Really need informed, unbiased feedback - Thanks!

[marc sherman]

Hi All - It's nice to receive compliments from friends and family, but none of it really helps me become a better photographer. So, unless you're related to me, I would greatly appreciate some feedback from my colleagues out there. Feel free to choose just one or two shots, if you prefer, and comment on composition, focus, etc. Ok to say that they stink - but please let me know why (I can handle it). Click link below for portfolio. Thank you so much for your time.

Cheers,

Marc

https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/marcshermanphoto

[Steve F]

On 26/03/2023 at 03:50, marc sherman said:

It's nice to receive compliments from friends and family, but none of it really helps me become a better photographer.

 

Hi Marc,

Good point!

 

On 26/03/2023 at 03:50, marc sherman said:

Ok to say that they stink

Lack of stinking. 

 

1) I might have lifted the shadows/exposure in some images, e.g. 

SpaceX Launch Tower, Booster and Starship in Sunset - Image ID: 2PFT3FA

Midtown Manhattan skyline at night from Central Park panorama with grassy lawn in foreground. - Image ID: 2K5JA8M (trees look really dark)

This is subjective though...

 

2) Captions are searchable by clients, so try to use all 150 characters available if possible. Include the Latin as well as the common name for flora and fauna, and always add the location to the caption. Some helpful links:

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 don't need a full stop at the end of your captions.

 

3) I'm not a fan of juxtaposing moon images into cityscapes, but they certainly sell well! Don't think this one works very well though:

Super Moon Rising Over Brooklyn - Image ID: 2JHNMHP

 

4) You are keyword spamming, which will hurt your CTR rank:

Your pictures will appear at a certain level (e.g. first page, 10th page... etc.) in searches by clients, depending on various factors. CTR and Sales are the only factors we know about for sure in the secret formula Alamy uses to set our search ranking. Your CTR rank (on your Dashboard) is a function of the number of times a client zooms (clicks on) one of your images versus the number of times your images appear in a client search, but are not zoomed.

CTR=Zooms/Views * 100

This is basically a long way of me saying, don't spam keywords. E.g. don't put sky, blue, clouds for every single outdoors picture you shoot. There is a tendency to try to put lots of keywords for your images to try to get them seen by clients. So they may well appear in searches, but if they're not zoomed by a client, your CTR rank will drop. Which means your images won't show as high up in client searches. You don't want your images to get buried in the 300 million images on Alamy. By all means, put a lot of keywords in for certain pictures if they're relevant. Captions and keywords are almost more important than the image itself because you can have the most amazing images ever, but if they're keyworded wrong, no one will ever see them.

 

Also include singular and plurals  of words if appropriate. Don't worry about moving the line to optimised (green) - we have collectively decided that this is not a good idea unless you really need that many keywords.

 

Nice images overall, definitely look saleable.

Steve

[Jill Morgan]

As a birder, I of course focused on your bird images.

 

First, the one of the Cardinal, you have the information of the Blue Jay.  You probably had both selected in AIM and forgot to deselect the Cardinal when doing the Blue Jay.  

 

Add the latin names.

 

As Steve mentioned, you are keyword spamming.  Your title says Red tailed hawk but you include Coopers Hawk and Eagle in your keywords.  People searching for an Eagle will not appreciate your image coming up.  Filler keywords such as beak, claws (birds have talons, not claws) are unnecessary and will just get you views that will go against your search ranking. 

 

The images themselves are great. My only change would be of the two Red Tailed Hawks with the pigeon with the one with its' wings spread.  I don't know what software you use, but I would be using the content aware auto fill and remove all the little branches in front of the birds.

 

Jill

[Cal]

3 hours ago, Steve F said:

 

Hi Marc,

Good point!

 

Lack of stinking. 

 

1) I might have lifted the shadows/exposure in some images, e.g. 

SpaceX Launch Tower, Booster and Starship in Sunset - Image ID: 2PFT3FA

 

3) I'm not a fan of juxtaposing moon images into cityscapes, but they certainly sell well! Don't think this one works very well though:

Super Moon Rising Over Brooklyn - Image ID: 2JHNMHP

 

 

 

Not much to add to what you've said, as ever you've done the lions share of the work.

 

However on point 1 the shadows really can't be lifted much more out of that image - if they are it'll start to look milky and ugly halos will start to creep in at the borders between very light and very dark areas. This catches me sometimes when processing shots and I only spot it after looking away for a while. Overall I think the image looks fine and it probably appeared roughly that way to the naked eye, looking into the sun.

 

On 3 I would agree, the border around the moon is very distracting.

 

A lot of this is nitpicking though, only photographers see this stuff, not normal people.

 

To the OP: you need to add yucca brevifolia as a keyword to your Joshua tree photo 2KD4HD6 and always do this with the proper/latin names for wildlife and plants.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Cal

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

I wish 2E075GW and 2JHNMG2

were in my collection if they're

not composite photos !!

regardless, well done !!

[NYCat]

Elephant has gotten in to your keywords for the rhinos. I'd put the location in the caption. If your put something in the caption as well as the keywords it has more weight. I also think people are often looking for the place and whether the wildlife is in the wild. You have two different countries in the keywords. Very nice selection of images.

