Critique Photography

[Steve F]

6 minutes ago, Pawel Piotr said:

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. 

 

Perhaps you should look on it as encouragement to shoot a wider variety of subjects, and to find interest in more subjects.... 🙃

[Ed Rooney]

I figure about a third of my sales are of signs. I thought this was the forum for Alamy stock agency. Maybe Kos in Paris will not feel he is humiliating himself by shooting a sign now and then.  

 

 

[Steve F]

18 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

I figure about a third of my sales are of signs. I thought this was the forum for Alamy stock agency. Maybe Kos in Paris will not feel he is humiliating himself by shooting a sign now and then.  

 

 

Paris has got fancy signs 🤩.....

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Thank you very much for such an interest in my portfolio and my person. It's really cool.
I don't think anyone knows what kind of photo Alamy's client will buy. One can only guess. I study the portfolios of photographers who also receive money for their pleasant hobby. Of course, I also want it to be worth it.
If I knew about Alamy a little earlier, when I was still in Paris. Now I live in Ukraine. I doubt that anyone is showing great interest in Ukraine or writing about it. Therefore, I have to look among my old pictures for what might fit Alamy. 

If I were in Paris now, I would look differently at this city and country. And I would shoot not only a blooming magnolia or Eiffel Tower. I would also take pictures of the signs. And I would pay more attention to the quality of the photos.
And I hope that in my homeland I will also find a lot of interesting things for Alamy.

[Cecile Marion]

I really like your photos of Paris in the snow. It doesn’t happen that often, so pretty pictures of Paris in the snow should sell. I would add a few more specific location words in your tags if you can. For instance, 2E1RE6T is Ile Saint-Louis, and that makes it extra special. I would also add the tags Seine, River, and 4th Arrondissement. If you can name the park in the photo of the couple with a dog and it’s arrondissement, that would be good, too. It’s a wonderful photo!

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Cecile Marion, thank you so much! Yes, I know the names of the parks. I'll fix everything and add tags

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

Thank you very much for such an interest in my portfolio and my person. It's really cool.
I don't think anyone knows what kind of photo Alamy's client will buy. One can only guess. I study the portfolios of photographers who also receive money for their pleasant hobby. Of course, I also want it to be worth it.
If I knew about Alamy a little earlier, when I was still in Paris. Now I live in Ukraine. I doubt that anyone is showing great interest in Ukraine or writing about it. Therefore, I have to look among my old pictures for what might fit Alamy. 

If I were in Paris now, I would look differently at this city and country. And I would shoot not only a blooming magnolia or Eiffel Tower. I would also take pictures of the signs. And I would pay more attention to the quality of the photos.
And I hope that in my homeland I will also find a lot of interesting things for Alamy.

 

There are lots of photographers in Paris too.

 

How do you know what clients want from the Ukraine?

Go here and put %ukraine% or %ukranian% in the search box; set the date back to 01-Mar-2020. (Next month this will be 01-Apr-2020: it is a "rolling" year.)

You can click on any of the columns, but the most interesting to start with is UCO. (What this means is explained in the yellow part on the right hand side of that page.)

If you click on one of the search words or phrases, you will go to the images that are on Alamy already. Like when I click on Ukranian feminist, I get the 18 images of a Ukranian feminist on Alamy. This way it's easy to see if there's anything missing or if you can do it much better.

If you click on the column Views and sort them from the lowest to the highest number, you will see all those searches that had no result. Or very few results. Everything with less than 99 is worth doing. Other things: everything you can do better than the images already on Alamy. Everything with images of things that have changed. Make sure that you describe this in the Additional info panel.

Success!

 

wim

 

 

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

Wiskerke, thank you! Every time on the forum you can learn something new. Now I will try, following your instructions. 

[wiskerke]

35 minutes ago, Kostiantyn Ablazov said:

Wiskerke, thank you! Every time on the forum you can learn something new. Now I will try, following your instructions. 

 

You're welcome!

Yep we are a friendly bunch 😁

 

Now you can do this with every subject you're thinking of: kitchen table; cats on catnip; father and son doing TikTok or Minimalism.

As they say on clickbait websites: the results will shock you. (Well they might.)

 

wim

 

[meanderingemu]

On 07/03/2021 at 05:16, Tony ALS said:

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.

Maybe Steve disagreed 😉

 

(note i was the original Upvote on that comment, I agree that Steve is really helpful)

[meanderingemu]

On 09/03/2021 at 11:35, 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

 

 

stock photography should be about what clients want and need.  It is a commercial endeavour. The images i produce for these are not for me, they are for the end user.  

[meanderingemu]

22 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

There are lots of photographers in Paris too.

 

How do you know what clients want from the Ukraine?

Go here and put %ukraine% or %ukranian% in the search box; set the date back to 01-Mar-2020. (Next month this will be 01-Apr-2020: it is a "rolling" year.)

