Loking for portfolio review

[Gnans]

Dear fellow contributors,

 

I hope you are all doing good. I have been photographing few things around me for the past couple of years and I was solely into Alamy. I started contributing from 2017 and till date I had only two sale (one in mid 2018 and one in end of 2018). Is this normal or should I change my subjects or style ? All critical comments are welcome.

 

Note - I live closer to London city and commute there everyday. I also shoot during holidays around Europe and post those pictures.

 

Portfolio link for ease https://www.alamy.com/contrib-browse.asp?cid={359879D4-B122-47B5-906E-B5ED4673D2B7}&name=Gnanasekar+SUNDARAMOORTHY 

[andremichel]

RY4X53

Not Japan and no cherry blossom. If all your images have similar keywords then that would explain lack of sales 

[Gnans]

Thank you Andremichel for the feedback. I’m using more generic keywords which I will try to change.

[AlexG]

Hello Gnans,

I see that you have over 700 images now. Is that since starting in April? What is your luck so far with getting views, and do you have any sales yet?

 

I just posted on this forum as well asking for a portfolio review. I only have 10 images, though I should have 3 more as they just cleared QC.

[Gnans]

Welcome to the Alamy club @AlexG ! You have some great shots there.

 

I have been drip feeding my alamy content from 2017 and seen ONLY two sales until today (!). The sales commission all together haven't crossed the $50 minimum payout 🙂

 

Despite this I'm positive and looking for unsaturated topics to cover and keep posting. Based on my reading / research it looks like it will take quite a long time for consistent sales.

 

Go ahead and shoot some amazing pictures.

[AlexG]

Yea, you know, I read a blog post of someone who was on Alamy for two years, no sales. She had forgotten about it as she wasn't actively uploading stuff anymore. Then suddenly she got some sales after the second year, and it picked up for her enough for her to become active again.

Maybe it is what's trendy, news cycle, fashion cycle, and sometimes older photos  get searched a lot.

[Chuck Nacke]

On ‎09‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 15:32, AlexG said:

Hello Gnans,

I see that you have over 700 images now. Is that since starting in April? What is your luck so far with getting views, and do you have any sales yet?

 

I just posted on this forum as well asking for a portfolio review. I only have 10 images, though I should have 3 more as they just cleared QC.

Alex,

 

I really like the images that you have up.  Please keep in mind that I am not a "stock photographer"  I just appreciate the images.

 

Best,

 

Chuck

[Colin Woods]

3 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

I really like the images that you have up.

Yes, this is really good. Well seen and executed.

[MizBrown]

I think tilted horizons mostly don't work.  Dutch tilt maybe works best if there is an element in the photo that's vertical or horizontal in the tilted photo.  Personal opinion -- and I used to get dinged by a photographer friend for not having my horizons level.

[Joseph Clemson]

Hello Gnans,

 

You have a few nice pictures but overall, if you are going to make an impact with your stock photography, you need to step up a gear and put more time and effort into each image.

 

I like the isolated object images you have done and I notice you have at least some on microstock sites. This kind of image does tend to do better on microstock, but they can sell at Alamy. I don't do microstock at all nowadays, but if I did I would put an image on Alamy or microstock, not both.

 

Other than that, my starting point would be that a good proportion of your images look like snapshots, and snapshots which have been uploaded without any further processing. Examples of this (from page 1 of your port): T7MCH7, T7MCKK, T7MB7D etc. Spend more time thinking about composition and make sure it is clear what the subject of the photo is (T7MCME seems to be the back of some heads, not the pig race in the caption.) Get closer to your subject if you can. Avoid cutting off bits of the subject at the edge of the frame, unless you are deliberately focussing on a particular part of the subject (e, T7MCKT). Be choosy about what you upload, one good picture is better than twenty average ones.

 

I would recommend that you spend more time in post-processing your images. Horizons should be straight unless intentionally tilted. Try to put more contrast and colour into your images to make them 'pop' a little. If you can shoot in RAW and produce final jpegs form that do so as it gives you far more processing leeway than working with jpegs alone.

