Ultimate Collection

[Stephen D]

Can anyone explain the "hand selected" choice of images for the Ultimate Collection.

As I specialise in images of the Cotswolds I idly did a search for images of the Cotswolds in the Ultimate Collection following the advice -  "If you’re fed up with run-of-the-mill search results, try hand-selected images like no other, sourced by creative experts".

The result was underwhelming. Six of them frankly could be anywhere and one isn't even of the Cotswolds at all.

I'm really not sure how Alamy imagine that such a selection of images will excite a picture researcher looking for the best Cotswold images.

Please try it at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/cotswolds.html?collectiontype=ultimate&sortBy=creative

 

[John Mitchell]

My guess is that the location isn't the main factor for choosing images for the Ultimate collection. Alamy is looking for certain types of images that they consider to be not "run-of-the-mill." Someone looking for traditional editorial images of specific locales such as the Cotswolds would do best to stick with the "All" filter.

 

 

[Phil Crean]

12 minutes ago, Stephen D said:

Can anyone explain the "hand selected" choice of images for the Ultimate Collection.

As I specialise in images of the Cotswolds I idly did a search for images of the Cotswolds in the Ultimate Collection following the advice -  "If you’re fed up with run-of-the-mill search results, try hand-selected images like no other, sourced by creative experts".

The result was underwhelming. Six of them frankly could be anywhere and one isn't even of the Cotswolds at all.

I'm really not sure how Alamy imagine that such a selection of images will excite a picture researcher looking for the best Cotswold images.

Please try it at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/cotswolds.html?collectiontype=ultimate&sortBy=creative

 

Suggest you ask Alamy!

Phil

[Mr Standfast]

Duplicate...

🙃

Edited November 14, 2022 by Mr Standfast
Sigh..

[Mr Standfast]

Just now, Mr Standfast said:

No idea what Alamy are trying to achieve. Perhaps they will offer some clarity.

 

I like their optimism though, if the first search turns up nothing, hoping the searcher willl then delve into the filters to find something else. Very optimistic. 🙃

 

[Harry Harrison]

Just widening that selection a bit, try searching for 'UK' in Ultimate - just 795 in 'All images', though 785 in 'Photographs'. Interestingly if you apply the Location filter for UK that brings it down to 191, so only about a quarter of those contributors bothered to fill in Location in Optional, or at least they didn't put in 'UK', 'United Kingdom' wouldn't have worked.

 

You might then wonder why those 785 were chosen, out of a possible total 13,821,173 possibles to choose from. I certainly can't imagine, no one will have looked at 13 million images to make this selection, just as no one will have looked at 261 million photographs on Alamy to come up with the entire Ultimate selection. Of those 785, 577 are RF & 208 RM, and 220 are from S.

 

I haven't checked but I presume that the same criteria as Vital will apply, so declared as 0 people & 0 property in optional, or alternatively people & property with corresponding model releases, so that narrows it down a bit. So, just over 1 million in Vital, and I think we know the algorithm for those, and then Ultimate must be 'hand-picked' from those.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

There are almost 20,000 images for 'cotswolds' in Vital, but of the 7 I find in Ultimate six are in fact from that other library that I just can't remember the name of.

[meanderingemu]

9 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

There are almost 20,000 images for 'cotswolds' in Vital, but of the 7 I find in Ultimate six are in fact from that other library that I just can't remember the name of.

 

nice find.  

 

rest of post left blank on purpose. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by meanderingemu

[meanderingemu]

27 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

There are almost 20,000 images for 'cotswolds' in Vital, but of the 7 I find in Ultimate six are in fact from that other library that I just can't remember the name of.

 

had a look at "Montreal",  Ultimate different findings but also odd

 

12 images, 3 from agencies and

6 (so Half) from the One  contributor.  Considering this contributor only has 161 images in total, Alamy should contact him since he obviously is what they are looking for. 

[Harry Harrison]

15 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

6 (so Half) from the One  contributor.

