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Would appreciate some feedback


Nikolas_G

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Hi All,

 

I would very much appreciate some feedback on my portfolio. So far I am with Alamy for one year, sold 1 pic out of 29 zooms. I recall on the old forum someone mentioning roughly one sale for every 4 zooms.

 

Thanks

Nikolas

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Hi Nikolas,

 

I took a quick glance.

 

You are sure good at grabbing news photos of people and political action in Greece. Quite impressed.

 

Some studio / tabletop photos are underexposed, though (Fava beans, books, etc). You may be able to correct the white balance.

 

Overall I think you should sell more - especially of the first mentioned category. You mention one sale of 29 zooms, but I more than sense that it has something to do with your captions/descriptions and keywords. Some images lack the essential keywords - others have rather unimportant ones. I cannot see your main and comprehensive keywords, of course. But I would do some extensive work on the keywording, if I were you. Remember, news images are perhaps even better in your portfolio years after.

 

A great variety in your portfolio is also a very good idea.

 

 

Niels

 

And PS added later: Living in Greece you have the great advantage of selecting the sunny days with a blue sky to photograph the Acropolis area - tourists may have to be satisfied with the grey days. But the sellers will be the blue skies or the appropriate violent skies.

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I think your captions and keywords could be improved. For example, "helicopter" is the first keyword that comes to (my) mind for an image showing a helicopter (CKX2FC).

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Just a first impression, some great subject matter and shots (protests etc) but many of your images look devilish dark on my screen,  Presume you adjust exposure to get a nicely balanced histogram when processing raw files?

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Thanks so much everyone for the feedback. Much appreciated. I sure need to do some work on keywords. I have noticed I often put details on the essential kwords field. I also found out that I had the alamy third party resellers unchecked :/  

 

Just a first impression, some great subject matter and shots (protests etc) but many of your images look devilish dark on my screen,  Presume you adjust exposure to get a nicely balanced histogram when processing raw files?

Bryan, some night protest pics are surely underxposed but as it is news I am always reluctant to pass the line of editing an image. Then you get high ISOs, much noise and if I add some exposure it may get too noisy.

 

 

Two thoughts:

 

Woman breastfeeding in public was one of the more salable in first few pages.

Not for the protest, but for the "daily life" illustration.

10K varied images at this level of salability = daily licenses, IMO.

 

This image hurt, IMO, by smile as it doesn't go with sign:

(of course, it still could be your 1 sale)

 

D4161K.jpg

 

If someone goes smiley on me at protest,

I tell them to be serious for photo...

Jeff these are not my pics, you must have clicked on another contributor's images :)

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CORRECTED RESPONSE:

 

Two thoughts:

 

a. you are working photojournalist...?

Look for more daily life situations within your news shooting, IMO.

b. first three pages mostly protests, a greater variety of subject matter

will yield more licenses, IMO.  10K images = maybe 1 license daily

Yes, I am working as a pj. I see what you mean though, I have to emphasize in variety. Thanks.

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Hello Nikolas_G - I enjoyed visiting your portfolio, particularly the news/PJ shots.

 

Bryan mentioned how some of your (news) images appear rather dark.

Many certainly seem taken under challenging lighting conditions - something I easily relate to. So, without knowing what your equipment is:

 

Aside from when news events are changing second-to-second: Do you take low-light news shots using a variety of light metering - overall, pinpoint (on face, a light area such as sign, a dark area but not too dark for camera to find something to focus on...) It could be worth seeing what image you come up with - noise & all...

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@ Phiippe Thanks for your feedback.

 

Regarding the news images, as it news, I always have to include "athens, greece" in the caption, as per the 5W's(who, where etc) So I guess you mean once a reasonable time has passed I should change the caption to a "stock phot caption". Good idea, hadn't thought about it.

 

 "I'm afraid most news/PJ shots are already outdated after a (few) day(s). Why would someone - in August - publish a picture of a Greek demonstration which took place in June or even in 2012? Sure, it's always possible, but will a customer not rather be looking at AMNA (Athens-Macedonian News Agency) instead of Alamy for Greek news/PJ shots?"

I have sold to Le Monde a 6 moths old photo. And have also sold many times to other publications news photos that sell as archive, used for feature articles. So I guess you are not saying I should delete old news photos. :/  

 

@ Ann

 

Hello Nikolas_G - I enjoyed visiting your portfolio, particularly the news/PJ shots.

Bryan mentioned how some of your (news) images appear rather dark.
Many certainly seem taken under challenging lighting conditions - something I easily relate to. So, without knowing what your equipment is:

Aside from when news events are changing second-to-second: Do you take low-light news shots using a variety of light metering - overall, pinpoint (on face, a light area such as sign, a dark area but not too dark for camera to find something to focus on...) It could be worth seeing what image you come up with - noise & all...

Thanks so much Ann,

 

Makes me happy you liked my pics. :)

In fact I most often use center weighted metering and yes, when I can, I take different shots. I suppose you consider underexposed the night photos, am I right? (I use a nikon d3100 btw)

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Nikolas - I use Nikons also, and strongly suggest you give SPOT metering and Matrix metering a good tryout for news/PJ.

Most of the time I use Aperture Priority with Spot Metering, typically on key face, and if I see that doesn't work for a particular situation, then I switch to Matrix Metering.

 

And I agree with Philippe about adjusting news captions once the photos are no longer current.  (I'm behind in doing that myself.)   All the best - Ann

 

@ Ann

 

Hello Nikolas_G - I enjoyed visiting your portfolio, particularly the news/PJ shots.

 

Bryan mentioned how some of your (news) images appear rather dark.

Many certainly seem taken under challenging lighting conditions - something I easily relate to. So, without knowing what your equipment is:

 

Aside from when news events are changing second-to-second: Do you take low-light news shots using a variety of light metering - overall, pinpoint (on face, a light area such as sign, a dark area but not too dark for camera to find something to focus on...) It could be worth seeing what image you come up with - noise & all...

Thanks so much Ann,

 

Makes me happy you liked my pics. :)

In fact I most often use center weighted metering and yes, when I can, I take different shots. I suppose you consider underexposed the night photos, am I right? (I use a nikon d3100 btw)

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