it I'd have been wearing red. Alan

Brexit will provide great photo opportunities. Empty shelves, queues for bread, ration cards, army on the streets. Mind you, licence prices will fall through the floor. Oh... they already have. Alan

The problem with heat haze, which is what I was worried about, is that it shows as distortion rather than noise. Alan

Well it passed. I think it was probably Mark's suggestion to downsize that tipped the balance. Alan

I'm afraid I won't be able to join you on Saturday. I'm spending too much time this week on NHS premises (nothing serious - yet) and I need to take it easy for a few days. I'm disappointed because I was looking forward to meeting everyone. Next time you're over here, Lisa, come to Yorkshire! Alan

Yes, I fully intend to. I've had an awful lot on my plate recently and still haven't got round to submitting. Alan

Yes it may be frustrating, but it's a straightforward legal issue. If you submit images to Alamy you have certified that the copyright in your images belongs entirely to you. If you use someone else's work then you are in breach of your contract with Alamy. Alan

Luckily for me I remember exactly when I stopped submitting to other agencies (7 years ago) so I simply marked everything I've uploaded to Alamy since then as exclusive and left everything else as it was. I could spend hours going through them and picking out the exclusive ones but I really can't be bothered. Alan