Sander Photography Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 Hi! I'm a relative new member to Alamy (joined February this year) So far I've uploaded about 130 pictures (which isn't much when speaking in stock terms, but the portfolio grows steady in size every week.. ) When it comes to sales I haven't been lucky yet I notice that my photos are being found more and more by potentional buyers. I'd like to receive some honest feedback (and critique) on my portfolio. Especially the quality and keywords of my pictures are things I'd like to learn more about. Who better to ask than the experienced members? Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Holloway Posted August 3, 2020 Share Posted August 3, 2020 (edited) Deleted (posted in the wrong place) Edited August 4, 2020 by Peter Holloway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VbFolly Posted August 3, 2020 Share Posted August 3, 2020 I think you have a great portfolio so far. I love some of the mountain and waterfall shots. Your captions also look good. You don't need to add so many keywords all the time just to get the discoverability bar into the green - just add the most relevant ones. Adding too many irrelevant keywords can damage your CTR. Just keep on uploading more images and making them more diverse, and you should start getting sales. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Holloway Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 Thanks @VbFolly, I've started pruning keywords, as I noticed that mentioned elsewhere. I've had a few sales, just trying to make the most of it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 8 minutes ago, Peter Holloway said: Thanks @VbFolly, I've started pruning keywords, as I noticed that mentioned elsewhere. I've had a few sales, just trying to make the most of it Hi Peter, I think VBFolly was commenting on the original poster's portfolio (Sander Photography). Can I kindly suggest you start your own thread so there's no further confusion!! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Holloway Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 Oops, thanks for pointing that out @Steve Fis there a way to delete my original post? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 Just now, Peter Holloway said: Oops, thanks for pointing that out @Steve Fis there a way to delete my original post? Hey Peter, no worries! I don't think the Forum lets you delete the whole post, but you can edit the post to delete the text and just put 'deleted' (it won't let you delete all the text either!) Steve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Holloway Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 Thanks @Steve F 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sander Photography Posted August 4, 2020 Author Share Posted August 4, 2020 21 hours ago, VbFolly said: I think you have a great portfolio so far. I love some of the mountain and waterfall shots. Your captions also look good. You don't need to add so many keywords all the time just to get the discoverability bar into the green - just add the most relevant ones. Adding too many irrelevant keywords can damage your CTR. Just keep on uploading more images and making them more diverse, and you should start getting sales. Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad that you like the portfolio and that the captions are looking good. When it comes to keywords I'm still learning the best approach. I'm still not sure wether it's a good or bad thing to include keyword adjectives like 'beautiful', 'colorful', 'amazing'.. Same question when it comes to using multiple words as one keyword or not. At the moment I try to adjust the keywords whenever I see that it was viewed by a potentional buyer under irrelevant keywords. That helps a little, but more tips are most welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VbFolly Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 7 hours ago, Steve F said: Hi Peter, I think VBFolly was commenting on the original poster's portfolio (Sander Photography). Can I kindly suggest you start your own thread so there's no further confusion!! Steve Thanks, Steve, for clearing that up. It was indeed Sander's portfolio that I commented on. I guess Peter must have written his post while I was writing my comments, as I didn't see his at the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VbFolly Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 1 hour ago, Sander Photography said: Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad that you like the portfolio and that the captions are looking good. When it comes to keywords I'm still learning the best approach. I'm still not sure wether it's a good or bad thing to include keyword adjectives like 'beautiful', 'colorful', 'amazing'.. Same question when it comes to using multiple words as one keyword or not. At the moment I try to adjust the keywords whenever I see that it was viewed by a potentional buyer under irrelevant keywords. That helps a little, but more tips are most welcome! I guess everyone has their own views on keywords. One way to get an idea is to look at "All of Alamy", which you can find on your dashboard under "Measures". You can enter a word such as Amazing and see how many searches have been made using that term in the last month (or longer if you adjust the dates). I had a quick look, and it seems that Amazing is not often used in searches, but Beautiful and Colorful are used. more frequently. The important thing is to be accurate, and not use these keywords when they do not really apply to your image. I think multiple keywords are a good idea, and help your image to be seen when the same phrase is searched for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 On 28/07/2020 at 14:53, Sander Photography said: I'd like to receive some honest feedback (and critique) on my portfolio. Especially the quality and keywords of my pictures are things I'd like to learn more about. Who better to ask than the experienced members? Gruess dich Sander! I really like your photos. Some interesting subjects and viewpoints. Captions - these are searchable by clients. Some of your captions are quite specific, which is great because a lot of clients do very specific searches for travel photos. Others are not very specific and are not very likely to be found by clients (bear in mind that there's lots of competition with 211 million images in Alamy's collection): hiking trail through coniferous forest without people - Image ID: 2C9CGC6 Location and country missing. Is it a popular hiking trail? Tourists walk there? E.g. "A popular hiking trail for tourists and visitors through coniferous woodland in Filzmoos, (welches Bundesland?), Austria". Technically you don't need to put "without people" - assuming you fill in your optional fields with the number of people in your pictures, clients can search for 0 people in pictures. Traditional Austrian music band with national customes performing (Filzmoos, Salzburgerland) - Image ID: 2C89N6W I would put Salzburg county / state in your caption as well as the German Salzburgerland - try to prioritise English. Alamy does have a translator for people viewing their website in non-English speaking countries and apparently foreign words can sometimes confuse it. One or two images could do with the shadows/exposure being lifted a bit with editing software. I know this is at night, but there's a lot of black: Ditto Liking your nature shots. I assume you're in Austria; see if you can get more shots of Austrian life, people doing things, touristy areas - if you're into photographing that too - would probably sell well. