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
Resources:
TinEye reverse image search
My stock photos on Alamy