I agree 100%.

Agreed. That blog post was very telling about how Stocksy operates...and not in a good way.

Rejected after 4 month waiting.  What they are doing is totally disrespectful to photographers.
A trained editor's look at a portfolio is enough to know whether fit or not. 
Anyway, I have no idea what they are looking for or what they want, but they do not seem to know.
For me, this company is a huge disappointment, especially its disrespectful behavior. 
I uploaded 100 pictures, a lot of work went into it. Yes, WORK. And get a kick after 4 month waiting. This is not a professional behavior. Speak to the community!
Tell them what you are looking for! What type of content?  Believe me, you will spare yourself a lot of unnecessary entries, and we would not have fun with each other's time and nerves! This is so catastrophic. 
Anyway, if someone is curious about my refused portfolio is here: https://500px.com/basilsmith

Best to all

Love your work Smith!

Clearly the rejections have absolutely nothing to do with quality. They don't want any competition for their current photographers (understandable), but they do want everyone to think they're a super exclusive club that's very hard to get into. Otherwise they could simply invite people who fill their open niches, as mentioned earlier.

You guys are super talented and deserve much more respectful treatment.

It seems that they're not sure what they're looking for. A trained editor would have known if the applicant have portolio that fit with stocksy within minutes, so why wait for four months for rejection? If the seat is limited, and the applicant is huge, why are they still open the application?

Plenty of applicants have portolios that fit with stocksy, the question that took so long to answer was is the applicant a good fit with Stocksy?

Quote from: obj owl on January 27, 2018, 23:48
Plenty of applicants have portolios that fit with stocksy, the question that took so long to answer was is the applicant a good fit with Stocksy?

It all seems a bit too pompous for me.

Next year: "Rejection of artist is open, if you are from Mongolia, have a million of followers in istagram, a great Beard with tattoos (don't worry if you are a bearded girl) and have real lifestyle with real people that are models with last on fashion trends you can try"


Hahahaha..Well, the joke is done...

Anyway I do not see disrespectful to make us wait, patience is very important when selling photos

Quote from: Brasilnut on January 27, 2018, 10:42

QuoteI didn't think my style would suit, landscapes and travel in mostly Asia, and I had noticed a distinct lack of Asian locations in their library and a very pastel palette to their landscapes too. However the speed of their response was exemplary.

Did you get a chance to apply to Robert Harding and/or 4Corners? I would recommend them for your types of images.

I've gone over their sites again and they both look like very good matches for my work - very good advice, thanks !  However since both require exclusivity would you have any advice as to who to apply to first (in terms of monetary returns / reputation / size of agency etc.) ? RH pay out 30% and 4C pay 50% however obviously if RH are much larger (and I notice they now also supply to Adobe Premium) then more sales would be preferable to a higher commission.

Cheers !
Kevin

^^^

I'm not sure about 4C since I decided to join RH and never looked back. They have a large distribution channel (80 or so), much bigger than 4C, even if would get much higher commissions.

Following is my experience with RH after about a year.

Pros:
- large distribution channel (see above)
- personalized blog posts about travels. I've had one post about my trip to UAE and numerous cover features. Obviously doesn't be guarantee sales but certainly helps.
- more visibility, such as when new images are accepted bio appears on main contributor page
- submission is painless and no need for keywording, Just caption and location.
- you can choose to license all RM if u wish
- they accept editorials
- tight edits (80% rejection rate on average) so they obviously only letting premium images in which is a plus
- one to one with photo editor. I've got many tips.

Cons:
- low commission at 30%, same as Alamy via distribution. I feel that for exclusivity this is too low.
- takes ages to get sales reports from distributors (I'm waiting for 7 images which I've spotted via google reverse)
- exclusivity (the biggest downside imo). This includes "similars".

----

Hope that's helpful.

Alex

Quote from: Brasilnut on January 28, 2018, 15:59
^^^

I'm not sure about 4C since I decided to join RH and never looked back. They have a large distribution channel (80 or so), much bigger than 4C, even if would get much higher commissions.

Following is my experience with RH after about a year.

Pros:
- large distribution channel (see above)
- personalized blog posts about travels. I've had one post about my trip to UAE and numerous cover features. Obviously doesn't be guarantee sales but certainly helps.
- more visibility, such as when new images are accepted bio appears on main contributor page
- submission is painless and no need for keywording, Just caption and location.
- you can choose to license all RM if u wish
- they accept editorials
- tight edits (80% rejection rate on average) so they obviously only letting premium images in which is a plus
- one to one with photo editor. I've got many tips.

Cons:
- low commission at 30%, same as Alamy via distribution. I feel that for exclusivity this is too low.
- takes ages to get sales reports from distributors (I'm waiting for 7 images which I've spotted via google reverse)
- exclusivity (the biggest downside imo). This includes "similars".

----

Hope that's helpful.

Alex

Thanks a lot Alex !  I'm in touch with RH so fingers crossed

Just wondering if anyone from this group is still waiting for their response? And did anyone here get accepted at this year's CTA?

Quote from: corinna on February 02, 2018, 12:37
Just wondering if anyone from this group is still waiting for their response? And did anyone here get accepted at this year's CTA?

I'm still waiting. Fingers crossed

Quote from: viki2win on February 03, 2018, 10:17

Quote from: corinna on February 02, 2018, 12:37
Just wondering if anyone from this group is still waiting for their response? And did anyone here get accepted at this year's CTA?

I'm still waiting. Fingers crossed

Hope you make it!

