12/05/2026
In the magazine I've regularly updated on Alamy licence sales for my stock library. With a need to have more outlets, I'm also trying Adobe Stock and Getty iStock, with just a few images added so far as so many are ineligible or rejected, often as no model releases can be provided for street/reportage photography.
Adobe has made a few pence with a license for 71c for a shot of Eilean Donan castle, that's all so far. But today Alamy surprised, as it can, with a $132 use for this one.
It was taken partly because it's a park in Budapest, partly because these were people reading actual books. Almost exactly 20 years ago - and books were still more used than laptops, with phones not even on the horizon. And partly because it showed social distancing, the convention of not sitting right next to someone else, especially for a man and a woman.
This is why keywording and captioning matters, and thinking about how and why a picture may be used. It's not enough to take good pictures for editorial use. They generally need to illustrate a point or concept, explain or demonstrate, and not just decorate.
The shot was taken on a 6 megapixel Konica Minolta Dynax 7D. -DK
