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Alamy End of Year video


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5 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

The print magazines and newspapers now use electronic files for setting up printing.   When I worked for a small country weekly in the mid 70s, a couple of us shot film, our pressman developed it and printed it sized for our columns.  The paper sent the copy and photographs to a job printer in Mt. Airy, NC, for printing.   Layout was still printed copy from a compositing machine (and we had an old hot lead machine in the office style, but never used that).

 

True there is still a market for good quality, interesting photographs that accurately illustrate something. 

 

If someone is trying to find photos of a particular plant, bird, or fish, to illustrate an article on that particular plant, bird, or fish, they don't want a photo that's been mislabeled or which is of something else.   Looking for a Union Civil War saber, you don't want a photo of some other bladed weapon.  And, yeah, not all photo researchers will know the difference.

 

Even a fairly unaccomplished photographer can use the rule of thirds grid, auto focus, and auto exposure to turn out pleasant enough photos that accurately illustrate something, even if the photographer doesn't know what the hell they've just photographed.

 

 

 

The technology may have changed and there may be a lot more competition because of the  technological advancements, but as the linked article reveals,  interesting photographs are still in demand.

 

The article also shows us the subject matter is a little more important than quality  or to put it another way. Top quality photos of mundane subjects are of little interest.

 



 https://www.theguardian.com/media/gallery/2020/dec/20/25-years-of-news-photography-from-the-death-of-diana-to-covid-19

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1 hour ago, Inchiquin said:

 

I'm sure that if you were a customer you would consider both equally important.

 

Alan

not sure, many studies have actually shown that too much choice can sometimes be paralysing.  I remember working in superannuation defined contribution plans.  In Canada in the early 90s there was a push to add more and more fund options in plans.  Studies later found that this was actually a disincentive to plan members, and added so much confusion, that they ended up not making decision. we did not need another bond fund with a different fund manager style tweak....  

 

I feel as customer you would expect Alamy to provide you with a good selection of appropriate images.  I worry every time i look at My Alamy Measures and i see a search with exactly 100 images and no zoom.  How many are customer who got Page 1, felt underwhelmed or overwhelmed and went elsewhere.   

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1 hour ago, MizBrown said:

The print magazines and newspapers now use electronic files for setting up printing.   When I worked for a small country weekly in the mid 70s, a couple of us shot film, our pressman developed it and printed it sized for our columns.  The paper sent the copy and photographs to a job printer in Mt. Airy, NC, for printing.   Layout was still printed copy from a compositing machine (and we had an old hot lead machine in the office style, but never used that).

 

True there is still a market for good quality, interesting photographs that accurately illustrate something. 

 

If someone is trying to find photos of a particular plant, bird, or fish, to illustrate an article on that particular plant, bird, or fish, they don't want a photo that's been mislabeled or which is of something else.   Looking for a Union Civil War saber, you don't want a photo of some other bladed weapon.  And, yeah, not all photo researchers will know the difference.

 

Even a fairly unaccomplished photographer can use the rule of thirds grid, auto focus, and auto exposure to turn out pleasant enough photos that accurately illustrate something, even if the photographer doesn't know what the hell they've just photographed.

 

 

 

we had a perfect example recently when The Guardian did an article on the winner of the NZ bird of the year.  They went to Alamy, searched for Kakapo, found an image that fit the news editor and purchased it.  Published  the article, didn't take long for some of us to tell them the bird pictures was a Kea, not a kakapo....(thankfully the Kea is a know thief, so it became a funny error on twitter)  

 

So they went elsewhere to get an appropriate image.  Question next is will this editor now worry for his next image, and skip Alamy?  

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17 minutes ago, Cee Dee Dickinson said:

The article also shows us the subject matter is a little more important than quality  or to put it another way. Top quality photos of mundane subjects are of little interest.

 

Well, yeah.  But I've licensed a photo of the pavement in front of my house, with a pool of water reflecting nothing (not much money, but certainly mundane).  

