Alamy Measures Stats January 2009

It's been a quiet month punctuated by a snowboarding holiday where I shot a few Facebook pictures for my friends, and promptly received news of my work situation changing...for the worse. The credit crunch has bitten and I am now looking for my next contract. You'd think that this would give me an opportunity to go out and shoot some pictures but actually I'd rather practice the guitar in the warmth of my living room and finally finish keywording the last handful of pictures of Japan. I pleased to say that my portfolio on Alamy is getting a healthy number of views, a nice level of zooms and my pseudonyms are settling in nicely. The surprise statistic is that my travel image pseudonym has the best CTR at 3.20% - I was expecting it to be terrible in face of the competition but perhaps they are my best photos after all. Here is my view of Alamy for the month of January: Proportion of searches for: 1 word = 18% , average of 13.04 pages viewed 2 words = 44% , average of 9.57 pages viewed 3 words = 27% , average of 8.57 pages viewed 4 words = 9% , average of 4.45 pages viewed 5+ words = 3% , average of 8.38 pages viewed Total number of pictures at end of month: 512 Proportion of views to pictures: 131.84% Number of sales for month: 0 Average number of my pictures viewed matching query: 2.27 Total average CTR for searches in which my images appeared: 1.27% My CTR: 1.18%

Ema (wishes) on display at Meiji Shrine, Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan

Proportion of searches for: 5 letter words 18.07% 4 letter words 16.47% 3 letter words 15.66% 6 letter words 13.52% 7 letter words 12.45% 8 letter words 6.96% 9 letter words 5.62% 2 letter words 5.09% 10 letter words 4.28% 11 letter words 1.34% 15 letter words 0.40% 12 letter words 0.13% Most popular words (top 5 in each position ignoring "and"): First word: READING off shell green Hiroshima asda Second word: berkshire shop license UK airport amsterdam car town a drink wheel japan festival petrol you Third word: UK south japan not manger Fourth word: africa UK town book is Womad england Fifth word: UK Any position: UK and READING book japan shop berkshire Most popular variations: cape town: (table mountain OR south africa) reading festival: NOT (book OR womad) grand union: (canal OR narrow boat) woman: (money OR drink alcohol)! buckinghamshire: (crime OR police OR public) blue: (recycling OR wheelie bin) book: (pages OR store) recycling: (bin OR facility) beer: (shop OR crates) green: (bins OR management) shell: (station OR petrol) train: (japan OR arriva) castle: (battle OR coombe) 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: cat laptop london "piggy bank" dog by number of sales: "new york lights" handshake barcelona "brooklyn bridge, new york" iphone by number of zooms: "punjab india" mirrorpix dubai baltic "Jurassic Coast"

Smyrnoff Blog Wordle

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!

Alamy Measures Stats December 2008

So I'm *still* keywording those damned Japan pictures on Alamy but at least I've finished a photo book of the best 404 pictures that I brought back. I'm off on my next assignment soon so there'll be some new pictures to show you of winter scenes! This last month was still lacking in sales but my CTR has bounced back nicely. Here is my view of Alamy for the month of December: Proportion of searches for: 1 word = 22% , average of 12.36 pages viewed 2 words = 44% , average of 8.67 pages viewed 3 words = 25% , average of 8.23 pages viewed 4 words = 9% , average of 5.27 pages viewed 5+ words = 0% , average of 0.41 pages viewed Total number of pictures at end of month: 467 Number of sales for month: 0 Average number of my pictures viewed matching query: 2.14 Total average CTR for searches in which my images appeared: 1.29% My CTR: 0.93%

Traditional shop fronts in modern Japanese street scene, Miyajima Island, Japan

Proportion of searches for: 5 letter words 16.41% 6 letter words 15.44% 3 letter words 14.86% 4 letter words 13.32% 7 letter words 11.39% 9 letter words 9.07% 8 letter words 9.07% 10 letter words 4.05% 2 letter words 3.86% 11 letter words 0.77% 13 letter words 0.77% 15 letter words 0.58% Most popular words (top 5 in each position ignoring "and"): First word: marlow tinsel reading christmas uk mardi Second word: Berkshire uk house bin not gras Third word: uk edinburgh bags beads man money office cut-out landfill africa Fourth word: uk edinburgh bin town london rubbish Any position: marlow tinsel Chrismas brunel capsules Most popular variations: environmental health: (bin OR rubbish) uk: (construction site OR taxi OR bank reflection) reading: (berkshire OR abbey) recycling: (bin OR box) woman: (rucksack OR umbrella) scotland: (yard OR hotel) disabled: (uk OR parking) silver: (tinsel OR presents) 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 "christmas tree" "christmas dinner" ipod hospital by number of sales: "san andreas colombia" parrots "leeds sculpture" "leeds kenneth" "madrasa pakistan" by number of zooms: lobina mallorca "Frank Lloyd Wright" "nassau bahamas" "World Cup"