Newsy pictures from a non-news photographer

[MartinAnderson]

Hi Friends,
I am not a Live News contributor, but sometimes have pictures that I feel might be of interest to picture editors. However, they will probably get lost in the ocean of other work if I don't let someone know they are there.
How do I bring them to Alamy's attention and do I need to use news style captions and include IPTC metadata? Will they push them to news desks etc if they think they fit the bill? Will they even consider them for news type use if they aren’t uploaded via the news route?

I am not eligible to submit via the news feed and such is the low volume of my work that it's not really worth while applying.
Any wisdom or previous experience welcome! Thanks,
Martin Anderson
 

Edited June 29, 2020 by MartinAnderson

[Dave Richards]

1 hour ago, MartinAnderson said:

Hi Friends,
I am not a Live News contributor, but sometimes have pictures that I feel might be of interest to picture editors. However, they will probably get lost in the ocean of other work if I don't let someone know they are there.
How do I bring them to Alamy's attention and do I need to use news style captions and include IPTC metadata? Will they push them to news desks etc if they think they fit the bill? Will they even consider them for news type use if they aren’t uploaded via the news route?
Any wisdom or previous experience welcome! Thanks,
Martin Anderson
 

Hi Martin. If you look in the additional revenue options section on your dashboard you will see that you can sign up to submit images for live news. All the information you need can be found there. I don't think there is any alternative route for news images.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Dave Richards

[MartinAnderson]

Thanks Dave,

Should have said that a while ago in a cull, Alamy restricted those who had never had news usages from submitting via the News Feed, and as I don't fulfil the criteria, It's not really worth my while applying again. Any further advice?

[VbFolly]

If you have an occasional batch of news images, it is worth emailing live news and asking them if they will give you temporary access to upload those photos. I am in the same position as you, and I have done this twice since being out of live news. Both time, I attached one example photo in my email with the IPTC data, etc, already included as required for live news, and both times they allowed me to upload as live news. Afterwards live news access is switched off again.

[MartinAnderson]

Worth a try, thanks

[Chuck Nacke]

Martin,

 

I have been an Alamy Live News contributor since Alamy started it.

 

If you have images that you really feel they should look at and are

"Really" appropriate for Live News?  Drop them a note and let them

know.  One place I have never had a complaint concerning Alamy is

the Live News people and their response to email.  Just make sure

that the images you have are "Real" news pictures and they are captioned

and ready to upload.

 

Chuck

[MartinAnderson]

Thanks Chuck, that's very helpful.

[Dave Richards]

3 hours ago, MartinAnderson said:

Thanks Dave,

Should have said that a while ago in a cull, Alamy restricted those who had never had news usages from submitting via the News Feed, and as I don't fulfil the criteria, It's not really worth my while applying again. Any further advice?

Sorry Martin, I can't offer any other advice other than what Gillian and Chuck have already covered.

Good luck.

[sooth]

.

Edited October 19, 2023 by sooth

[Chuck Nacke]

3 hours ago, sooth said:

Alamy users are unfortunately held to a far higher standard than all others (the agencies) allowed to submit to the live news channel;. Outside agencies just have to show up and they can submit whatever even if it's not news because they are supposed to police it, but in reality, the alamy live news channel is just another channel to dump stuff. Yesterday happen to browse to through it and saw one submission that was all screencaps of a joe Biden ad like wtf?

 

Alamly users however are required to jump through hoops if they want access. In my experience, Alamy live news is really not geared for distributing news outside of the UK and getting in becomes a double hurdle for non UK users. 

 

Sorry I have no advice, just a complaint.

As I originally wrote I have little to complain about concerning Live News.  I did need to re-signup once and they were very quick and

the whole process took about an hour.

 

I do have a problem with all of the "JUNK" I see posted by both individual contributors, agencies and mostly "Self-Proclaimed" agencies,  that is why I do not submit much

lately to Live News. 

 

Chuck

[Jools Devon]

You could also request access to "reportage" and upload your images there.

 

They are immediately available for sale - If you have captioned and tagged them..... and do not pass through QC.

 

They are not included in the Live News Feed - but if you think its really newsworthy, I would drop the news team an email to notify them.

 

 

[MartinAnderson]

Thanks Jools, I did go back to the email where they dropped me from the News feed and discovered that they were giving me Reportage access, so I have been using that for more newsy things.

 

Job done, I reckon my question has now been answered, thanks for all the suggestions.

[Colblimp]

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, a new Alamy contributor, was gearing up to photograph the funeral of a murdered Garda (Irish policeman) and asked me about Live News access.  I told him to email the Live News team.  To cut a long story short, he now has permanent, full time, access to Live News.  It can happen, just do it!

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, Colblimp said:

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, a new Alamy contributor, was gearing up to photograph the funeral of a murdered Garda (Irish policeman) and asked me about Live News access.  I told him to email the Live News team.  To cut a long story short, he now has permanent, full time, access to Live News.  It can happen, just do it!

 

Maybe policy has changed since PA Media took over. Or maybe he has a good CV?

 

Mark

[Colblimp]

On 04/07/2020 at 15:25, M.Chapman said:

 

Maybe policy has changed since PA Media took over. Or maybe he has a good CV?

