There are so many images on the internet one has to wonder how anyone finds anything they are looking for. I really have sympathy for photo researchers and editors trying to find something very specific, and having to weed through so much of what they don’t want. Of course, as a photographer who markets my work on the internet and through stock agencies – just having a good picture isn’t good enough, having the picture someone wants isn’t good enough – you have to provide a lot of help to getting that image found. And of course, the buzzword here is keywording. It is something that can help finding images in a personal collection for sure, but it takes on a complete artform when trying to work it into business strategies.
Bugs with dots
I have been uploading more of my work to Alamy, a stock agency I belong to. I only have a gnat’s eyebrow worth of a presence there compared to their total collection. That’s slightly smaller than a pimple on a flea, but I have made some good sales over the past year even with my tiny amount of work there. They currently have 15 million images online. It seems like a huge number, but how about compare to Corbis with 100 million images in their collection? The number seems to lose some meaning after a certain amount. It’s a hell of a lot! After awhile, it just becomes this sea of pictures of anything you can imagine. Finding those images is up to the photographer, or their arsenal of helpers (in my case – it is me, myself, and I), or maybe even a hired service or software to keyword them appropriately.
I can understand outsourcing the job for some – because it can be a lot of work and very time consuming. In addition to needing a thesaurus, I think you need to be able to objectively look at a picture for it’s many potential uses and thematic elements. You need to be able to change your mindset on words someone else might use to describe it, the ideas it might represent. You need to think about the commonplace to the obscure. I think someone who has knowledge of many different cultures also has some advantages because they are more able to generate ideas outside the realms of their own. Afterall, photographers on the internet are in a global marketplace.
Also, it is a lot like role playing – pretending you are person making the search and thinking about what terms might be important to you. Putting on the hat of a biologist, layout editor, or interior designer can help you think of new words and concepts.
There are so many aspects of keywording, it can be quite overwhelming actually. In fact, many companies now try to keep keyword’s hidden from view, but are active in searches, because they are considered intellectual property.
Keyword Parents
I basically follow the advice of a lot of keyword strategy articles I have read over the years – be methodical and drill down from very vague basic descriptions to the finite details. It all starts in Lightroom for me where my list of words grows basically every time I import a set of images. I have tried to create some general parent categories as shown here, and then place the keywords as children underneath them. It helps me in being methodical about assigning keywords because I can move category to category and pick fitting words in each one. It also takes a lot of discipline. I still have thousands of images that I consider to be not adequately keyworded.
I also find that I come up with new ones from time to time. Older images I may think I have exhausted the thought process on all of the sudden have some new angles to them. I am not very disciplined at keywording species scientific names and their genus and families – so I already know that is a lot of work that needs to be added.
It is a mundane chore at times. It can be self-challenging to see how much you can actually come up with. So having a list in front of you to pick from easily can help a lot – and following the methodology of moving from generic to specific.
I don’t claim to be an expert at this, but think I have had some good practice. I thought I would share an example of a fairly simplistic image that can generate a lot of different keywords. Sometimes the more generic and simple the image, the more words you can derive from it because it can mean so many different things.
Water reflection - or something else?
Keywords: reflection blue gold yellow water mimosa impressionistic Great Lakes Lake Superior Michigan Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Upper Peninsula U.P. yellow calm calming colorful gradient gradual color merge blend graphic diagonal angle motion movement peaceful lake pond wet liquid relax relaxation repeating rhythm impressionism sheen shoreline tranquil pretty tranquility complimentary ripple ripples rhythms waves shimmer shimmering fresh horizontal merger merging blending spa space open copy text aqua refreshing refresh dream dreamy dream-like environment environmental aquamarine marine aquatic H2O nature beauty beautiful luminous cool cold warm inviting background…
So I think that is a pretty good list to start – certainly some words more applicable directly than others. Never underestimate the possible application or thought pattern of someone doing the search. Who knows, it may be one particular word or phrase that someone uses and finds it as a match to exactly what they are looking for. Obviously abuses are frowned upon, even penalized if you get too carried away. Certainly placing some celebrity name in my list for this image is going a bit too far.
I welcome any feedback or suggestions on this subject. It is one that I find as an extremely interesting game of match-making.
