would appreciate a critique before I upload any more images

[CRS]

My last sale was August 2018 and although I got a fair amount of zooms and many views over January - March, I still have no further sales...I wonder if it's because I sell mostly editorial RF and although I have about 20-30 images from here on MS sites (they definitely sell there) the rest are all exclusive to Alamy, I only sell images from Africa (that could also be limiting) ...await your responses

 

Thanks 

Childa

 

https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/114169.html

[MizBrown]

Be careful of similars, even of very exotic creatures.  Also, check the needs list if you haven't already -- someone is looking for a caracal cat photo.  

 

One advantage you have is that South Africa is your home and you're going to do more insightful photos of there than you'd do of places you haven't lived.   I tend to avoid the more touristic areas where I live because (a) I'd just be a tourist there, (b) lots of other tourists and some local Alamy contributors have already taken a metric ton of photos of every church and cathedral's exteriors already. 

 

My further guess is that you and I both need to get more photos in our ports before worrying about a couple or several months between sales.   Use any local contacts you have for access to things that might not be easy for tourists to photograph: people making things, Africans doing ordinary jobs.

 

Also, consider taking photographs of the less obvious and smaller critters that are local to you.  

[NYCat]

Ah, MizBrown you got me all excited because I have some very nice caracal images. Unfortunately they are looking for Caracal aurata, not Caracal caracal. The ones I have are the ones with the great ear tufts and Alamy is looking for the ones known as the African Golden Cat. This is a good example of the importance of the scientific name -- which Childa has supplied correctly on her Caracal caracal.

 

Paulette

[MizBrown]

4 hours ago, NYCat said:

Ah, MizBrown you got me all excited because I have some very nice caracal images. Unfortunately they are looking for Caracal aurata, not Caracal caracal. The ones I have are the ones with the great ear tufts and Alamy is looking for the ones known as the African Golden Cat. This is a good example of the importance of the scientific name -- which Childa has supplied correctly on her Caracal caracal.

 

Paulette

 

So, they're looking for the rarer cat.   I just hit Google to find out what Caracal aurata was.  Sorry.

 

[IanDavidson]

You have some nice images but nothing like enough to generate consistent sales.  A rule of thumb is one sale per month per thousand images.  (Many will disagree with this).  

 

You our need to think of what image buyers are looking for and meet that demand

 

photography criticism is largely subjective.  My perception is that you need to work on your composition.  Tighter shoots (for example of the cyclists,) are more dramatic.  The photo of the boy by the car cuts him off, either he is in the picture or not.  Use depth of field to draw attention to the subject.  Many of your shots are from eye level.  Go low and go high to get different views.

 

being in Africa you have the potential to get stunning photos not commonly available. Go for it, produce quality and quantity and over time you should do fine

[CRS]

20 hours ago, MizBrown said:

Be careful of similars, even of very exotic creatures.  Also, check the needs list if you haven't already -- someone is looking for a caracal cat photo.  

 

One advantage you have is that South Africa is your home and you're going to do more insightful photos of there than you'd do of places you haven't lived.   I tend to avoid the more touristic areas where I live because (a) I'd just be a tourist there, (b) lots of other tourists and some local Alamy contributors have already taken a metric ton of photos of every church and cathedral's exteriors already. 

 

My further guess is that you and I both need to get more photos in our ports before worrying about a couple or several months between sales.   Use any local contacts you have for access to things that might not be easy for tourists to photograph: people making things, Africans doing ordinary jobs.

 

Also, consider taking photographs of the less obvious and smaller critters that are local to you.  

HI MizBrown, many thanks for taking the time to send your helpful information,  there are so many photos on Alamy  of Cape Town that I doubt there are any undiscovered places left for me to photograph Lol but I get what you're saying and will take that into account when I do my next photography shoot, the main reason for concern was the fact that I don't want to keep adding to a portfolio that is just not performing well but the few photos that I do have on MS sites sell regularly...however I will try and double this port first and then if I still don't get many more sales, I will throw in the towel!

 

Good luck with expanding your port as well, it can be disheartening when you don't get much response from all your hard work!

[CRS]

19 hours ago, NYCat said:

Ah, MizBrown you got me all excited because I have some very nice caracal images. Unfortunately they are looking for Caracal aurata, not Caracal caracal. The ones I have are the ones with the great ear tufts and Alamy is looking for the ones known as the African Golden Cat. This is a good example of the importance of the scientific name -- which Childa has supplied correctly on her Caracal caracal.

 

Paulette

Hi Paulette

 

I am still so fussy about putting the correct information down on my images...what a pity that is such a rare caracal to find! I was in the Kgalagadi two weeks ago and managed to get a few shots of a Caracal at a waterhole at sunset, unfortunately not the rare animal but it was still a great sighting!  I am still finding so many images on Alamy with wrong place names and I'm sure the assistants at the contributors help desk dread getting all my emails to ask photographers to change them to the correct places...

[CRS]

11 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

You have some nice images but nothing like enough to generate consistent sales.  A rule of thumb is one sale per month per thousand images.  (Many will disagree with this).  

 

You our need to think of what image buyers are looking for and meet that demand

 

photography criticism is largely subjective.  My perception is that you need to work on your composition.  Tighter shoots (for example of the cyclists,) are more dramatic.  The photo of the boy by the car cuts him off, either he is in the picture or not.  Use depth of field to draw attention to the subject.  Many of your shots are from eye level.  Go low and go high to get different views.

 

being in Africa you have the potential to get stunning photos not commonly available. Go for it, produce quality and quantity and over time you should do fine

Many thanks for your valuable input Ian, yes composition still has me pulling my hair out at times and deleting many images that I thought would be perfect....

 

one of my biggest concerns was perhaps the fact that all my images are RF instead of RM and that perhaps that could play a big role in the fact that I am not getting sales as well but I have accepted that I need to at least double my port and then take it from there, if things are still looking dismal here after that then I will have to throw in the towel and accept defeat!  thanks for your encouragement, I will definitely run with the challenge...