 

The average tropical fish photo on Alamy is a single fish broadside, slightly tipped up or down (I've got one of these up, too).  The photos I've licensed have been of two fish or more, most in focus, which is quite a bit harder to get than the one fish stalled in the water.  And no amount of news photos, however brilliant, will meet the needs of that person hunting for kids using Nicaraguan Sign Language or an example of a United States Civil War saber. 

 

And a lot of these are not brilliant photos technically, but illustrate an historical moment.

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40 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

Yeah, that is a problem. 

As you and others above have indicated MizBrown there is room for improvement. Maybe we should stop pressing the shutter for a while and  take time to read  the "what should i shoot" and some of the other advice the Alamy Content team give us.

 

We the contributors can play a significant role  in making Alamy the go to site for interesting, quality imagery..
 

 

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I thought it was a great video that addressed the burning issues.

 

Issues like high image resolution for small uses, copyright infringement chasing, image exclusive to Alamy, promoting the Alamy brand into new markets, improving the customer search experience through website search development, maintaining the commission rate, strategy to make customers Alamy only, the difference between stock and news, the company structure that suppresses conflicts of interest between PA media and Alamy photographers, PA media providing much needed resources, continuity of management, improved photographer communications.

 

The thing that really turned my crank was building the advertising and creative design use business.

 

There is a big market in advertising for editorial photographs that will then be sold for higher prices. This should raise your average price per image.

 

Airlines, car rental companies, tourism industry, packaging industry, finance industry, governments, book publishers, public relations companies, they all use editorial type photographs for advertising. They all pay higher advertising per use prices. Get your exclusive editorial images onto the radar of the advertising agencies. Get your images into national advertising campaigns. Get your beauty ocean images onto a package of frozen fish. Funny about the fish, but you will be laughing all the way to the bank. Big bucks.

 

One advertising image in an issue of a big time national magazine pays more money that all the cumulative total fee for all of the editorial images in that same issue.

 

Advertising use of your editorial images means higher prices, and Alamy is going to go after that business.

 

Great video, now let us look to what we, as photographers, can do to help Alamy execute their strategy.

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1 hour ago, Cee Dee Dickinson said:

As you and others above have indicated MizBrown there is room for improvement. Maybe we should stop pressing the shutter for a while and  take time to read  the "what should i shoot" and some of the other advice the Alamy Content team give us.

 

We the contributors can play a significant role  in making Alamy the go to site for interesting, quality imagery..
 

 

 

until Alamy tells me the source of What should i shoot, i don't see the incentive, to go out of my way to do any of them... actually i don't i would be allowed.  So i will continue to look at "Image sold", major news item,  and AoA and see what actually the market wants...

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10 minutes ago, Bill Brooks said:

The thing that really turned my crank was building the advertising and creative design use business.

 

There is a big market in advertising for editorial photographs that will then be sold for higher prices. This should raise your average price per image.

 

Airlines, car rental companies, tourism industry, packaging industry, finance industry, governments, book publishers, public relations companies, they all use editorial type photographs for advertising. They all pay higher advertising per use prices. Get your exclusive editorial images onto the radar of the advertising agencies. Get your images into national advertising campaigns. Get your beauty ocean images onto a package of frozen fish. Funny about the fish, but you will be laughing all the way to the bank. Big bucks.

 

One advertising image in an issue of a big time national magazine pays more money that all the cumulative total fee for all of the editorial images in that same issue.

 

Advertising use of your editorial images means higher prices, and Alamy is going to go after that business.

 

Great video, now let us look to what we, as photographers, can do to help Alamy execute their strategy.

 

One of the things about advertising photos is that every single person in them has to have signed a release.  I've got a form in Spanish on my phone.  Besides things I can personally release (me and my cats), I've got two or maybe three released photos out of over a thousand up.  Tried to get one man to sign a release for his images, but he moved back to Germany.  It's do-able, but it tends to complicate things.   And some of the micros expect everything to be released.   As for product photography, where we would be selling a photo of a product back to its manufacturer, has anyone done that?