 

Finally, look hard at your captions and make sure they describe what is actually in the image (eg. T7MCM5, no pig race in progress here, RY4X0R, Give Way is the focus, not the speed limit). The caption is as important as keywords in the search engine, so make sure it is right. I spend far more time on captioning and keywording than I ever do on shooting.

 

You obviously have the potential to do well at stock photography but you will need to devote time and energy to it to succeed, especially as the field is more competitive than it has ever been. Browse the Alamy forum as nearly everything you need to know has been covered at one time or another. 

 

Good luck with your shooting and uploading

[Gnans]

3 hours ago, Joseph Clemson said:

Hello Gnans,

 

You have a few nice pictures but overall, if you are going to make an impact with your stock photography, you need to step up a gear and put more time and effort into each image.

 

I like the isolated object images you have done and I notice you have at least some on microstock sites. This kind of image does tend to do better on microstock, but they can sell at Alamy. I don't do microstock at all nowadays, but if I did I would put an image on Alamy or microstock, not both.

 

Other than that, my starting point would be that a good proportion of your images look like snapshots, and snapshots which have been uploaded without any further processing. Examples of this (from page 1 of your port): T7MCH7, T7MCKK, T7MB7D etc. Spend more time thinking about composition and make sure it is clear what the subject of the photo is (T7MCME seems to be the back of some heads, not the pig race in the caption.) Get closer to your subject if you can. Avoid cutting off bits of the subject at the edge of the frame, unless you are deliberately focussing on a particular part of the subject (e, T7MCKT). Be choosy about what you upload, one good picture is better than twenty average ones.

 

I would recommend that you spend more time in post-processing your images. Horizons should be straight unless intentionally tilted. Try to put more contrast and colour into your images to make them 'pop' a little. If you can shoot in RAW and produce final jpegs form that do so as it gives you far more processing leeway than working with jpegs alone.

 

Finally, look hard at your captions and make sure they describe what is actually in the image (eg. T7MCM5, no pig race in progress here, RY4X0R, Give Way is the focus, not the speed limit). The caption is as important as keywords in the search engine, so make sure it is right. I spend far more time on captioning and keywording than I ever do on shooting.

 

You obviously have the potential to do well at stock photography but you will need to devote time and energy to it to succeed, especially as the field is more competitive than it has ever been. Browse the Alamy forum as nearly everything you need to know has been covered at one time or another. 

 

Good luck with your shooting and uploading

Thank you Joseph for the critical comments.

I get your point about the pictures in Alamy and MicroStock. I recently understood this after reading few posts here in the forum and changed my nickname in other place.

Thanks for the spot on composition and cutting off images ( I think I need to take a break every now when editing and take a second look). I never realised those when editing the images.

I currently shoot RAW and do post processing but always conscious not to over colour the images. If you think a slight colour pop would help then I will try that in next few batches.

More focus on Title and keywords is the way forward.

 

Best, Gnans.

[Joseph Clemson]

16 minutes ago, Gnans said:

Thank you Joseph for the critical comments.

I get your point about the pictures in Alamy and MicroStock. I recently understood this after reading few posts here in the forum and changed my nickname in other place.

Thanks for the spot on composition and cutting off images ( I think I need to take a break every now when editing and take a second look). I never realised those when editing the images.

I currently shoot RAW and do post processing but always conscious not to over colour the images. If you think a slight colour pop would help then I will try that in next few batches.

More focus on Title and keywords is the way forward.

 

Best, Gnans.

 

Hello Gnans

 

You are right to think that oversaturated and over-processed photos are not good for the professional buyer, who may want to tweak the image themselves. You can get an idea of the right kind of level to aim for by looking at what images are selling - the monthly images sold thread is useful in this respect. Ideally you should have a colour-calibrated monitor so that the buyer sees the same thing as you see when processing. I've tweaked my contrast and saturation levels more in the last two years or so and I think I have done a little better for it.

