Tawna Brown

I just found the difference in pricing.....When you go to look at a given image (pretend you're selecting one), you'll see the prices listed, and then at the bottom of the prices, there is "choose a Royalty-free license" and then there is a new price list below that...(the RF licenses have various different sizes of the image available, priced from lowest to highest of course).

But if they are hybrids, then why is there choice btwn setting our images for RM vs RF?

A bit technical for me, but i think what you're saying is that for my more valuable images, those would be best at RM... The majority of the images i've uploaded would have been very very expensive for anyone else to produce. Each trip I took up north (remote north- to the Arctic Ocean!) to take these images cost thousands of dollars for flight, accommodation, also involved private helicopter over a very long distance, etc.... and having photographed that historical project of national significance over a 4 year timeframe, my collection is quite valuable... so I'm leaning towards RM for those reasons. And for the rest of my northern images, I'll likely stick with RM also, because there is less of this stock available, seeing as fewer people venture up this way.... so again, I'd likely stick with RM. When I go into other countries and the typical "travel photography" type of stuff, then maybe I'd go for RF..... I just know why I'd do that though.... why not all RM? Something for me to consider!

I just don't really understand why someone would have some of their images available as RF vs RM.... especially if there isn't much of a diff. in fee. If RM licenses are not a deterrent to clients, than I certainly would prefer having my images as RM..... @Betty LaRue what made you decide to have some of your images as RM and some RF? ps- that's a great license for $245 on a stock site:) I have to be sure I'm aware of what clients would pay for the equivalent of an unlimited use of an image (which i assume is a RM license)..... so that i know what Alamy charges vs. what I charge directly.... (which is usually CAD$400 for unlimited use, and I'll discount that if the client has 10+ images). Clearly direct licensing is much more profitable, but you've got to do all the ground work and find the clients!

So what do you mean by my mileage will vary depending on genre? If there is no difference in fee, I prefer the RM model for all images....I do license my own images directly with clients already, and this is probably the main source of my photography income....while i am putting many of those images on Alamy as well, I will take my chances as to whether they will find my images available for potentially a lower fee on Alamy than I charge myself. But I will be mindful of this. I can't reach the world on my own, and my website isn't geared towards stock photography at all (all of my galleries are for fine art prints), and likely won't be in the future (although it has the capability for me to easily add image downloads, etc)..... so I am expanding my reach by sharing my niche images with Alamy, since there isn't much coverage as it is. The intention of me adding to Alamy was never to compete with myself (with existing clients going to Alamy), but rather by getting my images out there and accessible to people around the world... I couldn't do that on my own.

WOW! I would totally have expected a difference in fee, as my understanding is RM is more restrictive (specific uses and for specific time period), whereas RF lets the client use it over and over and over again forever. I license my own images based on end use, time, size of image, etc.... and if unlimited, then they do pay a higher price (and it is a huge savings to them because paying $375-400 for an image one time, rather than a bunch of individual fees such as $150 for 1/2 page, $400 for a cover, $250 for a promotional campaign, etc.... is a significant savings! If there is no difference in fee, than I will likely be changing all over to RM.....

Is there a different in the fee charged if the license is RF vs RM? I would expect so (The RF would be higher). Just reaching out to get some perspectives on this.... I read in Alamy's instructions guide that they recommend RF, but I have personal (bad) experience with a client that has this right, and I wish they didn't, as they've used my image over and over and over, AND even have the right to distribute to others who promote tourism of the same area (this was a term I will never accept in an agreement again, unless the fee is reflective of this!) In any case, I see the RF is the default, and so for all of my images, they are set at RF for now. There are a few that are my stronger more important images, and i'll be sure to go in and change those to RM. But i'd like to get a better idea on the difference between the fees for each, and if it would be a bad thing for me to change many of my images to RM (which is what I personally prefer to work with). Thanks! TB (just finished uploading about another 200+ images over the past month or so- boy it sure is time consuming for an analytical, detail-oriented perfectionist like myself!)

hmmmm, after the many many hours I spent keywording and captioning my images, I haven't included dates in almost all of them.... as I assumed this would show in the date of the image when the potential client is viewing the metadata? For all of my pics that i've uploaded, I see where the year would have been useful to include in some, but I think I'll be ok without.

it sure is taking a long time (and a couple 100 photos in thus far- all having passed)....

