New Alamy 'Vertical panoramas' Lightbox

[Harry Harrison]

Alamy Content are promoting this on Twitter and probably elsewhere:

 

https://twitter.com/AlamyContent/status/1678330216714760193

 

"Have you tried shooting vertically? Vertical panoramas are often used as an effective way of showing the expanse of an area. Be inspired with our Vertical Panoramas collection"

 

Link to lightbox:

https://www.alamy.com/search/lightbox/5131826.html

 

I hadn't realised that vertical panoramas are not picked up by the 'Panoramic' filter when searching so these are a mixture of portrait format views of no particular aspect ratio, though often greater than 2:1, where they are keyworded or captioned by the contributor as 'panorama' or 'panoramic'.

 

 

[Alexander Hogg]

I have put up a few panoramic shots(portrait style) but don't think they ever sold yet Just uploaded 2 of this style today into QC Who knows if they will sell once passed 

[John Mitchell]

 Vertical panoramas look like fun to try, but I imagine they are a bit of a niche market. Has anyone ever licensed one?

[Harry Harrison]

Some of these are just views of landscapes or towns from a higher perspective, nothing to do with the aspect ratio, so the trick is A. Remembering to take a portrait version and B. Remembering to add 'panorama' and 'panoramic' in the keywords or caption. I'm probably not alone in instinctively thinking of a panoramic view as being in Landscape format so I'll try and remember to do that in the future. I might try a vertical crop on a few that I have taken in the past. I do think that the 'Panoramic' filter should include verticals though.

[MDM]

48 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 Vertical panoramas look like fun to try, but I imagine they are a bit of a niche market. Has anyone ever licensed one?

 

I started doing these years ago rather than purchasing a super wideangle lens. It's a great technique for architecture when you can't squeeze everthing in. You get better quality from a normal wideangle (24-28mm) or even standard 50mm. I'm talking full frame by the way. It's also great for landscapes of course. Since Lightroom introduced the ability to raw panos some years ago, things got even better. I'm sure some of them must have sold but not as panos - simply portrait format images, often with dramatic skies.

 

 

[MDM]

26 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

 I do think that the 'Panoramic' filter should include verticals though.

 

I'm not so sure. A lot of mine don't look like panoramas. Back in the days when it was compulsory to mark digitally altered images as such, I used to add something about any panos being stiched images but not digitally altered which they aren't as such. I stopped bothering when this was no longer an option. 

 

I guess if vertical panos were very tall and thin then it might be worth marking them as such.

Edited July 10, 2023 by MDM

[Harry Harrison]

18 minutes ago, MDM said:

I guess if vertical panos were very tall and thin then it might be worth marking them as such.

I was thinking that if they had the same aspect ratio threshold as 'landscape' panoramics, so 2:1 or greater.

[MDM]

40 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

I was thinking that if they had the same aspect ratio threshold as 'landscape' panoramics, so 2:1 or greater.

 

Yes sure. I don't think most of mine would qualify on that criterion. 

[M.Chapman]

Maybe Alamy should rename the existing "Panoramic " orientation filter as "Panoramic (horizontal)" and add a new one "Panoramic (vertical)" to avoid confusion?

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

25 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Maybe Alamy should rename the existing "Panoramic " orientation filter as "Panoramic (horizontal)" and add a new one "Panoramic (vertical)" to avoid confusion?

Yes, good idea, particularly since they are promoting 'vertical panoramics', although it would mess up their neat 4 option layout of Landscape, Panoramics, Portrait and Square. Vertical panoramics with greater than 2:1 aspect ratio do look terrible on the grid though, tiny little slivers. Maybe that's why they don't want to filter for them and why this current  lightbox promotion doesn't care about aspect ratio, only keywords and captions.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

So basically I've changed my mind, vertical panoramics wouldn't look good mixed up with horizontal ones in the search results, particularly as horizontal panoramics can be very large on the grid indeed once they get to around 3:1 which was the standard film panoramic format if I remember rightly.

[Sally]

Fun to do. I’ve sold as news an Interior of a church. Maybe need to tag as vertorama. 2PA29K8 example.

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Sally

[wiskerke]

This could not have originated from the misunderstanding of one single recent search for Vertical Panorama Pavilion? Meaning the Vertical Panorama Pavilion by Olafur Eliasson (and architect Sebastian Behmann) for the Donum Estate Winery?

Nah. There must have been maybe hundreds of searches for vertical panoramas.

So should I use the phrase vertical panorama in my keywords? Only if clients start using it.

Or if I would ever take pictures of this magnificent stained glass awning myself. (via)

 

wim

[wiskerke]

1 hour ago, Sally said:

Fun to do. I’ve sold as news an Interior of a church. Maybe need to tag as vertorama. 2PA29K8 example.

