Looking through the Alamay site there seem to be a lot of very snap shot type images on there with very little thought of composition etc. Has this always been the norm or are they just letting anyone on now ?

They don't edit for content, and AFAIK never have. They check for technical errors only.
iS seems to have gone even further recently. 

Nothings changed with alamy but there's still people complaining that their QC is too harsh   They need to go Mostphotos exclusive.

All of the above. (especially the Mostphoto Exclusive one)

Alamy never judges for content, just image quality.

I've said this before and might prove it some day, but you could photograph a brown stick on brown sand, with brown rocks and it's it's sharp, properly exposed and has no flaws, it will get accepted.

Has nothing to do with WHAT the image is. This goes along with the people who believe that Microstock should not judge on Commercial Potential, and I agree. Low Commercial Value is an opinion and assumes in advance what a buyer wants or is looking for. Kind of strange? So they tell the buyers what they can get, because of the opinion of the agency, what has commercial viability.

Alamy doesn't reject for content, which we should applaud, not criticize.

Quote from: sharpshot on August 03, 2013, 08:52
Nothings changed with alamy but there's still people complaining that their QC is too harsh   They need to go Mostphotos exclusive.

or Flickr ! but those guys shoot with compact cameras, what do they expect ?

anyone could pass QC in most agencies shooting with a 500$ DSLR with 18-55 kit lens at F8 in daytime in ISO 100 or 200, it's not rocket science.

i've no idea how they get so many rejections for shots that would come out good even if done in auto (green) mode.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on August 07, 2013, 19:47
I've said this before and might prove it some day, but you could photograph a brown stick on brown sand, with brown rocks and it's it's sharp, properly exposed and has no flaws, it will get accepted.

Has nothing to do with WHAT the image is. This goes along with the people who believe that Microstock should not judge on Commercial Potential, and I agree. Low Commercial Value is an opinion and assumes in advance what a buyer wants or is looking for. Kind of strange? So they tell the buyers what they can get, because of the opinion of the agency, what has commercial viability.

Alamy doesn't reject for content, which we should applaud, not criticize.

actually a stick of incence with sand and rocks could be a super duper buddhist temple in a top asian destination, how can these QC guys know any possible world locations etc ?

or maybe it could be part of the tomb of a famous celebrity, who knows .. that's stuff that usually goes along many news articles, getty has plenty of stuff like that but if anyone looks at the single image without the caption it would be worthless.

or .. a horrible snapshot of a random blond girl .. but then the caption "the LAST living blond girl in Nigeria !" ... hahaha now that's an archival photo, and also commercial value !

You mean they have one? 

Quote from: tab62 on August 09, 2013, 03:13
You mean they have one? 

hahaha for sure they've plenty of western expats in the NGOs... no idea .. africa is not my cup of tea at the moment.

Quote from: ShadySue on August 02, 2013, 23:08
They don't edit for content, and AFAIK never have. They check for technical errors only.
iS seems to have gone even further recently. 

Apparently they don't want "glamour" 

Quote from: heywoody on September 07, 2013, 14:49

Quote from: ShadySue on August 02, 2013, 23:08
They don't edit for content, and AFAIK never have. They check for technical errors only.
iS seems to have gone even further recently. 

Apparently they don't want "glamour" 

Which they don't define, and there are 201,549 images keyworded 'glamour'.

Quote from: ShadySue on September 07, 2013, 15:35

Quote from: heywoody on September 07, 2013, 14:49

Quote from: ShadySue on August 02, 2013, 23:08
They don't edit for content, and AFAIK never have. They check for technical errors only.
iS seems to have gone even further recently. 

Apparently they don't want "glamour" 

Which they don't define, and there are 201,549 images keyworded 'glamour'.

More than likely because they don't inspect all images....and plenty do sneak through. However, if its that important they could do something like they do when you get those emails that say "there's a pinky finger in this pic and you need a model release".

They obviously scrub their collection somehow. I wonder if people get glamour emails..."we have deactivated your image AMA123 because it is too glamour oriented".

Who knows.  Anyone get these kinds of collection purging emails?

Quote from: Mantis on September 07, 2013, 15:51
I wonder if people get glamour emails..."we have deactivated your image AMA123 because it is too glamour oriented".

Yes - we do send those out periodically and sweep through the collection at different points of the year to remove glamour content that gets through the submission system.

This blog post helps explain our policy:

http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/05/14/2763.aspx

Cheers

James Allsworth
Content Executive
Alamy