After I got back from Iceland in the new year, I decided to follow in the footsteps of a friend and colleague, Snorri Gunnarsson, and sign up with Alamy, a London (and recently New York) based stock agency.
I read up on them as much as I could, asked around, and finally I joined. What I like about them is the fact that they’re nothing like your average microstock site. The photographer gets 60% of the sale, the prices are decent (compared to the big microstock sites), and I decide whether I licence my images or sell them as royalty free stock.
So, around mid-January I submitted my initial four images. After a very brief wait I was notified that they had all passed inspection, and from now on Alamy would only check a sample of images from every batch I submit. That said, if I send in a batch of 40 images, one of them happens to have slipped my radar and is covered in dust spots, and that particular photo is inspected by Alamy – the whole batch fails. I like that system.
In the one month since my initial submission, I have placed 278 photos for sale, (food making up more than a third of the collection) I have a few photos which have not been keyworded yet (and thus not for sale), and there’s a batch of almost 60 images waiting to be inspected. I’m hoping to have 400 images for sale by the end of the month. Obviously, I have to keep adding to that number and continue to produce good (or upgrade to excellent) work.
