Alamy images for Google

I've now arranged for all my Alamy images to be viewable in a Google friendly set of pages, here. I'm hoping for an improvement in the visibility of my Alamy images on Google Images.

Four figure Alamy Update

It's been a long while since I posted an update on Alamy, but yesterday there was cause for celebration - I've passed the $1,000 mark for images sold. I'm sure there's many contributors who hit it far more quickly - after all it took me the best part of three years - but nevertheless I feel that it is an achievement given the low production quality of my images. Of course, the image that tipped me into four figures is predictably boring, but that is the nature of editorial, you just don't know which image will sell - this one's coming to a guidebook near you soon!

Typical Japanese street vending machine

Kansai International Airport (KIX)

Kansai International Airport with Skygate bridge from Rinku junction, Osaka Bay, Japan
When I visit an airport now I spend very little time in the terminal. We have our arrival time down to a fine art and usually barely pause from check-in to passport to boarding...just enough to buy the obligatory bottle of water that got confiscated on the way. But our journey through Kansai International Airport was not quite so ordinary.

We checked-in at the end of two weeks in Japan, in September and it had been very hot. We took advantage of the airport lounge which was very civilised, there's nothing like having refrigerated beer glasses and free Kirin on tap! And it's lucky we had a lounge...the terminal is pretty sparse once you're through security.

After a couple of hours of our flight being delayed it became clear through muddled english that our plane had been struck by lightning on arriving at Kansai and they were not able to fly us out that day. They eventually, after a couple more hours, asked us to reclaim our baggage and board coaches to local hotels. We were lucky and ended up in the Ana Gate Tower.

The next morning we were greeted with a fabulous view of the airport from the top of the tower and I took these pictures. One of these has recently been bought for a calendar. I'd love to know who bought it, my current hunch is that it was Arup, the company who did the engineering for the island airport.

Seacle Rinku Pleasure Town Outlet Mall with ferris wheel with coloured capsules and Ana Tower Gate Hotel, Osaka, Japan

Rinku General Medical Center, Izumisano Municipal Hospital, Rinku Orai-Kita, Izumisano, Osaka, Japan

Rinku Town looking north from the Rinku Gate Tower, including the Izumisano Gyokyo Aozora Market, and Hanshin Expressway, Japan


Rinku Pleasuretown Beach, Osaka Bay, Japan


Discount license
If you want to license the images directly at a discount, contact the photographer at sales@smyrnoff.com otherwise use the links above to license through Alamy.

Japan Photobook

I've finished the photobook and it has arrived. I am a little dissappointed with the finish but not so much as to complain to Cewe-Photoworld who produced it. Some pages show faint magenta and green banding across the whole page and the amount of sharpening they have used is more than I would have liked (my images are unsharpened for Alamy and Cewe don't give you control over it - rightly, as you can't judge it unless you know the printer they are using)

Before I archived the original files I took screenshots of the book layout in order to show a preview of it to my friends. Here are some highlights (below - or watch the slideshow)...the real thing runs to 84 pages! Most of the full page bleeds are available on Alamy in my portfolio, here.

I chose the XL Picture Hardcover book and so these double-page spreads are 60cm wide, the quality of the D300 images is fabulous, and it especially shines in some of the night shots which were all shot handheld at up to 1600 ISO with the wonderful 16-85 Nikkor VR lens (except for the A-bomb dome which was one of only two occasions that the tripod got used).

P.S. I'm still keywording the Japan images, but as of this afternoon, I will have 500 images live on Alamy, hooray!

It's all over!

Knife salesman behind display of knives at the Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo, Japan
...Japan, that is!!! I've finished editing my Japan pictures and so I shortly will have 250 images of Japan online with Alamy. I reckon 1 in 10 pictures I shot have been made it onto Alamy which means that I shot about 2,500 pictures in 14 days. There's quite a lot of sumo and baseball pictures which aren't of suitable quality for stock but perfectly good for my own album and web use, and a load of similars from things like the Kamakura horseback archery.

Of course, the downside of my collection on Alamy being so Japan-heavy is that my CTR will probably drop further since travel is such a competitive area. But, who cares, the hard work is over..almost. I have got to keyword about 150...

Fresh seafood and fish stall at the Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo, Japan 3/3

Fresh tuna on sale at the Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo, Japan 2/3

All of Alamy Theories

Japanese coins in a bottle
I've titled this as All of Alamy Theories since that should avoid any abuse, but also because this analysis is based on only a week of Alamy Measures data and I'm supposing that this can give enough information to suggest a trend!

