losdemas Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 Late last night, I noticed a news story about a train fatality in my area that had occurred a couple of hours earlier. I had some bog-standard pictures of the precise location sitting on my hard drive and noted that none were available on either Alamy, G., C. or a well-known photojournalism feed. So I e-mailed the news team to see if it was worthwhile submitting archival pictures (just a few months old). Got no reply within 30 mins. (very unusual in my experience), so went ahead and submitted anyway, sending another e-mail saying I had submitted and would leave it in their hands, (no reply to that, but didn't expect one). Another 30 mins. and nothing on the feed, so I figured that they'd decided the images weren't news-worthy. Fair enough, but I decided to check my track submissions page, and there they were, notified as having by-passed QC and ready for keywording. I e-mailed live news again to query the situation, just to be sure that they were aware of the situation in case there were any problems. No reply. This morning I received a confirmation e-mail that the images had been processed and "Passed QC". Not sure if I have received one of these for news before. Is this the normal process for images that fail to make it onto the feed (this is the first 'refusal' I've had for news)? If so, do the images then go back into the regular submission process? And...though I'm not overly concerned by the 'failure' I am a little surprised that the images weren't taken up, seeing as this location has had a high number of fatalities and near-misses involving trains in the last 10 years. Any comments on either the QC process or reason for 'failure' most welcome. Many thanks. EDIT: ...and now I see that they have passed directly to my regular image collection! They are editable as regular images (fewer characters in the description field) via the link below my icon at left here, but have now disappeared from 'Manage Images'. I guess that they will be passed into the regular QC process now? A pain if I have made a slip-up owing to quick PP (I don't think so, as I'm ususally pretty thorough, even with news images, but still). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Norwood Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 When the horsemeat scandal broke in the UK I submitted a shot of Phenylbutazone (horse drug) being tipped into a bucket of horse feed. I had taken the picture that morning and there were no relevent images on Alamy at that time. It appeared on the live news feed and then disappeared a short time later. I received an email from the news team informing me that they had moved it over to the stock collection, because they did not feel it was suitable for the news feed as the image could have been taken at any time. This was on a Friday. Phenylbutazone was searched for on Alamy on the Saturday and the Monday, but my image didn't clear QC until Monday, therefore didn't go on sale until Tuesday. Frustrating!! So, in my experience, any images sent to the news feed but deemed not suitable will join the queue for normal QC. Sue ps I think all news submissions have to have been taken within the previous 48 hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 That's happened to me a couple of times. Back when I first started in the news submission. Alamy News folk must have had a right old chuckle. Always felt Alamy News team were more personal and emailed a lot, and often phoned me to look for things. The other agency I have now stopped submitting to are hopeless at replying/paying. You just feel you're throwing images up into an empty void (despite 14 usages this year) however, alamy were always good with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 "and often phoned me to look for things. " You mean like news items Paul? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 Late last night, I noticed a news story about a train fatality in my area that had occurred a couple of hours earlier. I had some bog-standard pictures of the precise location sitting on my hard drive and noted that none were available on either Alamy, G., C. or a well-known photojournalism feed. So I e-mailed the news team to see if it was worthwhile submitting archival pictures (just a few months old). Got no reply within 30 mins. (very unusual in my experience), so went ahead and submitted anyway, sending another e-mail saying I had submitted and would leave it in their hands, (no reply to that, but didn't expect one). Another 30 mins. and nothing on the feed, so I figured that they'd decided the images weren't news-worthy. Fair enough, but I decided to check my track submissions page, and there they were, notified as having by-passed QC and ready for keywording. I e-mailed live news again to query the situation, just to be sure that they were aware of the situation in case there were any problems. No reply. This morning I received a confirmation e-mail that the images had been processed and "Passed QC". Not sure if I have received one of these for news before. Is this the normal process for images that fail to make it onto the feed (this is the first 'refusal' I've had for news)? If so, do the images then go back into the regular submission process? And...though I'm not overly concerned by the 'failure' I am a little surprised that the images weren't taken up, seeing as this location has had a high number of fatalities and near-misses involving trains in the last 10 years. Any comments on either the QC process or reason for 'failure' most welcome. Many thanks. EDIT: ...and now I see that they have passed directly to my regular image collection! They are editable as regular images (fewer characters in the description field) via the link below my icon at left here, but have now disappeared from 'Manage Images'. I guess that they will be passed into the regular QC process now? A pain if I have made a slip-up owing to quick PP (I don't think so, as I'm ususally pretty thorough, even with news images, but still). They might be in with your "On Sale" images. I've only submitted once for news and after the 48 hours when they appeared there was a period of time when they were just not anywhere online. By the way, yours do have the little warning in the zoom that they are reportage and therefore not necessarily perfect. So I would guess that they will not go through QC. