Mark Hunter Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 Interesting move from Almy - seems to be more about restricting the number of images rather than effectively QC for those it gets. I can understand why as there have been comments about variable quality and newsworthiness in the past. I have only uploaded a few times and only I think weather related. Never sold via this route although similar images seem to be frequently reported as being bought. However as others have said it will essentially limit their pool of potential news images to those sent by previous contributors. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imageplotter Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 17 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said: and clearly they took the Live News image of a bird sat on a twig instead of one from the stock collection.. I guess simply because it comes with some providence of being 'of the moment' or 'current'. The Times love doing this because they get expired live news cheap as chips. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Quarmby Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 1 hour ago, Foreign Export said: To me your point makes the argument not to restrict who can upload - but to control what is uploaded I agree, this is what other agencies do, you send in your photos, and quite often they will wittle them down, especially if it was an event that was well covered. It suggests that ALAMY doesn't have the manpower for this. At the end of the day, ALAMY leave all the hard work to the photographers and I think rather than swiping a whole host of photojournalists off the table, they could perhaps look at reinstating the photographers that mostly file news worthy images and cap the amount of images you can upload to a max of 10. The more I have had time to think about the way it happened yesterday, the more I think it was badly done. I had only been with them for eight months, hardly time to sit down, before getting swiped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 4 minutes ago, N Quarmby said: ALAMY doesn't have the manpower for this I did wonder if this whole thing was because they wanted to 'streamline' the News Team to cut costs. I hope not for their sake of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Ashmore Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 11 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said: I did wonder if this whole thing was because they wanted to 'streamline' the News Team to cut costs. I hope not for their sake of course. Lycra suits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 32 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said: Lycra suits? Now that would make a photograph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starsphinx Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 2 hours ago, Graham said: Alamy are not unreasonable about this. I am an occasional Live News contributor and I know I have sold at least one the next day as a direct consequence (as a result of the vigilance of some kind soul in one of the "Have you found any images in..." thread). Yesterday evening I was coming home over London Bridge and by chance came across a protest by minicab drivers against Sadiq Khan and the imposition of the congestion change on minicabs. I always have a camera with me and I enthusiastically snapped 100 or so pictures of what was going on, and headed for my train home with great anticipation, planning to upload some to Live News. It takes me nearly 2 hours to get home, and as I was uploading the pictures to my computer, I checked my emails - what a day to find the notification from Alamy that Live News uploads were no longer possible! A quick call to Alamy resulted in the suggestion that I email Live News with a sample picture, which I did. They came back shortly afterwards and temporarily restored my Live News upload capability, as a result of which I was able to upload 19 images. The images were up about 4 hours after they were taken. I will be looking later today to see whether any of them made the newspapers. So far as I can see, there were no other Live News uploads covering the same subject yesterday (although there have been similar previous protests, which may mean that newspapers are less inclined to cover a repeat event). Come what may, Alamy were certainly not dogmatic about this and found a way to help when there was an immediate and genuine Live News type event. Graham So now if someone happens to be in the right place at the right time instead of them going to a computer and uploading their images to live news they go to phone, call Alamy, get get asked to email a single image for inspection, send the single image, and then get allowed a temporary access to live news to upload the rest. And you don't think that is unreasonable? 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sooth Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 I was in Berlin for the future for Friday climate March, and had a pic of Nobel prize nominated Greta T in front holding up a sign. I would have filed this, but didn't as I had some field issues. And in general Ihave covered other big and small protest marches in the past, are such events no longer newsworthy? Th problem is stuff like this doesn't sell BECAUSE alamy doesn't have the right buyers for them, all the buyers are looking on getty, yet photographers like me are being penalized because they don't have, or have few live news sales, and I've been patient. We shouldn't be penalized because of alamy's problem on their end. On of my friends 2 years ago started covering protests and submitted to a obscure publishing house in the Philippines that fed photos into getty, today, many of his photos on climate, and activism are regularly featured in the bigger usa magazines like the Nation, and in the NY times. Why penalize small photos like us who have been patient with alamy? