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Keeping with pseudonyms


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Afternoon all

 

Trying to get my work on Alamy moving. I know that I take saleable images as every other agency outperforms Alamy.

 

So, looking at what I have here I decided to sort out the cr@p into one pseudo and leave the rest under my main one.

 

Has anyone else that split up a collection noticed a difference with doing this? I'm also going to have a good look through the keywords too to see what can be done to improve them.

 

I'd be interested on what people think of my work too as to whether or not they believe there is saleable work.

 

Any input is always gratefully received!

 

Jools

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I have a cr@p pseudo and have a systematic clear out of my main pseudos at least twice a year. I sometimes even load doubtful images or similars straight into cr@p.

 

The advantage is that it stops my ratings dropping too far on my main pseudos.  Sometimes I find that I get hits on my cr@p pseudo as a result of which I upgrade those pix. 

 

Win win as I see it.

 

dov

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About a year ago I moved what I thought were less saleable images (crap if you will) to a secondary pseudonym. The result is that that pseudonym had more sales in the last year than my main pseudonym and also has a higher ranking now.

 

So maybe there is saleable crap too?

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Please pardon the dumb question, but since I haven't explored pseudonyms at all, this is something I'm not clear about. When a picture is sold, is it credited to your real name or to the pseudonym? That is, will the credit line be "Alamy/your real name" or "Alamy/pseudonym" on publication of the image? Hopefully it's the former since I imagine that there are some pretty imaginative pseudonyms being used.

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Please pardon the dumb question, but since I haven't explored pseudonyms at all, this is something I'm not clear about. When a picture is sold, is it credited to your real name or to the pseudonym? That is, will the credit line be "Alamy/your real name" or "Alamy/pseudonym" on publication of the image? Hopefully it's the former since I imagine that there are some pretty imaginative pseudonyms being used.

 

The pseudo is credited (if there's a credit at all...). And, yes, there are some daft pseudos in print... which may be another reason why it's just Alamy that's credited...

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Please pardon the dumb question, but since I haven't explored pseudonyms at all, this is something I'm not clear about. When a picture is sold, is it credited to your real name or to the pseudonym? That is, will the credit line be "Alamy/your real name" or "Alamy/pseudonym" on publication of the image? Hopefully it's the former since I imagine that there are some pretty imaginative pseudonyms being used.

 

The pseudo is credited (if there's a credit at all...). And, yes, there are some daft pseudos in print... which may be another reason why it's just Alamy that's credited...

 

Thanks. I had a feeling that might be the case. So it makes sense to choose pseudonyms that potentially give both you and Alamy some positive exposure. Having a picture credited to "Alamy/Crap" probably isn't such a good idea. I've had all my images under my own name only since 2007, so I wouldn't know where to start with pseudonyms. However, now that my collection is becoming more diverse, I'm thinking that I should experiment. Any hints on what kinds of pseudonyms to use (or to avoid)?

 

P.S. Hope this isn't too far off-topic.

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About a year ago I moved what I thought were less saleable images (crap if you will) to a secondary pseudonym. The result is that that pseudonym had more sales in the last year than my main pseudonym and also has a higher ranking now.

 

So maybe there is saleable crap too?

 

Depends on your definition of "crap" ;)

 

Judging your images, you know very well how to handle your camera. To be honest, I can't imagine you have crap. Because some didn't sell yet, doesn't mean they are inferior.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Thank you very much for the compliment Philippe.

 

What I meant was, that for example I had 3 similar images of the same subject/location and would move the one I thought least likely to sell to the secondary pseudonym, then a few months later it would sell. I guess my point being that the theory of splitting up your collection into a primary and a secondary pseudonym only works if you can predict what will sell, which is almost impossible in my experience.

 

Let's say it keeps us busy ;-)

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I have two pseudos which I consider to be "main" and "secondary". Every so often I pull older images out of the "main" that have done nothing, and put them into the "secondary". Also, the "secondary" acts as a platform for the lesser, similar images. I get more zooms and sales from the "main" so, I guess it does some good to separate images from a ranking point of view.

 

I don't consider any of the "lesser" images to be cr@p, as it has been proven that one mans cr@p is another mans artwork, and as most of us who have been doing this for a few years have found, its always the picture you least expect to sell, that sells!

 

I have had several instances of old pictures that I moved to "secondary" that I thought unlikely to sell, only to find that they sold a couple of months later. The world of stock photography is indeed a strange one, and one that never fails to amuse me, one way or another  :)

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How about "johmmitchellimages" or "john mitchell images"?

