Excessive similars? Too much competition more like

Himeji-jo (Himeji Castle), Himeji, Japan (deleted)
I have started editing the next batch of our Japan trip and so another 50-odd images are Awaiting Processing with Alamy. In the meantime I have come to a difficult decision, I am going to remove some of my images from Alamy. This is based on some consideration of AlamyRank.

The pictures illustrating this post are of Himeji Castle, probably the best castle in Japan as it was not bombed in the war and has not burnt down in recent history, and so is a stunning and almost unique site in Japan. Unfortunately it is not a unique sight for Alamy contributors as a search for Himeji castle shows 523 images. There are pictures of it in the autumn, pictures of it in the snow, pictures of it with cherry blossom and pictures of it at sunset, or at night...and so my 30 images of the place, albeit taken on a blue sky day, need to be significantly different to the others otherwise I will get lots of views (probably more than 10 views every time someone searches) and no zooms and sales. The effect on my AlamyRank would be significant.

I already put these pictures in my lesser ranked pseudonym but this morning I took the decision to remove 14 of the 30 pictures. The pictures on this post are now residing in my Alamy recycle bin awaiting deletion. I have also done a scan of some other recent pictures in my portfolio and deleted a couple of others - for example, a picture of the Lutheran Cathedral in Helsinki on a overcast day, there's 382 pictures of it on Alamy, none of which have a grey sky like mine.

The temptation to leave similars on Alamy is very strong. Once the images have passed QC they don't cost me anything to store, however the cost to my Rank - and hence my sales in the future - could be very significant. Whether I will ever learn to edit the pictures before uploading remains to be seen!

Himeji-jo (Himeji Castle), Himeji, Japan (deleted)

Before you've left the airport

Ferrari supercar on display on the Best of the Best stand at Heathrow Terminal 1, London, UK 2/2
It's taking me a long time to face more editing of Japan. I think that this is the problem with digital photography. It used to be that you paid someone else to process your pictures, but now you are expected to do it - and know how to do it - yourself.

It may also be that I overdosed on photography while we were in Japan. I have certainly never taken so many pictures, nor used such a variety of options on a camera before. The resulting mountain of pictures is barely manageable and although I have become familiar with Capture NX I still don't like the fact that you cannot simply browse the pictures quickly to edit them down. So far I have had to take the approach of setting up a batch in NX to convert everything to JPG and then use Windows Image Viewer to edit the pictures down to something reasonable, then go back to the raw image and process it. I used to use the Adobe Raw plugin in CS2 which allowed you to view a batch and mark them for deletion but it doesn't support the D300 and I am not inclined to shell out for CS3. It is a real pain that NX is so poor at the first stage of the workflow - the review.

The mountain of images is due to the fact that this holiday's photography started much earlier than normal, right in the airport terminal. That's what happens when your brain realises that every shop front, every cafe, every "scene" of everyday life is a potential money making opportunity, you go a bit nuts. So here are my airport pictures on Alamy (actually they are dull, but if you need a picture of the "Best of the Best" stand, well here you go...)


W.H.Smith Books store in Heathrow Terminal 1, London, UK


American Express Foreign Exchange counter at Heathrow Terminal 1, London, UK


P.S. I still haven't keyworded the Reading Festival pictures...I might never get to them, I don't like keywording, as if processing wasn't bad enough.

Alamy Measures Stats September 2008

September was a quiet month for me, with two weeks away from work, shooting in Japan (also known as a holiday to my fiancée). So I have loads to upload, my first 66 pictures from Japan go live tonight, I have to admit I may have taken too many pictures this time! Here is my view of Alamy for the month of September: Proportion of searches for: 1 word = 15% , average of 14.52 pages viewed 2 words = 57% , average of 15.18 pages viewed 3 words = 22% , average of 6.47 pages viewed 4 words = 5% , average of 4.57 pages viewed 5+ words = 2% , average of 12.68 pages viewed Total number of pictures at end of month: 272 Number of sales for month: 0 Average number of my pictures viewed matching query: 2.32 Total average CTR for searches in which my images appeared: 1.19% My CTR: 1.41%

Ludlow Castle tower from inside, Ludlow, UK

Proportion of searches for: 6 letter words 18.78% 5 letter words 15.92% 4 letter words 14.69% 7 letter words 13.27% 3 letter words 9.39% 8 letter words 9.39% 9 letter words 7.55% 2 letter words 5.31% 10 letter words 2.86% 11 letter words 2.04% 15 letter words 0.61% 12 letter words 0.20% Most popular words (top 5 in each position ignoring "and"): First word: christmas table father john credit Second word: christmas mountain lewis crunch Claus Third word: UK street house england christmas Fourth word: UK BINS amsterdam summer hummingbird Most popular subjects: london: (children OR family) christmas: (star OR angel OR cards OR garland) woman: (ATM OR balloons) UK: (motorway OR housewife OR football ground OR restaurant inside) recycling: (bin OR tip) plastic: (clothes OR recycling) beer: (festival OR making) baby: (stroller OR money) south: (africa: (bush OR marina OR winter) OR west trains) children playing: (outside summer OR street uk) In contrast to the stats that I can gather from my own Measures data, here is what the whole of Alamy is searching for: Most popular Alamy searches (top 5 in each position ignoring "alamy" as a search): by number of unique customers searching: christmas, compass, computer, iphone, "piggy bank" by number of sales: "orkney islands doug blane", "persian gulf sunset", "superstock woman dancing", vaccine, "MAI CHAU VIETNAM" by number of zooms: "antique market", scorpion, "ARCTIC FOXES", "Kimberley, Australia", "victoria falls" I'm quite excited by the results this month but that might be because I was dreading writing up another month because of the lack of sales. However, my CTR is above the Alamy average and some of my images are starting to get view in categories where sales are more likely. My Christmas images are appearing in searches - this is a little late in the year I reckon, but bodes well for next year. I have some images of people which are getting views since I've moved towards a more editorial look to my pictures, this is in spite of not having keyworded the Reading Festival properly yet (I have until next summer!). The Alamy data is interesting, clearly this is the month for Christmas searches, the credit crunch is predictably sparking an interest in piggy bank images (go to the microstocks, folks!), and "compass" perhaps leads to editorial about the direction of the world's finances. Andy