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losdemas Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 Thanks for your replies, guys. Looks as though all the strangeness is just due to delays in the system, as the images are now back in the regular QC queue - even though they already have a ref #. and are searchable (and therefore saleable, I guess?!) Upshot must be that Live News are a busy bunch (I knew that!); figured that the images weren't news-worthy (I might argue that point, but am prepared to admit that they know their job far better than I ); and they don't have time to engage in conversation when images aren't going to be included on the feed. NP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losdemas Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 When the horsemeat scandal broke in the UK I submitted a shot of Phenylbutazone (horse drug) being tipped into a bucket of horse feed. I had taken the picture that morning and there were no relevent images on Alamy at that time. It appeared on the live news feed and then disappeared a short time later. I received an email from the news team informing me that they had moved it over to the stock collection, because they did not feel it was suitable for the news feed as the image could have been taken at any time. This was on a Friday. Phenylbutazone was searched for on Alamy on the Saturday and the Monday, but my image didn't clear QC until Monday, therefore didn't go on sale until Tuesday. Frustrating!! So, in my experience, any images sent to the news feed but deemed not suitable will join the queue for normal QC. Sue ps I think all news submissions have to have been taken within the previous 48 hours. Thanks, Sue. Yup, frustrating, as you say. I personally would have thought that your image could well have sold for news within that timescale. Hope that you have it well keyworded as I have seen a number of searches on Alamy for 'horse-meat scandal' and similar since that time. The 48 hour rule does apply generally, but where there are images which are older but might be saleable and relevant they may be added to the feed if the Live News team decides there is nothing else and they may be saleable in place of anything else (I've seen this before). Hence my submission when I saw that nothing suitable was available on either Alamy or 3 other big agencies, and that no other news submissions had been made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 even though they already have a ref #. and are searchable (and therefore saleable, I guess?!) This happened to my a month or so ago (images I thought relevant but the news team differed) so although one could find them they were flagged as "This image is not for sale" until they had gone through the regular QC process. I'm pleased to say they passed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losdemas Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 They might be in with your "On Sale" images. I've only submitted once for news and after the 48 hours when they appeared there was a period of time when they were just not anywhere online. By the way, yours do have the little warning in the zoom that they are reportage and therefore not necessarily perfect. So I would guess that they will not go through QC. Paulette They were, Paulette, but now they're not! See my follow-up post... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 I had a single image deemed "not-newsworthy" (fair enough) two years ago, and it ended up in the regular QC queue. It subsequently failed and I spent a month you-know-where. I haven't had any rejections since then, so don't know if this policy is still in place. However, if it is, I think that it should be changed -- i.e. rejected news images should be automatically deleted, and then we can decide whether or not we want to resubmit them as regular stock images. To me, this seems a fairer (and easier for all concerned) way of doing things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 i.e. rejected news images should be automatically deleted, and then we can decide whether or not we want to resubmit them as regular stock images. To me, this seems a fairer (and easier for all concerned) way of doing things. Good idea. It's Alamy's party so if they decide they feel a subject isnt newsworthy enough its up to them, but sometimes the line is blurred. I have had images of events which made the front pages of the news here removed for being too parochial whilst on the same a dead leaf in a park in the UK went through. Frustrating for a number of reasons but its their choice, their party and when all is said and done the dead leaf is a weather pic and weather images in the UK seem to be where the money is. But such removals do make one risk averse, and I have placed images elsewhere and not here which have made the nationals because I reckoned the news team would just sluice them through to general stock as not newsworthy enough. I'm not a news photographer by any stretch, but my concern is that Alamy sends mixed messages when it automatically turns rejected news images into regular stock images after saying that news images are judged by different standards that stock uploads. Perhaps I'm missing something, though, and perhaps this policy has already been changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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