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Older images...do yours sell?


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Another thing to consider, particularly with travel images, is that some places actually looked better years ago than they do now. Quite often "restoration" and "development" end up ruining once-picturesque archaeological and historical sites. If you got there "before they built the road" (as the saying goes), then you might have some hidden treasures in your files. At least that has been my experience.

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Another thing to consider, particularly with travel images, is that some places actually looked better years ago than they do now. Quite often "restoration" and "development" end up ruining once-picturesque archaeological and historical sites. If you got there "before they built the road" (as the saying goes), then you might have some hidden treasures in your files. At least that has been my experience.

The other thing is that often places in the past allowed photography where nowadays it is forbidden

 

Kumar

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A third of the images that I have sold this year were taken, and loaded onto Alamy, prior to 2010. During this period my portfolio has more than doubled. Makes you wonder why we bother to buy new kit.

 

 

dov

 

In five years time one assumes you will be seliing this years production - a bit like whisky or wine!

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Didn't I see a thread recently where someone was purging his collection? Oh, dear, I hope he didn't purge the older ones based on age alone.

 

Just sold, for the first time, an image that was part of my initial submission to Alamy. It has also never had a zoom. Cannot understand why people purge or delete when you can open another pseudo and put those images into it. Apart from everything else it is less work.

 

dov

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About two-thirds of my pics on Alamy are scans and provide the majority of my licence sales, with timeless landscapes from the 80s and 90s being used regularly.  

Other licence sales have been of more unusual subjects from years ago.  One image from 1970, of a top racing cyclist has licenced three times for books in the past few years, whilst a pic of Concorde in flight in the original BA livery taken in 1980 was used recently for a book.

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Old photos certainly do sell, in fact in my collection they account for almost all the sales. I do a little jig about the office when I sell a relatively recent shot shouting something along the lines of "There's life in the old dog yet"

 

Glad to hear I'm not the only one. I'd say that my old images outsell my recent ones by about 10:1.

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I have only sold 3 out of my 319 2014 images.

 

It's rare for me to sell an image that I have taken that year.

 

I've sold most from 2009. I've only sold 8 images from 2013/14 from a total of 1565 images.

 

John.

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I guess a lot of what we shoot is seasonal so it will be a minimum of 6-9months before researchers will be looking for the topic again. For example (except for news) this years autumn pics will have no market until about June next year at the earliest. Similarly with the Diwali, Christmas, winter and so on; shoot now, sell later. I guess designers are looking for spring, Easter etc now.

 

My sister when she worked as a designer in retail here in the UK, her work year was around 4-6 months ahead of the real world. She was workingon  Christmas when she left for her summer holiday!

 

But that doesn't explain the 4-5 year wait before stuff sells :huh:

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