Reverse image search and sausages

I've been selling photos on Alamy (digital stock photos) since 2001 everything from landscapes, cityscapes, travel and a few images from in and around the home.

Ironically one of my best selling shots is "8 Sausages in a frying pan". It has sold a total of 13 times since 2006 ranging in price from $0.83 to $156. (Alamy pricing is very confusing). So it got me thinking where has this image been used and by whom? When you sell an image on Alamy it sometimes gives you a bit of a hint; magazine, newspaper, website, presentation... you get the gist, but it's never very specific.

A few years ago I was reading the Telegraph only to spot a photo of Wastwater, that looked very familiar and sure enough it was one of mine. There was a small credit, but all it read was "Alamy" a bit disappointing and the stark reality was I only got paid £5 for the privilege.

So how else can you track down where your images are used? Back to the image of the sausages, I found a really useful website https://tineye.com/ a reverse image search engine. You upload a photo or URL to a photo and it the searches through an alleged 26.2 billion images in 3.5 seconds! My humble sausage photo was picked up 30 times across the web.

Here are a few of the more interesting locations my image has featured:

• Dailymail  - "Hull-based sausage makers Cranswick gobble up poultry producer Crown Chicken in sizzling £40million deal"
• Newslocker - "MRSA superbug found in supermarket sausages and mince"
• Telegraph - "Moving guide: 10 things to know before relocating to Qatar"
• Telegraph - "Ditch sausages for a longer life, say Harvard scientists"
• Cracked.com - "Sausages are older then the Bible"

But the prize has to go to a Caribbean Villa in Trinidad and Tobago that features my sausage shot as part of their breakfast menu offering.

Give TinEye a go yourself and you may be surprised at where you photos crop up.


Resources:

TinEye reverse image search
My stock photos on Alamy