Oh Alamy!

Oh Alamy!

It’s been a very busy week for me; I have been at a union conference since Sunday. Very intense photographing speakers from nine in the morning to six at night, with barely a break at lunchtime, as that was the time used to get pics ready for the national press etc Then as soon as I got home it is editing until midnight, to try and keep the backlog at bay before the next days work.

This was successful for a while but buy Tuesday night I was just finishing Mondays’ edit, so by the end of Wednesday - no chance…

It is great to work with people who are friendly, respect your work, and are enthusiastic about your results. Helps to get the occasional front page I know J

Oh yes Alamy. I don’t want to get into another Alamy kicking session but sometimes they do just make me wonder what goes on at management level in Abingdon.

You may remember last week I talked about Novel use and the appalling way it had been presented to contributors ( Another day, another 60p…)? Well this week we were told about Image Keyworder software customised for Alamy Users. What a good idea I thought, some six weeks ago when I was contacted to do some beta testing. How stupid I thought when I found out that it was only for PC users rather than the majority of photographers favourite the ‘Mac’. Well that still wasn’t a problem for me as I actually, and rather perversely, switched to PC about four years ago. It doesn’t matter why, (although I might talk about it in a later blog), just please accept that I had my reasons at the time.

So I actually gave Image Keyworder a try. Or more accurately I downloaded the software as instructed with the intention of giving it a go, but it would not load. Nope, not a sausage. OK I contacted the nice software support people, who got back to m eventually, after I hassled Alamy, and the sent me the occasional e-mail asking for more info, which I gave them, then silence, then I hassled a week later, and another e-mail a couple of days later asking for more info, which I supplied and then nothing. Now I am a busy chap, I take pictures; write articles, I do stuff. I haven’t got the time to chase up a support team out in Asia, who don’t return e-mails and clearly aren’t interested. Why on earth would I want to buy software from these people? I still don’t know what the problem actually is. Everyone else’s software seems to work ok, so what is wrong with ‘Image Keyworder’? I will probably never know, and to be honest I no longer care.

After the kicking they have opened themselves up to recently it is clear that the Alamy team wanted a break so Alan Capel told us yesterday of their proudest moment this week - 48 hour turnaround. As Alan tells us they actually achieved this some time ago, and presumably been keeping the news back for a rainy day.

A 48-hour turnaround is great news for photographers, and I personally don’t know of any library/agency/portal operating in the way Alamy do that have a QC turnaround so quick. Good to know that can get something right!

A lot of these problems are so avoidable, like great big cow pats in a field. If you look where you are going, and watch where you put your feet, maybe change direction slightly on occasion; low and behold, the footwear remains poo-poo free. Charge ahead not looking where you are going and don’t be surprised if you get smelly shoes!

I asked James West the Chief Executive Officer last year why Alamy didn’t consult photographers about some of their more eyebrow raising policies.

“But we do”, he insisted.

Clearly, I should have made my question a bit more obvious.

“Why don’t you consult photographers in advance about your strategy, to ensure that it is compatible with your suppliers, (photographers) as well as your clients, and act upon the advice that they give you, rather than just asking for advice, ignoring it, and doing what you wanted to do regardless?”

Alamy is successful, so what I cite as problems are really only PR gaffs, but even so, no business wants to have to deal with these embarrassments. Alamys’ biggest problem seems to be that it is a company taking advice from computer geeks. Very clever people clearly, but geeks don’t seem to realise that photographers (mostly) use Macs, that photographers don’t want three different keyword areas. Three? Why on earth do you need three? Clearly, one doesn’t (well I don’t), most especially as it is not compatible with any current software.

Why make photographers jump through hoops and tick boxes that no other agency does. My own personal theory is that they want to irritate and annoy as many photographers as possible, especially the less dedicated such as amateurs, then they will stop supplying. That way, they won’t need to worry about as much dross being submitted to the Portal, and getting through QC because it is technically adequate. Only computer geeks would judge images solely on technical quality…

Good news on the 48-hour turnaround, shame about the software...

© Pete Jenkins
www.petejenkins.co.uk
www.photographerspro.eu/pete_jenkins/