Okay, what areas do I need to improve on.

[Cee Dee Dickinson]

On 21/12/2020 at 14:10, MizBrown said:

I had an uptick in sales after getting the numbers up to close to 900 and haven't had a sale since late June and not many zooms.

 

I've deleted some photos, replaced some with better edited versions.   Any that should be deleted or re-edited.   Any thing missing in captions.  

 

 

 

 

As stated elsewhere,  where you live looks interesting.


 Lifestyles in a City, town, village 

What are the main industries, how do people earn a living

What  plants and animals live there, what is grown, what do people eat and drink.  
Is there pollution. Are there environmental issues like deforestation, plastics.
Current events, political, crime, protests

All these subjects  can be documented. Pick a subject to cover, plan you shoot (who, what, where, when, why, how) and share with the World via Alamy.

Hope this helps MizBrown




 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Cee Dee Dickinson

[John Mitchell]

20 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

I would play more in stereotypes.  I have actually had quite a few zoom and sales from image of people dressed up in what the rest of world thinks of the place,  

 

 

 

The fact is that we are all stereotypes. One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite Latin American writers:"

 

"From the point of view of the natives, it's the tourists who are picturesque."

 

-Eduardo Galeno

(Upside Down - A Primer for the Looking-Glass World)

Edited December 22, 2020 by John Mitchell

[MizBrown]

35 minutes ago, Cee Dee Dickinson said:

As stated elsewhere,  where you live looks interesting.


 Lifestyles in a City, town, village 

What are the main industries, how do people earn a living

What  plants and animals live there, what is grown, what do people eat and drink.  
Is there pollution. Are there environmental issues like deforestation, plastics.
Current events, political, crime, protests

All these subjects  can be documented. Pick a subject to cover, plan you shoot (who, what, where, when, why, how) and share with the World via Alamy.

Hope this helps MizBrown

 

 

The problem is not so much WHAT I take as much as HOW I take them.

 

Next time, I'll leave you filtered.   The people I listen to are people who have considerable track records as photographers.   I can say that I want to do some things differently, but to do that, I have to be a better photographer in terms of composition, colors, and all those things.  Or I say forget it and start writing again.  But the photography has informed what I see here, has built a different picture of here than I'd have without the photos of both here and the US. 

[Cee Dee Dickinson]

8 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

 

The problem is not so much WHAT I take as much as HOW I take them.

 

Next time, I'll leave you filtered.   The people I listen to are people who have considerable track records as photographers.   I can say that I want to do some things differently, but to do that, I have to be a better photographer in terms of composition, colors, and all those things.  Or I say forget it and start writing again.  But the photography has informed what I see here, has built a different picture of here than I'd have without the photos of both here and the US. 

Don't know why i bothered taking the time to write a reply. Obviously some peoples problems have nothing to do with photography.

[MizBrown]

29 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

The fact is that we are all stereotypes. One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite Latin American writers:"

 

"From the point of view of the natives, it's the tourists who are picturesque."

 

-Eduardo Galeno

(Upside Down - A Primer for the Looking-Glass World)

 

It is the tourists who are picturesque.  

 

The thing is I've read a guy who was famous in science fiction fields for really knowing Central America, but in Central American places where he claimed to have lived, nobody had heard of him, there was no Jake the Israeli's bar where he said it was, no evil doctor by the name he was giving the guy showed up in other print media coverage of the issues with the cane field workers, and he found a picture on line that someone else had taken to prove he was in Guatemala.  But his Guatemala was a mess of cliches that were more his writing and stuff he'd gotten from other writers, and a friend who was really traveling in Guatemala saw things that seemed credible to me.   He could take a cliche and write so beautifully around it to make it seem real. 

 

Canadians can stereotype all they want -- they don't periodically send armies or pay proxy armies to fix Central America.   For my country to believe those cliches can be murderous.   For the BBC to trust Nicaragua newspaper reporters and owners can lead to messes down here.  Except for the Nicaraguan military, nobody was the good guys  in 2018.  It was all conning the rubes for power and money, and getting one side to be terrified of the other side.  Imagining that the US could come and fix things by force of arms is pure madness.    Imagining that Ortega destroyed a utopian left paradise is also pure madness. 

