Critique Photography

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Hello! I've only been working for Alamy for a month. Didn't expect quick sales. But I would like to know how successful my portfolio can be. Any advice thank you. 

 

 

[Ed Rooney]

Your images look very good, Kos. If you're in Paris, I suggest that you capture some level 2 and 3 travel images, not just landmarks. Snap some street signs, restaurants, and street life.

 

Good luck and stay safe. 

 

Edo

[Steve F]

Hi Kostiantyn,

Welcome! You have some very nice pictures, bright and colourful, simple themes.

 

1. Captions are searchable on Alamy and if you hover over a photo, you can see the caption without actually zooming the photo. I'm sure clients do this, so if you have short or incorrect captions on a photo, they will move swiftly on after hovering over the photo.

https://www.alamy.com/contributor/how-to-sell-images/captions-and-keywords-for-images/?section=8"

"Before you start, think about the potential use of the image and what it’s likely to be sold for, the more accurately you describe your image, the more visibility it will have in customer searches, which will significantly increase your chance of making a sale."

 

Some of your captions are a bit short, for example

"Alexandre III Bridge and view of the Invalides"

I would maybe write something like: The historic and ornate Alexandre III Bridge spanning over the River Seine and a view of Les Invalides at dusk, 7th arrondissement Paris, France

 

2. I'm not sure about the editing on this one. Have you replaced the sky or oversaturated the yellows and oranges? It doesn't look very natural, so is unlikely to be used as a travel shot. This might work if you had a whole collection edited like this; perhaps someone else has some thoughts?

 

 

 

 

3. I really like your pictures with people in, I can 100% see these selling (btw I couldn't see 'bored' as a keyword for the child reading??):

 

 

I'm not so sure about the ones where the 'model' is looking at the camera and smiling. These look more like holiday snapshots. The photos that you tend to see published look like they haven't been staged and the model is engaged in doing something. It is a cliche for bad stock photos to have a model doing something and smiling at the camera. Not to say never do it, but try to make it look more natural / think of a specific reason for why you'd want to break the 'third wall'.

 

4. It looks like you might be spamming keywords. Your pictures will appear at a certain level (e.g. first page, 10th page... etc.) in searches by clients, depending on various factors. CTR and Sales are the only factors we know about for sure in the secret formula Alamy uses to set our search ranking. Your CTR rank (on your Dashboard) is a function of the number of times a client zooms (clicks on) one of your images versus the number of times your images appear in a client search, but are not zoomed.

CTR=Zooms/Views * 100

This is basically a long way of me saying, don't spam keywords. E.g. don't put sky, blue, clouds for every single outdoors picture you shoot. There is a tendency to try to put lots of keywords for your images to try to get them seen by clients. So they may well appear in searches, but if they're not zoomed by a client, your CTR rank will drop. Which means your images won't show as high up in client searches. You don't want your images to get buried in the 240 million images on Alamy. By all means, put a lot of keywords in for certain pictures if they're relevant. Captions and keywords are almost more important than the image itself because you can have the most amazing images ever, but if they're keyworded wrong, no one will ever see them.

 

Include variant spellings, in particular British and American spellings. Also include singular and plurals  of words if appropriate. Don't worry about moving the line to optimised (green) - we have collectively decided that this is not a good idea unless you really need that many keywords.

 

Good luck,

Stephen

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Steve F

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Thank you all for your replies, i will try to fix it.

Unfortunately, I do not know how to work in Photoshop, so all my photos are more or less natural. Mostly I take pictures of food or flowers, but Alami is probably not interested in such photos. 

Keywords, description, don't look at the camera, street photography. Ok, I'll work on it.

Thank you very much again!

[Tony ALS]

One comment which always causes me irritation is when someone says they work for someone when they don't.

Alamy work for you selling your images.

I think of it that way round as I believe we all should. 

I also don't use Photoshop or anything I have to pay extra for.

Unless the income stream from here justifies it I won't.

Steve is always very thorough in his advice and with my limited experience I wouldn't add anything to his excellent comments as always.

 

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Tony ALS, I don't really understand the reason for your irritation. I do not speak English. Perhaps the automatic translation was inaccurate in some way.
I wrote about Photoshop because Steve assumed the sky in my photo was captured in Photoshop.
I am very grateful to everyone for taking the time to look at my photos and rate them. This is really very cute. And I will definitely use all the tips.

I'm just at the beginning of the journey. I need any advice.
For example, Ed Rooney said to show the street life of Paris. Alamy needs releases for signs and stores, or will these photos be editorial?

[Steve F]

2 minutes ago, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

Tony ALS, I don't really understand the reason for your irritation. I do not speak English. Perhaps the automatic translation was inaccurate in some way.
I wrote about Photoshop because Steve assumed the sky in my photo was captured in Photoshop.
I am very grateful to everyone for taking the time to look at my photos and rate them. This is really very cute. And I will definitely use all the tips.

I'm just at the beginning of the journey. I need any advice.
For example, Ed Rooney said to show the street life of Paris. Alamy needs releases for signs and stores, or will these photos be editorial?

 

It's just a semantics thing. You can look on it as Alamy works for you to sell your images, rather than you working for Alamy.

 

No, you don't need a release, just put under 'property release' - "no" on the options tab on Alamy Image Manager.

[MizBrown]

55 minutes ago, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

Mostly I take pictures of food or flowers, but Alami is probably not interested in such photos. 