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nacke Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 Well I went through "Re-applying" for the Live News Upload, and I have been occasionally contributing to Alamy Live News since it began. Yesterday I also had three stories happening at the same time. I wanted to say that in most cases, submitting images within an hour of being shot is foolish. I started as a magazine photojournalist and have never wanted to be a wire service photographer. I prefer my images and captions to be more finished and the IPTC information to be more complete. It is like the difference between an article in a daily newspaper and a well written, researched piece in a weekly or monthly magazine. Yea you might miss some low quick licenses, but the long term licenses and quality are more important to me, Just My Opinion. There are occasionally images where the speed of processing and upload are the most important issue, but not very often. I will also add that yesterday, 4/4/19, Alamy News was great helping get it all straightened out and I was able to upload event photos within hours of making the images. My experience with Alamy and Alamy Live News has been exceptional and I've worked with a number of Photo agencies and libraries over the decades. Chuck 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isphoto Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 (edited) To be fair to Alamy (and I've been one of the knockers in the past) this is reflective of a change in pace of the times,. With so much "subscriber" content via phones etc streaming live from an event, Live news has become just that "live". So i am guessing that to be in with a chance of selling a news image, that the one hour is actually being generous. Most of the guys I know doing what I would call "news" have their wifi enabled cameras linked to their phones for a quick edit and caption, and then away to the picture desk, they are doing it on the run now, not waiting to get back to the coffee shop to set up the laptop. Apologies if this has already been stated. Edited April 5, 2019 by isphoto typo 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Quarmby Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 13 minutes ago, Chuck Nacke said: Well I went through "Re-applying" for the Live News Upload, and I have been occasionally contributing to Alamy Live News since it began. Yesterday I also had three stories happening at the same time. I wanted to say that in most cases, submitting images within an hour of being shot is foolish. I started as a magazine photojournalist and have never wanted to be a wire service photographer. I prefer my images and captions to be more finished and the IPTC information to be more complete. It is like the difference between an article in a daily newspaper and a well written, researched piece in a weekly or monthly magazine. Yea you might miss some low quick licenses, but the long term licenses and quality are more important to me, Just My Opinion. There are occasionally images where the speed of processing and upload are the most important issue, but not very often. I will also add that yesterday, 4/4/19, Alamy News was great helping get it all straightened out and I was able to upload event photos within hours of making the images. My experience with Alamy and Alamy Live News has been exceptional and I've worked with a number of Photo agencies and libraries over the decades. Chuck I agree with you on the quality being more important overall than the speed. I have not had the same experience with Alamy as you, which is a real shame as they came recommended. I have not had any replies from Alamy, and I have had no outcome from reapplying. I have several news stories this weekend, needless to say, if my buttons are greyed out I won't be filing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 Alamy probably just looked at how many News sales one got last year. My guess is that 20 would have been enough. Maybe even 10. Another factor may have been if Live News has ever pushed one of yours out to the news desks, if not, thumbs down. I'm afraid I qualified for both, so I'm out and deservedly so. However rubbish I am at news photography, I seem to bump into stuff quite often. Could it be that the tick box with this: Do you have breaking news images which have been taken in the past hour - is meant for those occasions? wim 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSnapper Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 56 minutes ago, isphoto said: Most of the guys I know doing what I would call "news" have their wifi enabled cameras linked to their phones for a quick edit and caption, and then away to the picture desk, they are doing it on the run now, not waiting to get back to the coffee shop to set up the laptop. Yes, that's the way i work for much of my LiveNews content..... pre load the (deliberatly not too specific) caption/keyword into an app on my phone; shoot, review, selctg, file, 'as i go' .....pix are often up and running online on some news website before i manage to walk home..... km 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Standfast Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 From Chuck Nacke's post it's apparent how little thought went into this exercise. They blocked Chuck Nacke?? This chap? http://www.chucknacke.com I'm pleased that his issue was resolved. I surmise blocking him/us was a fairly automated process and he was caught up in the net. Mr Nacke's comments are a lesson in magnanimity. I am however still put out by the process ALAMY followed. - No warning. - Little explanation. - No timescale for the re-application process. Business is business, Alamy had their reasons but to be honest they hurt my feelings. So whats the way forward? May I suggest we continue to discuss the nature of live news and focus our discusion on how to move the business on. Should we differentiate between hard and soft news? - Examples of hard news? Catwalks, eastern european politicians meeting putin and the chinese space agency pictures from the dark side of the moon. - Soft News, the stuff the local press cover but might be interesting on a slow day in Austria. Jane Austen festivals or a chap building his own toll road. - Stock photo submissions go through a 3 picture QC, why not New submissions? Has this issue arrisen because the news team are swamped with poor submission? (Mea Culpa) If a photographer can be trusted enough to submit without QA then he should be trusted enough to differentiate between the two. If a photographer is submitting news pictures which are very soft news and circumventing the two day QA wait, then deal with the issue on a one to one basis. If Alamy cull their news contributors in an unsophisticated manner then they may miss opportunities. Who would have predicted the well deserved success of starlings and sunsets in Aberystwth. James 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Devon Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 11 minutes ago, RedSnapper said: Yes, that's the way i work for much of my LiveNews content..... pre load the (deliberatly not too specific) caption/keyword into an app on my phone; shoot, review, selctg, file, 'as i go' .....pix are often up and running online on some news website before i manage to walk home..... km What "Apps" are people using to upload images from their wifi capable camera? I have been using the Canon App to get the images onto the phone so far... We obviously need to modify the IPTC data before uploading Can this all be done in one app - or do we need to use a IPTC editor, and then a FTP app? I saw ShutterSnitch mentioned in an earlier post (I'm using iPhone) Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Ashmore Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 1 minute ago, Jools Devon said: What "Apps" are people using to upload images from their wifi capable camera? I have been using the Canon App to get the images onto the phone so far... We obviously need to modify the IPTC data before uploading Can this all be done in one app - or do we need to use a IPTC editor, and then a FTP app? I saw ShutterSnitch mentioned in an earlier post (I'm using iPhone) Regards Shuttersnitch does it all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cksisson Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 (edited) I just submitted my reapplication. 