You can click on any of the columns, but the most interesting to start with is UCO. (What this means is explained in the yellow part on the right hand side of that page.)

If you click on one of the search words or phrases, you will go to the images that are on Alamy already. Like when I click on Ukranian feminist, I get the 18 images of a Ukranian feminist on Alamy. This way it's easy to see if there's anything missing or if you can do it much better.

If you click on the column Views and sort them from the lowest to the highest number, you will see all those searches that had no result. Or very few results. Everything with less than 99 is worth doing. Other things: everything you can do better than the images already on Alamy. Everything with images of things that have changed. Make sure that you describe this in the Additional info panel.

Success!

 

wim

 

 

 

 

and looking at the list, a few could have actually have met the client's need with a sign.  "Ukraine Covid", "Ukraine Stock Exchange" or "Ukraine Protest: 

 

one search was of interest, "street tram lviv ukraine 2020" .   There is no image in the image bank that illustrate this post March (ie the reality of 2020), presuming this is what client wants.  OP has an advantage.  Lack of contributor in field.  

[meanderingemu]

20 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

You're welcome!

Yep we are a friendly bunch 😁

 

Now you can do this with every subject you're thinking of: kitchen table; cats on catnip; father and son doing TikTok or Minimalism.

As they say on clickbait websites: the results will shock you. (Well they might.)

 

wim

 

 

 

Curious, have you found a way to do logic searches in AoA?  For example searches that include %Ukraine% AND %Sign%, but not necessarily as a string (ie. would also return "Ukraine Cafe Sign") 

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

Curious, have you found a way to do logic searches in AoA?  For example searches that include %Ukraine% AND %Sign%, but not necessarily as a string (ie. would also return "Ukraine Cafe Sign") 

 

That is easy: %Ukraine%Sign% will give you all that. Somewhere on the forum there's a list of everything we found that was allowed.

It was quite a bit, but mostly on the level of characters in- or excluded. That's already a lot from a security standpoint. You don't want people injecting scripts through here.

You can of course do all searches you want by downloading a couple of sets and then merging those into one spreadsheet or database. I have done this in the past: to preserve a rolling year's searches for subjects I was interested in. Like dutch; holland; netherlands; amsterdam and a couple more. The outcome proved too predictable to be worthwhile. So I now just keep an eye on AoA when something spikes my interest.

But it can be done and is easy. However Alamy's database is not always cooperative: when the subjects yield a large number of pages, it sometimes just refuses download. The solution is usually to wait until after office hours in the Western world. And/or to split a subject up in smaller sets. Because you're merging them afterwards anyway, this makes no difference.

To find unexpected "inroads" start with Google. In the search box put something obvious in, like London is or just: UK. The result is a list with the top 10 of current searches. For an outcome where London is not the first word, type <space> London.

Alamy search (for clients) works in the same way also: try the same words and see if the outcome is the same or different (and how and why). No idea about what the rolling time frame is for both.

For what to shoot, I rely more on Google, but do check on AoA.

 

wim

[meanderingemu]

4 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

That is easy: %Ukraine%Sign% will give you all that. Somewhere on the forum there's a list of everything we found that was allowed.

It was quite a bit, but mostly on the level of characters in- or excluded. That's already a lot from a security standpoint. You don't want people injecting scripts through here.

You can of course do all searches you want by downloading a couple of sets and then merging those into one spreadsheet or database. I have done this in the past: to preserve a rolling year's searches for subjects I was interested in. Like dutch; holland; netherlands; amsterdam and a couple more. The outcome proved too predictable to be worthwhile. So I now just keep an eye on AoA when something spikes my interest.

But it can be done and is easy. However Alamy's database is not always cooperative: when the subjects yield a large number of pages, it sometimes just refuses download. The solution is usually to wait until after office hours in the Western world. And/or to split a subject up in smaller sets. Because you're merging them afterwards anyway, this makes no difference.

To find unexpected "inroads" start with Google. In the search box put something obvious in, like London is or just: UK. The result is a list with the top 10 of current searches. For an outcome where London is not the first word, type <space> London.

Alamy search (for clients) works in the same way also: try the same words and see if the outcome is the same or different (and how and why). No idea about what the rolling time frame is for both.

For what to shoot, I rely more on Google, but do check on AoA.

 

wim

 

 

thanks, always the simplest solution,  i tried all forms of boolean operators, the two words both with the %xxx%, but since a had a space in between never got results...

 

 

i use AoA more to figure out gaps in my KW to be honest, things you take for granted until you realise they are not at a world base level

Edited March 11, 2021 by meanderingemu

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

thanks, always the simplest solution,  i tried all forms of boolean operators, the two words both with the %xxx%, but since a had a space in between never got results...