 

Food seems to sell very well for some people.   Mostly what gets licensed for flowers and plants is more natural plant photography to illustrate a gardening magazine or nature magazine or web site, so more natural photos than studio shots might be preferred.   Food photos can be used in travel articles and sites and in cooking articles and sites. 

 

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Thank you Steve!

Thank you MizBrown! 

Your advices are very important and valuable to me. I didn't think about much. I take pictures for microstocks, which is another matter. There is a big difference.

[Tony ALS]

1 hour ago, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

Tony ALS, I don't really understand the reason for your irritation. I do not speak English. Perhaps the automatic translation was inaccurate in some way.

Don't worry Kos. My irritation comes from years of experience of using service companies who forget that without, in Alamy's case, the contributions from you and me they wouldn't exist. A trend sets in where said company then starts treating you as if you are employed, very annoying. Not saying it's the case with Alamy but as you can tell, it's a sore subject with me! Nothing to do with Photoshop.

Translation doesn't always work that well so I hope this comes across the right way.

Good luck.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Tony ALS
typo!

[Mr Standfast]

Kos,  you're enjoying your photography which shows up in your pictures.

 

Stay safe.🦔

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

TonyALC, yes, automatic translation is not always accurate. Thank you!

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Mr Standfast,  yes, I'm realy enjoying my photography. Hope my photos will bring me some more money.  🙂

[GeoffK]

On 17/02/2021 at 15:02, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by GeoffK

[Ed Rooney]

On 18/02/2021 at 14:15, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

For example, Ed Rooney said to show the street life of Paris. Alamy needs releases for signs and stores, or will these photos be editorial?

 

Kos, I have almost 9,000 images on Alamy and there is not one that I have either a model release or property release for. I just shoot common access editorial subjects. And, yes, I do make regular sales.

 

Paris awaits!!!

Edited February 19, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Thank you, Ed Rooney! I will follow your advice. Unfortunately, now I'm no longer in Paris. But I have a lot of photos from France, where I worked for 5 years. 

[Tony ALS]

On 18/02/2021 at 14:29, Tony ALS said:

One comment which always causes me irritation is when someone says they work for someone when they don't.

Alamy work for you selling your images.

I think of it that way round as I believe we all should. 

I also don't use Photoshop or anything I have to pay extra for.

Unless the income stream from here justifies it I won't.

Steve is always very thorough in his advice and with my limited experience I wouldn't add anything to his excellent comments as always.

 

Interesting to be downvoted for what should be read as supportive comments for contributors.

I wonder if automated translation is affecting the way this is understood.

Happy Sunday all.

[Chris Burrows]

Interesting to see yet another microstock photographer trying out Alamy to see if they can get a better return on their pictures.  My advice would be to put original work on Alamy rather than stuff available elsewhere at lower price.  

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Chris Burrows, it's a very interesting experience to try and shoot something new. This is a new vision. New experiment. I want to try. There are still few works in my portfolio that Alamy needs. But I'm going to be of service to them. I hope.

[Pawel Piotr]

On 18/02/2021 at 11:47, Ed Rooney said:

Your images look very good, Kos. If you're in Paris, I suggest that you capture some level 2 and 3 travel images, not just landmarks. Snap some street signs, restaurants, and street life.

 

Good luck and stay safe. 

 

Edo

Hi Edo - just curious. What do you mean by saying level 2 and 3 images? Where did you get this classification from? 

[Ed Rooney]

Piotr, I'm thinking that landmarks like the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, things we see on postcards, are Level One. The cafe culture and other things would be important but not as important. Where did I get these classifications? I'm a world traveler.

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[Pawel Piotr]

37 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Piotr, I'm thinking that landmarks like the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, things we see on postcards, are Level One. The cafe culture and other things would be important but not as important. Where did I get these classifications? I'm a world traveler.

 

I see, however I would not say that some subjects are more or less worth than others. Everything could be presented in original way, even 'level one' landmarks. I have seen absolutely amazing postcards - I wouldn't underestimate them too. For me it's sad that some photographers are pushed to photograph 'street signs, restaurants'. I don't mean good reportage but photographing signs is probably the saddest thing I've heard. Completely out of passion, unless someone is taking pictures thinking only about Alamy

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by Pawel Piotr

[Steve F]

7 minutes ago, Pawel Piotr said:

I see, however I would not say that some subjects are more or less worth than others. Everything could be presented in original way, even 'level one' landmarks. I have seen absolutely amazing postcards - I wouldn't underestimate them too. For me it's sad that some photographers are pushed to photograph 'street signs, restaurants'. I don't mean good reportage but photographing signs is probably the saddest thing I've heard. Completely out of passion, unless someone is taking pictures thinking only about Alamy

 

 

Oh dear! 😋 I do shoot things that interest me, but I primarily shoot for stock. If I wasn't commercial in what I shot and just wandered around shooting random things I found interesting, I'd probably end up being someone with a huge collection moaning that I never make any sales.... I try to shoot a wide range of subjects, not just landscapes or pretty images, and this includes pictures of things I think would sell, whatever they might be.

[Ed Rooney]

I'm not building a career. I'm retired and winding down from a long career.

 

I shoot common-access editorial stock now. I'm not doing art photography, and I'm not interested in that. I don't speculate about what will sell as stock. No one knows that. We only know what has sold. 

[Pawel Piotr]

If it works for you - great  but giving advice who has great eye to snap signs is most demotivating/discouraging lesson ever. And no-one says about building career here.