 

One friend of mine said the problem with the US was it saw other people's wars as if they were sporting events -- that one side was ours and the other side needed to be beaten, and everything was nicely black and white.   The US goes into other people's civil strife like football hooligans.    My fellow US citizens, right to left, believe that things can be fixed, that history can be stopped, that things can be made perfect, and that the locals are grateful for the tourists.    None of those beliefs makes them particularly happier since nothing in real human life is that simple.   On the other hand, Nicaraguans can be too fatalistic except when they're not.   

 

One drunk New Years, Nicaraguan friends and I compared Jinotega to where I'd lived in rural Virginia:  pot growing in the hills -- check.   Liquor distilling?  check.  Rigid class system and agriculture that requires poor people who don't have land to work for the larger farms, check.  Jinotega has more branch colleges than Martinsville, Virginia.  Bunches of people who fixed things better than the official repair people -- check (and I've photographed the curb side car repairs).   Cockfighting --check and it's legal here.  I photographed cocks without spurs or gaffs fighting in Virginia.   They are spectacularly fast and very hard to catch on manual focus cameras.   I need a fast long autofocus lens, or I need to be close with what I've got.

 

When I wrote for the country weekly and also took photos, I found that I couldn't do both at the same time, and that being very visual pulled me out of the very verbal.  Now I'm being very verbal.  One is a break from the other.    Maybe they can enhance each other.

 

 

 

[John Mitchell]

16 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

It is the tourists who are picturesque.  

 

The thing is I've read a guy who was famous in science fiction fields for really knowing Central America, but in Central American places where he claimed to have lived, nobody had heard of him, there was no Jake the Israeli's bar where he said it was, no evil doctor by the name he was giving the guy showed up in other print media coverage of the issues with the cane field workers, and he found a picture on line that someone else had taken to prove he was in Guatemala.  But his Guatemala was a mess of cliches that were more his writing and stuff he'd gotten from other writers, and a friend who was really traveling in Guatemala saw things that seemed credible to me.   He could take a cliche and write so beautifully around it to make it seem real. 

 

Canadians can stereotype all they want -- they don't periodically send armies or pay proxy armies to fix Central America.   For my country to believe those cliches can be murderous.   For the BBC to trust Nicaragua newspaper reporters and owners can lead to messes down here.  Except for the Nicaraguan military, nobody was the good guys  in 2018.  It was all conning the rubes for power and money, and getting one side to be terrified of the other side.  Imagining that the US could come and fix things by force of arms is pure madness.    Imagining that Ortega destroyed a utopian left paradise is also pure madness. 

 

One friend of mine said the problem with the US was it saw other people's wars as if they were sporting events -- that one side was ours and the other side needed to be beaten, and everything was nicely black and white.   The US goes into other people's civil strife like football hooligans.    My fellow US citizens, right to left, believe that things can be fixed, that history can be stopped, that things can be made perfect, and that the locals are grateful for the tourists.    None of those beliefs makes them particularly happier since nothing in real human life is that simple.   On the other hand, Nicaraguans can be too fatalistic except when they're not.   

 

One drunk New Years, Nicaraguan friends and I compared Jinotega to where I'd lived in rural Virginia:  pot growing in the hills -- check.   Liquor distilling?  check.  Rigid class system and agriculture that requires poor people who don't have land to work for the larger farms, check.  Jinotega has more branch colleges than Martinsville, Virginia.  Bunches of people who fixed things better than the official repair people -- check (and I've photographed the curb side car repairs).   Cockfighting --check and it's legal here.  I photographed cocks without spurs or gaffs fighting in Virginia.   They are spectacularly fast and very hard to catch on manual focus cameras.   I need a fast long autofocus lens, or I need to be close with what I've got.

