Advice and tips

Picture needs - social issues

James Allsworth — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:10:00 GMT

The key to making images of social issues commercially viable, aside from shooting creatively, is obtaining model releases to have available for the client. Without releases, any images depicting difficult social issues will likely be deemed unsuitable for sensitive usages. Having releases should therefore be a priority for you.

'Social issues' is a fairly broad term but some subjects that fit within it would be:

Homelessness
Domestic abuse
Street violence
Drug abuse
Alcoholism, binge drinking, under-age drinking
Teen issues including sex and relationships
Stress
Financial trouble, unemployment
Crime
Protests
Poverty
Loneliness
Discrimination in the work place
Racism
Immigration
Healthcare for the disabled

The list is not exhaustive but should give you a good general idea - remember, releases here are the key in addition to shooting creatively to depict a concept or message.

VMRelease™ now accepted at Alamy

James Allsworth - Video Content Executive — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:42:00 GMT

VMRelease™The need to have releases for your content is becoming increasingly important to clients in today's market, but carrying around print outs and pens on top of your camera gear can be an added hassle that you just don't need.

We're therefore happy to announce that we are now accepting releases produced by VMRelease, providing you with a convenient way to add value to your shots via an intuitive iPhone app that lets you produce releases on the go.

Use the app to create your own personal or company profile, capture images of your subject/property, input contact details, obtain signatures, send and store, all in 6 simple steps. Once you transfer your releases from the app, you can upload them to Alamy in the usual way via the "Assign release(s)" tab via image attributes in "Manage Images".

For more information visit the VMRelease website.

Looking for someone to scan your images?

Rob Singer - Contributor Services Assistant — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:22:00 GMT

Please note Alamy do not benefit financially in any way from this deal. The full details of the offer are listed below, but should you need any more information then please email colour4colour.

We'd like to offer a 15% discount to all images processed for submission to Alamy, when using our drum scanning services for transparency and negative formats.

The offer is applicable to all our Pay As You Go Drum Scan Bundles - and members can purchase a Bundle from 10 scans to 200 scans.

Full details of the packages can be found here.

Our contact details for the offer are:

miriam@colour4colour.com
tel number: 0845 094 6532

***This offer only runs to the end of August***

Are you still interpolating your images?

Alamy QC Team — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:20:00 GMT

© dbimages In May 2010 we reduced our minimum file size for submissions to 24MB (uncompressed). We have noticed that a number of contributors are still interpolating (upsizing) their files when this is not necessary.

Interpolating your images is one of the main reasons for a QC failure. It can cause your images to look soft and/or lacking in definition and reveal interpolation artefacts.

We strongly advise contributors that if your camera produces a file size of 24MB or more please do not interpolate your images. Also please note that we do not require you to "downsize" to this size if your camera produces larger files.

For more information about this please see our previous blog

Regards,

Alamy QC Team

Submitting Images from below par cameras

Alamy QC team — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:50:00 GMT

The Quality Control (QC) team receive images from a vast array of digital cameras. Unfortunately there are some cameras that are not capable of producing images of the standard required to pass Alamy QC.

We’d like to remind contributors that we do not accept images from compact cameras. Contributors trying to submit images from these cameras will fail QC for reasons such as; interpolation artefacts, soft and lacking definition, noise etc. This is because these cameras have much smaller/more populated imaging sensors and require a higher pixel count. Images from compact cameras/bridge cameras present poor image quality, when compared with a DSLR camera of 6 megapixels or more. This is due to their smaller sensor size and poorer quality optics. Images usually display excessive digital noise, interpolation artifacts and chromatic aberration (coloured fringing).

Realistically, only the highest-end digital compacts have a better than average chance of passing QC and this is when they are shot purely in RAW and used in perfect shooting/lighting conditions.

Please see our Alamy Recommended Digital Camera List, and remember cameras need to be used at their optimum settings and the images carefully processed using professional imaging software. This list is updated on a regular basis as we monitor new cameras as and when they are released.

If your camera does not feature on this list please assume that it will not be up to Alamy's QC standards. Please note that there are some cameras that can produce very borderline results. These cameras will not feature on our lists as we have seen examples of images both passing and failing QC.

Useful links:

Alamy Submission Guidelines

Unsuitable Camera List

QC improvements

Alamy QC team — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:40:00 GMT

We have always been resolutely transparent about our QC policy, which makes it extremely quick and easy to get your images onto Alamy. The amount of time spent waiting for your QC result is typically much shorter than most if not all other image stock agencies.

In recent weeks we have actually been able to speed up the process of passing images through QC and onto display on the site. We have achieved this by trialling a number of various mechanisms which give us the ability to expedite submissions from contributors who continually pass Quality Control (QC).

This is a win - win situation for both Alamy and its contributors as we are able to add record numbers of technically sound sellable imagery onto the site for customers to browse and purchase.

Going forward, we shall be prioritising the work of contributors who repeatedly pass QC. This new system means that contributors with a poor QC history will find they have to wait up to 28 working days to receive their QC result.

It can be used as an indication that if the wait time for your QC result is over a week then the likelihood is that you have not passed QC on this occasion.

