Advice, tips, comments on my portfolio, thank you! :)

[Steve F]

20 minutes ago, LorenzoPUD said:

Hi Steve! Thanj you very much for your comments, I really appreciate!

I agree with you with all the advice you are trying to give me for the photos of mine you showed. Most of my photos comply with good lightning and good compositions, but some don't. I should improve and it is good that a 3rd person like you ask me to pay attention.

Just some comments of 4 of my photos you showed.

For the first one, you should know that one of these medieval towers is really leaning,  it is not perfectly vertical. So it is not a pure defect of my photo :) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Bolognatowers1767.jpg/220px-Bolognatowers1767.jpg

For the second one, I tried to fix the converging lines of the castle (the castle is so huge and you need a wideangle) and I was satisfied with the result.

For the third one, I liked the composition with the fields at the side of the church as they had three different colours, but I understand your point of view.

For the fourth one, I have other different photos of this square (as it is in my hometown) and this is one I find it interesting for the parallelism between the loggia and the pedestrian crossing.

I guess that you are right when you say that "Covid time" is not very good to sell photos taken during holidays trip. I hope that it will change soon

Kind regards,

Lorenzo

 

 

 

 

Cool, I don't often get feedback on my feedback 😊

The third picture with the fields. Yeah, it's a different mindset shooting for stock. Any client that wants an image of the church will want a closer view or heavily crop your image. Arty stuff does sell though. It's difficult, there's no absolute right and wrong in a lot of areas.

Fourth one - the pedestrian crossing is acting as good leading lines. But I think it might work better with one or two people in the foreground though, just to break up such a large area of road next to a 'pretty' landmark.

[kimba]

 

You live in Italy! You have some nice images, keep shooting. Work on your photoshop/editing skills. 

 

When shooting a building or location, it's ok to go for the wide shot, but don't forget to take tighter shots and detail shots - especially if you are shooting churches with a lot of art or details inside. 

 

When tagging, make sure you name the name/s of the buildings, the street, the location, the city, the province, along with architectural style (romanesque, gothic, modern, etc), the architect is he is famous, etc,  etc in your tags. And remember that Alamy is an English business. So the more English tags the better. 

 

I do travel and lifestyle photography (as editorial stock). It seems a lot of your work could be sold in those markets - so study other people's travel sites, coffee table books, travel guides, and magazines to see what they are printing. Landscape can fall into those two categories, especially if it's of a famous place. 

 

The other thing to remember is that what is local to you, and might seem meaningless because it is so familiar to you, is not meaningless to travel editors. I have this problem sometimes in California where I skip shooting something or a place because it's familiar and I later wish that I had.

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, Steve F said:

The third picture with the fields. Yeah, it's a different mindset shooting for stock. Any client that wants an image of the church will want a closer view or heavily crop your image. Arty stuff does sell though. It's difficult, there's no absolute right and wrong in a lot of areas.

Don't forget about copyspace... I think that "fields" shot is quite saleable. Magazine and book covers (which pay better than newspaper sales) rely on having space around the main subject for text. Also concentrating too much on fixing converging verticals can lead to unnatural "top heavy" and distorted looking buildings. Processing in moderation is best IMHO.

 

Mark

Edited September 2, 2021 by M.Chapman

[LorenzoPUD]

Thank you, Kimba for your tips.

Indeed sometimes we skip the opportunity of taking some photo of a subject that seems not interesting for us, but that instead can be meaningful for somebody else in this world! 

I will go to see also your portfolio to learn some more from you.

Regards,

Lorenzo

[kimba]

On 02/09/2021 at 14:20, LorenzoPUD said:

 

I will go to see also your portfolio to learn some more from you.

 

 

Not all of my work is on Alamy as a lot of my travel images were taken with "lesser" cameras that were unacceptable for Alamy submissions. 

 

You can see more of my editorial images on IMAGES@ARTIST-AT-LARGE which is my own editorial stock site. 

 

Good luck Lorenzo!

[Aurore Shirley]

Hi Lorenzo,

 

I find you have beautiful photos overall.

Just a few notes:

For the mosaics, next time try to get a few shots directly from above the design you want to shoot.  Also, you could take a few macro shots or get as close to the subject as possible.

Some of your landscape photos are a bit overexposed but I'm sure you know this already.

