Please have a look at my portfolio

[Ed Clews]

I've having a go through my portfolio of images on Alamy at the moment as I've got a lot more free time on my hands. I've been a member for a few years and get the odd sale every so often.

 

Cheers

 

https://www.alamy.com/contrib-browse.asp?cid={0C414F1E-0395-4762-B66D-BFB81CA7A113}&name=Ed+Clews

[Steve F]

Hi Ed,

I wasn't going to do 2 portfolios in 1 day, but hey, lockdown, so...! Just FYI, you don't need to give a link, we can click on the image number on your profile on your post above. I really like your live news pictures by the way, great shots.

 

1. The first page of images is flocking starlings. In some pictures you've provided buildings for context. The buildings are very underexposed, the histogram must be really clipped on the left hand side (there's a lot of pure black so details have been lost).
2. My next one's quite subjective. There is room for photos that are taken at an angle, definitely. My personal opinion is, that if your subject is taken so it's slightly off vertical, it's very jarring. Either do a quirky angle, or get it absolutely vertical:

 

 

3. This one has a lot of distortion with converging verticals:

 

Some images are a bit underexposed:

 

This one has vignetting and is underexposed.If you've applied vignetting and it's not from the lens, very subjectively, I would firstly use it judiciously, if at all, and secondly make it subtler (I have actually sold a photo repeatedly where I added a vignette so this isn't a hard and fast rule):

 

 

Anyway, a good variation of images. Hope lockdown is going ok.

Steve

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Steve F

[Ed Clews]

Thanks Steve, lots to think about.

 

One thing I would like an opinion on is what do you think is too many if you're doing a set of similar images (say for an event)?

[Steve F]

8 hours ago, Ed Clews said:

Thanks Steve, lots to think about.

 

One thing I would like an opinion on is what do you think is too many if you're doing a set of similar images (say for an event)?

 

Hi Ed,

Sorry, I didn't read your question properly the first time, I assumed you were taking about the number of keywords!

 

That is a difficult question, I'm sure you'd get a different answer from different people. If there's lot of subjects which are somewhat different, then it could be lots of photos. I would say not more than 30-40 off the top of my head, but it depends how different the subjects are. As for individual subjects, you can vary horizontal/portrait and the angle, so personally 3-5 max (but I'm sure I might have more than 5 photos of the same subject in my portfolio!).

 

I try not to put up pictures that I don't think would sell, so I normally would scrap most photos I take on any shoot  e.g. bad lighting, bad composition, tried different framing and angles for subject and I'm only happy with a couple, out of focus, photo bomber in shot, too many similars etc.

Steve

Edited April 27, 2020 by Steve F
Didn't read Ed's question properly #facepalm

[Ed Clews]

That makes sense, cheers  

[Steve F]

No worries Ed. Just to add on the vigetting, this is something that clients can easily add to your picture if they want to. I have added one with a select few still life photos, but I don't think I'd ever add one with an outdoors shot.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Steve F

[Robert M Estall]

I would say you could edit out a lot of similars. Too many will likely drive down your ranking so your image will be less likely to appear on the first pages of searches. That has a dramatic effect on your sales figures.

 

[Colblimp]

I'll throw my oar in about similars - on the first 2 pages of your port alone, how many pics of bubbling sourdough, runners, cows, starlings and a post box do you really need?!  Cull your similars until you've 2 or 3 of the same subject and no more.  Make sure the 2 or 3 are radically different.  I'd suggest you could cull 60% of your similars - it's hurting your ranking.  Good luck with it!

Edited May 11, 2020 by Colblimp

[Colin Woods]

Definitely as Colblimp says, trim your portfolio down. Its often said that stock photography is all about numbers. This is 100% true. What they forget to add however is that its all about numbers of different images from all walks of life, all well keyworded. Having so many repeat images will hurt your ranking in search results. You have to be a harsh critic of your own work. As Colblimp says, the sourdough. the cows, etc get them down to 2-4 of each. Have a search on Alamy for sourdough for example and have a look at the competition, see which of yours are different enough from all the rest. An editor has to have a reason for choosing your image above all the others. 

[AlexG]

Hi Ed,

I think the variety of subjects and contents is great, and the quality of of the image is quite good. Like others said, perhaps reduce the number of repetitive ones, particularly if they are uploaded sequentially. Scrolling through one gets a bit overwhelmed by the number of similar ones.

But maybe keep the higher number of images for stuff like the rallies. I am sure that editorial content sells well.

 

Cheers

[Ed Clews]

Thanks all. 

[Steve F]

Ed, hope you're taking this all positively. It's still a learning curve for me too.

Steve

[Ed Clews]

1 minute ago, Steve F said:

Ed, hope you're taking this all positively. It's still a learning curve for me too.

Steve

 

Definitely I wasn't expecting all these comments all in one day and haven't had proper time to reply yet.

[Steve F]

2 minutes ago, Ed Clews said:

 

Definitely I wasn't expecting all these comments all in one day and haven't had proper time to reply yet.

 

...just like a London bus 😄