Yes I may do that too. Just in case clients discover it's a word. 😁

Because I even have some that have sold been licensed:

               

 

For -in no particular order- :  $0; $9.07; $29; $75.65

and $424.63 (of which 1 direct; 7x distro plus 5x distro refunds)

 

wim

[John Mitchell]

Very nice, wim. But they aren't real panoramas. No?

[Harry Harrison]

I must admit I'd never heard the term 'vertorama' before Sally posted it, only 103 images come up on Alamy for that search. As far as I can see it's a term which refers to images that have been stitched vertically either in post-processing or possibly in camera and is generally used by those that want to teach us how to do it. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the aspect ratio, this article on Petapixel has mainly square images but ones that do dramatically include the very close foreground with the distant view.

 

I think Alamy will define a 'vertical panorama' in more general terms as they don't take an interest in how we create the images in the first place so for these vertical panoramas it's whether  'panoramic' or 'panorama' is in the keywords ( I haven't looked to see whether it is both 'panorama' and 'panoramic' or just one or the other) combined with the 'Portrait' filter.

[Flo Smith]

17 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Some of these are just views of landscapes or towns from a higher perspective, nothing to do with the aspect ratio, so the trick is A. Remembering to take a portrait version and B. Remembering to add 'panorama' and 'panoramic' in the keywords or caption. I'm probably not alone in instinctively thinking of a panoramic view as being in Landscape format so I'll try and remember to do that in the future. I might try a vertical crop on a few that I have taken in the past. I do think that the 'Panoramic' filter should include verticals though.

Always worth shooting a portrait version, especially views and architecture. Most magazines and books are portrait so more likely to be used, and in larger format on the page too!

[Harry Harrison]

44 minutes ago, Flo Smith said:

Always worth shooting a portrait version, especially views and architecture. Most magazines and books are portrait so more likely to be used, and in larger format on the page too!

Yes, and I'm quite taken by a tip from Betty La Rue on another thread to crop verticals to 4:3 or 5:4 so that they stand out more on the grid. That's for standard images, vertical panoramas of more than 2:1 aspect ratio would seem to have more limited saleability.

[Sally]

4 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I must admit I'd never heard the term 'vertorama' before Sally posted it, only 103 images come up on Alamy for that search. As far as I can see it's a term which refers to images that have been stitched vertically either in post-processing or possibly in camera and is generally used by those that want to teach us how to do it. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the aspect ratio, this article on Petapixel has mainly square images but ones that do dramatically include the very close foreground with the distant view.

 

I think Alamy will define a 'vertical panorama' in more general terms as they don't take an interest in how we create the images in the first place so for these vertical panoramas it's whether  'panoramic' or 'panorama' is in the keywords ( I haven't looked to see whether it is both 'panorama' and 'panoramic' or just one or the other) combined with the 'Portrait' filter.

Yes mine are stitched images, as you’ve described.

[Flo Smith]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes, and I'm quite taken by a tip from Betty La Rue on another thread to crop verticals to 4:3 or 5:4 so that they stand out more on the grid. That's for standard images, vertical panoramas of more than 2:1 aspect ratio would seem to have more limited saleability.

Good idea, anything to stand out. BTW, what took you so long to get onto Alamy? Send my regards to Phil & Lou 🙂 

[wiskerke]

12 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Very nice, wim. But they aren't real panoramas. No?

They are very much the same as the ones in that lightbox.

Some of mine are stitched also. These are around 120 to 160 degrees. I find most 180 degrees just don't work in portrait. My idea at the time was that if it (the trick) shows it doesn't sell. And that except for bookmarks (the non-virtual ones) there would be no huge market for thin vertical images.

Usually I now stitch shifted horizontals vertically, if that makes sense. So it shows even less. And I mostly try to minimize distortion. Not always and fisheye distortion certainly has it's place.

 

Now which is the one that never made any money and which one the most? And is that enough for the trouble?

 

wim

[John Mitchell]

3 hours ago, wiskerke said:

They are very much the same as the ones in that lightbox.

Some of mine are stitched also. These are around 120 to 160 degrees. I find most 180 degrees just don't work in portrait. My idea at the time was that if it (the trick) shows it doesn't sell. And that except for bookmarks (the non-virtual ones) there would be no huge market for thin vertical images.

Usually I now stitch shifted horizontals vertically, if that makes sense. So it shows even less. And I mostly try to minimize distortion. Not always and fisheye distortion certainly has it's place.

 

Now which is the one that never made any money and which one the most? And is that enough for the trouble?

 

wim

 

I too have a few vertical wide angle shots (see below) similar to the ones in the lightbox, but I never considered them to be panoramas. A couple have licensed over the years. I use Affinity Photo which usually does a really good job of stitching panoramas automatically. Still I'm not sure it's worth the effort from a financial POV -- i.e. I don't think that long and skinny vertical images are in much demand.

 

Should I call this un-stitched wide angle shot a "vertical panorama"?

 

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by John Mitchell