If it does turn out this is the case we would ask you to check your QC failure reason, acknowledge the problem, check every image at 100%, rectify it (if possible) and re-submit. Please note, submitting previously failed images with no changes or repeatedly failing may lead to your account being temporarily suspended.

We would like to clarify that these measures are not being taken because there is a backlog of imagery.

Please remember, the Alamy QC process is here to spot check a sample of your images. As a contributor the onus is on you to check that each individual image meets our QC criteria.

How to prepare images for Alamy.

Passing QC - it's easy!

YPA announce launch of new UK website and mentoring programme for young photographers

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:45:00 GMT

Alamy has been a long standing supporter of the YPA and we are pleased to announce details of their latest initiatives in the UK.

See their Press Release below.

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YPA website and mentoring programme

We are delighted to announce that The Young Photographers’ Alliance (YPA) arts charity has now formally been established in the UK. Today we are launching our new website www.youngphotographersalliance.org.uk complete with a total re-brand. On our new site, we are launching our YPA Membership scheme and calling for entries for this summer’s 2011 Mentoring Programme.

YPA helps young photographers aged between 18 and 29 bridge the gap between their passion for photography and professional success. Led by industry professionals, YPA provides young photographers with access to practical industry knowledge, resources, and contacts in order to help them to build successful and sustainable careers. Our main focal activities are our Mentoring Programme and our Folio Review.

In order to support the largest number of aspiring, young photographers, YPA has developed a unique membership scheme. Members are able to apply to our programmes and they also get discounts from leading photographic suppliers and access to the Members’ Area of our site. Our Members' Area provides crucial industry standards information as well as technical, creative and business advice from accomplished photographers, editors, art buyers, gallery directors, and agents. Here we feature advice from Rankin, Alex Proud, and the photographic directors of Vogue, GQ, and Condé Nast Traveller to name a few.

Although YPA initially ran a small preliminary Mentoring Programme in 2010, this month we are formally launching the full-scale scheme in the UK. The Mentoring Programme links small teams of promising young photographers with established photographers and picture editors. The young photographers are assigned a common creative brief and they work with their mentors over the course of 2-3 months to produce a cohesive final project. This year we'll have two teams in London and one team in Glasgow working to an "Energy" brief. Our mentors include award-winning fashion, portrait, and advertising photographer, John Wright, Independent on Sunday Picture Editor, Sophie Batterbury, and leading reportage photographer, Justin Sutcliffe

The online application system for the Mentoring Programme is a key feature of the new YPA site. Creative agency, Mouth developed the brand identity and designed and built the website. YPA UK founder and director, Erin Moroney says, “It was really important to create a brand that was more modern and relevant to creative British youths so we could successfully attract the young photographers we are trying to help! We are thrilled with the new site and we can't wait to kick of this year's Mentoring Programme.”

The closing date for applications to the 2011 YPA Mentoring Programme is 25 June. www.youngphotographersalliance.org.uk

New German website and customer support

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Mon, 16 May 2011 12:58:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce the launch of Alamy’s German website www.alamy.de. The collection and all the functionality and information are the same as with the Alamy.com site, but now customers can search and read in German.

The good news for contributors is that you do not need to do anything. Our system translates your keywords so there is no need for you non-German speakers to reach for your phrase books!

There is no need to add German keywords alongside your English keywords, in fact it will be detrimental to your chances if you do so.

Also, there is no change to the commission structure as a result of this expansion, standard commision remains at 40% to Alamy and 60% to you, the photographer.

Please note that whilst we have employed German speaking customer service staff to assist our German clients we do not have German speaking support for photographers at present. Also, the contributor facing areas of the site have not been translated.

Read the official press release on our site.

Are you still getting cheques? Try funds transfer instead – it's much better

Rob Singer - Contributor Services Assistant — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:36:00 GMT

They get lost in the post
They can take days or weeks to arrive
They are vulnerable to fraud
Banks are now charging more money for cheques
If they get lost banks charge to stop them and more again to reissue them
Each time you change address you need to keep us informed otherwise the cheque won’t reach you

At Alamy we encounter these problems on a regular basis. Funds transfer is more efficient for you because;

Payment doesn’t get lost
Payment is much faster
Payment is much safer
Banks don’t charge as much to send transfers
If your bank details are incorrect we know straight away and we can inform you

You can change your payment details to funds transfer by going to your My Alamy and then selecting "Change your payment and tax details".

Please email Member Services if you have any questions about this.

Change to model release filter

Alan Capel - Head of Content — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:29:00 GMT

We have released a change to the search results when the model release filter is applied. Previously if you applied this filter, you only saw images which have a model release.

Now the search results will return images with model releases PLUS images which are annotated by contributors as not having a person/people in the image. The reason we have done this is that we have found that some customers are in the habit of keeping MR checked. This meant they had a massively reduced set of images when searching for images that do not have people in them so hence will not be model released (frogs, trees, computers, beaches, cups of tea etc)

This highlights the need to be accurate in your identification of whether there are people in the image or not.

This change is only in place on the customer facing search results, Manage Images behaviour remains unchanged