 

When I wrote for the country weekly and also took photos, I found that I couldn't do both at the same time, and that being very visual pulled me out of the very verbal.  Now I'm being very verbal.  One is a break from the other.    Maybe they can enhance each other.

 

 

 

 

You and Eduardo Galeano would probably have gotten along well (sadly he died a few years ago). His books are terrific if you haven't read any of them.

[meanderingemu]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

The fact is that we are all stereotypes. One of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite Latin American writers:"

 

"From the point of view of the natives, it's the tourists who are picturesque."

 

-Eduardo Galeno

(Upside Down - A Primer for the Looking-Glass World)

we are, but I think from a Stock stand point the generalized stereotypes seem to be in demand.  

If you are targeting Natives as customer, i will try and have my tourists with camera at hand, taking the same selfie as everyone else, large tour groups, flowery shirts, out of place attire...    A picture of just me sitting in centre of Ljubljana even though i'm a tourist, likely doesn't fit their image. 

 

[Ed Rooney]

Mostly, Miz B, I think you do a good job with the subjects you have.

 

I'm weary of hearing myself say this in my comments, but I feel a lot of your images are too dark. I mean they should have some snap in them. 

[MizBrown]

1 hour ago, David Pimborough said:

Who or what are Campesino's?  As a person who has never been to Latin/South America I'd need a bit of guidance as to what the photo is

about.

 

 

Okay.  tenant farmer, farm worker.  "Campesino" can be neutral (country person) or a slur (somewhat like "hick" in English).   The campo is the countryside.   Sharecropper would be close.  Peasant. 

 

Thanks for bringing that up.  I forget sometimes that not even everyone would know what a sharecropper was,  but the first thing my country farmer uncle wanted to know about Nicaraguans who worked for a landowner on shares was how much share did they get.  "About halves."   "Does The Man provide the seed and tools?"   "I think so." (I don't know).  "Fair if they do, not if they don't."

Edited December 22, 2020 by MizBrown

[MizBrown]

46 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Mostly, Miz B, I think you do a good job with the subjects you have.

 

I'm weary of hearing myself say this in my comments, but I feel a lot of your images are too dark. I mean they should have some snap in them. 

 

And that's a "how I take 'um" problem, not "what I take 'um of."   Couple of them I have revised recently, trying to get them a bit brighter. 

 

The other thing is a metaphorical brightness, perhaps. 

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by MizBrown

[Ed Rooney]

I'm sure you have better tech skills than me, but I can't see that you're making use of them. Everyone has to make a judgment call as to how they want an image to look.

 

In Photoshop there is a tool I sometimes use at the end of an edit. Image > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast.  

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, David Pimborough said:

 

 

I got it! Thats a damn shame as I mentioned I really like your pictures of everyday life.

 

However on one or two of the shots I looked at I noticed a lack in certain keywords for example

 

Who or what are Campesino's?  As a person who has never been to Latin/South America I'd need a bit of guidance as to what the photo is

about.

 

campesino family campesino family in nicaragua campo life family family portraits farm family jinotega nicaragua nicaraguan father and children nicaraguan man and daughters nicaraguans people people in nicaragua replacement replaces image id rr5taf

 

How about Latin America(n), South America(n), Central America(n),?  Are they a typical family? I noted the word farm so is he a farmer? in which case farming, agricultural worker, employee and so one

 

Children, portait, everyday, life, lifestyle etc...

 

So I'd say you need more relevant key words to help things get found

 

 

 

"Campesino" is used throughout much of Latin America to describe a "peasant farmer". I think that most publishers researching Nicaragua photos would know the term. I'd definitely put "Central America" and "Central American" in the keywords, though, as well as "Latin America" and "Latin American" -- but not "South America".

[MizBrown]

6 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

I'm sure you have better tech skills than me, but I can't see that you're making use of them. Everyone has to make a judgment call as to how they want an image to look.

 

In Photoshop there is a tool I sometimes use at the end of an edit. Image > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast.  

 

The country man and his daughters was one that I worked on to make it brighter.   I remembered someone with experience saying that.

