Portraits sell ?

[ernest]

I have many portraits on Alamy and other stock libraries but it doesn't sell. Is it me or is it because clients are not looking for portraits ?

[Michael Ventura]

The only portraits that I have sold have been of celebrities. I am assuming you mean people portraits and not vertical oriented photos.

[ernest]

Yes I mean people portraits ( mostly people from India). And format is sometimes vertical sometimes horizontal. And no MR. Obtaining MR from people you see while travelling abroad is so boring. Asking personal informations from people you see for the first time and will never see again is a pain.

[NielsVK]

Some of your portraits on the first page of your collection don't seem to have the keyword "portrait".

[NYCat]

I love them. They are terrific. You might want to add "travel" to your keywords and "culture" where you don't have it. I think Alamy sells mostly for articles in newspapers and books so maybe the portraits are not going to be your best sellers. My wildlife "portraits" are not the ones that sell the most. What sells for me are images that I think of as "documentary" -- animal behavior rather than a pretty portrait. I would imagine it would be much the same for people. Take a look at the keywords for images similar to yours to get an idea whether you are missing keywords that might be useful.

 

Paulette

[Michael Ventura]

Yes, great portraits, by the way!  I agree with what Paulette wrote, nice points and suggestions.

[Guest]

I have many portraits on Alamy and other stock libraries but it doesn't sell. Is it me or is it because clients are not looking for portraits ?

 

You might sell the odd one to a guide book but tribal documentary photos have been done to death and were never great sellers. They might feature in the books of Time Life Photography but that's not how India or companies working/dealing with India want to portay themselves.

 

Big news, Indian businesses for example, and their people don't look or dress like you portray them. For example http://www.barclays.in/index.html

[Ed Rooney]

I too like your people pics, Ernest . . . and yours is an excellent question. (Sorry if I'm sounding gushy), but the answers you've been getting are also very enlightening. I had to have a quick look at my own sales over the years and found that I have NEVER sold what you are referring to as a portrait. 

 

Back in the day, when I was shooting film assignments, I used to shoot a lot of theater and film people and other celebes: portraits. But if, like you, if a photographer is shooting portraits as a part of a general travel shoot, it could be unrewarding, sales-wise. 

 

As other have said, shoot people but capture them doing things; let the people give scale and life to scenes. And guess what -- you do take these kind of pictures!  And how about adding some pictures of Indian food? 

 

 

 

[John Mitchell]

I don't have many portraits on Alamy, but this one leased for over $200 not all that long ago.

[Ed Rooney]

But, John -- that hombre is working; he's doing something. 

[John Mitchell]

But, John -- that hombre is working; he's doing something. 

 

Yes, he's making a psychedelic yarn painting. I agree, it's best to photograph people doing something.

 

 This friendly Huichol gentleman didn't speak English, so I got to practice my questionable Spanish as well.

[Ed Rooney]

ernest: I took a somewhat deeper look through your collect.

 

Your images look great; there is no advice you need about shooting . . . or even what to shoot. The thing is you have a small collection and you've only been with Alamy for about two years. I have not checked your keywords; there are others here who are smarter about that who may offer some suggestions. 

 

Does India sell? I have no idea. There are a half-million India images in Alamy. There are 1.6 million images here of my "little" city. This is a slow-moving game, mate. 

 

Best of luck to you.

[John Mitchell]

Adding more specific location information -- city, town, etc. -- to your captions and keywords might help. Don't forget that the "location" field is not searchable on Alamy.

 

Unfortunately, traditional travel photography is getting more difficult all the time for a slew of reasons -- i.e. saturated markets, fewer travel guides being printed, microstock, etc., etc. I guess you need shots of modern-looking Indian business people using high-tech devices these days.

 

Good luck.

[Chuck Nacke]

I would say that over 75% of my licenses on Alamy have been " Portraits" both horz. and vert.

and all of them have been of well known Westerners.  I come to Alamy out of many years of

magazine photojournalism and that is what I did for decades.

 

Chuck

[losdemas]

Of 23 reported sales to date, (how I wish that had a zero or two on the end of it!) 2 have been portraits.

 

One was used in a presentation and the other in a promotional recruitment drive.  Neither people were doing anything, but in the promo. drive image it was very clear what the job of the person was, and it was taken in extreme weather conditions - in fact, they both were.  Neither had model releases.

[John Mitchell]

Speaking of India, this from today's Picture Needs blog post:

 

"More travel shots in Asia – China, India etc with model released tourists and travel. Not just beaches, city scenes too. Also model released restaurant shots abroad."