 

I'd probably have to release my fish to get them on a can of fish food.  I can do that.   A cat that looks a lot like my part-time cat is already on a Purina Cat Chow bag. 

 

I think this one is where fashion photography pays more because you've got a budget to hire models and releases are expected and customary. 

 

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8 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

until Alamy tells me the source of What should i shoot, i don't see the incentive, to go out of my way to do any of them... actually i don't i would be allowed.  So i will continue to look at "Image sold", major news item,  and AoA and see what actually the market wants...

No problem. Leaves a gap in the market  for others to fill should they wish.

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7 minutes ago, Cee Dee Dickinson said:

No problem. Leaves a gap in the market  for others to fill should they wish.

 

 

have you looked at the list? 

 

 

 

 

How do you suggest we do: 

"3.French news Politics"

France modern and historical Relating to science, industry, transport and technology

 

 

This has been in list for a while

 

Environmentally Sustainable Building Canada 

 

IS client still waiting?  What do they actually want?  Do i need to plant a maple leaf to prove it's in Canada?

 

 

 

However i know from AoA every search that people have made about where I am, including a series that had major gap, so as soon as condition is right, you can be sure i will go press the shutter button.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

have you looked at the list? 

 

 

 

 

How do you suggest we do: 

"3.French news Politics"

France modern and historical Relating to science, industry, transport and technology

 

 

This has been in list for a while

 

Environmentally Sustainable Building Canada 

 

IS client still waiting?  What do they actually want?  Do i need to plant a maple leaf to prove it's in Canada?

 

 

Yep! I have read this list and it's a  very long list of material people could be photographing.

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2 minutes ago, Cee Dee Dickinson said:

Yep! I took time out from posting shit and  read  Alamy Content Team advice

 

I've licensed one of their requests out of several (including ghosts ants) that I've marked as filled.   Some of the requests are impossible for me in Nicaragua to fill though I have thought about trolling the second hand stores here for a Tiny Tears Doll.

 

Some of what I see is an agency with a focus on the UK and the Commonwealth countries, and with a secondary focus on the US, but fewer of the wants and needs tend to be of the US other than of the major cities.  Even worse in Nicaragua, just an interest in what bad thing is happening in Managua and what is available for tourists in Granada.    Someone in Australia can't cover the whole country.   Someone here can cover most of it if driving and if we're not being cautious now because of the virus.    I could get fall colors of liquidamber trees if I could find a way to get up to Nicaragua's highest mountain.  Otherwise, no fall colors.   It might be possible to find a KGB badge in a second hand store here, but probably going to be easier to find a Che Guevara pin.

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1 minute ago, MizBrown said:

 

I've licensed one of their requests out of several (including ghosts ants) that I've marked as filled.   Some of the requests are impossible for me in Nicaragua to fill though I have thought about trolling the second hand stores here for a Tiny Tears Doll.

 

Some of what I see is an agency with a focus on the UK and the Commonwealth countries, and with a secondary focus on the US, but fewer of the wants and needs tend to be of the US other than of the major cities.  Even worse in Nicaragua, just an interest in what bad thing is happening in Managua and what is available for tourists in Granada.    Someone in Australia can't cover the whole country.   Someone here can cover most of it if driving and if we're not being cautious now because of the virus.    I could get fall colors of liquidamber trees if I could find a way to get up to Nicaragua's highest mountain.  Otherwise, no fall colors.   It might be possible to find a KGB badge in a second hand store here, but probably going to be easier to find a Che Guevara pin.

Is there not a great opportunity for some documentary photography in Nicaragua MizBrown?  Looks an interesting place going by your portfolio.

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1 minute ago, Cee Dee Dickinson said:

Is there not a great opportunity for some documentary photography in Nicaragua MizBrown?  Looks an interesting place going by your portfolio.