 

Theory and practice with tech isn't necessarily equal.   Some of the problem may be that I need to keep an eye on what my cameras are metering and how they're metering and bump up the exposure a bit.

[Ed Rooney]

I agree. That image jumps.

[MizBrown]

7 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

"Campesino" is used throughout much of Latin America to describe a "peasant farmer". I think that most publishers researching Nicaragua photos would know the term. I'd definitely put "Central America" and "Central American" in the keywords, though, as well as "Latin America" and "Latin American" -- but not "South America".

 

Yeah, a lot of people aren't clear that Central America is actually geographically part of North America. 

[MizBrown]

1 minute ago, Ed Rooney said:

I agree. That image jumps.

 

So that was the right direction.   Thank you again for that earlier criticism.

 

[Ed Rooney]

I agree with most of what Chuck had to say about you being a better writer than a photographer. I'm sure you do too. However, Chuck was referring to the picture story, and that is not what digital stock photography is about. For stock, we have to produce strong images that can support a concept on their own.

 

Don't give up. You'll improve. But understand that photography is about visual sensitivity. It's not an intellectual pursuit.

 

Your subjects call for a documentary approach. That's harder than much of what I do now with one foot in the PR world—bistro and pub signs, statues, landmarks, and food.

 

Good luck.

 

 

 

[M.Chapman]

17 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

In Photoshop there is a tool I sometimes use at the end of an edit. Image > Adjustments > Brightness & Contrast.  

 

Or even Image>Adjustments>Auto Contrast. It's not good on low contrast or significantly underexposed images, but often works well for me as a "tweak".

 

Mark

[Ed Rooney]

Right, Mark, I use that too. But sometimes I feel the brightness, contrast, and saturation need to be balanced. 

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

sometimes I feel the brightness, contrast, and saturation need to be balanced. 

Sounds like a good lifestyle decision, Ed.

[MizBrown]

9 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Your subjects call for a documentary approach. That's harder than much of what I do now with one foot in the PR world—bistro and pub signs, statues, landmarks, and food.

 

The reason things here are documentary rather than not is the bistro, restaurant, and bar signs are in Spanish.  :).    I've been experimenting with adjustments to both the overly dark areas and the overly bright areas.   Lightroom has a mask brush feature.   I'm sure Photoshop has even better, but I'm not as familiar with that. 

 

[MizBrown]

23 hours ago, MizBrown said:

For the BBC to trust Nicaragua newspaper reporters and owners can lead to messes down here.

 

I check.  It was Reuters in the Google News section, not the BBC, which does tend to not be that trusting of what the local oligarchies tell them.

[spacecadet]

12 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

 

The reason things here are documentary rather than not is the bistro, restaurant, and bar signs are in Spanish.  :).    I've been experimenting with adjustments to both the overly dark areas and the overly bright areas.   Lightroom has a mask brush feature.   I'm sure Photoshop has even better, but I'm not as familiar with that. 

 

You could give the "Auto" setting on LR a try. I usually apply it on import and it balances up exposure quite well. Then a bit of clarity and vibrance, maybe pull down the highlights, and 75% of my images are fixed.

Auto mask would be great on highlights but I find it artefactically problematic on edges; I haven't been brave enough to chance it with QC.

Edited December 23, 2020 by spacecadet

[Ed Rooney]

MizB, do you have the NIX Collection? I used to but don't have it at the moment. I used to start my edit in LR Classic, save a tiff and move it to PS, sometimes using NIX that was in PS Filters. 

 

I've said this before, but I don't have any set editing pattern. I look at an image and see what I want to do with it, then I find the tools to make that happen. I never noticed the Auto edit setting in LR until Mark mentioned it. I use it a lot now with some adjustments. 

[MizBrown]

Just now, spacecadet said:

You could give the "Auto" setting on LR a try. I usually apply it on import It balances up exposure quite well. Then a bit of clarity and vibrance, maybe pull down the highlights, and 75% of my images are fixed.

 

Tropics outdoors, not so much.