 

 

i use AoA more to figure out gaps in my KW to be honest, things you take for granted until you realise they are not at a world base level

 

Here are some of those character level searches that worked:

 

b_ll finds ball, bell, bill, boll and bull. (But also bbll, bcll, bdll, bfll etc.)

b[a-c]d finds bad, bbd, and bcd.

b[ae]ll finds ball and bell, but not bill, boll or bull.

b[^ae]ll finds bill, boll and bull, but not ball or bell.

 

If you want to find more (they may however not be allowed online): search for ANSI-92 Query Mode.

My guess is that what is used here is not ANSI-92 (SQL Server compatibility mode) though, but something similar.

(Don't take my word for it: I just know what it's called; not how it works. Being the difference between information and knowledge 😂)

 

And here is one of those snags from the past:

(about using the word Infinity as a keyword)

> This is what member services had to say:

>  "We have checked this with our technical team and when you use the word Infinity with a capital ‘I’ our database identifies this as a code and so any keywords after infinity will not be saved. As a workaround you can avoid the capital “I” and use ‘infinity’ instead."

 

wim

[meanderingemu]

8 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

 

And here is one of those snags from the past:

(about using the word Infinity as a keyword)

> This is what member services had to say:

>  "We have checked this with our technical team and when you use the word Infinity with a capital ‘I’ our database identifies this as a code and so any keywords after infinity will not be saved. As a workaround you can avoid the capital “I” and use ‘infinity’ instead."

 

wim

 

 

thanks.  This go me curious after seeing this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c1am8NSx_s&ab_channel=HalfasInteresting

 

 

where someone with license plate "Null" started to receive all tickets where no License plate was entered (i.e where the system read to value as Null)

 

 

search for %null% actually work in AoA, and mainly get searches for Nullarbor and Cronulla...  🙂 

 

[wiskerke]

20 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

thanks.  This go me curious after seeing this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c1am8NSx_s&ab_channel=HalfasInteresting

 

 

where someone with license plate "Null" started to receive all tickets where no License plate was entered (i.e where the system read to value as Null)

 

 

search for %null% actually work in AoA, and mainly get searches for Nullarbor and Cronulla...  🙂 

 

 

Haha!

You wanna laugh some more? 17,484 images on Alamy for Null as the Contributor name.

 

wim

[Chuck Nacke]

On 09/03/2021 at 12:36, Ed Rooney said:

I figure about a third of my sales are of signs. I thought this was the forum for Alamy stock agency. Maybe Kos in Paris will not feel he is humiliating himself by shooting a sign now and then.  

 

 

As Usual I am with Edo, 

 

Those of you with less experience should pay attention to him.

 

Back in the days when I was on retainer with a news photo agency, one of my editors

begged me to shoot street signs, I thought "Oh God, BORING."  Then I did the signs

and could not believe the licenses they made.

 

The secret is to do them well.....

 

Kostiantyn,

 

I have many fond memories of the Ukraine, I lived in Kiev for a couple of years

Back in the USSR days.  There is a lot of interest in the modern Ukraine, my images

from the late 80's and early 90's from the Ukraine are often licensed by Alamy.

 

My only suggestion on your people images is that they look a bit stiff and staged.

I would say shoot looser and spend more time making the image.

 

PS  Learn PhotoShop and LightRoom.  In my opinion you are wasting your time until

you learn to work editing still images to get the best results you can.

 

Chuck

Edited March 16, 2021 by Chuck Nacke
grammer

[Michael Ventura]

See Ed Rooney's photo I just posted in "Alamy Images Found....."

 

Sort of a sign photo, a restaurant exterior in New York City in a major monthly U.S. magazine.

[Ed Rooney]

Thank you both for your support and encouragement, Chuck and Michael V.

 

The signs I capture vary. The image of that dim sum place in Chinatown was one where including the facade of the restaurant worked. I snap street signs, message signs, direction signs as well as pub, bistro, and store signs. I don't do preps for my sign captures. Past and present, I'm working in a city, so I just carry a camera. If a sign or any subject looks good and suggests a caption, I snap it. 

 

 

What Liverpool has in abundance, is an amazing mix of architecture. I haven't really gotten into that yet. For the city's architecture, I will have to do a lot of research. If we are allowed, I'll start doing it in the spring.

 

Edo

[Kostiantyn Ablazov]

On 15/03/2021 at 23:28, Chuck Nacke said:

As Usual I am with Edo, 

 

Those of you with less experience should pay attention to him.

 

My only suggestion on your people images is that they look a bit stiff and staged.

I would say shoot looser and spend more time making the image.

 

Chuck, I totally agree with you and Ed.
Perhaps Alamy is not for me. Maybe I only need to deal with microstock.
My pictures with people are really staged.
Now I can only parse the archives. And there are photos of signs too. Unfortunately, not all of them are of good quality. There is no time to take pictures yet.
The advice of the forum gurus and Alamy is very valuable. I hope everything will work out for me.
Thank you all !!!!!!