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ON
THE ALAMY.COM
A
new on-line picture library for twenty first century
photographers and buyers of photography
by John Henshall
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Many
of us have an unused, perhaps almost forgotten,
resource of photographs. Some store them in shoe
boxes -- at least mine are in DW super archival
hanging files in an old filing cabinet in the back
lobby of our house. My collection is composed of
all the images I have taken throughout my years in
photography, film and television.
What
should I do with this collection? Organise slide
shows for the local WI? The fact is that this
resource will probably be consigned to the skip
when I kick the bucket. What a waste. Some of the
images are colour transparencies from the early
1960s. At a time when the BBC was monochrome only,
I was making photographs of some of the
personalities I met there using the new 35mm High
Speed (ISO125) Ektachrome Type B tungsten
film.
Wondering
what to do with this resource, I sought advice from
photographers who know. The consensus was to send
the images to a well known library, which would pay
me three pounds per image on acceptance and around
fifty percent of what they hired them out for. This
seemed too easy, too conventional, for me. Surely
there was something I could do on the Internet? So
a year or so ago I started to scan some of my
images with a view to putting them on a dedicated
website, hopeful that researchers would just happen
by. I proposed to start by taking orders by eMail
and fax, later developing the site to allow online
eCommerce with payment by credit card. The
experience would be valuable but the enormity of
the job -- especially the online rights and
permissions -- soon dawned on me and the project
was moved to the back burner.
Until
I heard of alamy.com, that is. Alamy is a new,
totally online, totally digital route to market for
photographers.
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Some
of my photographic resource which has been lying idle for
years …
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The
beautiful young Judith Chalmers was an in-vision
announcer for BBC television when this picture was
made in 1962.
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I
first worked with Lulu on 'Beat Room' for the
fledgling BBC2 channel in 1964. This shot was
almost twenty years later.
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'Hi
there pop pickers!' Alan 'Fluff' Freeman in the
radio studio.
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1950s
singing star Alma Cogan, 'The girl with a laugh in
her voice', reflected in her theatre dressing room
mirror in 1962. She died in 1966 aged only
34.
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Cinematographer
Freddie Young OBE HonFRPS BSC on the occasion of
his ninetieth birthday, together with his three
Oscars -- for the photography of 'Lawrence of
Arabia', 'Doctor Zhivago' and 'Ryan's
Daughter'.
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Boxer
Frank Bruno ready for the ring.
All
images Copyright © John Henshall.
All rights reserved.
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Anybody
with images to sell can be a contributor to alamy.com.
There is no minimum or maximum quantity, the only
condition for submission being acceptable quality. Alamy
will take those images to the worldwide market place,
representing the photographer and negotiating with the
buyers, who buy online using a credit card.
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What
prospective buyers see. They have the
opportunity to move images to a 'lightbox' for
use later, and to purchase on line.
Click
the screen grab above to view at full size. Use
your Back button to return to this page.
This
screen grab has been made up for this report to
illustrate how alamy.com will look when it goes
online.
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Of course,
alamy.com charge the photographer a commission for this
-- but it's only ten percent of any sale, plus a credit
card fee of about three percent. There is no charge for
depositing images. All buyers must be registered with
alamy.com and must agree to comply with the terms and
conditions before being allowed to purchase images.
Detailed records of every purchase, together with
intended use, media, territory and duration of licence,
are recorded with each sale. All images contain a
watermark, invisible to registered buyers but clearly
visible to those who are merely browsing the low
resolution files. High resolution images are not
available until they have been paid for. Unauthorised use
on the web can be traced using Alamy's license
spider.
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The
'Image Submission Status' screen shows which
of the images you have uploaded to the alamy.com
site are ready for the online catalogue. Clicking
the image references highlighted in blue take you
to following the page.
Click
the screen grab above to view at full size. Use
your Back button to return to this page.
This
screen grab has been made up for this report to
illustrate how alamy.com will look when it goes
online.
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The owner
of the image is able to specify any territorial
restrictions or other contractual requirements so that,
even if you already have a picture agent in one country,
it may be possible to sell elsewhere via Alamy. You can
even specify which areas you do not want to sell your
work into -- for example tobacco advertising. A pseudonym
feature allows you to market under different names,
independent of the name alamy.com use to communicate and
pay you.
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The
'Image Submission' page is where you supply
the licencing and keywording information required
before the image is reviewed by alamy.com.
Click
the screen grab above to view at full size. Use
your Back button to return to this page.
This
screen grab has been made up for this report to
illustrate how alamy.com will look when it goes
online.
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The
'Account Statement' page details sales and
deductions for your alamy account. Payments are
made monthly or quarterly, depending on volume of
sales, in the currency of choice.
Click
the screen grab above to view at full size. Use
your Back button to return to this page.
This
screen grab has been made up for this report to
illustrate how alamy.com will look when it goes
online.
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Perhaps
the most important and exciting feature (apart from
receiving regular cheques, that is) are the statistics
which alamy.com generates for you. These include a list
of sales, sales amounts and usage licenses -- country,
media, advertising, editorial, size, position, time and
so on. The statistics will also tell you which of your
images are the most popular, which are held on
'lightboxes' (the stage before actual purchase) and the
most popular sales category. To help you plan future
work, the statistics will inform you about unfulfilled
search requests which come close to your areas of
speciality. In this way, Alamy aim to stimulate more
creative photography and to make life easier for buyers
of photography, leading them speedily to material which
matches their exact needs.
Alamy is
designed to reduce the cost and complexity of selling
your pictures on line. All you have to do is provide the
images in digital form. Alamy will then make your images
available for purchase by buyers worldwide.
Finding
something on the Internet is like choosing which star to
view with your telescope on a clear night. The chances
are that you will go for a bright one, only to discover
that it is not a star but a whole galaxy. Just as
searching for a photographer at bipp.com takes you to a
galaxy of photographers, alamy.com will take you to a
galaxy of images. A wide choice means that buyers will go
to alamy.com first. And that means more business for
photographers.
This one's
almost a 'no-brainer' -- all you have to do is put your
images on alamy.com and wait for the cheques to roll
in.
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Who knows,
my old transparencies may yet be reprieved from the
skip and find a meaningful new life with some real
purpose.
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This
article first appeared as "John Henshall's Chip Shop" in
"The Photographer" magazine, June 2000.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
This document is Copyright © 2000 John Henshall. All
rights reserved.
This material may only be downloaded for personal
non-commercial use. See our Rights,
Permissions & Useage
Policy
page.
 
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