Feedback wanted !

[Etoilepolaire]

Hello everyone !

 

I would like to get some feedback on my effort after one year of joining Alamy. If you have some advice ? 

I live in France, and the law concerning privacy and propriety is quite confusing here, making me self censor quite often I think for editorial content. 

 

Thanks for your input, 

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

7 hours ago, Etoilepolaire said:

...law concerning privacy and propriety...

Jun-Jul 2024 I took ~3K total candid photos in
Spain-France (Cannes)-Italy-Croatia-Greece-Malta
of people-places-things over 21 days;
of 300+ encounters maybe 2 grumpy old guys
& 2 shop managers showing palm of hand…
Learn to wear “mild” smile…
Learn a few complimentary phrases in each local language,
mine, for that trip, were
“Very interesting !”
“Very impressive !”
“Very professional !”

[Ed Rooney]

 

It always struck me as odd that there are so many restrictive rules in France regarding photography. France is where photography was inventive. 🤔

[Steve F]

Salut etoilepolaire,

Je ne peux pas commenter sur la loi en France concernant la photographie.

 

But some comments on your portfolio as follows

Some of your captions you've obviously done on other stock sites or in editing software as you've chopped the end off:

idyllic beach landscape in Marie Galante, near Grand Bourg, with sand, sea and coconut trees. Caribbean paradise beach vacation in guadeloupe archipel

- Image ID: 2Y5A175

 

A lot of Alamy's editorial clients are interested in specific images, with a clear 'who, 'what', 'where', 'why', 'when'. A number of your captions are missing the 'where', e.g.:

male lesser antillean bullfinch or loxigilla noctis on a beanch, with black and red feathers- Image ID: 2WWH2P2

 

Captions are also searchable by clients. Some advice from Alamy:

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

 

Your English generally looks very good and even us native speakers have a lot of spelling errors / typos in our portfolios. A minor one:

Martien like landscape in Plaine des sables, close to fournaise volcano, Reunion island- Image ID: 2T6KWM7

 

Your composition generally looks fine. I would have said this image needed a lot more zooming in or cropping if your camera has enough Megapixels, but I also note that you're almost the only person that has a humpback whale image in front of reunion island. Still think the whale is too far away in the image for this to license, but you never know.

 

Too much empty water in the foreground for me here. Copy space is a thing, but it is very large in the image and boring to look at. Would have been immeasurabley helped with a boat in the water somewhere, but you usually don't have all day to wait around for one.

 

Your lighting and white balance is generally fine. This one looks underexposed to me though:

 

J'espere que ca vous avez aide. Bonne chance,

Stephen

 

[Etoilepolaire]

Thank you very much for the feedback 😃 !!

The problem with the law is not so much the restriction but the confusion about what is or isn't allowed, even after reading a book about it ^^, much seem to be left to the interpretation of the judge. But taking photos is rarely a problem, it's the publishing that make me think twice about it 😵.

And then, I thing about the japanese photos that are sleeping on my harddrive and wondering if I should bother or if they also have some confusing laws ^^. 

 

Yes, I made some repeated spelling mistakes and keywording is sometimes about learning some english vocabulary, and realizing afterwards that the words I used have more senses than I could think about in english and need to be replaced by more accurate words... 

 

I still have much to learn about photography and it is a journey. Exposure is one thing I should try to get better at during the shooting. But the camera I have has some limitation in low light condition (the village picture was taken at dusk without tripod) and I think I have  already tried to crop the whale but it doesn't have enough pixels to get a good result. 

 

 Well, now I have some caption to correct 😉 particularly the beanch word  ^^

 

 

[Steve F]

1 hour ago, Etoilepolaire said:

Thank you very much for the feedback 😃 !!

The problem with the law is not so much the restriction but the confusion about what is or isn't allowed, even after reading a book about it ^^, much seem to be left to the interpretation of the judge. But taking photos is rarely a problem, it's the publishing that make me think twice about it 😵.

And then, I thing about the japanese photos that are sleeping on my harddrive and wondering if I should bother or if they also have some confusing laws ^^. 

 

Yes, I made some repeated spelling mistakes and keywording is sometimes about learning some english vocabulary, and realizing afterwards that the words I used have more senses than I could think about in english and need to be replaced by more accurate words... 

 

I still have much to learn about photography and it is a journey. Exposure is one thing I should try to get better at during the shooting. But the camera I have has some limitation in low light condition (the village picture was taken at dusk without tripod) and I think I have  already tried to crop the whale but it doesn't have enough pixels to get a good result. 

 

 Well, now I have some caption to correct 😉 particularly the beanch word  ^^

 

 

 

Amuses-toi bien!

You should use software for editing, if you have it. This will help you get the right exposure after shooting. Otherwise, you can try exposure bracketing, where you take several different exposures at the same time.

[Etoilepolaire]

I already use software to correct exposure but I want to get better at taking the right exposure directly from the camera without having to think to much about it, if you see what I mean. 

 

[Steve F]

16 hours ago, Etoilepolaire said:

I already use software to correct exposure but I want to get better at taking the right exposure directly from the camera without having to think to much about it, if you see what I mean. 

 

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's one of the quickest corrections when you're editing. I've got an EVF too, so it's hard to judge the correct exposure out in the field.