Keywording! Thanks for the reminder. Keywords and stronger editing are something I need to work on, but it often seems to be so time consuming. I have begun to use Lightroom to speed things up, but I still have a huge back-log. I am amazed at how many keywords you managed to squeeze out of one photograph!
Interesting post Mark. Did you purchase a keyword catalog or did you build that catalog by yourself? That is a gigantic list!
Hey Richard – nope – keyworded that by myself – quite often it takes coming back a couple of times because there are “oh yeahs…” of additional words I think might apply. I don’t consider myself to have a very big vocabulary either – I imagine I could pull out the thesaurus more and get a few more words I didn’t know…
I have seen some of the software programs out there, but they all are a bit pricey for me considering I can get a pretty good list going by just following the drill down methodology.
Wow..!!! nice strategies for keyword,Mark. hope you can make more like this article for niche keyword strategies.
Thanks Mark, that certainly gave me some food for thought! I’m disciplined enough with all the species names so finding a specific flower in my catalog is a piece of cake, but I’m really bad at going beyond that and create associations. Gotta get to work with that… I think I should start by adding the word “cold” to my frosty winter images, LOL!
This post is a real “eye-opener” to me. Goodness, I have a LOT of work to do!!!
This certainly set me thinking. But, before I began contemplating how lousy my keywording is, I checked your photos at Alamy and admired your impressive collection there. I hope you are doing well wtih that part of your business.
This phase of “housekeeping” is another of my weak suits–just buckling down to do the job even, much less doing it as thoroughly as you have. I am assuming that you separate out your strongest images for this in-depth keyworking, rather than doing this for entire folders. Am I wrong about that?
Hi Anita – thank you, but I have a lot of work to do to increase my stock area – you really need thousands of images there, and my portion is well – the size as I described it.
I am just glad despite the millions, some actually found some of mine.
As far keywording, since I use Lightroom, you can assign some general basic keywords when importing images. I will further add to that list for images I place online or submitting.
Hey Mark: I am confused. Are you saying here that a pimple on a flea is larger than a gnat’s eyebrow? Because I think, oh never mind!
Seriously, what an undertaking! I remember when we first met, we both had “day jobs” and photography was a hobby. Perhaps thankfully, I have kept it that way. While I know you still have a day job, you have truly developed your “hobby” into a profession. You are a role model of talent and hard work for others who aspire to follow. And this is just an example of how important the hard work part is!
Hey Mark,
That is an excellent collection of key-words for that image! If you ever need a job…
What drives me crazy is when you do come up with a new word or angle – I know I should go back an add it to past images, but who has the time. Janine and I both review our keywords for each image – that really helps as we both can come up with different angels. Good post.
Ron
I hope you keep that job offer open Ron – I may need to call you on it someday!
LOL – you got it. Heck, you could even work from home.
thanks for your interesting article. I’m just about to start using lightroom (I mainly just ise Bridge before) and its interesting to see how other people manage their workflows etc.
Suzy
Interesting. While I agree that keyword selection is important I think it’s also important to no pollute the name spaces. if every landscape image has beauty, tranquil, and serenity attached to it then using those keywords becomes almost pointless to the searcher, as they don’t narrow the selection at all.
That’s a good point Vince. I do think there is value in those generic words when combined with something more specific though – like “serene Smoky Mountains woodland” – some generic, some more specific.
Cool picture of the blue n gold water reflection. I agree that the key words are a must. When I search for photos it seems like there are keyword spammers that just put every keyword the can think of even if the photo does not fit the keywork. This can be frustrating. That is why I now get very specific with my keyword in long tail form when searching. Now the photos I am finding are more on subject for what I want.
I toiled for hours to put together appropriate keywords for my initial 10 photo submission to PhotoShelter. Of course, a lot of that time was spent fighting their hard-to-use keyword input system. Then they went out of the stock photo business! The easiest keywords for me were the scientific names and data words (I have mostly bird photos). The hardest words were the ones that evoke emotions, which is what you seem to be good at and probably what sells photos best.
Ironically, keywording photographs for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on a website requires more specific words and not so many of them. I don’t know of any software that allows for two sets of keywords to be stored – a set for the stock agencies and another short list for the gallery on my web site, so one list has to be edited by hand.
Aloha! bem