People searching for everyday subjects have the least patience for searching

This theory is based on the top searches on Alamy. This week the top searches started with "woman", "child", "man", "christmas", "children", "family", "school", "young", "old", or "red". With the exception of "christmas" and "red", I would expect these words to come out top every week in terms of the number of unique customer occurrences (all have 100 or more searches in a week). The subject "woman" has a possible 1,683,703 results, which even when qualified with another word gives about 10,000 results on average. However, these top subjects get less than 400 views by each unique customer, that's approximately 4 pages viewed. It's as if the customer has an expectation to find what they want on popular subjects without digging. This theory stands for the top 173 subjects, which received less than 7 pages of views on Alamy, which this week were:

woman child man christmas children family school young old red car dog london new couple the computer business boy teenager van mexico PEOPLE white snow san money water black traffic uk female lake baby police house girl india ST green city shopping great teen office dubai modern hotel florida hospital chinese North Person beer john vietnam Texas building Virginia african la horse british spain Gold asian broken River kids french teenage father open sports south one student hand digital male human Ice women cat winter eiffel switzerland fish big manchester japan home obama empty vintage australia two russia credit beach small road rock shanghai dublin COSTA BUSINESSMAN drinking china Indian night paper video american wolf mother metal book Earth Russian english senior University glass moon coffee older mobile royal sun fiji blue back hispanic chocolate polar construction happy St. Italian sydney high window World street maldives teenagers party supermarket table doctor bermuda hurricane group james nurse students hot Electric animal shop champagne native vegetable BUS air classroom cafe football crowd TREE adult apple

Theory: To sell stock photos of popular subjects you need to have pictures on the first four pages of the results on Alamy. To achieve this takes a good Alamy Rank and if you don't have a good rank, you may not be best placed to cover these subjects

There are popular subjects where searchers will spend longer searching when the subject is more specific

This theory is based on the lower ranks of the most popular searches on Alamy. This is perhaps the best place to look for subjects as there is plenty of demand and although possibly plenty of images, the searchers appear to spend longer looking, an average of 13 pages. These subjects probably change each week so the following is only an example:

telescope Havana poland cup cabbage perspective damascus corridor laptop orca huayna Malaysian atm workman asia smiling satellite ljubljana pollenca byzantine Sarawak sixties hammock porridge multicultural designer positive chile hungary morecambe celebration valencia taoist bend mann caribbean blues wrist Sharm honeycomb calcutta botanist connection Crutches Mountain stretching dead Anatomy shadow elementary kindergarten boobs x Olives guatemala salvador photos support backgrounds forest CHURCH fir aquarium greenhouse doll seattle caravan volleyball Cayman Bangkok cider panda machu penguins surfing ball baseball active community malaysia beetle Tatra jail balanced sunrise wristwatch marble stormy tango picture fuerteventura lips Sabah volcanic breasts stone Hawaii award savings fisherman gymnastics nova puzzle feather venice

Theory: More specific but still popular subjects are perfectly accessible by lower ranked contributors on Alamy - particularly conceptual images where the searcher will spend lots of time looking in the lower pages

There are popular searches which go unanswered on Alamy

In the lower ranks of the popular searches on Alamy are a number of subjects which return no results. These subjects will vary each week but consistently go unanswered. There is a good deal of misspelling and poor english in this area but that is not to say that the searches are invalid. There is clearly an opportunity to fulfill these requests with no competition at all. There were 119 subjects this week which fell into this category as follows:

Blowholes amazonen junio "Marrakech "pioneers" Cabo chritmas del eyl Hilditch Kenneth Kingda musso neolithic rusizi teenagerd vegatable 1963 A/B aaron Avenida Avranches AX30DWpeople Barrios Berberis 'bill blathnaid brazillian bruno buddha buddhamonton businessperson canna Caroline chewit chil Chines chritsmas colage collage Collapsing columbines compter consoda daithi dart dava debretts 'Dutch dzanga-sangha elasticated elephans ELY, emilie eucalypt frederik freston Gilboa gus hameau Heliocidaris Hgirl highly hotle hstern Hsuehshan Ibn icleand iiza Isaiah Jebisseh judge Kamalame Kazimiercz kim kiviak, Kleburg konstruktion latvian leke Lev loose louguan Meadowhall menie milage mosesberg MUNICIPAL munk na nasser neptune Noel Oparach owner Poste poundbry preda Prestes Prima process reservoir retangular rouelette roza Sakalava samuel sant Sheila stawberry stefani stopped tenn trafficcongestion tricyrtis Wesminster woddy zhinan

Theory: This one is more about keywording than shooting. When you keyword you need to think out of the box, which All of Alamy will help with, and use appropriate, unambiguous misspellings

Land of Bridges

The wooden Kintai Bridge (Kintai-kyo) spanning the Nishiki river, Iwakuni, Japan 1/5" />
The wooden Kintai Bridge (Kintai-kyo) spanning the Nishiki river, Iwakuni, Japan 1/5
I am slowly coming to the end of editing Japan. I've managed to edit some 1,500 pictures with another 1,000 to go. A lot of the best pictures were taken in low light and so won't make it onto Alamy, particularly there are loads of the sumo and baseball which I took for myself knowing that ISO 1600 was not going to work for stock but we shall see.

