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A review of my portfolio


Hawkeye_1976

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Additional to the post above I am sorry to say that for potential sales you need to review your captions and tags. Many are not accurate and do not describe what is in the image. The first image I viewed was a woman's bicycle leaning against the railings of a bridge over a canal or river. Image 2J3NKCB captioned 'Beautiful close-up of a bicycle'. The bicycle is old and well used, and beauty is subjective. The caption does not mention the bridge, canal, location etc. Also one of the tags is 'black and white' which doesn't apply. The same caption and tags are used elsewhere, such as relating to and old bicycle leaning against a wall, image 2J3NKE7. There is no canal, river, tourist or park and it is not a black and white image. Without accurate captions and tags your images will be very hard to find. The captions of other images mention trees or the location, but not the mass of bluebells. It's good that you came to the forum before your port became larger.

Edited by sb photos
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Hi James,

Welcome. Ditto previous comments on captions, they're not specific enough for buyers:

 

Beautiful close-up of an apple flower - Image ID: 2J4P7WT

What is the species/common name, what is the Latin name, where is it (specific location, country), what month/season is it?

 

See also:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Captions-and-Tags-checklist.pdf

https://www.alamy.com/blog/tips-for-your-captions-from-the-sales-team

https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags

 

You've got some lovely pictures. But a lot that are quite hit and miss. Same picture as above reference:

beautiful-close-up-of-an-apple-flower-2J

You've missed the focal point on the front flower, it's actually in focus on the bottom left leaf. Main subject is underexposed.

 

Beautiful close-up of an apple flower - Image ID: 2J4P7WE

beautiful-close-up-of-an-apple-flower-2J

Background is horribly distracting from the main subject, looks very messy. Main subject is very underexposed. You've also shot this as a panorama type shot with lots of negative (empty) space to the right. Alamy is mainly an editorial agency, so flower pictures sell for newspapers, magazines, books, websites for illustration purposes of the particular species... This photo is extremely unlikely to sell for advertising purposes, it won't have text to the right of the flowers added. May possibly be used as a background, but I'm not sure this is what Alamy sells much of.  So if it does get used, it will likely be heavily cropped.

 

Beautiful close-up of a cherry blossom - Image ID: 2J4GJWE

beautiful-close-up-of-a-cherry-blossom-2

Main subject is very underexposed again. Also, having the main subject darker (underexposed) compared to the background is generally not a good look unless you're going for a specific effect. Main subject should be properly exposed and the background exposure similarly exposed or underexposed if you want your flower subjects to stand out. Many of your images are underexposed, often by more than one stop.

 

I don't know if you've got a macro lens. But it might help if you take a shot zoomed out to show more of the plant/tree, a shot at about the level you're generally  zoomed into, and an actual closeup shot zoomed in on a single flower, to give buyers more choice.

 

Have a look at some other people's portfolio critiques on the Forum, lots of the same things crop up over and over.

 

Finally, I suggest you look at what the competition is doing on Alamy. Search for similar subjects to what you have and see what captions and keywords other contributors are putting (and don't necessarily assume they're doing it 'right' either, although if they're on the front page of the search result, it's probably ok).

 

Good luck!

Steve

Edited by Steve F
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On 25/04/2022 at 23:29, StokeCreative said:

Welcome! A couple of comments, a few of your images are underexposed and therefore don't "pop". Also you need to label and tag with the Latin names as well as the common names

Cheers

Hugh

Thank you for your comments Hugh.  I really appreciate them.

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22 hours ago, sb photos said:

Additional to the post above I am sorry to say that for potential sales you need to review your captions and tags. Many are not accurate and do not describe what is in the image. The first image I viewed was a woman's bicycle leaning against the railings of a bridge over a canal or river. Image 2J3NKCB captioned 'Beautiful close-up of a bicycle'. The bicycle is old and well used, and beauty is subjective. The caption does not mention the bridge, canal, location etc. Also one of the tags is 'black and white' which doesn't apply. The same caption and tags are used elsewhere, such as relating to and old bicycle leaning against a wall, image 2J3NKE7. There is no canal, river, tourist or park and it is not a black and white image. Without accurate captions and tags your images will be very hard to find. The captions of other images mention trees or the location, but not the mass of bluebells. It's good that you came to the forum before your port became larger.

Dear,

 

Thank you very much for your comments.  I will take into consideration your advice.

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21 hours ago, Steve F said:

Hi James,

Welcome. Ditto previous comments on captions, they're not specific enough for buyers:

 

Beautiful close-up of an apple flower - Image ID: 2J4P7WT

What is the species/common name, what is the Latin name, where is it (specific location, country), what month/season is it?

 

See also:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Captions-and-Tags-checklist.pdf

https://www.alamy.com/blog/tips-for-your-captions-from-the-sales-team

https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags

 

You've got some lovely pictures. But a lot that are quite hit and miss. Same picture as above reference:

beautiful-close-up-of-an-apple-flower-2J

You've missed the focal point on the front flower, it's actually in focus on the bottom left leaf. Main subject is underexposed.

 

Beautiful close-up of an apple flower - Image ID: 2J4P7WE

beautiful-close-up-of-an-apple-flower-2J

Background is horribly distracting from the main subject, looks very messy. Main subject is very underexposed. You've also shot this as a panorama type shot with lots of negative (empty) space to the right. Alamy is mainly an editorial agency, so flower pictures sell for newspapers, magazines, books, websites for illustration purposes of the particular species... This photo is extremely unlikely to sell for advertising purposes, it won't have text to the right of the flowers added. May possibly be used as a background, but I'm not sure this is what Alamy sells much of.  So if it does get used, it will likely be heavily cropped.

 

Beautiful close-up of a cherry blossom - Image ID: 2J4GJWE

beautiful-close-up-of-a-cherry-blossom-2

Main subject is very underexposed again. Also, having the main subject darker (underexposed) compared to the background is generally not a good look unless you're going for a specific effect. Main subject should be properly exposed and the background exposure similarly exposed or underexposed if you want your flower subjects to stand out. Many of your images are underexposed, often by more than one stop.

 

I don't know if you've got a macro lens. But it might help if you take a shot zoomed out to show more of the plant/tree, a shot at about the level you're generally  zoomed into, and an actual closeup shot zoomed in on a single flower, to give buyers more choice.

 

Have a look at some other people's portfolio critiques on the Forum, lots of the same things crop up over and over.

 

Finally, I suggest you look at what the competition is doing on Alamy. Search for similar subjects to what you have and see what captions and keywords other contributors are putting (and don't necessarily assume they're doing it 'right' either, although if they're on the front page of the search result, it's probably ok).

 

Good luck!

Steve

Hi Steve.

 

Many thanks for the time taken to review my portfolio.  Your comments will help me to improve my skills.

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