Hello guys, could you please share your thoughts about my pictures (https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/1262886.html)

[Vancho]

Hello guys pls, could you share your thoughts about my photo this is my portfolio https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/1262886.html

 

Many thanks in advance and ,Best regards 

Vancho

 

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Vancho

[Gorilla Dave]

Image ID: 2T4YWGH - was the first one i looked at.

It's a good idea to check and double-check spelling in the keywords and captions.
for example - 'Metal' not 'metall'.

Accuracy of captions.
"Fly fire sparks background"
...there is no fire and no sparks in the background of this picture.

also this picture would be better described as a...
"Laser metal cutting machine"

[Steve F]

Hi Vancho,

Welcome to Alamy. No need to provide a link to your portfolio, you can see someone's portfolio by clicking on the images number on the left hand side of their posts on this Forum.

 

+1 to what Gorilla Dave says.

 

Be aware that your CTR rank (and possibly sales numbers) affects how high up in client searches you are. I will explain below, but basically, if you upload hundreds or thousands of images with poor keywording and captioning, you will end up overall having images that don't appear anywhere near the top of client searches. Making it very unlikely that you will sell any images. You've only just started on Alamy so your CTR won't be stable yet, but if you go onto your dashboard, you can see the last month average CTR on Alamy was 0.58. You should aim to be at least around, or preferably higher than this. If you have a much lower CTR, you're probably doing something wrong.

 

1. Captions are searchable by clients. Your captions too short. Aside from that, clients will be reading captions on search pages by hovering over an image. You have provided the location generally, but provide more description of what the images are showing.

Include the Latin as well as the common name of plants, insects and the location (including the country). 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

 

Try to make use of all 150 letters available to you in the caption. Include British and American spellings, e.g. color and colour. You should include what you can see in the image and any extra wording to try to make an image more saleable, e.g.:

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/16942-images-sold-in-august-2023/?do=findComment&comment=344625

 

2. You should be aware of CTR (click through rate). 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 - which you are doing. 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 350 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.

 

3. welding to assembly metal table, with protective mask. Vinica, Macedonia - Image ID: 2T4YW5H

be more specific with your information. What type of welding, arc welding? Is it a factory, home workshop? What is he welding? What concept are you trying to provide with the image?

 

4. You've got loads of similars. This is not going to help your CTR. If you're photographing a subject, do portrait, landscape orientation, closeup, zoom out, different angles. That's all fine. However, for example:

2T4YT72, 2T4YTC4, 2T4YTFW, 2T4YTPN are all essentially the same image. It's an angle grinder by the way.

 

5. Watch the technical quality of your images. Alamy only spot checks your submissions, they expect you to do your own QC. The image below would have failed your entire submission if it had been QC checked - camera shake. Also, this image will never be purchased by a client; again, it doesn't help your ranking:

 

See this PDF also, very helpful:

https://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamy-qc-failure-reasons.pdf

 

 

Following image is very underexposed. Are you doing photo editing? If you are, then watch out for some of the QC failure reasons above when you are editing - this image would probably also have failed QC. If  you're not editing, then I would highly recommend editing, it can help make your images more saleable. You also seem to have missed your focal point? I would have expected the image to be focused on the fruit in the middleground where the image is a bit lighter. Instead it's at the front on some very dark fruit.

 

Sky is overexposed where the sun is - easy fix with e.g. Lightroom. Generally, to sell landscape images, where there is a lot of competition, you need to have excellent composition and lighting. This image is very washed out - moody landscapes are a thing, but this looks more like a snapshot I'm afraid.

 

 

I hope this has been helpful. Have a look at other people's portfolio critiques too. You should also keep a good look out for published stock images and see what sells. How do your images compare?

 

Your main take away should be that you need to get into a good workflow with Alamy before uploading too many images. Going back to re-caption and keyword thousands of images will be painful!

 

Best of luck,

Stephen

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Steve F

[wiskerke]

?????

 

wim

[geogphotos]

I really like the metal workshop one with the sparks. 

[Vincent Lowe]

2 hours ago, geogphotos said:

I really like the metal workshop one with the sparks. 

I don't - ungloved hand and no safety guard?  I once had a disk shatter on me and it's scary, the bits fly all over the place,  Fortunately I had the guard on.

 

Might sell as an example of unsafe practices though! 

[geogphotos]

9 minutes ago, Vincent Lowe said:

I don't - ungloved hand and no safety guard?  I once had a disk shatter on me and it's scary, the bits fly all over the place,  Fortunately I had the guard on.

 

Might sell as an example of unsafe practices though! 

 

 

Don't have a clue about that sort of thing - I just like the image as an image. 

[Mr Standfast]

Vancho,

 

Best help I can offer is to put Metal Fabricator into the search box and have a look at the competition.

 

And slow down.

[ColdCoffee]

Some feedback .. which is a bit harsh, sorry .. but I am only trying to help.

 

Your locations should give a lot of opportunities to take great photos, but I think you would have better success if you pay more attention to the basics of photography.

 

Light is critical. Pick the time of the day to photograph a subject, and if that is not possible, compensate in post processing.

Make sure your photos are interesting. Conveying a story or a place.

Landscapes are not very interesting with flat lights

 

2T5H7D0  This photo has some potential

2T5GRW0 This is an interesting photo with good colors. Would have been even better if there were more light on the building which is the focal point. If you had been there earlier you may have got a little bit of light from the side which would have helped to show the details in the building.

 

Underexposed, for example 2T2WAGB. This photo is also not very interesting or pretty .. but yet has a caption starting with "The picturesque village ... "

Flat light. Ex: 2T5H6BY, 2T5HA4J

Composition is also important .. 2T2W987 is not showing much of the village.

I don't think this is a very interesting photo, 2T5H8F

 

I suggest to spend some time looking at other photographer's photos from the same places, and work on post processing.

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by ColdCoffee