Question for animal/wildlife photographers

[Colin Woods]

Greetings all

 

I have a question for anyone who submits animal/wildlife images to Alamy. How do they do here? I ask because my photo friend Fabrice is a good wildlifer, he has some great images. He was wondering if it was worth the time and effort to get started here. He is French so the keywording would be a bit more laborious for him and, as we all know, properly preparing images does take time. Would he be better finding a more specialised agency?  I have no idea at all as I have none of this type of photo. All input would be fully appreciated, I'd like to see his photos up for sale somewhere and not just languishing on his computer.

[Nick Hatton]

I do quite well with my shots of butterflies on here.

[cbimages]

Colin, I do licence a lot of underwater nature, but 12 of my last 55 licences have been above water natural history subjects.

[Betty LaRue]

My port has quite a few butterflies and birds. I have fewer sales of these than other subjects. They seemed to sell better the first two or three years after joining Alamy than now, but considering the explosion of uploaded images since then, it’s probably a matter of competition. Maybe. 😎 

56 sold wildlife images. Mostly birds, butterflies and bees.  Many of those are repeats.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Betty LaRue

[Reimar]

In my experience, images of wildlife in all sizes and shapes do sell.  Just not as much as one would hope.  Considering the effort I expend in getting wildlife shots, compared to other landscape/cityscape/objects shots, the return is underwhelming.  But it is steady and probably worthwhile uploading once the images are there already.

[VbFolly]

I upload quite a lot of wildlife images, and get a reasonable number of sales, but not as many as I would like. The main factor is probably competition. It's difficult to sell portrait images of British birds, for example, because there are thousands of images already available for most species and so they would have to stand out somehow. I do much better with bees, butterflies and other bugs than with birds and mammals. It also helps to try to photograph different behaviours, for example I have licensed images of ladybirds eating aphids, butterflies and dragonflies laying eggs, squirrels stripping bark off trees, adders dancing, etc.  Images that cover newsworthy aspects such as wildlife habitats and their management, people watching wildlife, gardening for wildlife, effects of plastic or climate change, etc, often do better than wildlife portraits. 

[spacecadet]

Bear in mind Alamy is not a specialist agency. I assume they still exist.

[Allan Bell]

Have sent you an email.

 

Allan

 

[VbFolly]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

Bear in mind Alamy is not a specialist agency. I assume they still exist.

I think it's very difficult to get accepted by a specialist wildlife agency. The websites of Nature Picture Library and FLPA both state they are not taking on new photographers at present. 

[NYCat]

I think the competition for "beautiful" wildlife is too fierce most of the time. The very best in wildlife photography is already here with the National Geographic Collection, Andy Rouse, Martin Harvey, etc. What is more likely to sell is behavior or "funny" or "cute". Polar bears sell because of all the articles about global warming. So animals in the news or for tourism are more likely to sell here I think. Also any animals that are underrepresented. That said, I do well here compared to other people I believe (and also make more money cat-sitting).

 

Paulette

[Colin Woods]

Thanks everyone. I will send Fabrice these replies and he can muse on them a while. He probably should sign up, he does that type of photo anyway and they are all there sat on his hard drive, so most of the work is already done. I'll have to guide him in the dark art of keywording and that,s about all.

[Russell Watkins]

Nearly 40% of my sales are wildlife/nature shots. Mostly primates and birds but also pachyderms. There's only a couple of repeat sellers in there too.

[Ed Rooney]

Gee, Colin, I only have a few snaps of Herring Gulls, and even the birds themselves have not made a bid on them. 🤔

[Keith Turrill]

Probably the biggest issue with animals and wildlife is that there are already millions of images out there. To get a sale the image has to be very good and very unique. Also be careful about zoo photos. Zoo animals are property. Unless you have a signed release the images have to be editorial use only. Zoo owners often have additional rules about photography on the back of the admission ticket.

[Shergar]

Huhhh just had one used by the Guardian.  

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/21/wyoming-jogger-bear-face-off?fbclid=IwAR3WKxBnqY3Th7FpOBYQRJdZcZBolOZgaluxiSFZYKfWLygnBBXA-woFFSQ

Edited April 22, 2021 by Shergar