I need help!!

[Sergi Canovas]

Hello everyone I write to you since I am worried as I have not sold a photograph yet and you will not really see the problem. I would need help from someone with experience could tell me that bugs (composition, light, keywords...) are in my photos so as not to sell anything. 

 

I'm sorry to waste your time helping me, but I really don't know what to do to get better.

 

Thank you

[GeoffK]

Hi

 

You need to understand better the demand for images. You have shot a boy with a scooter, that's quite a limited market (play basically) and done it in a very undynamic way. Shoots could be a little more high key.

 

Same shoot with a businessman/woman on the scooter commuting to work....you are marketing for business, work, environmental issues....a whole load of markets with far more potential than a kid with a scooter. Unless you shoot images aimed at the best selling or 'on trend' markets, you will sell conderably less imagery.

 

You need to plan out any model shoots before you do them and most importnatly what keywords you are aiming for - remember that business, concept and family are top genres.  You are competing against a lot of micro production houses where these things are all part of the prep work. 

 

The plants will have problems selling unless you can identify them with latin/scientific names.

 

Basically look at the competition and also look at what is actually being used by clients in the real world. Also you have very few images. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by GeoffK

[Joseph Clemson]

There is much to be gained by studying the forums at length, in particular threads on the Introductions forum where the kind of questions you are asking come up quite frequently. Many new contributors, with some exceptions, do not make sales until they have maybe 1000 photos in their portfolio spanning a wide range of subjects. Alamy is not microstock and sales patterns differ. Study the monthly images sold and images found in use threads to see what sells, both in subject and in how the images have been processed. Look also how they are captioned and keyworded. 

 

Specifically taking up your portfolio, I would echo everything Geofkk has said. Also be stricter in avoiding irrelvant keywords - e.g 2EA914J does not justify the keywords: application, holiday, home screen, lounge, making, portrait, sitting, summer, taking, video. Irrelevant keywords produce false search returns and in time will push you to the back of the search results. For your landscapes, e.g 2E3GX4A you would be more likely to make a sale if your are very precise about the location. The comments about irrelevant keywords also applies here: light and shade, background, brown, bright green grass, tradition - none of these feature significantly in that shot.  Learn also to be a crtical judge of your own work and only upload the best of any shoot - multiple similar shots tend to be counter-productive because of the way Alamy's search ranking system works.

 

The caption and the supertags are both very important in being found in searches - make sure they are descriptive and accurate.  

 

There is much to learn when starting out at Alamy. You have started well by asking these questions early and while you have a chance to tidy up your existing portfolio and as you prepare new material. 

[Steve F]

Hi Sergi,

Your collection is far too small to see regular sales - old average on Alamy was approx. 1 sale per month per 1000 images but the Alamy catalogue was much smaller then.

 

Ditto comments above from others on keywords and captions.

 

Keep a look out in magazines, books, newspapers (if you have an online newspaper on your phone, or go on the newspaper website, every article has a photo at the head, normally a stock picture), websites etc. for stock photos. The image credits will say if the photo is from a stock agency. These are the ones that sell. Compare with the pictures that you are producing.

 

I think the main problem may be that you are trying to do lifestyle and a lot of your pictures they look very staged. You're trying to achieve a shot where someone is doing an activity and it should look like the person is completely unaware of the camera and actually doing the thing they're portrayed to be doing. So in reality, very much staged, but shouldn't look like it! Also consider perhaps zooming in more on the person doing the action, perhaps not showing their face, and also showing less of the irrelevant background behind.

 

Google 'bad stock photos', e.g. there's the bored panda website. Pictures that look very fake (deliberately set up) of people doing things, smiling at the camera etc.

 

 

Some specific comments:

 

young boy with a brown briefcase driving the electric scooter with one leg - Image ID: 2F39WRA

I'm expecting to see a 4-10 year old from your caption. This is a teenager or someone in their 20s. Obviously a set up scene, obviously not actually scooting, the man is holding a pose and smiling at the camera. Don't take pictures of people smiling at the camera unless you really are trying to make a specific statement, it draws attention to the photographer, they look like family snapshots and doesn't illustrate any concept very well because it's so distracting.

 

girl in red and black sportswear is ready and prepared with her bottle of water for the online gym class - Image ID: 2F1PTR6

Ditto comments above, looks like a family snapshot again.

