Person search - Who introduced you to Alamy?

[Bryan]

Way back in 2007 I was taking photos of Durham cathedral from across the river with the camera mounted on a tripod, it would have been a  Canon 20D, when another photographer approached me and we had a brief chat. He suggested that I consider uploading to Alamy, and that started my career here. I'm wondering if that person is active here and who it was ?

 

Things move on and, using an image stabilized camera body my tripod hardly ever leaves the house these days, while the little Sony a6500 doesn't look like the tool of a photographer shooting for cash, so it probably wouldn't happen now.

 

How about the rest of you, how did you get started as a contributor ?

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Bryan

[wiskerke]

Invited.

 

wim

[Jill Morgan]

I stumbled on it looking for something else. Don't remember what.

 

Jill

[gvallee]

Back in 2002, hubby stumbled on it while Googling something. He changed my life. In the golden years, nearly everything I did was for Alamy. Weekend destinations, foreign trips. I used to research subjects and locations. These days for those piddly prices? Nahh.

[Rebecca Ore]

Net friend named Jeremy Nixon, who still has a fairly focused, very small portfolio here. 

[John Mitchell]

I honestly can't remember. Chances are I heard about Alamy somewhere online. I joined right away in 2003 but didn't start submitting images until mid-2007 (long story).

[geogphotos]

A publisher who I was writing for and who asked if I had any slides...who then told me about Alamy as a supplier of theirs.  They used 50 pics at £10 each.  I took the plunge and bought a film scanner after making my first sub with paid-for scans.

 

By the way it used to be possible to jump to see a contributor's oldest images ( first ones submitted) - doesn't seem to be possible now. Mine were of Guatemala.

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by geogphotos

[Mr Standfast]

Amateur Photographer article.,You know the one they re-hash every year, "How to make money from your camera".

[Inchiquin]

For years I kept seeing Alamy mentioned in the Bureau of Freelance Photographers newsletter, mostly on the Letters page from disgruntled readers complaining about how difficult it was to pass Alamy QC. At that time I had other things to focus on in life and wasn't doing much photography. I had a back catalogue of thousands but since J Allan Cash closed down (1999, 2000?) I hadn't bothered trying to sell any. The readers' complaints put me off trying Alamy until 2008, by which time of course the party was almost over (story of my life).

 

Alan

 

[Ed Rooney]

 

Good question, Bryan.

 

I had a part-time job at People mag back in 2007, when I joined Alamy. Another photog, a friend who worked in the tech section, told me about Alamy. I had two good sales right away. This was the first. It paid $168. 

 

[Allan Bell]

19 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

Amateur Photographer article.,You know the one they re-hash every year, "How to make money from your camera".

 

DITTO! I joined a bit late in 2008 still they were good times.  Joined in the forums a bit later.

 

Allan

 

This is my first sale in Feb 2011.

 

 

 

Had 4 more sales that year.

 

ITMA

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Allan Bell

[sb photos]

An interesting thread. Long ago I knew a photographer Paul Felix who then was based in the Cotswolds and mainly supplied the calendar market with 4x5 velvia images. I was with him when he moved his collection of country craft images to Alamy. Still have the book he gave me which used all his images. Paul still has his images at Alamy, but when I last spoke him a few months back he said he hadn't taken a photo for 2 years. For many years I considered contributing to Alamy, but scanning and editing to a tight spec was so time consuming and I never did. Also long ago I spoke with a photographers collective that operated out of a large shed/office in Slough that had souvenirs from conflicts scattered about who thought my early monochrome protest images would sell. I still haven't scanned them. I eventually started contributing in early 2017, now wish I had long before. What finally did it was chatting to other photographers when shooting London events.

[spacecadet]

Recommended by David Kilpatrick. Good advice as always. Though it was better advice in 2009 than it would be now- he too mentioned the apocryphal (or should I say mythical?)£/$10/image/year.

My first 3 licenses were of the same image.

[Mr Standfast]

3 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

DITTO! I joined a bit late in 2008 still they were good times.  Joined in the forums a bit later.

 

Allan

 

This is my first sale in Feb 2011.

 

 

 

Had 4 more sales that year.