 

Changing your name on other sites may help only a little. It's very easy for a buyer to use Google Images to search for other instances of a particular image and a customer determined to minimise the price they pay will find your Alamy/microstock images very quickly. The only thing militating in your favour is that some Alamy buyers are more interested in getting what they need quickly, irrespective of price. Even so, Alamy are fighting to maintain good prices for contributors (and themselves) and the downward pressure on prices exerted by the microstock sites is making life very hard in that respect.

 

Regards.

[Gnans]

35 minutes ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

Hello Gnans

 

You are right to think that oversaturated and over-processed photos are not good for the professional buyer, who may want to tweak the image themselves. You can get an idea of the right kind of level to aim for by looking at what images are selling - the monthly images sold thread is useful in this respect. Ideally you should have a colour-calibrated monitor so that the buyer sees the same thing as you see when processing. I've tweaked my contrast and saturation levels more in the last two years or so and I think I have done a little better for it.

 

Changing your name on other sites may help only a little. It's very easy for a buyer to use Google Images to search for other instances of a particular image and a customer determined to minimise the price they pay will find your Alamy/microstock images very quickly. The only thing militating in your favour is that some Alamy buyers are more interested in getting what they need quickly, irrespective of price. Even so, Alamy are fighting to maintain good prices for contributors (and themselves) and the downward pressure on prices exerted by the microstock sites is making life very hard in that respect.

 

Regards.

 

Ah, that colour calibration point makes sense. I will research and do that as first along with other tips. Thanks again Joseph.

[MDM]

Hi Gnans. You have been getting some good advice from Joseph and you have some nice pics so this is just an observation on your photographic technique specifically in relation to landscapes and outdoor daytime shots (pics that include sky mainly) which I think could be greatly improved. To improve your outdoor photography in general you need to think about balancing skies with land as your skies tend to look look really washed out. There are various ways to approach this: use a grad filter on camera (not recommended nowadays I feel), use a polariser (works in some cases depending on angle of light and presence of blue sky) or use a grad filter and selective saturation controls in post-processing (recommended for a lot of your stuff as I see you are using full frame Nikons which can handle the high dynamic range.

 

In  addition, I think many of your outdoor images are washed out and it certainly would do no harm to give them a bit of oomph in the midtones by some selective processing. Many are also too blue - this is a Nikon thing - the auto WB is often way too blue and can make the images look drab. Giving a bit more thought to composition at the shooting stage and learning a bit more about post-processing and applying it to your outdoor images would greatly improve them. This may not translate into sales but you will be a much better photographer for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gnans]

1 hour ago, MDM said:

Hi Gnans. You have been getting some good advice from Joseph and you have some nice pics so this is just an observation on your photographic technique specifically in relation to landscapes and outdoor daytime shots (pics that include sky mainly) which I think could be greatly improved. To improve your outdoor photography in general you need to think about balancing skies with land as your skies tend to look look really washed out. There are various ways to approach this: use a grad filter on camera (not recommended nowadays I feel), use a polariser (works in some cases depending on angle of light and presence of blue sky) or use a grad filter and selective saturation controls in post-processing (recommended for a lot of your stuff as I see you are using full frame Nikons which can handle the high dynamic range.

 

In  addition, I think many of your outdoor images are washed out and it certainly would do no harm to give them a bit of oomph in the midtones by some selective processing. Many are also too blue - this is a Nikon thing - the auto WB is often way too blue and can make the images look drab. Giving a bit more thought to composition at the shooting stage and learning a bit more about post-processing and applying it to your outdoor images would greatly improve them. This may not translate into sales but you will be a much better photographer for it.

Thank Michael. You touched a very good point I was pondering over the last week and thinking to post here asking if grey / dull sky photo do sell.

You are correct in finding the make of my device (Nikon !) . I will try the selective saturation part in post-processing.

I appreciate the feedback is aimed at producing better images 🙂 than sales.