Image & Portfolio Feedback Please...

[Kevin Cupp]

Hello to All. I have been a member of Alamy for the past 8 months with 250+ images in my portfolio. I have not sold any but I would greatly appreciate any feedback the community has to offer on the subject matter, quality, and or style. Anything at all really. I am a Landscape Photographer, but finding  myself without a landscape lens for my new camera, I temporarily migrated to other subjects. Thank you in advance for your time and feedback.

[Marianne]

Nice images.

 

As David said, you need to include location in your images. RF401H doesn't say where it was taken at all, not even the city, town, state, or country. Solitude is a good keyword but as far as a caption goes, remember, you are not trying to sell a fine art print here. Your keywords for stock need to be tweaked from those for fine art. 

 

Your flowers are lovely but they are the kinds of images that generally sell less frequently as stock although with a wide variety and botanical knowledge (your keywording of them seemed pretty good to this non-specialist), there are those who do well with botanical images. 

 

If you have read the forum, or anything much about Alamy or stock photography in general, you know it takes a lot more than 250 images to start seeing regular sales.  Take David's advice on keywords to heart and keep uploading. Good luck!

Edited September 2, 2019 by Marianne

[Kevin Cupp]

Thank you both for your constructive and direct feedback. Thought I was gonna get barbecued after asking. I realize now that some of the Tags and terms used are actually regional or local, which of course makes it detrimentally exclusive. And I also see how quite a few images have captions and descriptions which are quite short. I appreciate your time, have a good day.

[Betty LaRue]

I think you have beautiful images. You have developed them well. They are colorful and well-exposed.

I do agree with others on captions and tags. Name the kind of orchid it is, common and scientific, in the caption. Then repeat in the tags. That makes them stronger in searches.

I spent some time trying to think up conceptual tags for awhile, and they won’t hurt you if carefully used, and if the image actually shows that concept strongly. I can’t remember any zoom or sale of my own made using those conceptual tags.

For instance, a person leaning over cradling his head in his hands actually is a strong conceptual image. Tags like lonely, loneliness, despair, is perfect.  If I have a picture of a smiling or laughing person, I use “happy, happiness”. Two people walking, eating together, etc. I use “companionship, togetherness.” Along with woman, women, man, men, person, persons, people, two people talking, etc.

Usually the search term a buyer uses is “two people talking” or something literal like that!!

Don't forget to allow copy space in the image. Maybe one tight and one zoomed out. I’ll leave copy space at the top or bottom of a vertical, off to one side of a horizontal. Take a horizontal and a vertical if you can and the subject matter lends itself to that.

Betty