Driving is an activity, people taking part are drivers
Photography is an activity, people taking part are photographers
Flying a plane is an activity, people taking part are pilots
People that run as an activity are runners.
People that play soccer or football as an activity are footballers.

Some people taking part in thier activities do it for fun, some aspire to one day be amongst the best but only a few make it, some do become the best by effort, some check book champions think they are the best because the have the best kit.

Hobbies are also activities and most hobbies and activities have some Professionals, Teachers, coaches or Trainers that earn part or all of thier income within the activity.

If you pee on a cigarette that is an action not an activity so cannot be part of this debate. 

I just got accepted there and was thinking of loading my micro portfolio RF there....the issue is to leave it up on micro as well or pull them as (and if) they get accepted to Alamy. 

Pull them once they are on Alamy!

Howard it can be done the way you say, but Alamy is a lot slower that the micros, but revenue for a sale is better, they have a lot of accounts clients so you could have a sale today and the buyer pays in 30-90 days, and they pay when paid, that aside it is not good practice to have the same image or similars on both at the same time, some have had refunds for finding the same image on the microsite after a sale.

I do not know your style, but you say nature etc:, Alamy will accept images on quality only, they do not edit the collection, so you will have no "Don't need this" or "to many" type rejections, if you have had these from the micros then you could upload these images to Alamy to test the water, without compromising your micro's.

Like Alamy some micro's have time restrictions on deleting or disabling images, bear that in mind when choosing what to upload.

On Alamy you can create  pseudonyms, I have ones like "David - Cox Nature" and group my images like this, my advice is to create pseudonyms that do not link you back to the microsites in a search, I am no longer with the Micro's but I may venture back when the price is right, and I have a different name on the micro's, than I use on the macro's, so a search for "images by" will not bring them all together.

Welcome to Alamy, there seems a trend here of photographers looking to Alamy and Photoshelter.

David

I have 31 online for about 3 weeks, no sales yet, 6 rejections no reason given but I think it was sets of 3 reduced to 2 that was from 37 uploaded, so it's not that bad, I also use genuine fractals as I resize for Alamy it looks like the same images can go to PhotoShelter if I want.

The site seems to be moving in the right direction, they have a comment on "Photography as Art", but I think the buyers will move them closer to other macro stock sites, the collection has a NY and USA theame which makes it a bit harder if you are in the UK and shoot places and people.

But unless you are prepared to upload and wait it may be to slow for some people, views are not just buyer views which can distort you statistics if you or other photographers view your images.

They also have a paid thing called Personal Archive which I have subscribed to, there I can upload what I want with no reviewers and set my own restrictions and prices RM, RF and Mechandising, MR's etc:, this can also be searched by PhotoShelter buyers, linked from your own website, or you can drive your own traffic there, they handle the licence, downloading and the funds go to your PayPal, they charge 10% of any transaction, and you do not get hit for witholding tax, the buyer has to register with PhotoShelter.

I have not setup the skinning or linking yet but feel free to have a look Instances in Time

So if you have your own blog or website getting hits, it might be worth a look.

David   

Congrats, melastmohican!

Have they introduced watermarks?  I am still waiting for this before I start uploading.

Regards,
Adelaide

Watermark are introduced! 

I earn about $500 a day in my IT job, and have earned about $300 with stock photography in six months, and I have spent some $$'s on kit, and I use it as an "excuse" to rent a small studio. 

It would not affect me from a finance point, but I would find it hard to justify to myself renting the studio space, which is there for "Later when I start doing stock photography properly", so I keep saying 

And then there is the groups and forums, that would be missed 

David

Welcome aboard, but Alamy is a different animal, no point pressing F5 statistics are updated 5 times a week, with new images one image fails all images in all waiting batches fail, but they only look at quality not content for rejection, an image could sell today and you are paid 90 days later, or it could be refunded later, deleted images take months to come off the site.

So do not expect it to be like SS, any image that has been sold RF you should licence it the same on Alamy, and you should have different images for Alamy than you have on the Microsites, although this is not enforced like Photoshelter do.

An image cannot be Licenced RP or L on alamy and RF somewhere else.

I know you are passionate about your photography and images so these are just a few pointers to think about, its a slower lifestyle on Alamy.

Good Luck

David 

At last yesterday got my first sale with $85 commissions.

