They won't take smaller images - well, guess what. I wanted to work with Alamy, but they couldn't give me a single thing I wanted. The agencies now are getting junk, and that's the way it will be forever onward. Yes, the industry is what it is now - Just too many cameras in the world.
#ALAMY STOCK PHOTO REVIEW PLUS#
Had I sold my images for the past forty plus years at Alamy's commissions, I wouldn't even have made a living, let alone been able to retire comfortably. The commissions are beyond ludicrous speed an insult. But they did answer direct questions through email. Their forum was a horror, rife with the usual trolls and trouble-makers, wanna-be bad boys, wanna-be big boys, you name it. Their customer service was fine - they answered questions. But this apparently is too easy and logical. Of course if they find a bad one for some technical reason, they could quite easily cull that ONE and check and approve the other thousands. In any case, as I said, they dumped that entire gargantuan batch and suggest that if I correct this error, whatever it is, I should resubmit all. The image looks perfectly fine every way I can possibly test it.
I then submitted a huge batch and all were declined because ONE had some cropping error that, to this day, I cannot grasp the meaning of. I submitted the initial batch and was accepted, then submitted a few as a test, and all was well. The Alamy (new) contract is embarrassingly bad, and the reviews are bad, and the policies are bad, but they're the best? Seems that way and that's sad. I settled on trying Alamy as they seemed the least objectionable out of a pretty disgusting slew of really objectionable agencies. I've travelled the world in the past 9 years and amassed 108,000 images. I retired on royalties 9 years ago, after 40 years making a good living. I started researching stock agencies a few months ago. Nothing about this experience was good, except that they answered a couple of my emails within a few days Prices are daft - this month my sales stand at $42 for 7 images, some only selling for cents!! It's easy to blame Alamy, which certainly has its faults, but other agencies tell a similar tale. Unfortunately, stock photography, like coal mining, is now history. Those of us already in the game persevered, because we could make a lot of money. When Alamy entered what was a new industry they had to invent new rules, so mistakes were made. To keep this tsunami of unsaleable stuff under control, they've over reacted on QC, which sometimes has had me tearing my hair out in frustration. This was unprecedented and frankly crazy, because they've been inundated with rubbish. Apart from banned subjects like glamour, they'll take ANYTHING. I believe criticisms of their QC go back to the fact that they do not edit for content. I've been with Alamy about 20 years, during which payment has been made on the dot every month without fail - unless of course I had less than $50 in the kitty, when I'd have to wait until the next month.
These people cannot have read their conditions, which clearly state that payment will only be made when there's over $50 due. Oct review, I see that a common complaint with Alamy is slow payment. It is not right that someone is anonymously making money in a dubious manner from my family heirloom.įrustrated with Alamy? No better elsewhere.įurther to my 21st. Not for commercial gain by unscrupulous people. used for non-commercial research and private study use only. Images of historic paintings such as these may well be in the public domain, but should be "All rights reserved" i.e. I am sure most photographers and contributors are decent, honest folk, but there is a minority of contributors who are submitting images that they have no right to submit as their own work.
The artist may have passed away over 70 years ago and the painting itself may be out of copyright, but the photographic image itself must have been taken more recently and distributed for monetary gain without permission of the owner of the painting. I own these paintings, yet they are on the Alamy website emblazoned with the Alamy logo, as if they own them! The same with museum paintings. They are selling images of 19th Century paintings that I own the original of (by my ancestor). Yet again, I am very concerned about the copyright practices of this company.
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