This little selection reflects the Japanese tradition of bridge building both in miniature (in the garden below) and on a massive scale at Iwakuni (above). The bridge at Iwakuni is built from wood with no nails of screws. Over the centuries it has been swept away by floods and re-built to the same design and is well worth a visit. Iwakuni was the furthest west that we managed to travel in our two weeks in Japan, most of the next batch of pictures are from Miyajima and then Tokyo and Kamakura. The final 1,000 are from Kyoto including a grey skied Golden Temple which might not be good enough for Alamy.

Once I've finished with Japan I might feel like picking up the camera again. At the moment I have no inclination to bring it with me everywhere I go (like I did in the summer) as the weather is rubbish and it is dark when I commute to and from work. I can see some more table top images over the winter if I find the motivation to do it. In the meantime I am close to the 450 mark on Alamy which whilst a milestone has not resulted in any more sales...boo. Let's hope my premium pseudonym works for me.

Himeji-jo (Himeji Castle), Himeji, Japan, showing bridge and moat 2/2

Bridge over the main pond at Shukkeien japanese circular stroll garden, Hiroshima, Japan

Discount license
If you want to license the images directly at a discount, contact the photographer at sales@smyrnoff.com otherwise use the links above to license through Alamy.

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.

Grow your own fruit

Tayberry plant isolated on white showing leaves and fruit

It has been an eventful week, with some harsh criticism of my images on the Alamy forum. I don't wish to dwell on it, but since this is my own soapbox I will just say this; If you are not interested in the QC Tests, don't post a comment.

Back to new photography, and this little gem has made it through. It is quite nice that this image could be used to illustrate growing your own fruit, as I actually grew it. I did have to sacrifice the two un-ripe fruits as I removed the whole branch but that's just what you have to do in the name of stock. Tayberries however, are not very common, and I am loathed to keyword it as a raspberry (even though I'd probably get away with it), so it will probably not sell.

Enjoy the picture, I enjoyed the berry!

Harvest time in rainy August

Sadly the summer has already finished here, the rain has set in and this last week has been miserable. Just time to post up a couple of my last D100 submissions to Alamy.


Stormy clouds over Thirlmere, Lake District


One of the failings of the 6MP camera is the absolute detail you need to shoot landscapes. These examples are acceptable as prints and will be fine at small sizes but I don't think they will ever get put on a cover or a commercial project. Still, they do show something of the British countryside, at it's moodiest and sunniest...


High tension power lines across a wheat field panorama with pylons to the horizon 1/3


This next one was shot in the depths of Berkshire, a county that I always thought as quite surburban. Luckily, five minutes drive south from where we live, the roads are quieter so long as you avoid the main arteries.


Tractor bailing hay in a field at harvest time 1/4

Alamy's Soft or Lacking Definition

Whatever you might think about Alamy QC failing images for "soft or lacking definition", as explained here, so far those of us who frequent the forum have yet to see a picture that the photographer can show at 100% to be free of some kind of flaw. Since I seem to be capable of creating pictures that are soft and lacking definition on demand I thought I would put up some more examples for those who are still in denial about it.

Last week I had just such a moment. I'd had no failures for a week or so and was thinking all was fine and then three times in a row I got a soft and lacking definition failure. It turns out that the two photos responsible for the failure are soft, as follows (shown as 100% crops of the original 48+Mb files):


This one is most likely mis-focussed @ 1/350s f10 31mm handheld


This one is most likely the subject moving and/or mis-focussed and to cap it all, there is clear CA at the edges of the bird @ 1/800s f8 400mm VR handheld

Don't stare at them too long, they hurt your eyes (that's a clue!).

Alamy QC seem to do a very simple thing, they zoom to 100% in the centre of the image (which is the quickest check they can do). So, apart from scanning across the image for dust and odd birds and things, I would do a final check by zooming to 100%, dead centre and if it ain't right, don't submit it.

Here's other common effects that gets the dreaded soft and lacking definition failure:


This picture was taken at high ISO and then noise reduction was applied heavily leaving a painterly effect @ ISO1600 1/60s f4 18mm handheld


This picture has been interpolated up from 6MP RAW NEF to 71.8Mb 8-bit PSD showing "jaggies" on the edges @ 1/1000s f5.3 300mm VR handheld

The other failure which is poorly understood is demonstrated in the following images, "chroma noise is something you get with older digital cameras, low MP cameras and at higher ISO settings:


The lower half shows chroma noise, the upper half has had the noise removed.


This shot shows the chroma noise exagerated by pushing the saturation to 100%.

Alamy have written a guide to removing chroma noise and some other retouching techniques, here

Hope that helps...