Interesting that this sold illustration had no zooms. It denies theory that without zooms can not be sales, like I red in Alamy forums.
In fact on search results page customer can add image to cart and can buy it without zoom.

I began upload 5 weeks ago and now have ~300 online with them.

This is not a micro site so Alamy work differently and have thier own research request team that will do a search for a customers requirements, and present the customer with a lightbox of images that match the requirement, these do not show up in the views as they are viewed offline.

I have has a sale the same way when I had only 10 online images, same as you with a net value after commision and fees $85 

David

Double Post!
Quote or Modify David 

As already said, if you have sold an image as RF (Microstock) you should not offer it as RM on any site.

If you want to sell an image that has sold as RF on any other site as RF that is fine.

Now Macro site buyers would not be happy paying a Macro price say $200 for an image they might find on microstock for $2, they would likely claim a refund if they found it, on the macro's like Alamy it could be 30 - 60 days for your money, on a "pay when paid" basis, after use you get paid, it is not a instant payment scenario, you get a purchase status like  Purchased, Received, Cleared and Paid.

So if the image has downloads on a microsite but is no longer available, there is nothing stopping you uploading it to a macro site, but the buyers are different and are not looking for microstock.

The agencies do not like the same image on micro and macro, and some like PhotoShelter have restrictions, it would be seen as un-professional of a photographer to have the same image on micro and macro.

David

I think you should upload an image of the model signing the release, because you could have one MR that you wrote yourself and just changed the image in PS.

Maybe a video clip of the models signing the release, zooming in on the handwriting, and a newspaper for the day just to prove that date, and any living grandparents as well. 

David

eg. say if the article is on sex, or homosexuality.
and you type in sex, or homo,... guess what?
you get a prompt on pressing SUBMIT saying: "oops sorry we cannot allow your submission" , or something like that.

so, my point is, censorship is alive and well on the web.

Most forum software come with a set of "Bad Word Filters", these are to protect young persons, because you cannot control who reads a public forum, or who hears your spoken words in a public place, how would you feel if a young family member asked "What does that word mean on your monitor?", it is a form of censorship but these words do not challenge the companies ethics or promote thier competitors, thats where censorship comes in on some forums.

The difference is that unless a post attacts another forum user, the deletion or editing of Forum posts is to protect the company not the general public.

David   

I earn about $70 an hour, but it does not mean I would pay that if I wanted something done, I only pay what I have to, you cannot compare local rates in a global market, the revenue from a dollar image buys more in india and other parts of the world than it does in the US or UK, the sites don't pay us more weighted on our local cost of living, although they charge more if they think they can and if you buy in currency, convert the Istock UK prices to Dollars and the base per credit is different, the reality is that a photographer with a low cost of living gets more in real terms for a download.

Do you think Microsoft do all the development in the US, as said outsourced to India, I work on a Microsoft package and when they release a new UK version the core is designed by Danes, developed in India, tested in the US and Localised in the UK

That is economic reality, you pay what you have to, not what you should, the guy in India developing the software gets a few dollars, then they sell it worldwide for the local market price including the UK, where if it needs more custom development they do not go back to India, they call in a company like the one I contract to, and they charge $1800 for a 7.5 hour day, thats the local market forces for the exact same work as the guy in India.

So are stock images not like the resources in India and the UK, as you can pay $1 or $1800, for a compartive image based on which stock model and where you shop, has a customer ever said that download was worth a lot more here is another $200

If they get it done for $500 and they do have a few bids then good luck, they may get 80% of what they wanted and fixing the other 20% is cheaper than having 100% done by a local developer.

I would say they are not stupid or insane, more aware and able to exploit the possibilities in this market, just like image buyers.    

I just checked the buyer on ScriptLance and they have had 7 projects completed there before, from the feedback a good comunicator and payer, could be doing this project for one of thier own customers, so a good business person as well

When you say in your archive then you have not shot them with your stock head on, one thing I have learned is that my pre-stock collection of images had very few worthy stock images, but a few events, I then had to change how I saw things to shoot for stock, an example would be I was driving along the other day, my eye saw a post box, but my thought was stock shot "Rural Postbox", now there are many already but I still took the shots and uploaded just in case.

If I shoot a landscape, I shoot the gate the fence, any textures and patternes maybe the bark of a tree, pebbles sand patterns, rock pools, rubbish, old ropes, barbed wire, anything rustic or rural etc:

Most of these will never see the light of day, but sometimes you say, that may just be worth uploading.

David