 

young woman with a mask on her face looking at her cell phone with the computer on the living room table - Image ID: 2EWJWNA

No one wears a mask at home on their own!! Also your caption is wrong, she's actually looking at the computer and not at her phone which is to the side.

 

 

I can see the selfie picture the woman is taking, people take selfies with the screen pointing towards themselves. So very unrealistic.

 

I hope this helps. Good luck,

Steve

 

 

 

 

[Sergi Canovas]

Hace 2 horas, GeoffK dijo:

Hola

 

Necesitas entender mejor la demanda de imágenes. Has disparado a un chico con un scooter, eso es un mercado bastante limitado (juega básicamente) y lo has hecho de una manera muy poco dinámica. Los brotes podrían ser un poco más importantes.

 

La misma sesión con un hombre de negocios / mujer en el scooter que viaja al trabajo... usted está comercializando para negocios, trabajo, problemas ambientales... toda una carga de mercados con mucho más potencial que un niño con un scooter. A menos que grabe imágenes dirigidas a los mercados más vendidos o "de moda", venderá considerablemente menos imágenes.

 

Necesita planificar cualquier sesión de modelo antes de hacerlas y lo más importante es qué palabras clave está buscando - recuerde que el negocio, el concepto y la familia son géneros principales. Estás compitiendo contra muchas casas de microproducción donde todas estas cosas son parte del trabajo de preparación.

 

Las plantas tendrán problemas para vender a menos que pueda identificarlas con nombres latinos / científicos.

 

Básicamente, mire a la competencia y también mire lo que realmente está siendo utilizado por los clientes en el mundo real. También tienes muy pocas imágenes.

 

[Sergi Canovas]

Thank you very much for your comments and ideas I will take them very seriously. thank you for real

[Sergi Canovas]

18 hours ago, Sergi Canovas said:

Hello everyone I write to you since I am worried as I have not sold a photograph yet and you will not really see the problem. I would need help from someone with experience could tell me that bugs (composition, light, keywords...) are in my photos so as not to sell anything. 

 

I'm sorry to waste your time helping me, but I really don't know what to do to get better.

 

Thank you

Thank you very much for your comments and ideas I will take them very seriously. thank you for real

 

[John Gaffen]

You have many repetitions of the same subject, but the main reason for no sales is that you just don't have enough images on line yet. Its a numbers game,  (yes image quality and composition, does count), but I would suggest you broaden the types of topics and subject matter that you photograph.  

[Autumn Sky]

I remember asking very same question couple of yrs ago, with similar port size.  Prob. still somewhere in Forum.   Besides the obvious explained above (diversity, quality, metadata, port size, etc)  one more thing to understand is:  Stock photography is not "get rich quickly" scheme.  There are people here that, judging by "Images Sold" thread, make regular sales for decent amounts.   But these contributors have diverse ports measured in 1000s or even 10s of 1000s, and have been around for long time to build their Alamy ranks and master many other aspects of the industry.   

 

Someone posted here awhile ago that average on Alamy is 1 sale / month per 1000 photos.  This is not cast in stone as there are different factors in play, but it is fair indicative.

[Sergi Canovas]

Thank you all very much

[giphotostock]

On 31/03/2021 at 01:08, GeoffK said:

Shoots could be a little more high key.

 

Remember that business, concept and family are top genres.

 

Style. Here's an example of your high key image: 2EE1RGF. Do the rest with the same lighting style. Specifically 2EE1RGF and others would sell 15 years ago, however by now microstock is full of "hands with warm coffee mug" shots.

 

You seem to have some willing models. You could do more lifestyle shots, aka "ordinary-ooking but attractive people doing everyday things". It is another genre consistently in demand. To have saleable shots your models need to look less posed and you have to use better light, see above on high key. And yes, planning your shots, as Geoff mentioned.

 

GI

[Matt Ashmore]

On 31/03/2021 at 11:13, Steve F said:

 

No one wears a mask at home on their own!!

 

Oh dear...have I been getting it wrong all this time? Keeps your nose warm when the central heating isn't working though! 🙂

[Steve F]

2 hours ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

Oh dear...have I been getting it wrong all this time? Keeps your nose warm when the central heating isn't working though! 🙂

 

Maybe if you've got a whole phantom of the opera thing going.... 🙂