Critique Photography - 5 Years and only 2 sales.

[Anand R J]

Hi, 

 

I started uploading images in alamy from 2016, but has only 300 images (targeting 1000+ images at end of this year). Only last year I got 2 sales for net income $8. 

It would be really helpful if someone can review my images and keywords and let me know what needs to be improved to increase the sale.

 

Thank you !

 

[Steve F]

Hi Anand,

Can I kindly suggest you look through some of the portfolio critiques for other contributors; you have a lot of the same issues as other people.

 

You've got some really great pictures, I'm just going to concentrate on the problems I see. Just briefly:

1. Your captions are too short. Try to include a longer description and the country unless it's not relevant.

2.   Your lifestyle shots need to look more realistic.

 

Here you've got moody lighting and a weird angle that the hands are typing at. People type with the hands pointing forward horizontally, in the shot below they're pointing upwards:

 

Too dark, who works like this? Plus the computer screen is not switched on - whoops!

3. Editing - a lot of your pictures look well edited. But some obviously are not at all and don't look like they would ever sell:

Nice concept shot, but too dark. Plus compositionally, I think it would work better if you didn't crop off the top of the wine bottle neck.

Plus I don't think the caption suits the image very well - "A glass of red wine with red wine bottle for celebrating party during New year evening - Image ID: 2E3MTT3". A dark room (black background) doesn't look very New Years.... Finally, the wine glass isn't straight, you need to correct this with editing software.

 

4. Have you had a look for stock photos in books, magazines, online...? You can see which photos are stock photos because it will say so in the picture credits. So you can see what sells. Are you producing similar images? i.e. are you producing what clients want?

 

Very arty. But how often do you see images like this:

 

5. Captions are searchable. Also, if you do an image search in Alamy, you can hover the photograph and read the caption. If the caption is incomplete or incorrect, I would certainly move swiftly on as a client.

 

Road pavement under blue sky - Image ID: W13D3H"

Caption is far too short. Also, you've added what looks like an Instagram filter to this and a massive vignette - is this a look that clients want? Bear in mind that clients can add a vignette to photos easily and change the colour tone. You're blocking them from doing anything much to this photo by editing it as you have.

 

"IT professional women working from home with Laptop and Phones with a hot cup of coffee beside and a green plant- Image ID: 2E9TR54"

Inaccurate caption, there's no people in this picture. You do have some hands in other similar pictures. So a "woman's hands...." not womEN.

 

 

6. Your collection is really small. You need a lot more photos to get regular sales.

 

Good luck,

Steve

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Steve F

[Anand R J]

Thank you so much Steve for your time and review comments. I will definitely work on these points.

 

[Ed Rooney]

As usual, I agree with Steve. I do think you are a photographer and have a good eye, RJ. 

[Anand R J]

Thanks Sally for your valuable inputs. I will try to photograph and upload more of "people doing things" images.