I was starting to think I should hire myself out to drought-stricken regions as some form of alien rainmaker – but – Venice was sunny! What a relief.

This was the first time I had visited Venice, so everything was new to me. Noisy vaporettos, full of tourists, threaded their way from stop to stop along the canals and across the lagoon, small workboats carted freight, and black and silver dancing gondolas, almost funereal, added to the atmosphere of this classical city. 

It was early summer and the tourists had arrived. Their numbers were overwhelming.  Elbow to elbow, they thronged the vaporetto stops, backed up on the arched bridges and flowed along the narrow streets. I was loaded with camera and various lenses and I was relieved I had decided not to carry a tripod. There just was not enough room!

However, the most enduring memory was relaxing - with pleasant company - while dining al fresco in the early evenings on Guidecca, a crescent shaped island overlooking Venice. The temperature was balmy, and gentle breezes rippled the lagoon, often losing to the rougher competition provided by bustling water traffic. The food was excellent, and both it and the wine were inexpensive.

he first evening I wandered out without my camera, to be met by the most tempting photographic opportunity. As the sun set, it reflected across the surface of the lagoon, giving the impression of soft molten flows, orange and golden. I waited another three evenings before the conditions repeated, and thankfully, I now have images of golden, melting reflections which will remind me of that almost lost opportunity.

I managed to get some other interesting and stock-potential images,

arranged an interview with an artist couple who were running a painting workshop, and ended the trip with a promise that I should return – there are more opportunities than time allowed. All in all, the trip was very rewarding.

So now I am sitting in my office, trying to determine what key words I need to add to a set of images of Venice. Keywords are not just important – they will sell your images. I should also mention the necessity for captions– a caption, especially when humorous, can do wonders to attract that potential buyer. But for now, I will just concentrate on keywords. (Only because I am hopeless at creating catchy captions – alliteration I can do, just not captions!)

Key words – in data terms – are properly defined as metadata, technically data about data, but in our context, data about images. A stock image buyer will use key words to search for and find images that match a concept or a need. The searching process can be arduous, perhaps boring, and our buyer will be pleased when an image crops up to match what is often a partially formed and ill-framed concept.

So what are key words? How do we invent or discover them?

So we will research the internet – it is a marvelous tool – and observe what other people do. I am not suggesting plagiarizing (stealing and passing off someone’s work as your own) but rather pointing out that numerous lessons can be learned from examples of what other people do. We look at Ansel Adams photographs to see what a landscape master does, we look at images from exhibitions of Henri Cartier-Bresson for examples of landscapes, cultures and street reportage. Indeed, we visit the van Gogh Museum to see what a renowned Dutch artist does with color and light. We may even try to emulate styles and effects, but along the way we impart our own character and techniques on the resulting image.

So, having said that, let us commence with Corbis. I searched for Venice and selected a suitable image, and the keywords that appeared in combination with that image included:

Architecture, Exterior, Many, Travel, Canal, Grand Canal, Marine scenes, Veneto, Church, Group, People, Venezia Province, Europe, Italy, Santa Maria del Rosario Venice

Some of these are rather obvious and some are bland – marine scenes, for example, is bland. The result is disappointing. Now whether the paucity of keywords on Corbis is because the photographer did not include them with the image or because Corbis rely on other sales mechanisms, is impossible for us to determine. If I was a school teacher, my comment on the Corbis report card would be – could do better.

Next I tried Jupiter, a popular stock site. The search returned a suitable image and more key words; however, the result is still not excellent. The improvement should be obvious – more words related to the location, making it easier for the stock researcher to find this image:

basilica di santa maria, della, salute and gondolas on grand canal from ponte del academia,  Venice,  italy,  Europe,  water,  person,  people,  architecture,  landmark,  body of water,  exterior,  building,  religion,  international,  italy,  outdoor,  canal,  Venice,  gondola,  cathedral,  Christian,  day,  daytime,  structure,  catholic,  church,  Christianity,  Catholicism,  basilica,  grand canal

This is a set of inventive, descriptive and comprehensive key words. Jupiter scores highly with this example. I tried another site, this time a travel stock photographer, David Sanger (see http://library.davidsanger.com). David lives in California, is a prolific photographer – his images are excellent – and unfortunately he has nothing on his site for Venice. So, being patriotic, I selected an Australian image – part of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, needless to say. And the result is impressive:  

arch, arches, Aussie, Australia, Australian, bay, bays, bridge, bridges, crossing, crossings, David Sanger, destination, destinations, Down Under, downunder, engineering, girder, girders, holiday, holidays, landmark, landmarks, metalwork, New South Wales, NSW, Oceania, Oz, road, roads, roadway, route, routes, span, spans, steel arch bridge, Sydney, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge, tourism, transport, transportation, travel, traveling, travelling, travels, vacation, vacations, vertical, water 

From this example, we can see that David builds very comprehensive key word sets, a scope that is an excellent illustration of how key wording should be done. He uses alternative spellings (Harbour and Harbor, traveling and travelling), and different words that have similar meanings (we go on holidays whereas other people have vacations) so that the key words will work for American and English searchers. David includes singular and plural versions of words (bridge, bridges). He includes his name, which I think is important for internet-based searches.
The seeker of stock images will not escape unscathed from a search on David’s site. (See, I said I was OK with alliteration).

Imagine the effort required to build key words for 6,000 – 7,000 images – the number of David has available on his site. Who said stock photography was an easy gig?

Would I stop there? Probably not. Remember, I said we should learn from these examples, not copy them. Indeed, we need to ensure our key words are comprehensive, if not exhaustive.

Thus we could add the following items to David’s collection:

Colors (or colours) that appear in the image (blue, grey), historical aspects (largest – it was at the time - single span, convict, convicts, British colony, settlement), technical words (Nikon, D2X, digital), other items included in the image (cityscape, flag, Blues Point – at least I think that is the area of the city captured in the image), and finally, any local names – if you know them - which describe the image (one term David may not have encountered is ‘coat hanger’).

Just remember, key wording is an art, not a science!

Copyright © 2006 John Hindmarsh [Contact ] [Bio]