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What kinds of images could be sell on Alamy?


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Alamy is not a Microstock site like the others.  Most images sold here are of the editorial type.  I just looked at your first page and you have a lot of similars and the images with the toys and letters are highly unlikely to sell here.  A lot of the images looked dark to me as well.

 

Look through the threads about images found and images sold to see what sells here.  Having the same images everywhere will not help you sell here either.  Anyone doing image searches will find the cheaper versions on Microstock.  This I know as I buy as well as sell and I always hunt for the best price I can find.

 

Don't want to sound harsh, but understand your market.  Alamy's market is very different than the Microstock sites.

 

Jill

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Are you based in Venezuela? If so, images showing the current economic situation and political unrest might do well on Alamy.

 

Also, has your monitor been calibrated? As Jill mentioned, a lot of your images look dark.

Edited by John Mitchell
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Living in Nicaragua, I have found that pictures that were not necessarily specific to Nicaragua were the ones that sold.  Try to shoot pictures that are in Venezuela as well as pictures of Venezuela.  Botanical shots tend to be useful -- including tropical fruits, plants, all with the scientific and common English or Spanish names.   Know anyone who has a special collection of arms, pottery, indigenous art?   Get permission to take photos of those. 

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I am happy that Alamy caters for all types of photographers and is not 'elitist' at all. However it takes 30 mins or so to go through images that sell or have sold on Alamy to get some idea of 'where it's at' here. So alexandersr have a look at the forum and educate yourself. It's easy. Alamy is UKcentric naturally as it is UK based but does sell internationally pretty good. Also you have a small portfolio of images here on Alamy. That in itself is a detriment to sales. Keep shooting more and different type of images and be aware of your caption information and 'tags'.

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I had a quick look at the first 2 pages of your portfolio and that was enough to tell me that you have done zero research.

Alamy is a completely different market to microstock. Your content is microstock based.

 

Then you are going to sink your ranking pretty quickly with all those similars. Again, no reading has been done.

 

Then I only looked at tags of macaws JHGXB5, and they are tagged as 'antilope'!! Also 'Africa'. They are from South America. 

 

You really wonder why you had no sales? Honestly?

 

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I agree that many of your images need better lighting, as well as much better keywording.

 

I took a closer look at one image, HTHBCX, a picture of an old house, because I wasn't sure what I was looking at.  I'm still not quite sure, as the caption just identifies the location.  Also you have many incorrect keywords for that image, including argentinas flag, boat, boat ride,motor boats, ferry, ship, ships, collective boats, art,  - just to name a few!  Improper keywording and captioning will sink you in the rankings, which in turn affects where your images appear in customer searches.

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Let's take image PRHAPC:

Badly composed

Crooked

Bad lighting

Can't see anyone's face

You have it as RF but have no releases

Tags - garden, gate, exterior, forest, mountain, nature, etc.

 

And you wonder why your images aren't selling...

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2 hours ago, Colblimp said:

Let's take image PRHAPC:

Badly composed

Crooked

Bad lighting

Can't see anyone's face

You have it as RF but have no releases

Tags - garden, gate, exterior, forest, mountain, nature, etc.

 

And you wonder why your images aren't selling...

Ok:(

 

Edited by alexandersr
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8 hours ago, alexandersr said:

 

 

Many people have asked the question similar to yours and received the same honest, yet dispiriting replies. Many of these people went away to lick their wounds and were never heard from again. Some, however, took up the challenge to learn about stock photography with Alamy and made good use of the massive amount of goodwill and wisdom in this forum, and became successful and respected contributors.

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Hello Aleksandersr

 

For all of the above comments about your work, I think you might need to also think very carefully what your pictures are actually  trying to communicate. With PRHAPC as the best example, I wonder what you were thinking when you took and uploaded it? Alamy is a Uk-based agency that sells illustrative photography that is telling a story or simply making a point about an issue or activity (etc.).

 

I really urge you to look through the many pages of sold images. Look at their composition, colour vibrancy and sense of storytelling and only then, perhaps look at your own and decide if it's up to scratch.  

 

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No need for dates in stock image captions nor words like ‘editorial’. 

Take time to look at captions and keywords from contributors who are reporting sales.

This is a skill that you’ll need to learn which as as important as taking and processing the image

Edited by Sally
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  • 1 month later...
On 26/10/2018 at 07:50, Sally said:

No need for dates in stock image captions nor words like ‘editorial’. 

Take time to look at captions and keywords from contributors who are reporting sales.

