Really upset from Alamy

[drskn08]

Hello all,
I know many of you are selling images in alamy and other outlets. me too. I was so happy with alamy in 2012 when i actively submitted images in around april-may after trying in micro.. micro sites like shutterstock (SS) has been tough and not that fruitful for me at least for the effort they ask.. they want professional quality top notch images.. from a batch of such images they accept couple of images and rejected all for silly reasons (at least what i think)
Then i astarted concentrating in alamy. I earned about 4 times from alamy in the duration of april to dec 2012 than what i earned from shutterstock in whole 2012 with far less downloads.. it was so encouraging
And for this year my images are still being downloaded in alamy, but whether it RM or RF, i have never earned more than 2$ net/ image download.. and i am not talking about NU(novel uses). and none of the downloaded images are available in any other stock site. Then whats the use to keep uploading to alamy as alamy itself giving priority to micro RF and better to say same priority to a microstock images and a RM or Rf image which is not available anywhere else.
What are your view guys ?

[David Kilpatrick]

As you may know, I've been an Alamy contributor since 2002 with three other family members shooting and represented on my site. We now have over 18,000 images on line. By 2006 standards, we should be earning £20,000 a year for that but the overall dilution of the market has been immeasurable.

However, despite both the reduction in relative numbers of sales per 1000 images and the lowering of fees, there's no issue with $2 per image or anything like that. Typically, $30-$150 per use, then take 50% commission off.

But... checking a year's sales, I find that four sales to India have gross values $4, $5, $6 and $7 and all are to magazines. These figures are maybe half the lowest UK newspaper-scheme, and a quarter of typical Russian, Czech, Brazil, etc sales (and a tenth of USA or mainstream European sales). So, if most of your sales have been to India, that would explain it.

Don't give up as you have an equal chance of recovering to higher averages.

David

[drskn08]

Thank you David.. do your images represent you guys in micro world as well ?
Recently i joined photoshelter and most of my time (when i am free from photography or free from my hospital job) goes to photoshelter website and backlinking, blogging to improve seo and that seems to work as well because in few days some of my pages are coming in 1st google page (for a keyword trails) but don't know if photoshelter will also work or not. According to some of alamy/photoshelter contribs like john (jsmitch and others) ae doing well/ satsifactory in ps just by building backlinks etc..
can you (david) or other throw some light on photoshelter ?

[Dr. Harout]

...or free from my hospital job...

What do you do there, Saurabh. Are you a physician?

[drskn08]

Yes Dr Harout.. i have done my graduation (MBBS) from medical school/Indian university and preparing for all india pg medical entrance to get a seat for post graduation and also working as medical officer in a hospital here

[Dr. Harout]

Yes Dr Harout.. i have done my graduation (MBBS) from medical school/Indian university and preparing for all india pg medical entrance to get a seat for post graduation and also working as medical officer in a hospital here

Wish you all the luck my dear colleague.

[David Kilpatrick]

Dr SKN - our images are not present on microstock sites except for about 13 images placed on iStockphoto some years ago to test the return. In principle, I have never been willing to allow any work to be sold on microstock portals. I am editor of a professional photographic magazine and a Fellow of the two main British professional organisations; to sell on microstock would be degrading the status of photography, and damaging the interests of all photographers now and in the future.

Also, I've always been a journalist - observer. Microstock doesn't favour realistic images. It wants cliché images which just fit the common things business buyers look for. They also have to look like stock photography. For all viewpoints, it's not an area which interests me. I would rather get my guitar and busk on a street corner in Edinburgh!

David

[drskn08]

Thank you Dr Harout. I really need the wishes (both for medical and photography fields) from my wellwishers. I appeared for PG entrance but i could not attain the rank to get a seat for general medicine or pediatrics (which are the fields of my interest) and i was getting ENT and MD dermatology what i did not opt for. Lets see this year.

Hello David, as i already keep saying in alamy and other forums, i was unaware of micro/macro etc when i started photography so i searched internet and asked some photogs and all i came to know about microstock. Really, how can a photographer servive and depends on micro for all his earning and definitely why buyers will pay more if they get good quality images from micro.. anyways it has been debated for so many times without any conclusion.
I can understand about amateaurs but why professional photogs are also involved in micro ? You know many well known photographers like John Lund etc are selling in micro.. don't they realize about damage to photographers' market ? (what already has been done...)