 

ITMA

 

I think you keep your lawn very neat. 😉

[Michael Ventura]

Joined in 2005 and I think I read about Alamy on a chatroom, possibly Writers Marketplace.   I saw a couple of people I knew , who had joined Alamy so I thought I would give it a try.  I had been turned down by Corbis (thank goodness) and was looking for a place for my stock since the traditional agencies I was with, were being killed off like flies on a no-pest-strip.

[Jill Morgan]

5 hours ago, geogphotos said:

By the way it used to be possible to jump to see a contributor's oldest images ( first ones submitted) - doesn't seem to be possible now. Mine were of Guatemala.

 

 

 

Ian, you can still go to the end of a person's port.  When you click on the blue number and go to the images, click to page 2. Then you will see "page=2" show up in the url after the contributors name.,  Just change that to the last page number in the port.

 

Jill

[Allan Bell]

2 hours ago, Mr Standfast said:

I think you keep your lawn very neat. 😉

 

You should see the back lawn.

 

Allan

 

[Vincent Lowe]

I think it was Amateur Photographer magazine for me also.  Joined in 2001 but didn't make a sale until October 2003 - $121.35 for 'Personal Use'.  My second sale, the following December, was for $560.98.  How times have changed.  This was back in the day when we had to post 48mb tiffs (35mm scans) on CD or DVD then had to wait up to six weeks before they passed (or failed) QC.  Always brings a smile when I see people moaning about having to wait just a few days for QC...🙂

 

This was my first sale.  Only sold once more, in 2007.  The Eiger and Jungfrau from the Faulhorn, Switzerland.

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Vincent Lowe

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, Jill Morgan said:

 

Ian, you can still go to the end of a person's port.  When you click on the blue number and go to the images, click to page 2. Then you will see "page=2" show up in the url after the contributors name.,  Just change that to the last page number in the port.

 

Jill

 

Thanks for the tip Jill

[Inchiquin]

On 06/11/2022 at 14:22, Jill Morgan said:

 

Ian, you can still go to the end of a person's port.  When you click on the blue number and go to the images, click to page 2. Then you will see "page=2" show up in the url after the contributors name.,  Just change that to the last page number in the port.

 

 

I was going to suggest that but I tried it on Ian's port and it didn't show Guatemala so I assumed it didn't work.

 

Alan

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, Inchiquin said:

 

I was going to suggest that but I tried it on Ian's port and it didn't show Guatemala so I assumed it didn't work.

 

Alan

 

Alan I had to enter page 799 in the URL and it came out as showing page 799 out of 500! 

 

I did get to the image above of the girl weaving in Guatemala. My very first Alamy image.

Edited November 7, 2022 by geogphotos

[Steve F]

It was an ex work colleague. I mentioned that I enjoyed doing photography and she said her ex boyfriend sold images on Alamy and he was ...ahem... rubbish at photography 🙈 so I should be fine on there.

I guess that wasn't the best advertisement for Alamy but I've enjoyed the ride so far...

Edited November 7, 2022 by Steve F

[Phil Robinson]

I was with another agent (who I was less than happy with) and was hunting for my images on the internet. I was astonished to come across loads of my pics being sold on another site I'd never hear of called Alamy. My agent had just put their commission up to 60% and I saw Alamy were only taking 40% (ah, the good old days) so I started contributing direct on CDs, about ten images at a time in the post, all scanned slides at first.

[John Richmond]

The kindly owner of a Yorkshire garden centre who generously used two images taken from my gardening blog.  A query generated abuse and adamant refusal to pay for the images.  At the time no small claims track existed and I couldn't afford a copyright lawyer so I looked at Stock sites, found Alamy, submitted my first four images and the rest is history.

 

2254 sales later I've generated enough income to make the voodoo doll into a veritable pincushion.

[Inchiquin]

14 hours ago, geogphotos said:

 

Alan I had to enter page 799 in the URL and it came out as showing page 799 out of 500! 

 

I did get to the image above of the girl weaving in Guatemala. My very first Alamy image.

 

Damn, I should have spotted that you had 79k images in your collection, so 500 pages couldn't possibly be correct!

 

Alan