My rejection rate at SS has increased dramatically in my last few batches - anyone else seeing this, or is it just me?

mine is going ok apart from some ambiguous kw rejections.

I wonder why they rejected your photos,I mean what were  the given reasons ?

I too have had an increase in SS rejections. Some of the reasons were so strange and unfounded that I just shake my head. It's as if the reviewer had never seen an image shot in strong directional lighting in the desert. With a "bad white point" comment also when each shot was right-on with a WhiBal card.

Yet the next shot was accepted by SS even though it was a high key dramatic b&w silhouette shot: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=7295830

I would have bet that image would have been rejected for any number or reasons I would have agreed with. And it had a download the first day! Go figure.

Thank goodness I'm not exclusive to any one set of reviewers.

Well goodness I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. As I said in another thread I'm getting lots of rejects there. I've been there since 2005 in fact I started with them. I have some really old crappy images there but I don't delete them because they continue to sell. Not long ago I did delete almost 80 old images but wish now I hadn't because they aren't accepting my new and much better work.

Ah, I thought I was the only unlucky one that hit the "crazy reviewer". After a year of almost 100% acceptance, my last 2 batches were suddenly rejected with very odd reasons ("jaggies in the illustration when it's a photo etc...) [3 of 3 rejected, 9 of 12 rejected].

Strange is that there were shots from a series that was accepted before (and sells) without any problem. Most rejects were sortof "this is not commercial". A new reviewer?

I don't bother to protest them either... hey, how can the reviewer be wrong, right?   Ain't no biggie to me, one doesn't want them, another will....

I never object either. SS rejected a few shots of handmade colorful guitars as "not commercial". The full series was accepted yesterday on DT (it used to be the other way round) and one sold 3 days after upload full-size at FP for 6$.

SS used to be right most of the time, and their rejects were mostly technical. They must have hired a reviewer now that thinks he knows what will sell on stock.

What brings me to the philosophical thought: how the heck any reviewer can know what will sell if he is a photographer that relies on his gut feeling and on what sells in his own portfolio? That should be a content editor with a wide experience of the market.

Seems to me that an experienced contributor (with his own style and with his own type of shots) knows best what will sell. Why not let the market decide, and just delete shots after 1-2 years with no downloads?

I haven't had much of a problem with rejections.  They have started to reject more if they already have lots of that subject.  This doesn't seem sensible, as new photos sell better there than old ones.  I would rather they deleted the old photos than not accept new ones.

My rejection rate has improved. Last couple of batches had no rejections.