This is a skill that you’ll need to learn which as as important as taking and processing the image

I don't need to use dates in the photos?  I have another question, when i have to use royalty free and right manage? for example in this image ( link image  )

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On 25/10/2018 at 18:42, Colblimp said:

Let's take image PRHAPC:

Badly composed

Crooked

Bad lighting

Can't see anyone's face

You have it as RF but have no releases

Tags - garden, gate, exterior, forest, mountain, nature, etc.

 

And you wonder why your images aren't selling...

:(

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14 minutes ago, alexandersr said:

:(

Sorry if that seems harsh, but there's no point beating around the bush.  To make sales your photography and tagging have to be spot on.  Just think about the picture when you take it and spend time tagging pictures correctly.

 

Edit: You STILL haven't changed the tags I pointed out back in October.  Not taking advice given by contributors on this forum isn't the best idea...

Edited by Colblimp
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Just now, Colblimp said:

Sorry if that seems harsh, but there's no point beating around the bush.  To make sales your photography and tagging have to be spot on.  Just think about the picture when you take it and spend time tagging pictures correctly.

Thanks!

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2 hours ago, alexandersr said:

 I have another question, when i have to use royalty free and right manage? for example in this image ( link image  )

If an image is selling anywhere else as RF, you must also mark it RF on Alamy.

If it's not selling as RF anywhere else, you can choose to mark it as RF-Editorial or RM 'needs release/s - no release/s; or for extra security you can choose to specifically indicate RM files as editorial only as well as ticking the no-release boxes.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/17/2018 at 16:53, Colblimp said:

Sorry if that seems harsh, but there's no point beating around the bush.  To make sales your photography and tagging have to be spot on.  Just think about the picture when you take it and spend time tagging pictures correctly.

 

Edit: You STILL haven't changed the tags I pointed out back in October.  Not taking advice given by contributors on this forum isn't the best idea...

I haven't had time, now i'm working on it!

Edited by alexandersr
grammar error
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I have a question about to put dates the  photos, i could use for example this format Buenos Aires State/Argentina 06/25/2014. Argentina soccer team fan wearing the Messi's t-shirt  during The soccer world cup 2014 Argentina vs Nigeria in Plaza San Martín or San Martin Square.  or Buenos Aires State/Argentina 25th june 2014. Argentina soccer team fan wearing the Messi's t-shirt  during The soccer world cup 2014 Argentina vs Nigeria in Plaza San Martín or San Martin Square.

 

Thanks!

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6 hours ago, alexandersr said:

I have a question about to put dates the  photos, i could use for example this format Buenos Aires State/Argentina 06/25/2014. Argentina soccer team fan wearing the Messi's t-shirt  during The soccer world cup 2014 Argentina vs Nigeria in Plaza San Martín or San Martin Square.  or Buenos Aires State/Argentina 25th june 2014. Argentina soccer team fan wearing the Messi's t-shirt  during The soccer world cup 2014 Argentina vs Nigeria in Plaza San Martín or San Martin Square.

 

Thanks!

 

Not going to go into details with all the text, just to mention that you should never format dates like this: 06/25/2014, as that would be correctly displayed as 25/06/2014 in the UK and some other countries. 

 

For similar reasons, best not to use 25th (or 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.) Just use the numbers for more general acceptance internationally. 

Edited by losdemas
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24 minutes ago, losdemas said:

 

Not going to go into details with all the text, just to mention that you should never format dates like this: 06/25/2014, as that would be correctly displayed as 25/06/2014 in the UK and some other countries. 

 

For similar reasons, best not to use 25th (or 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.) Just use the numbers for more general acceptance internationally. 

I thought UK used the same date format as USA, i was wrong.

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3 hours ago, losdemas said:

 

Not going to go into details with all the text, just to mention that you should never format dates like this: 06/25/2014, as that would be correctly displayed as 25/06/2014 in the UK and some other countries. 

 

For similar reasons, best not to use 25th (or 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.) Just use the numbers for more general acceptance internationally. 

Thanks!

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16 hours ago, losdemas said:

 

Not going to go into details with all the text, just to mention that you should never format dates like this: 06/25/2014, as that would be correctly displayed as 25/06/2014 in the UK and some other countries. 

 

For similar reasons, best not to use 25th (or 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.) Just use the numbers for more general acceptance internationally. 

 

If possibly, I'd go further and use words for the month instead of numbers e.g. June 25 2014 instead of 06/25/2014 or 25/06/2014. ... it just removes any ambiguity.

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Is the exact date relevant? Maybe it is as I know nothing about football. But the date of the photo is already captured in the optional information. I presume that’s searchable. So maybe just the year or at most the month and year are useful in a caption. Willing to stand corrected.

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