 

Most of what people search for right now is Nicaragua Covid or Corona virus.  The thing is that while I've had access to things tourists wouldn't have access to, most of the use of photographs here is tourism promotion on one hand and covering civil unrest on the other.  And that gets done for Alamy by the Reuters photographers.  My neighborhood had injured but no dead.

 

Facebook has a group of Nicaraguan photographers, some of whom who are world class.  They do local weddings and advertising photography. 

 

I don't know what this is for you, no new photos up, spending a lot of energy telling other photographers who have been regular contributors what they should do (and in most cases, we've been doing it).

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2 hours ago, MizBrown said:

 

 

I don't know what this is for you, no new photos up, spending a lot of energy telling other photographers who have been regular contributors what they should do (and in most cases, we've been doing it).


Stock photography discussion and contributor experience

 

Apologies for my mistake MizBrown

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Another set of images that show us the importance of the event and of having lots of Live News contributors.

 

 

https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/reuters-photographer-captures-police-shooting-of-gunman-at-manhattan-church


Remove post if link above not allowed.

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7 hours ago, MizBrown said:

 

Most of what people search for right now is Nicaragua Covid or Corona virus.  The thing is that while I've had access to things tourists wouldn't have access to, most of the use of photographs here is tourism promotion on one hand and covering civil unrest on the other.  And that gets done for Alamy by the Reuters photographers.  My neighborhood had injured but no dead.

 

Facebook has a group of Nicaraguan photographers, some of whom who are world class.  They do local weddings and advertising photography. 

 

I don't know what this is for you, no new photos up, spending a lot of energy telling other photographers who have been regular contributors what they should do (and in most cases, we've been doing it).

 

There is some demand for Nicaragua images. I've had six Nicaragua licenses this year (including one this month), which is about half of what I normally have, out of roughly 215 Nica images in my collection. Clients tend to be book and magazine publishers.

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5 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

There is some demand for Nicaragua images. I've had six Nicaragua licenses this year (including one this month), which is about half of what I normally have, out of roughly 215 Nica images in my collection. Clients tend to be book and magazine publishers.

 

Either I'm not taking pictures that are that competent, or I'm back so far in the ranks that nothing of mine is showing up in the first pages.  Or I don't do the Nicaragua that sells tourism.   I've heard tourists complain that Jinotega wasn't as rugged and frontier-like as they'd been told.

 

We can revisit my portfolio tomorrow.  I've only licensed one Nicaraguan photograph where the location was significant. 

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16 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

Either I'm not taking pictures that are that competent, or I'm back so far in the ranks that nothing of mine is showing up in the first pages.  Or I don't do the Nicaragua that sells tourism.   I've heard tourists complain that Jinotega wasn't as rugged and frontier-like as they'd been told.

 

We can revisit my portfolio tomorrow.  I've only licensed one Nicaraguan photograph where the location was significant. 

Miz Brown,

 

While I did not agree with you more than a year ago, I have come to respect you and your opinion.

For what it is worth, you have a unique opinion  and an experience that I find interesting.  I have come

to value your contribution to this forum.

 

In answer to your post about your images on Alamy: 2DG2NNM is a waste of time, my opinion, I did not 

go further.  It is interesting to me that I come from the school of "if it bleeds it leads"   You are different and from a different

world.

 

In any event I do enjoy reading your posts.

 

Chuck

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19 minutes ago, Chuck Nacke said:

In answer to your post about your images on Alamy: 2DG2NNM is a waste of time, my opinion, I did not 

go further

I've been doing a lot of still lifes.  Those were things my dog-walker brought me from his other client.  I don't think you'd be any happier with my other arrangement of those items. 

 

Nicaragua bleeds from time to time.   But sometimes, it's delightful to have a locally made stout and some imported cheese, and quinoa and some other things we couldn't buy here until 2020.  But that's not in the photograph. 

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Hi everyone,

 

Please note that several comments in this thread has been deleted as they were off topic and not suitable on a public forum. The thread will be locked for any further comments if we spot more. 

 

Thanks,

Elisabeth 

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