 

Allan

 

Yes, I guess that just adding something to your name is a possibility. That way you are still getting some credit if the publisher uses the pseudonym. Shall have to give this some more thought. I can see where pseudonym-juggling might become just another image-processing, keywording, etc. avoidance strategy. I've got too many of those already.

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Some years ago I was actually advised by Alamy to split my growing collection and have a pseudo for older images which haven't received much attention allowing my best pseudo to gain a higher rank.  I find the tactic works very well and now have several pseudos for different purposes.  None are what I would consider to be crap (some might argue of course) but the obscure subjects might as well be in a low ranked pseudo out of the way of my best images.

 

Pearl

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Some years ago I was actually advised by Alamy to split my growing collection and have a pseudo for older images which haven't received much attention allowing my best pseudo to gain a higher rank.  I find the tactic works very well and now have several pseudos for different purposes.  None are what I would consider to be crap (some might argue of course) but the obscure subjects might as well be in a low ranked pseudo out of the way of my best images.

 

Pearl

 

I guess it pays to be proactive. It will probably take me the rest of my life to amass as many images as you have in your collection. But it sounds as if I should start looking into pseudonyms before things get totally out-of-hand. Do you include your own name -- whole or in part -- in your pseudonyms?

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It pays to have as few pseudos as you can unless they are very well-balanced in content. I had placed 350+ images which I reckoned were premium value, or which were archival (classics if you like), or photocomposites etc under a separate pseudo. But because of the highly specific subject matter and keywording, nearly every day this pseudo recorded 0 CTR (indeed, often near zero on found images let alone zooms). This was lowering my overall CTR disproportionately. It only takes one pseudo with 0 CTR even if has just a few images, to HALVE the Average CTR of an account with two pseudos - no matter how well the main one does. Maybe this does not matter.

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In my opinion, the propagating (uploading) of cr@p is what has caused

many of the problems the industry and the creators of images are currently

facing.

 

I do not go into a shoot or start working on a submission with the main idea

of "It will sell." As I have said many times, "I do not sell images, I and

my agents (libraries) license them for specific use.” If I cannot be 100% behind

any image that I am considering working on, I don't.

 

I do have another Pseudo that I use for what I would call more experimental work.

I have a Delete button for digital cr@p and a waste can for analogue cr@p...

 

With all of the above in mind there have been times over the years that my

assessment of an image was wrong, but that number has been small.

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It pays to have as few pseudos as you can unless they are very well-balanced in content. I had placed 350+ images which I reckoned were premium value, or which were archival (classics if you like), or photocomposites etc under a separate pseudo. But because of the highly specific subject matter and keywording, nearly every day this pseudo recorded 0 CTR (indeed, often near zero on found images let alone zooms). This was lowering my overall CTR disproportionately. It only takes one pseudo with 0 CTR even if has just a few images, to HALVE the Average CTR of an account with two pseudos - no matter how well the main one does. Maybe this does not matter.

 

Hmmm... very interesting. The plot thickens. Today my CTR is slightly above the Alamy average. Earlier this week, it was over 3X the average. This with no pseudonyms, only my real name. So it sounds as if I had better think twice before making any changes.

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It pays to have as few pseudos as you can unless they are very well-balanced in content. I had placed 350+ images which I reckoned were premium value, or which were archival (classics if you like), or photocomposites etc under a separate pseudo. But because of the highly specific subject matter and keywording, nearly every day this pseudo recorded 0 CTR (indeed, often near zero on found images let alone zooms). This was lowering my overall CTR disproportionately. It only takes one pseudo with 0 CTR even if has just a few images, to HALVE the Average CTR of an account with two pseudos - no matter how well the main one does. Maybe this does not matter.

Although My Images shows an average for all our pseudos, I undestood that Alamy's ranking was based on each pseudo, not the average of all a contributor's pseudos. If that is the case then ranking and thus views, zooms and sales on a "good" pseudo should not be harmed by another poorer performing pseudo.

 

However, now that you raised this, I'm no longer sure. Perhaps Alamy could jump in and clarify.

 

Ken

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The Alamy rank follows the pseudo.  If you play the BHZ game, you will see different placements for each pseudo.  In my case after the last reshuffle, my "A" images are at the top of page 3, and my less appealing but still useful "B" images are on page 50 (where they belong).