 

Paulette

[Betty LaRue]

Boy, I like the chicken coming out of the barn a lot. Artistic. Good for you capturing the shot at the right moment.

[Chuck Nacke]

On 25/03/2023 at 22:50, marc sherman said:

Hi All - It's nice to receive compliments from friends and family, but none of it really helps me become a better photographer. So, unless you're related to me, I would greatly appreciate some feedback from my colleagues out there. Feel free to choose just one or two shots, if you prefer, and comment on composition, focus, etc. Ok to say that they stink - but please let me know why (I can handle it). Click link below for portfolio. Thank you so much for your time.

Cheers,

Marc

https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/marcshermanphoto

Marc,

 

Browsed through the first page of your images and 2JHNNTF is a lovely photo, but you really need to do a "flying short course" in Captions and Keywords.  Alamy, like any online library licenses (sells RF) images and the people, editors, who purchase their use have specific needs to illustrate text or specific needs for images for display.  The Captions and Keywords are how they search and set what they license or buy for use.

 

Good Luck

Chuck

[Ed Rooney]

 

You have a good eye, Marc. But many of your images are too dark and muddy looking. You need to give them more punch in your edit. 

 

Aren't we lucky to have so many helpful knowledgeable togs here in the Alamy forums? 

 

Edo

[Mr Standfast]

I like your pictures. 

Lots of sensible comments from the forum, which I still pay attention to.

The Elephant in the room is the quantity of images. Add some more and you will get more feedback from people with coins in their pockets!

 

Good luck!

[spacecadet]

On 03/04/2023 at 02:10, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

I wish 2E075GW and 2JHNMG2

were in my collection

You could license them.............

I'll get my coat.

[PatsyCollins]

Great pictures.

You might get more sales with more details in the captions – eg give the latin and common names of plants, birds and animals.

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

16 hours ago, spacecadet said:

You could license them

I'll get my coat.

oh man marky dee got me  🤕 ouch 🤕

 

😃 he got you real good

 

😛 he didn't get me

 

🤔 not yet, he's getting his coat, a London Fog...but he will get you...REAL GOOD

Edited April 5, 2023 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[Marianne]

Some nice variety - definitely saleable. 

 

but some rookie mistakes ... as mentioned above, you may have had more than one photo highlighted when you were editing without meaning to. For example: 

Full moon rising over pink clouds in blue sky. It's a lovely image but it's not the right description for  Image ID: 2E075GW  - which has the moon behind the bridge. So check for these kinds of mistakes. In your keywords you also neglect to name the bridge and I'd add "New York" (along with"New York City" and "NYC") which you have. I kind of laughed at "bridges of Madison County New York City" but it's fine, not that I imagine anyone using that term to search. I'd also say if it's viewed from Manhattan and looking toward Brooklyn or vice versa. And there's "estuary" nor any "dangerous waters" in that photo - so again, do a quick proofread and be careful of editing pix that aren't similar together.  

Make sure you add the place name in the captions of your images from California & NYC - it will help with search and it is not spamming. Good to have it in the bird photos too (along with the Latin name). And add "wild" to your keywords since they are not in a zoo.

I loved the view looking down on the woman with the umbrella - nice lines/composition. 

 

Don't know why I couldn't get rid of the bold above but the editing tools seem to be misbehaving at the moment. 

 

Good luck and welcome to the Forum & Alamy!

 

 

 

 

[antonsrkn]

The photos are fine, I do think you need to be a bit pickier about which photos you're putting forward though, you have a photo of a blue jay facing away from camera with a busy composition with branches all over the place, etc... In my opinion its not bad but also not a stand-out shot, it is hard to imagine that photo of a common species selling with all those issues - if it was a rare species that there were few photos of, I'd say its good enough - for a common species of which there are undoubtedly thousands and thousands of images being sold - it needs to be better for selling purposes.  The tags and captions need some work too.  Just scrolling down and hovering my cursor over the bird photos - I see 5 incorrectly IDed species. 5/69 images being inaccurate is bad and that is assuming that your non bird images are all captioned and tagged correctly. 

[marc sherman]

Thank you all very much! This is exactly what I needed. I'm studying each of your replies carefully. 

Cheers,

Marc

[Betty LaRue]

It’s me again, the chicken-lover.
You are being lazy. 😊 Image 2JHNMW2 is a red-eared slider or red-eared terrapin, Trachemys scripta elegans. It took me a minute to find it. Wikipedia is your friend, but always seek other sources to back ID up. This info should be in your caption & keywords. Read about this turtle & you will find it is an invasive species. This information can go in keywords and fleshed out in your description.
I  like your closeup showing the color stripes but would also have taken a full-body shot, possibly with room for buyer’s text. I can see a buyer maybe wanting both for an article on invasive species. Main one full body with text space and an inset of the head shot.

Yours is way better than mine. This guy has a hook in its mouth & wasn’t in the mood to stick his head out & show me his colors. But I can see a tiny glimpse of the red.

BUT…mine has the shell design, more information for people to attach to the turtle beside red ears. It always helps to see the whole for best identification…plus people reading that (supposed) article would recognize it better.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Betty LaRue