New to photography

[LukePN]

Dear all,

 

I would like to kindly ask you to check out my portfolio as I am here new member to  photography and I would like to ask you If there is somethig interesting in my collection.

 

I have made photos for my family, car and some green plants.

 

Do you think it is interesting or should I focus on som other photography ?

Edited August 11, 2022 by LukePN

[Sultanpepa]

Hi Luke, you have some nice shots but you also have some massively underexposed shots too. I'd remove them as they wont sell and in the longer term will hurt your ranking. I'm actually surprised they managed to get through QC. Be under no illusions, making any sales on Alamy is tuff, even more so for new contributors. You won't make money in the short term and it may take a very long time indeed before the effort makes it worthwhile. That said, find interesting subjects and keyword well and you will sell images. Good luck

[Michael Ventura]

I agree with all that Sultanpepa has said and it is guaranteed that you will make no sales when you don't caption and keyword properly.  I just randomly pulled one photo up of some chickens and caption and keywords never even mentioned chickens but did have just about everything unrelated to the photo...and it is captioned as "Beautiful green plants".   Even if it was of beautiful green plants, that is still way to vague.  You need the common name and Latin name of the plants and where it was taken!!

 

Well exposed and composed unique photos with proper captions and keywords will sell but you need LOTS of them, in the thousands. That is how it is now.

 

Beautiful green plants 

- Image ID: 2JMP43T 

[gvallee]

And a yellow wild ginger plant is keyworded 'rose' and 'begonia'. Please... Not only you'll sink your ranking but you're not doing Alamy any favour. Clients will go somewhere else if their search returns junk.

[Steve F]

Hi Luke, are you new to photography, or just new to stock photography?

 

Photography - there's whole bunch of stuff to learn about lighting, composition, getting away from using your camera's auto settings, photo editing etc. Suggest you look at YouTube videos and get a bunch of photography magazines

 

Stock - I suggest you read these resources:

 

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

 

There are other resources to read on Alamy.

 

Also, choice of subject matter:

Stock photos really need to illustrate a concept, e.g. putting on sun tan cream because it's hot. Or a particular location. Or a particular species of plant. Not just pictures of family smiling at the camera. Take a step back and ask yourself, what would someone buy my photo for?

 

Are you keeping a look out for published stock photos (easy to find, they're everywhere)? Obviously these are the 'winners'. How well do they illustrate the concept? How good is the lighting and composition? What subjects do you see that sell? How do your images compare in terms of lighting, composition, choice of subject matter, composition...? You should then get a better idea of what sells so you can be more commercial with your choice of subject matter.

 

Good luck.

Stephen

 

p.s. you can also right click on the blue number below other people's profile pictures to look at their portfolios, see how they caption images etc. (but don't assume everyone is doing it 'right' (whatever right is)). And I suggest you look at other contributor's portfolio critiques.

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by Steve F

[Rebecca Ore]

Plant photos do license, but most will be of a specific plant with the scientific name (make sure you have this correct).  Sometimes being very specific with the common name or variety helps.  I've seen searches for types of plant communities: rain forest, prairie, cloud forest, but not as many as searches for a particular species of plant.  Very common temperate region garden plants and cultivar orchids seem to be very well covered already, but some more than others.  

 

On the cat photos -- pets interacting with people seems to be less well covered than portraits of cats.  Also, if two photos are almost identical and in the same orientation (portrait or landscape), pick the best one.

[LukePN]

Dear All

 

Thank you so much for your kind feedback and your advices to my photo collections.

 

I will take step by step to improve these elements at my portfolio regarding, keywords, tags and other details you have explained me

 

Much apperciate your help.