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sander Photography Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 29 minutes ago, Steve F said: Gruess dich Sander! I really like your photos. Some interesting subjects and viewpoints. Captions - these are searchable by clients. Some of your captions are quite specific, which is great because a lot of clients do very specific searches for travel photos. Others are not very specific and are not very likely to be found by clients (bear in mind that there's lots of competition with 211 million images in Alamy's collection): hiking trail through coniferous forest without people - Image ID: 2C9CGC6 Location and country missing. Is it a popular hiking trail? Tourists walk there? E.g. "A popular hiking trail for tourists and visitors through coniferous woodland in Filzmoos, (welches Bundesland?), Austria". Technically you don't need to put "without people" - assuming you fill in your optional fields with the number of people in your pictures, clients can search for 0 people in pictures. Traditional Austrian music band with national customes performing (Filzmoos, Salzburgerland) - Image ID: 2C89N6W I would put Salzburg county / state in your caption as well as the German Salzburgerland - try to prioritise English. Alamy does have a translator for people viewing their website in non-English speaking countries and apparently foreign words can sometimes confuse it. One or two images could do with the shadows/exposure being lifted a bit with editing software. I know this is at night, but there's a lot of black: <picture> Ditto <picture> Liking your nature shots. I assume you're in Austria; see if you can get more shots of Austrian life, people doing things, touristy areas - if you're into photographing that too - would probably sell well. Steve Hey Steve! You might not say so by judging my portfolio - I'm not from Austria but from Belgium. Looking to the examples you've mentioned it seems indeed that the captions on some of the landscape pictures can be improved. I wasn't quite sure to use the german word (ex. 'Salzburgerland') or the english one because I assumed that german speaking customers would have a harder time trying to find the picture. With this feedback I can review my portfolio and make some quick but effective changes. Thanks for the feedback, very helpful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 5 minutes ago, Sander Photography said: Hey Steve! You might not say so by judging my portfolio - I'm not from Austria but from Belgium. Lol, that's the last time I try guessing nationality #facepalm. And your name looks Dutch! 🙃 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 7 minutes ago, Sander Photography said: Hey Steve! You might not say so by judging my portfolio - I'm not from Austria but from Belgium. Looking to the examples you've mentioned it seems indeed that the captions on some of the landscape pictures can be improved. I wasn't quite sure to use the german word (ex. 'Salzburgerland') or the english one because I assumed that german speaking customers would have a harder time trying to find the picture. With this feedback I can review my portfolio and make some quick but effective changes. Thanks for the feedback, very helpful! I would qualify Steve's advice a bit and say that you should include the German word when it's used in English to describe an area. When Alamy started translating I was concerned about my own German images- I invlude quite a bit of German- and was told not to worry and continue as before. Place names aren't a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 6 minutes ago, spacecadet said: I would qualify Steve's advice a bit and say that you should include the German word when it's used in English to describe an area. When Alamy started translating I was concerned about my own German images- I invlude quite a bit of German- and was told not to worry and continue as before. Place names aren't a problem. Thanks spacecadet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 1 minute ago, Steve F said: Thanks spacecadet Yes- lay off the weisswein, leave in the lederhosen and the Mosel, if you get my drift. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 Just now, spacecadet said: Yes- lay off the weisswein, leave in the lederhosen and the Mosel, if you get my drift. 😁👍 I'll try, but I'm back in the middle of vineyard country at the moment in Lower Austria, weisswein is everywhere..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 (edited) 30 minutes ago, Steve F said: 😁👍 I'll try, but I'm back in the middle of vineyard country at the moment in Lower Austria, weisswein is everywhere..... As every year since 2008 we should have been off to the Mosel next month but got the bad news I'd expected. die Weinfeste in der üblichen Form fallen aus. Next year we won't even be able to bring the stuff back🙁 Edited August 5, 2020 by spacecadet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve F Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 6 minutes ago, spacecadet said: As every year since 2008 we should have been off to the Mosel next month but got the bad news I'd expected. die Weinfeste in der üblichen Form fallen aus. Next year we won't even be able to bring the stuff back🙁 Ha ha, don't mention the B word..... Yeah, they were fairly back to normal here, but had to start wearing face masks in shops again a week ago. Had the slightly weird experience of sitting outside a Heurigen last Thursday (attached to a vintner where they open every few weeks and serve cheap food and wine with the idea being you'll buy some boxes to take home, although most people don't!) and there was no social distancing, we were all rammed on benches because it was a busy night and not wearing face masks, but the servers were running between us with their plastic face covers...... Was a good night though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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