Interesting, bang goes my theory, he has no images in Vital, all in Uncut apart from those 6.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

Actually I'm not seeing the 'other library' as a criticism, they do tend to have a different look on the whole, so do have that 'creative' vibe I suppose. Pity we can't talk about it really.

[meanderingemu]

57 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Actually I'm not seeing the 'other library' as a criticism, they do tend to have a different look on the whole, so do have that 'creative' vibe I suppose. Pity we can't talk about it really.

 

also big issue that again it's not open to all. 

[Harry Harrison]

14 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

also big issue that again it's not open to all. 

Just looked at 'Honfleur France' in Creative, I used to go there quite a lot and so have quite a few images from there. Most are townscapes including views of the famous harbour and I always set them as Property-Yes. How foolish of me because there are many, many such views in Vital and as we know they must have been marked up by the contributors as Property-No. Switching to Ultimate there is just one image and the agency that comes from does figure quite often in Ultimate. Not casting aspersions of course but just trying to shed some light on the selection process.

[meanderingemu]

54 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Just looked at 'Honfleur France' in Creative, I used to go there quite a lot and so have quite a few images from there. Most are townscapes including views of the famous harbour and I always set them as Property-Yes. How foolish of me because there are many, many such views in Vital and as we know they must have been marked up by the contributors as Property-No. Switching to Ultimate there is just one image and the agency that comes from does figure quite often in Ultimate. Not casting aspersions of course but just trying to shed some light on the selection process.

 

i think you must be incorrect.  We were clearly told that all these images would have Property and people release if not there is no way they would be in Vital.  

 

(note i don't think this is a requirement for Ultimate, my ultimate image is labelled as with property no release) 

[Harry Harrison]

26 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

We were clearly told that all these images would have Property and people release if not there is no way they would be in Vital

If they are marked as not containing Property as these must be then they won't need a release, and they don't have releases, or rather out of the 1270 in Vital only 32 have Property releases, but I think this is what you were pointing out in the other thread. The contributors have taken the view that buildings within a landscape, or townscape, don't need to be declared as Property. That is contrary to the Alamy guidance that I thought I was adhering to when I first uploaded my pictures but at the end of the day I suppose it is open to interpretation, by the contributor, the buyer and ultimately the publisher.

 

Interesting that these rules don't apply for Ultimate though.

 

I did come across one that had 'not available for postcard production' in More information, not sure how much that counts.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[meanderingemu]

37 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

If they are marked as not containing Property as these must be then they won't need a release, and they don't have releases, or rather out of the 1270 in Vital only 32 have Property releases, but I think this is what you were pointing out in the other thread.

 

 

pretty sure Alamy said this would be a rare exception case where the contributor made a mistake, and i would assume Alamy would then contact the Contributors when this is highlighted as they would not want to mislead potential clients with having Vital images that are not Vital.  or maybe i am wrong 

[Harry Harrison]

1 minute ago, meanderingemu said:

or maybe i am wrong

Doesn't seem to be the case here, can't see how Alamy could police it really, they leave the onus on the contributor. Similarly it's easy to find 'No people' images in Vital containg people but with no releases but they are generally crowd scenes or people on beaches etc.

[meanderingemu]

and i will reinterate that the information from Contributor indicating there is No Property is not provided to clients.  Images labelled as "No property" and "WIth Property no release" appear the same way to clients with the notice "Do I need a release?" 

[Harry Harrison]

3 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

and i will reinterate that the information from Contributor indicating there is No Property is not provided to clients.  Images labelled as "No property" and "WIth Property no release" appear the same way to clients with the notice "Do I need a release?" 

Yes, quite, a pity there isn't a 'No property' filter as there is for 'No people'. So I'm going to have to decide whether to make my Honfleur images 'No property' in order for them to appear in Vital.

[Alamy]

Images in our highly curated Ultimate collection of around 100,000 images are picked purely on aesthetics - taking into account current and future creative trends. The images in this collection will be constantly refreshed and curated.

 

Customers who prefer this type of collection can typically tend to use boutique creative agencies for their image needs ordinarily, so now we're able to target a new demographic with curated collections like this. 

