A is for.......Alamy:

Passed -Flora the Singleton Giant

I have recently started to upload some images to British agency Alamy. More premium priced than microstock they are probaly best described as a Midstock agency. Though they take any kind of stock subjects they are probaly best known for travel and editorial images -with frequent credits in the British national newspapers.

Now, this is not a new sign up for me. I opened my account at Alamy in January 2008 back when my only other agencies were Snap Village (deceased) and Picture Nation (deceased). They were British, took editorial and anybody could upload on line. It all looked good until I started to see their frankly Byzantine upload requirements. You couldn't just upload your images as you could with other agencies. Instead a curious upsizing was required for which you had to buy special software (Genuine Fractals was their recommended one). Cue lots of instructions about compressed/uncompressed sizes which I didn't really understand then (and still don't!). Alamy went on hold before it even began for me. Anyway, years passed and all that kerfuffle was eventually scrapped. Now you just need a 6 megapixel (or more) camera and you're good to go. Provided your camera is on their "Approved Camera List" that is. My Nikon D80 is, I'm pleased to say.

So, start uploading then David? Well, no because about that time microsite Yaymicro announced a

Failed - chromatic aberration

partnership deal with Alamy - I was happy for them to take their cut for saving me all that time uploading and keywording. This would have been a sound plan if they had ever actually put any of my images on Alamy. After a year or so I emailed them and they assured me they would get there eventually but it would take time. I'm guessing they were cherry picking best images for Alamy and not just mirroring their whole library there. More time passed and still no Alamy action and in the meanwhile Yay have virtually sunk into oblivion (for me) so I'm not sure how much longer I'll even be uploading to them.

Right, time to upload direct. Start with uploading four images as a test. Just upload (you only have to add captions/keywords after approval). My test came a cropper when one of the Eiffel Tower failed their Quality Control (QC) for chromatic aberration (fringing). It had been approved at every other site I belong to. However, there was no wait period and I was free to upload another four images. I just re-uploaded the passed ones from the first batch and added another hopeful. These passed and I was in. Once in you can upload as many images as you want at any time. At this point you can add your data and wait for the next server update for them to go on sale.

Now for the important bit: Alamy rules do not allow you to set a different license type (for the same image) to what you are selling elsewhere. If those images are Royalty Free on microstock then you must set a Royalty Free license on Alamy. This throws up another problem because Alamy require editorial images to be Rights Managed - ruling out a large chunk of my portfolio which are Royalty Free on the micros. You could, of course, shoot some editorial just for Alamy and that would be fine.****

Passed - Pigs head with apple

The second important thing is their Quality Control (review) system. They do not check every image but if they do reject just one they also reject every other in that batch AND in all other batches awaiting approval. Harsh, but there it is. My strategy for now is to literally upload one image and await the outcome. Reviews are usually a day or less. Once I get a feel for their standards I'll up my
numbers. Be aware that if you get a sufficient number of QC fails you will be suspended from uploading for a while or ultimately face account closure.

My image choice strategy, for now, is to choose a few images from each area of my port (e.g. each Greek island etc). I'll report back how it all goes. Regards, David.

****EDIT: RF Licensing is coming. See my post here Alamy update

Persisting with Picfair:

The Sinceros -my most viewed image on Picfair

When I first posted about British photo agency Picfair back in November 2013 I was certainly full of hope for this new venture and even more so when I got my first sale just a couple of weeks later. So, time for an update.

Well, first the headline fact, I have yet to have had my second sale there despite my portfolio now numbering some 870 images. Am I giving up on them? Not at this stage and here is why.

Founded by former journalist Benji Lanyado in 2013 the site has gradually grown -both in the number of images available and the team itself. Very much a one man band at the start Picfair now has a number of people on its team which you can see on the "About" section of their site. Originally launched in Beta the site is now fully functioning as an image selling agency and received a substantial boost of investment last Summer (read about that here http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/08/picfair-raises-520k-to-take-on-getty-with-an-image-marketplace/ ). Ignore the "taking on Getty" headline -I'm pretty sure that they are not actually claiming that!