 

Mark

Only his second or third attempt at news.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Colblimp
Typo

[Ed Rooney]

6 hours ago, Colblimp said:

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, a new Alamy contributor, was gearing up to photograph the funeral of a murdered Garda (Irish policeman) and asked me about Live News access.  I told him to email the Live News team.  To cut a long story short, he now has permanent, full time, access to Live News.  It can happen, just do it!

 

With 20-20 hindsight, I should have done that. Everything I've been snapping since the lockdown is News, not Stock. 

 

Edo

[Colblimp]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

With 20-20 hindsight, I should have done that. Everything I've been snapping since the lockdown is News, not Stock. 

 

Edo

Yep, you should have!  Next time. 👍

[The Blinking Eye]

I sent Live News an email when I had photos of the first Coronavirus cruise ship parked in a USA port. Alamy responded immediately and let me upload. However, after my photos were up on the live news channel for the allotted hours, they disappeared for about a couple of days before showing up in my portfolio as stock. It didn't seem like much of a benefit because photos I submit usually pass QC quickly (in a day) and it felt like they would have been more available to customers if I had avoided Live News. Any feedback on this?  Should I be trying the Live News route more often? I also have been shooting current events. There is so much happening all around me these days. I live in a very news-active area.

[MizBrown]

17 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

I sent Live News an email when I had photos of the first Coronavirus cruise ship parked in a USA port. Alamy responded immediately and let me upload. However, after my photos were up on the live news channel for the allotted hours, they disappeared for about a couple of days before showing up in my portfolio as stock. It didn't seem like much of a benefit because photos I submit usually pass QC quickly (in a day) and it felt like they would have been more available to customers if I had avoided Live News. Any feedback on this?  Should I be trying the Live News route more often? I also have been shooting current events. There is so much happening all around me these days. I live in a very news-active area.

 

Live News is pushed out to news photo buyers.  They're also available in search for 24 hours or so, then go to stock.  If you're accepted as a regular Live News photographer, submitting to them is not difficult (follow the instructions) and then when they're moved to stock, add some keywords.  Basically, if you're selling through Live News, they're happy to have you submit that way.   If you don't sell anything as Live News, they seem to remove the uploading privilege, but this may have been changed with the new owners. 

[Bryan]

On 01/07/2020 at 18:06, MartinAnderson said:

Thanks Jools, I did go back to the email where they dropped me from the News feed and discovered that they were giving me Reportage access, so I have been using that for more newsy things.

 

Job done, I reckon my question has now been answered, thanks for all the suggestions.

 

I'm not sure that reportage is the same as live news. I had the impression that the live news team would scan the live news submissions and promote those they felt saleswortthy. For example, on one occasion I was asked to submit more photos from a live news event. I suspect that this is not true of the reportage route, true they get to be made available without waiting for QC, but are they reviewed and pushed by the news team at Alamy, while editors will, presumably, search the live news feed, rather than the general collection, when looking for suitable images.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Bryan

[The Blinking Eye]

19 hours ago, MizBrown said:

 

Live News is pushed out to news photo buyers.  They're also available in search for 24 hours or so, then go to stock.  If you're accepted as a regular Live News photographer, submitting to them is not difficult (follow the instructions) and then when they're moved to stock, add some keywords.  Basically, if you're selling through Live News, they're happy to have you submit that way.   If you don't sell anything as Live News, they seem to remove the uploading privilege, but this may have been changed with the new owners. 

 

So Live News has more chance of reaching buyers? My issue was after the 24 hours, the photos seemed to disappear from Alamy for a couple of days and they were still very newsworthy. They did close the uploading portal after my one submission. Maybe I'll try again.

[sb photos]

11 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

So Live News has more chance of reaching buyers? My issue was after the 24 hours, the photos seemed to disappear from Alamy for a couple of days and they were still very newsworthy. They did close the uploading portal after my one submission. Maybe I'll try again.

 

The way live news used to work was that you should ideally upload within an hour of shooting, earlier the better. Anything after that isn't really live. It was possible to upload news for 24 hours, but later would likely not be pushed out by the news team. The images would remain in the live news feed for 48 hours, then revert to stock. Based upon your experience I can only think the conditions differ for temporary access or that something went wrong.

Edited July 7, 2020 by sb photos

[The Blinking Eye]

3 minutes ago, sb photos said:

 

The way live news used to work was that you should ideally upload within an hour of shooting, anything after that isn't really live. It was possible to upload news for 24 hours, but later would likely not be pushed out by the news team. The images would remain in the live news feed for 48 hours, then revert to stock.

 

Thanks for the info. It was my first time so I didn't get them uploaded that quickly because I had to figure out how to do it. My photos were up for 48 hours but disappeared for a day or two before reverting to stock. I learned my lesson though. The very next day the story was already old news and the whole world had moved on. (And before I had even taken a snap, news outlets around the world had already published their money shot of the cruise ship passing under the Golden Gate Bridge) It seems quite a challenge to be a Live News photographer. You can't skip a beat.

[MizBrown]

20 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

Thanks for the info. It was my first time so I didn't get them uploaded that quickly because I had to figure out how to do it. My photos were up for 48 hours but disappeared for a day or two before reverting to stock. I learned my lesson though. The very next day the story was already old news and the whole world had moved on. (And before I had even taken a snap, news outlets around the world had already published their money shot of the cruise ship passing under the Golden Gate Bridge) It seems quite a challenge to be a Live News photographer. You can't skip a beat.

 

My impression is that most of the news photographers use a phone hotspot to upload in the field.  I'm not one, so others can give better advice.