Uploading images to Alamy

I went out to The Garden House on Monday (for reference 11 May 2026) for my usual weekly photo tour and came back with 812 images.  Of those maybe a dozen will end up on Alamy for licencing.  Why only a dozen?  And what do I look for when deciding which of the 812.

Well firstly there are a lot of files that are part of the type of focus stack I've described in a recent post.  This produces 5 ORF files and a in-camera stacked JPG.  After stacking in Photoshop I end up with a single potentially usable file and six files I don't really need. (though I do tend to keep the ORF files).  Not every shot is part of a stack but enough generally are to significantly reduce the images available for selection.  Of my initial 812 shots 600 may be part of stacks which then generates a potential 100 images to select from.  Quite a few less.

So this...

...is distilled down to this:

A rather nice focus stacked shot of Deutzia x elegantissima 'Rosealind'.  Cropped, cleaned up very slightly to remove a few stacking artifacts, it's now one I'd quite happily upload.

Step two is to discard the rubbish.  Failed stacks, accidental shutter presses, shots that include labels (always photograph plant labels even if it's plants you know well) that are no longer needed after the images have been captioned, poor compositions etc etc.  I'm not looking for images to include.  I'm looking for images to exclude.  

For example this shot of Anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing' with it's good separation of the subject from a pleasant, blurred background that still shows some context I uploaded:

Whereas this one, with its dark and messy background I excluded.  Technically it's good enough to pass Alamy QC.  But it's not going to stand out among the other 130 images of the same subject.  Not all attempts work.

Which brings me to step three.  What is already on Alamy, both my own and others images of the same subject?  Is an image worth uploading? Sometimes it's easy to decide.  Is the image of a new to me subject?  If so, take the best shot(s) I can, process well, caption and keyword accurately and upload as long as I consider they meet Alamy's QC standards.  I ignore the other three thousand images of the same subject unless mine really are inferior and will forever be overlooked.  

Then there are the numerous times when I already have multiple images of a subject on Alamy.  I don't want to compete with myself so any new shots have to be superior to what I've already had on sale for a while.  In which case I seriously have to think about discarding some of my old images and replacing them with the new.

Then there's selection step four.  I generate dozens, if not hundreds, of images of The Garden House monthly.  Do I really want to saturate my portfolio with hundreds of images of just one garden.  No.  A reasonable number, taken through the year, chosen for the light and composition, are far more effective than simply uploading everything that's of a decent technical standard.  And that's another set of images excluded.

So, that's how 812 images becomes maybe a dozen uploaded.  Maybe a few more, oft times less.  But I think it gives me a better, more curated portfolio.

The damselflies are out

Well, one damselfly at least.  That's the large red damselfly, Pyrrhosoma nymphula, a western Palearctic species usually the first to emerge in spring in the UK. And once emerged they're interested in two things: feeding and mating.

A quick trip down to the pond at Efford Marsh, one of many local nature reserves in Plymouth, found first a red male that had already taken a bite out of a small green weevil (nettle weevil perhaps?) and was obviously eying it up for another go...

...followed by a mating pair who graduated from the initial joining to the classic damselfly mating wheel.

All shots taken with the OM-1 and 100-400mm MKII, ISO 400 and wide open aperture.  I love the close focusing on the 100-400mm and the ability to smooth out the backgrounds due to the long focal lengths of this super telephoto lens.

I'm looking forward to getting more damsel and dragonfly shots once they start emerging as the weather warms up.  I got a few dragonfly in flight shots last year with the 40-150 f2.8 + 1.4x teleconverter but struggled for range over water.  Hopefully the extra reach will increase my opportunities.

 Butterfly photography again

Years back I published a post on the Canon 55-250mm EFS as a budget friendly butterfly lens on my Canon APS-C bodies.  Times have moved on, I now use Olympus/OM Systems micro 4/3 equipment, and a recent day at The Garden House when I managed to capture these male and female Orange Tip butterflies (Anthocharis cardamines) feeding on Sweet Rocket, Hesperis matronalis, reminded me of how I now use my Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 PRO and 1.4 x teleconverter as my go to combination for shooting these flying flowers.

The native lens has a minimum focusing distance of 0.7m - just over 2 ft - and a magnification at 150mm of 0.21x. By adding the 1.4x teleconverter the minimum focusing distance stays the same but the magnification increases at the now 210mm end to 0.3, allowing tighter framing.  This is the difference:

150mm on native lens

210mm on native lens + 1.4x teleconverter

Effectively I have the equivalent in full frame terms of a close focusing 100-400mm f4 zoom (actually 112-420mm if you need to quibble).  All with Olympus / OM systems PRO image quality and rugged weatherproof build.  Any compromise in image quality from adding the teleconverter is hardly noticeable.  Yes it's a little heavier than my previous Canon 80D/55-250mm combination but the results are far better.

As I've referenced in previous posts, the combination on the OM-1 it also effectively supports hand held focus stacking.  So a five image stack with a compliant subject such as this Green-veined white butterfly (Pieris napi) provides me with both greater depth of field on the subject and even better background blur and separation than the f9 aperture I was using for the previous shots.

The full image, slightly cropped

100% crop of the butterfly head

In the field this combination of relatively light weight, great stabilisation with the Olympus/OM System IBIS, close focusing to throw more pixels on the subject while keeping a good working distance, handheld stacking and excellent image quality means that I have far more flexibility when pursuing butterflies in their habitat.  As demonstrated by these few shots from previous years

Brimstone

Green veined white in flight

Meadow brown feeding on yarrow

So, a combination that's yielding excellent results in a compact and relatively lightweight package, and, just as importantly, within my budget.  Yes I might lust after the new 50-200mm f2.8 PRO but that's way beyond what I can earn from my image sales - and that sets the budget.