So what's great about Picfair? Well the two big attractions to me are firstly that there are no reviews to go through. You get the images online and for sale that you want, not filtered through somebody elses opinion or taste. Just like having your own photo selling site in fact. Secondly, and most importantly, you get to choose your own selling price and receive 100% of that amount (Picfair make their money by adding a percentage on top to the buyer -currently 20%).

This choose your own price feature does has its own set of issues, however. Firstly, some great photographers are setting their prices really low. I have seen some stunning images being offered at little above the minimum allowed pricing of £1. This doesn't make it easy for those of us trying to get a reasonable fee for our images. Which leads to the second (big) issue -just what should you price your images at? All mine are at a standard £10 per image. Now for a small use on a blog that's a high price compared to purchasing from a Micro site. However, the standard Picfair license doesn't offer any variations so that £10 image could just as easily be used on the front page of a National newspaper.

Ideally, I'd like to experiment with different price points to see if that makes a difference to sales, however what Picfair currently lacks is a global price change facility (unlike FineArtAmerica where you can reset your entire portfolio pricing with one click). You can, of course, edit your pricing image by image but there is no way I am doing that 870 times! I could try just changing the pricing on some images but I am really loathe to set up a two tier system suggesting that "these are my best ones at £10 and this is a bit rubbish at £2".

So, for now I am persisting with Picfair. It is still fairly early days for them as a business and I see no reason why the site will not gradually attract more buyers -especially given the fantastic quality of many of the images being submitted. The batch upload is quick and efficient (and they now offer FTP on request to those that want that -I don't) so they do not represent a big demand on my time to keep uploading. Hopefully, I'll have some sales news to report in the not too distant future. Regards, David. EDIT: Click on the comments below for a response from Picfair :)

Pro's: Choose your own pricing/No reviews/Prospects for growth
Con's: No global price change/ Uploading no longer works on IE9 (a minor gripe and maybe just me)

Istock Editorial Update:

The Editorial collection at Istock has now been live to buyers for some weeks now so time for an update on how it's going for me.
To date I have had 26 images accepted. It could have been more but, to be honest, I rarely use all my 18 upload slots per week -the slow upload process and dis-ambiguation tend to try my patience. Of those rejected most failed on technical reasons (though they were good enough for other sites). Three failed because the date on my camera was set incorrectly causing a conflict between my caption and the (incorrect) Exif data. I have re-submitted those with an explanatory note to the reviewer. My best selling images of the 2009 Tentertainment music festival were rejected because the reviewer felt that photographic permission was required for the event. For the first time I have used the Scout appeal system for those -pointing out that it is a free local event held in a public park (and not a commercial event like Glastonbury) though some weeks later I have yet to hear back from them.

Total Editorial sales so far stand at 8 (netting $9.13 in commission) and in fact April is my BME at Istock because of this with, finally, the prospect of a payout in the not too distant future. Despite the low commission most of the sales have pulled in between $1.50 and $2.00 for me.
Best seller so far is my Estate Agents signs (shown in the previous post) with 4 sales to date.

So, despite all the negativity around towards Istock, it does look like their Editorial collection is attracting buyers and that it is worth my time uploading there (not something I could have really said in the past). Regards, David.

Yay! First sale on Yaymicro

I have spent the last few weeks uploading a lot of my portfolio to http://yaymicro.com/ as I have a feeling this site could start to lift off this year. They only launched last year so are still really new in business terms. They have a number of new developments including the all important views counter and say they have new funding which they are putting towards marketing. Uploading and editing is fast and easy so I have been readily able to up my online portfolio from the 38 files I had to nearly 700. Was it worth it? Well I had my first sale yesterday, netting commisssion of 2.5 euros. Hopefully, the start of good things to come! The picture? A Tamworth pig. Quite possibly purchased in connection to the Swine flu epidemic. Regards, David