@meanderingemu Do you mean that since i'm not at 5 stars yet, by uploading some as reportage, that upload doesn't count towards QC rating, and with them having been good quality images that very most likely would have passed QC, I would be better off uploading as stock- if my primary goal is to help me get the 5 star rating faster (particularly seeing that my reviews are taking FOREVER at the moment). (I hadn't logged in to this forum for a few days, so pardon my delay in response).

@meanderingemu... I see what you mean... those specific KWs may not be so relevant to those particular images, but they are to the subject matter of the event/project/overall story.... so i will probably be adding such KWs to most of the images of the project (which will be images of the actual road), as this is a high profile highway, very unique, and people around the circumpolar world are watching it, in terms of global warming, permafrost, the geotextile fabric that is laid underneath the gravel to protect the permafrost, etc, etc. So this is why these keywords are impt to this project..... So I should probably add these more generic keywords in the captions of the images that show the actual road.... and this will boost my chances for those images to appear. That being said, as I just mentioned in a previous comment, I have an advantage on this subject, as i was one of the very few main photographers and had access throughout the 4 years documenting its construction (not open to public at that time)..... I was receiving random (and international) inquiries on a somewhat regular basis to license my images on this topic- and this had nothing to do with being on Alamy- in fact it was before i ever uploaded to alamy. I have my website and i've wrote a blog post, etc, etc..... and for awhile there, people knew somehow to contact me for these images. But for the past 2 years, I've not received any of these inquiries for some reason! So.... it's time to get them out there on a larger platform with a much wider reach, as very few people in the world would ever know to contact/google Tawna Brown when it comes to accessing image content on this particular highway! And this is just 1 topic of many, many, many that I want to upload! (Having done a 10month round the world photographic journey, and not doing anything with those 1000s of images yet!) I've got my work cut out for me, so good thing I am on a gap year from work and have the time to attend to this..... so long as i can stay focused and dedicated!

Thanks @Sally! Good to know..... I don't believe I have any images that I would be uploading that would not pass the QC test, so if "reportage" doesn't benefit me in any way, in terms of my images being found, then it sounds like "stock" is the way to go.... (except that you get a longer caption for reportage.... although I can just use the "Additional info" field in the stock category to expand upon the image info, except that doesn't do much for me either since it's not keyword searchable.... so if the captions are just as impt at the keywords, i see the one benefit of "reportage" being a longer caption- which allows for more keywords and may increase the likelihood of my images being found...... (But it is very likely my images on this subject matter will be found, as I was the unofficial photographer over the project's 4 year term and likely have the most robust collection of images covering the subject! And.... hardly any are out there in the stock agencies, so I have a lot of room to fill up with my images- with or without longer captions, i think they have a good chance being found (if being searched) just because of my fortunate circumstances!)

thank you @meanderingemu- very helpful comments:) I kind of forgot about the "additional info" section, so i see this would be a good place to add more info (although since it's not searchable, why would I spend much time on the section? It would take forever to do that for 1000s of images (i plan to be uploading A LOT over the next couple of months)..... I suppose if I have a collection of a certain subject (such as this highway), I could enter this additional info into several images all at once - (I hope!) PS- I will be responding shortly to your other msg that you sent me:)

I definitely will pay attention to the caption, but purpose does it have? Does the client have to use the caption if they were going to include a caption? Or is it just meant more for a guideline? Now you've got me thinking about changing all of my captions for future purposes (instead of it being a mini summary of what the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway is (when it opened, how long it is, cost, etc. - i might instead want to be more generic and say that it's an all weather highway built over permafrost in Canada's arctic.... something like that.... I don't know! I don't want to get too fussy, but at the same time, I want to get it right as much as i can from the beginning so that i'm not having to re-do things afterwards.