Successful secrets, or best practices.

[Mark Spowart]

Hello all, 

 

I'm new to the forums, but have been with Alamy since 2008. 

I am curious, as I'm sure many are, what have you found to be your best practice or the secret to your success here?

During my time, I've had good years, I've had horrible years. Maintaining any consistency has been elusive. 

 

Would love to know what you do, to make it work. 

 

Cheers, and all the best in 2024. 

 

Mark. 

[Mr Standfast]

 

If success is steady improvement then just keep looking for what has been bought and supply the next buyer.

 

If success is loads of money, well I have'nt a clue.

 

Good luck.

 

 

 

 

[Mark Spowart]

I appreciate the insight, but I guess I'm looking more at the technical side of it. We all produce images to align with what we think will license. However, I've always been curious if it is more than just that. 

 

For example, do you promote your work here on Alamy, if so, how? Do you edit keywords to match which keywords are trending or rather, do you search trending keywords and see if you have images to match? If you have Live News Access, do you follow topics in the news and create images to upload? 

 

I love photography, and still believe in stock photography as a viable option for certain types of images, maybe I'm and idiot. However working independently doesn't give one the ability to share best ideas or practices, I guess, that is what I am trying to do here. 

 

Cheers, 
Mark. 

[Steve F]

• Uploading regularly
• Trying to take pictures of on trend subjects
• Revisiting some previously concept photos with a better idea for an image
• Keeping a close look at what licenses and which images are easy for me to 'replicate' or get inspiration from
• Being picky about what I photograph - I won't upload if I don't think it has a chance of licensing
• But taking as wide a variety of subjects as possible, because you 'never know what will sell...'
• Seeing a scene or object in real life and thinking, 'that's a licensable image' - could be anything, but always keeping an eye out

 

No I don't do promotion. I don't do commissions much anymore.

Edited January 6 by Steve F

[Mark Spowart]

Thanks Steve, 

 

I think the uploading regularly is a big part. Thank you for your insight, there are some great suggestions there. 

[Gervais Montacute]

5 hours ago, Mark Spowart said:

 

I love photography, and still believe in stock photography as a viable option for certain types of images, maybe I'm and idiot. However working independently doesn't give one the ability to share best ideas or practices, I guess, that is what I am trying to do here. 

 

Cheers, 
Mark. 

 

I can't help you with best practices because I have no idea what they could be regarding stock photography. I like your photography. It's crystal clear.

 

Here's a thing. I write music and usually in album form for TV and Film ect. I just had the latest published on Jan 1st. Usually whenever an album is finished, the publishers always give me the option among other things of album covers. 6 or 7 this time. The difference this time compared to before on the album covers is, every example was AI. That's the way it could be going. 

Edited January 6 by Gervais Montacute

[Michael Ventura]

Diversity, Quality and Quantity is the Holy Trinity of stock...IMHO.

Edited January 6 by Michael Ventura

[Mark Spowart]

2 hours ago, Gervais Montacute said:

 

I can't help you with best practices because I have no idea what they could be regarding stock photography. I like your photography. It's crystal clear.

 

Here's a thing. I write music and usually in album form for TV and Film ect. I just had the latest published on Jan 1st. Usually whenever an album is finished, the publishers always give me the option amount other things of album covers. 6 or 7 this time. The difference this time compared to before on the album covers is every example was AI. That's the way it could be going. 

 

I think you're correct. AI will certainly take a lot of what stock photography was used for in the past. 

[Mark Spowart]

1 hour ago, Michael Ventura said:

Diversity, Quality and Quantity is the holy trinity of stock...IMHO.

Agreed, its always tricky to read the tea leaves and then to factor in any tinkering with algorithms that may be at play. 

I guess I look at it this way, I'm not seeing volume of work being licensed which I see other contributors are getting, so maybe I need to change up what I am shooting. That goes to a previous comments of being aware what was licensed in the past and try to be next. 

 

[Bryan]

While some of the live news contributors seem to prosper using multiple similar images, I don't think that helps for us ordinary mortals. Photo editors looking for a current photo will not see the myriad previous shots, but that doesn't apply in the general case.

 

The result of a search will be a handful, at best, of your shots of a given subject,  Far better that they see the pick of your collection rather than the also rans. 

 

I probably need to heed my own advice and do some culling !

[StokeCreative]

2 hours ago, Mark Spowart said:

 

I think you're correct. AI will certainly take a lot of what stock photography was used for in the past. 

I think you're right about that Mark, but I think illustrators have the most to fear in the short term. The quality of the photorealistic AI stuff is  currently only OK for smallish web use tbh. I use MidJourney myself, and even with the built in upscaling I don't think the images are suitable for print. We could argue about the need for print but thats another conversation.

This will of course change eventually as AI matures when it will probably replace most photography (certainly stock). That is until an inevitable rebound as we've seen with other craft practices (handmade artefacts re 3d printing not living up to the hype in many cases) , in music the return of vinyl, and more recently compact cassettes, and with photography students getting back into traditional processing and printing. What goes around come around!

 

Hugh

 

 

[Mark Spowart]

2 hours ago, StokeCreative said:

I think you're right about that Mark, but I think illustrators have the most to fear in the short term. The quality of the photorealistic AI stuff is  currently only OK for smallish web use tbh. I use MidJourney myself, and even with the built in upscaling I don't think the images are suitable for print. We could argue about the need for print but thats another conversation.

This will of course change eventually as AI matures when it will probably replace most photography (certainly stock). That is until an inevitable rebound as we've seen with other craft practices (handmade artefacts re 3d printing not living up to the hype in many cases) , in music the return of vinyl, and more recently compact cassettes, and with photography students getting back into traditional processing and printing. What goes around come around!

 

Hugh

 

 

Very true Hugh. I know myself and few other photographers are wading back into film and even setting up a darkroom to see how rusty our printing skills are. Like everything the new advent will rule the day for a while, and in some markets. Where as in other markets - editorial - they have no time for AI presently, and I suspect that will remain the case. Time will tell. Cheers. 

[Mark Spowart]

2 hours ago, Bryan said:

While some of the live news contributors seem to prosper using multiple similar images, I don't think that helps for us ordinary mortals. Photo editors looking for a current photo will not see the myriad previous shots, but that doesn't apply in the general case.

 

The result of a search will be a handful, at best, of your shots of a given subject,  Far better that they see the pick of your collection rather than the also rans. 

 

I probably need to heed my own advice and do some culling !

Good points. I too could cull some dead wood out of my archive.