Critique Photography

[Taniac104]

Hello,

I am new on alamy, and so far no one have take interest in my work. I want to see if I could improve any images that I have on my portfolio or the way I going about it. 

[Michael Ventura]

While I think your work is fun and creative, I don’t think this is the kind of photography that will sell on Alamy.  Maybe others will disagree with me.

[Betty LaRue]

36 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

While I think your work is fun and creative, I don’t think this is the kind of photography that will sell on Alamy.  Maybe others will disagree with me.

I agree with Michael. Very creative and I won’t knock that, but Alamy caters to buyers who mostly want images to illustrate a story.

You want to think, when having a shoot, or even taking one photograph, “What story would this image (these images) fit?”

It could be a landscape of a popular tourist draw.

A person gardening, especially an elderly person

a family picnic

a herd of cattle

a shop, school, factory, etc.
mother/father with a child

hobbies (painting, cycling, woodworking, whatever)
objects like food, (cooked or in the can or bottle or package,) dirty window, Christmas wreath, work boots, many things

 

 

I can think of many uses for what I listed. There are many other subjects equally useful. There’s not many uses for a portrait of a person that’s not doing something. Especially artistic ones.

 

Some of my sales in the past year:

 

senior man kissing pet bird

elderly man holding newborn

ceramic scented wax holder

shopfront

flowers

a bird

truss bridge

butterfly on flowers

men bricking a house 

bowl of homemade pudding

a bottle of syrup
 

Every sale that contained people were people doing something and NOT looking at the camera.

Hope this helps.

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Betty LaRue

[MizBrown]

Unlike Betty, one of my photos that licensed for over $100 US was a kid definitely looking at the camera and signing in Nicaraguan sign language, quite the young ham.  Sometimes,  charm works.   But my only photos that have licensed more than once were fish and plants.  

 

My impression is that 90% or more of your photos were self-portraits run through heavy art filters or manipulations.   I remember being very nervous about asking people to let me photograph them, but more people are cooperative with photographers than you might imagine.  Asking people to just continue working after taking some posed photos tends to work. 

 

 

[spacecadet]

You would probably not expect to see sales for some months, even with a large and diverse editorial collection, and you don't have one of those.

Not many will disagree with Michael- this is an editorial agency.

[John Morrison]

The problems of keywording your pix illustrates the problems that buyers will have in finding them. Captions such as “painting photos” and “Gradient and black & white photos” don’t give any clues as to what’s in the pic.

 

The ‘painterly’ effects are intriguing (though one or two made my eyes go woozy!). Alamy might not be the best place for them. I’d recommend trying some of the smaller ‘boutique’ agencies, which specialise in artistic imagery.

[backdrop12]

I may be a bit new here , but I will put in my critique cause there are some things that caught my eye that are plain obvious.

 

The first thing I notice is that there is no diversity. Its just the same couple of photos, but with a different filter. I would recommend taking pictures of different things, places , settings , etc so that you can get into multiple categories.  A more diverse portfolio means more traffic and more traffic could equal sales ( especially if its unique/ a photo no one has ever taken yet ).

 

The second thing I notice ... be very careful with model releases . I noticed that some have them and some don't ,and the  models are identifiable. I would recommend keeping up with the releases cause it could cause legal issues down the road.

 

Other than that, I agree with everyone else. They are nice pictures , but I definitely think they wont make much sales. Thinking from an editorial/ comercial point of view, I would not know what these images could be used  for in terms of selling a product or being used as a way to help tell a story in an article ( unless its for that specific person ).