😞 I'll admit, I don't upload live news often, even though that's primarily my "day job." But I like knowing the option is there, especially because I end up at a lot of disasters. I covered Hurricane Michael for Washington Post, and I covered the Alabama tornadoes for Christian Science Monitor in March. Much of my Alamy portfolio is generic stock, but it's a bit painful to be cut from the possibility of live news, particularly since I shoot stock to sustain my income BECAUSE I remain in news. I'm hoping this was just a formality. Alamy's editorial focus was the main thing that drew me here. Crossing my fingers that they keep me. Edited April 5, 2019 by cksisson 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shergar Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 (edited) I got the, your services are no longer required email and I get it, "I don't shoot live news". Im not going to sit on a Los Angeles freeway for 3 hrs to cover a breaking news story that the cops won't let me anywhere near without a press pass and that is being covered by 10 other news agencies that got to hear about it an hour before me. In saying that like many others I live in the land of earthquakes and wildfires and occasionally the news comes to me. What do I do with the pictures then? Upload them to stock on a Friday and no one gets to see them till Monday/Tuesday next week? I kind of feel that I have been punished for doing what I was told . Early on it was upload within 2 days then 1 day . Had they asked me to do it within an hour I would have done it and after reading this I guess I would have sold some more images. Last year Alamy live news asked me to cover the dog surfing event in Huntington Beach. Here is part of the e-mail I got from our live news team. " "I have applied for you and one other Alamy Live News photographer. We are really looking forward to seeing your pictures from this event. Please try to have these pictures into us by 8am, GMT the day after the event. Try to get names of the dogs pictured" Here is a question for Alamy Live news. If a wildfire or earthquake hits Orange county sometime in the future would you want me to send you the images? A simple yes or no will do but if the answer is yes then how? Regards PS Sometimes we also get some surf https://www.instagram.com/capnpugwash/ Cheers and gone Shergar Edited April 5, 2019 by Shergar 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markp Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 I can understand why Alamy wants to cut down/improve the quality of some of the submitted News images, in the small number of images submitted I have tended towards wildlife/weather shots as that's what seems to sell, however I think the wording of the online application is misleading: "Are you able to file IPTC ready images to us within 1 hour of them being taken?" is different to merely an "aim" to submit within the hour as Alamy have since clarified. "Are you able to submit within the hour?" Er, depends as I work irregular hours and sometimes submit them just outside the hour. But say I have a picture of Wayne Rooney lying drunk outside Everton FC I've taken in my non-photography day job and my laptop is two hours away at home. So do you want it in two hours or not at all since I cannot submit to Live News anymore?!! I think it's a overly restrictive way of doing business and the line of "we know what our clients want, we have the experience etc etc" : well I submitted some images a few weeks ago to Live News which didn't sell but as an experiment I sent a very similar one to the Guardian which sold. And the criteria of Live News is confusing: I've seen lots of stuff on Getty about Brexit where they'll send Chris Furlong to some northern Brexit town just to get street/context shots yet nothing is actually "happening". By Alamy's criteria that is stock yet appears on the Getty News feed. Hmmm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 2 hours ago, wiskerke said: Alamy probably just looked at how many News sales one got last year. My guess is that 20 would have been enough. Maybe even 10. Another factor may have been if Live News has ever pushed one of yours out to the news desks, if not, thumbs down. I'm afraid I qualified for both, so I'm out and deservedly so. However rubbish I am at news photography, I seem to bump into stuff quite often. Could it be that the tick box with this: Do you have breaking news images which have been taken in the past hour - is meant for those occasions? wim What tick box? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 16 minutes ago, spacecadet said: What tick box? It's on this page here: https://www.alamy.com/registration/news_upload_apply.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 19 minutes ago, spacecadet said: What tick box? It's in the Dashboard > Additional Revenue options > Reportage/archival or Live News Image Upload service > Apply Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 Thanks, no chance for me to qualify. I still feel dumped on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Clemson Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 Interesting how it seems to be a slow news day UK, a few sporting events, a mixed bag of weather and some hares in Scotland on Alamy Live News. You'd have thought there would be a bit more going on.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 8 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said: Interesting how it seems to be a slow news day UK, a few sporting events, a mixed bag of weather and some hares in Scotland on Alamy Live News. You'd have thought there would be a bit more going on.... I wouldn't know. I've deleted my Live News bookmark. I'm not going to need it anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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