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If you want a pseudo but cannot come up with a sensible one, I suggest you take your middle name and then add the street you lived on as a kid.  I would be Ann Mary Cornwall (but I don't use this as a pseudo).  Hmmm...don't quite know what would happen if you were lived on Route 66!

 

Sheila 

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Personally gave up a long time ago trying to predict which images will sell and which wont and also have given up on pseudos (just more Alamy specific fluff if you ask me). I almost deleted an entire shoot once which went on to be several of my best sellers. Because I have known the location my entire life the images seemed weak to me, clearly not the case to people buying images. Also almost deleted a shot of New Zealand that ended up selling for 1200 euros on another agency.

 

I agree that the crap images should not be uploaded, but think its a case of upload them forget about them and move on to the next lot of processing. I actually think Alamy should start editing submissions, although it can be frustrating I found submitting to getty ect taught me more about stock photography than any forums or books could.

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If you want a pseudo but cannot come up with a sensible one, I suggest you take your middle name and then add the street you lived on as a kid.  I would be Ann Mary Cornwall (but I don't use this as a pseudo).  Hmmm...don't quite know what would happen if you were lived on Route 66!

 

Sheila 

 

You must have had a very stable childhood. I lived on so many streets (in several different countries) when growing up that I wouldn't know where to begin.

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It pays to have as few pseudos as you can unless they are very well-balanced in content. I had placed 350+ images which I reckoned were premium value, or which were archival (classics if you like), or photocomposites etc under a separate pseudo. But because of the highly specific subject matter and keywording, nearly every day this pseudo recorded 0 CTR (indeed, often near zero on found images let alone zooms). This was lowering my overall CTR disproportionately. It only takes one pseudo with 0 CTR even if has just a few images, to HALVE the Average CTR of an account with two pseudos - no matter how well the main one does. Maybe this does not matter.

 

Interesting!

In my case (Arterra is a tiny agency), I have several pseudos / other photographers with less than 100 images each which CTR seldom or never raise above 0 (if one of them do, they skyrocket to CTR 5 or even higher). So, I would better group them in just one pseudo which I could call "Arterra"?

 

Alamy would indeed better chime in with a clear answer.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

In the Contributor Information section, it says that AlamyRank is calculated for each pseudonym. However, there's no mention of CTR specifically. It would be helpful if Alamy could clear this up and perhaps give us some more advice on pseudos in general. Personally, I'm still somewhat confused by the whole process and its ultimate value (for me, anyway). 

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Thanks for all the input on my original question. I would have posted back earlier but family (french lunches - marathons); nappy changes and baby feeding etc have got in the way ;) In addition, I've been trying to find a spare moment to sort out what I have on Alamy.

 

So far, it seems that there are various responses to pseudonyms and their uses. It also appears that there is confusion on their exact nature, so it would be nice for Alamy to confirm their intricacies.

 

Personally, I have 2527 images on sale. Out of this I placed 884 images into a seperate pseudonym as I felt they weren't making the grade. Could I deleted them? Yes, but I've always been a believer in that there is an image for every need somewhere and so for now they will stay.

 

I've gone down the pseudonym route as following a discussion with MS they suggested it may be a way to get my collection moving.

 

Picking up on what a couple of people have said, I have recently started being a lot more careful as to when I click the shutter. Editing is not only being done on the PC but also out in the field in the form of "do I actually need to take this image?" 

 

So what's next? Well, I was curious as to what people think of the work that I have here on Alamy in comparison to my Getty stuff which sells regularly.

 

My Alamy images are here: http://tinyurl.com/p3ffat7 (the updating of what should be in each pseudo hasn't yet been fully indexed by Alamy).

 

Getty work is here: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Search/Search.aspx?assettype=image&artist=Julian+Elliott+Ethereal+Light

 

The fact that Getty, plus my other libraries, continually sell is telling me two things:

 

1) That my keywording is not up to standard and images are being buried because of badly keyworded images. I did notice some howlers as I started sorting things out from my main pseudo.

 

and/ or

 

2) That the work I have here on Alamy should maybe be somewhere else?

 

Comments; critics etc so get your guns blazing!

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A couple of thoughts, Jules. A few pix (D3K13X, say, or D97GNF) are lacking in contrast, a bit washed-out, which won't make them appealing at thumbnail size. Others (CRY5RJ, for example) are a bit drab. I think you could do with a bit of editing. Good lighting at the moment you press the shutter, followed by punchier PP...

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