The next time you photograph people in costume, try to get closer to them and shoot them from different angles.  You can also shoot close ups of their costumes or masks.

 

By the way, "super tags" are the top 10 tags you can choose from out of all the tags you add to your image.  The super tags take priority over all other tags, so they should be the most relevant.  To choose them, just click on the 10 tags you think are best (you should see a star when you hover your mouse over each tag).

 

Keep up the good work! 

[FocusUno]

I've said it before, I'll say it again

 

in ACR or similar:

a. exposure slider add +0.7

b. contrast slider to +60
c. highlights slider to -80

d. shadows slider to +80

e. texture slider to +40

f. vibrance slider to +40

g. saturation slider to 0

[CarloBo]

On 02/09/2021 at 17:03, LorenzoPUD said:

Thank you and ciao Carlo!

I will come to watch your photos to understand what kind of subjects you were mentioning (shop interiors, food markets...) which are more reliable to be sold.

What do you mean by "supertags"?

Regards,

Lorenzo

Sorry the late reply. Go to your Image Manager, select a photo. You can make any tag a supertag by simply clicking the star to the left of the tag keyword.  It will turn blue.

 

• What are supertags? These are the tags that you feel are the most relevant to the image. In Alamy Image Manager, you can add up to 10 supertags and the search engine will place extra priority to these. Make sure you select the most relevant words only and use them wisely.

[CarloBo]

On 09/09/2021 at 20:28, FocusUno said:

I've said it before, I'll say it again

 

in ACR or similar:

a. exposure slider add +0.7

b. contrast slider to +60
c. highlights slider to -80

d. shadows slider to +80

e. texture slider to +40

f. vibrance slider to +40

g. saturation slider to 0

Trying to achieve what? Each photo has its own needs..

Edited September 13, 2021 by CarloBo
edit

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, CarloBo said:

Trying to achieve what?

To batch process masses of images using a single setting for speed of processing (based on discussions in the forum a couple of years ago). I suspect FocusUno's other portfolio may still be over 100k images?

 

Mark

Edited September 13, 2021 by M.Chapman

[Ed Rooney]

On 09/09/2021 at 19:28, FocusUno said:

I've said it before, I'll say it again

 

in ACR or similar:

a. exposure slider add +0.7

b. contrast slider to +60
c. highlights slider to -80

d. shadows slider to +80

e. texture slider to +40

f. vibrance slider to +40

g. saturation slider to 0

 

No no no no no no no. And no. 

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

No no no no no no no. And no. 

I actually tried it on a random Piccadilly image- it looks a bit Sunday Telegraph Travel Pages but not too awful. Might try it on a submitted image sometime. If that happens.

I usually turn the saturation up a bit.

Edited September 21, 2021 by spacecadet

[Steve F]

11 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I actually tried it on a random Piccadilly image- it looks a bit Sunday Telegraph Travel Pages but not too awful. Might try it on a submitted image sometime. If that happens.

I usually turn the saturation up a bit.

 

I'll have to have a look at the Telegraph travel images! +80 on shadows, must be very flat, even with +60 contrast....?

 

Global edits, or presets, might be a starting point, but it's unlikely to be suitable for every single image. Would certainly be a more efficient way of working, but I'll stick to 'customising' each image.

[spacecadet]

3 minutes ago, Steve F said:

 

I'll have to have a look at the Telegraph travel images! +80 on shadows, must be very flat, even with +60 contrast....?

 

Global edits, or presets, might be a starting point, but it's unlikely to be suitable for every single image. Would certainly be a more efficient way of working, but I'll stick to 'customising' each image.

Probably, I misclicked and lost the edit. The image may have been a bit under to start with. I have an auto tone/ clar/vib/sat import preset but that's about it. It's been so long since I processed in any volume that I hardly remember.🙁

Edited September 21, 2021 by spacecadet

[Ed Rooney]

"but I'll stick to 'customising' each image."

 

   Yes, of course.

 

"I usually turn the saturation up a bit." 

 

   Me too. Why and why? You begin with the image you're working on, then select the tools to get the look you want. NOT the other way around. 

 

I shoot only editorial stock for Alamy. Most of the time, those images are used as a single illustration. So I want them to be vivid and punchy.

 

If you had a great set of woodworking tools, do you think you could make a Queen Anne desk? I couldn't. Because the tools don't do the job. We do the job using the tools. 

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Ed Rooney