 

The examples cited above, e.g "Cotswolds" (or other locations) are not the type of searches this customer base tends to be interested in. For locations and travel, searching in All is going to be their best bet. For Ultimate in particular, we see searches that are more centred around concepts, abstract themes and some lifestyle. 

 

James A

Head of Content

[meanderingemu]

6 minutes ago, Alamy said:

Images in our highly curated Ultimate collection of around 100,000 images are picked purely on aesthetics - taking into account current and future creative trends. The images in this collection will be constantly refreshed and curated.

 

Customers who prefer this type of collection can typically tend to use boutique creative agencies for their image needs ordinarily, so now we're able to target a new demographic with curated collections like this. 

 

The examples cited above, e.g "Cotswolds" (or other locations) are not the type of searches this customer base tends to be interested in. For locations and travel, searching in All is going to be their best bet. For Ultimate in particular, we see searches that are more centred around concepts, abstract themes and some lifestyle. 

 

James A

Head of Content

 

 

Thanks James.  Is there a link where potential customers find the information about what best suits there needs.  For example what type of images would client be looking into "Unconventional Stock" ?

[Alamy]

15 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

Thanks James.  Is there a link where potential customers find the information about what best suits there needs.  For example what type of images would client be looking into "Unconventional Stock" ?

 

The enterprise sales team work closely with these types of customers. They have very different needs and requirements in comparison to Ecommerce (self-serve) customers. Lots of analysis done on site activity and the way users navigate the search. It's a constant work-in-progress but decisions and improvements on the Alamy offering are based on customer data. From a contributor point of view I can understand that it may appear unclear - best advice I can give is to keep up to date with the trends and inspiration emails we send out as these are developed in house across teams with direct customer needs in mind.

 

James A 

[meanderingemu]

43 minutes ago, Alamy said:

 

The enterprise sales team work closely with these types of customers. They have very different needs and requirements in comparison to Ecommerce (self-serve) customers. Lots of analysis done on site activity and the way users navigate the search. It's a constant work-in-progress but decisions and improvements on the Alamy offering are based on customer data. From a contributor point of view I can understand that it may appear unclear - best advice I can give is to keep up to date with the trends and inspiration emails we send out as these are developed in house across teams with direct customer needs in mind.

 

James A 

 

 

Thanks, I think one of my big issues is I can't direct my images to proper category if I don't understand what their target usages are. 

In addition i can have 3 images all similar in content and one gets labelled Editorial, one Trending Stock (Vital), and one Unconventional Stock (Uncut), so without knowing all I can do is upload the same image three times

[Alamy]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

Thanks, I think one of my big issues is I can't direct my images to proper category if I don't understand what their target usages are. 

In addition i can have 3 images all similar in content and one gets labelled Editorial, one Trending Stock (Vital), and one Unconventional Stock (Uncut), so without knowing all I can do is upload the same image three times

 

You definitely should not duplicate upload the same image. Collections like foundation and ultimate are curated. Vital and Uncut are based on metadata rules. We purposefully are not asking contributors to "direct" their content to collections as customer needs/trends change often so none of the collections are set in stone. The majority of users still search in ALL. 

 

Upload your best work, follow the trends advice/inspiration, annotate thoroughly and fill gaps - but only upload one version of the image. Your images will be placed where they are most suited.

 

James A

[meanderingemu]

17 hours ago, Alamy said:

Vital and Uncut are based on metadata rules. 

 

annotate thoroughly and fill gaps - but only upload one version of the image. Your images will be placed where they are most suited.

 

James A

 

 

 

thanks, But isn't that the issue. Not knowing the customer usage of each collection it is impossible for contributor to do this. 

 

this In addition to Image get labelled as Vital/Trending based on Contributors interpretation of optional rules.  There are thousands of example of similar images getting directed to 3 different collections- most of us don't ignore the Editorial collection- so it does not seem they went to most suited if they go to all different places, and i guess I am still not sure they went to the most suited. 

 

 

 

[spacecadet]

I tried to find one of my images on a smartphone yesterday so I could show off my latest licence.

It took me most of 15 minutes just to work out which "collection" tab to use.