Quote from: corinna on February 03, 2018, 16:08

Quote from: viki2win on February 03, 2018, 10:17

Quote from: corinna on February 02, 2018, 12:37
Just wondering if anyone from this group is still waiting for their response? And did anyone here get accepted at this year's CTA?

I'm still waiting. Fingers crossed

Hope you make it!

Thank you!   

guys I don't know the numbers, but I believe it's in the THOUSANDS that apply to Stocksy.  How long do you want them to look at your application and look at you as an artist? 5 mins? or perhaps a few hours?   It's a small team at Stocksy and I'm guessing that if they look at a few applicants each day then it's going to take 100 days (plus the 2-3 over xmas when there was a skeleton staff), for you to hear back.  It's a co-op so you as a person are joining a team; it's not a faceless company like the others, so I guess they spend a little more time than just perusing your set of images, and perhaps also looking at "you". You don't have to be super sweet, we've got some prickly pears too, but you are expected to be interested and active.  Perhaps they also look at your SM accounts? I've no idea.  But like any role you apply for, surely you've got all that looking its best?

I don't know anything about the CTA process, and i'm so very grateful I got in earlier, but Stocksy is worth it, both in sales and being part of the community, as well as improving as an artist.  Good luck to those who choose to apply again in the near future.

Quote from: b.smith on January 27, 2018, 17:37

Anyway, if someone is curious about my refused portfolio is here: https://500px.com/basilsmith

Best to all

I had a look, lovely work but I think I can have a guess. I don't think they need more "pretty woman standing in field" type images. They are beautiful images but perhaps if she were engaged in an activity.... "real people doing real things". Trust me, we all get these rejections on portraits and perhaps they are hoping to onboard new people who are great storytellers? I'm only guessing, as I said, i've no idea how CTA works and I was lucky to go through a less stringent process 4 years ago.   

Quote from: gillian on February 04, 2018, 02:36
guys I don't know the numbers, but I believe it's in the THOUSANDS that apply to Stocksy.  How long do you want them to look at your application and look at you as an artist? 5 mins? or perhaps a few hours?   It's a small team at Stocksy and I'm guessing that if they look at a few applicants each day then it's going to take 100 days (plus the 2-3 over xmas when there was a skeleton staff), for you to hear back.  It's a co-op so you as a person are joining a team; it's not a faceless company like the others, so I guess they spend a little more time than just perusing your set of images, and perhaps also looking at "you". You don't have to be super sweet, we've got some prickly pears too, but you are expected to be interested and active.  Perhaps they also look at your SM accounts? I've no idea.  But like any role you apply for, surely you've got all that looking its best?

I don't know anything about the CTA process, and i'm so very grateful I got in earlier, but Stocksy is worth it, both in sales and being part of the community, as well as improving as an artist.  Good luck to those who choose to apply again in the near future.

What bothered me was not the long wait but the lack of communication. I appreciate that they take time to go over portfolios in detail...but really, if you look at a portfolio for an hour or even just half an hour, how long would it take to make the effort to send out somewhat personalized emails...? I'm not talking about an extensive feedback, but it would help to know if your general photography style, your editing, the colors, your subject, too commercial, too artsy? etc. was the reason why they rejected you. Is it worth to re-apply? What to submit when re-applying? What are they looking for? I have no idea because I didn't get any feedback...

It takes about an hour to set up a few different email templates and almost no time to pick one of them instead of sending a standard rejection...

I'm pretty sure, too, that they receive thousands of applications but I'm also sure there's a pretty high percentage of applications where only one look at the images is sufficient to know that they are no fit.

What might indeed help is they gave out some guidelines - we need people who like to shoot large groups of families with children in their daily life, we need people who shoot seniors with medical needs and  care facilities, we need modern photography of business owners, especially women, minorities and seniors making a second start in life.

Or maybe creative black and white or film photography.

Otherwise a lot of people will just put togeter portfolios with content that stocksy already has in abundance.

Unless they do need more of that, I don't know.

So I can understand the frustration.

All I can recommend to do is spend the waiting time also exploring other specialized agencies, stocksy is by far not the only one.

What bugged me about the blog post is that it showed Stocksy is willing to do a fair bit of hand holding and ruffled feather soothing if you have a popular blog or Twitter account, but they'll dismiss everyone else with a standard form email and no other feedback...after they've been kept hanging for four months.

It was clear the instant rejection after the tweet, the quick ego-soothing followup email, the chirpy, friendly comments on the blog post by Stocksy members and the sharing of the blog here were all meant to keep that photographer saying positive things about Stocksy, while also giving all other rejected photographers a condescending lesson about how they "should" react after being rejected in a much less personal way.

Icky.

None of that is true, but ok.

At this point I think it is safe to say that everyone who applied and was not accepted thinks the process was BS.

And those of you who have been 'in' for a while disagree.

But it's probably time for the 'ins', who according to their own words have nothing to do with the CTA, to refrain from posting thoughts on the process.

Thanks, but when something is patently untrue like the allegations above, I'll respond.

It's true that we had thousands of applicants.  Our staff is small. It's also true that we currently have a very limited number of open slots.  It is what it is.

Quote from: PhotoBomb on February 04, 2018, 23:07
At this point I think it is safe to say that everyone who applied and was not accepted thinks the process was BS.

And those of you who have been 'in' for a while disagree.

But it's probably time for the 'ins', who according to their own words have nothing to do with the CTA, to refrain from posting thoughts on the process.

ouch.  I'm sorry the process is taking so long, and I agree it's ridiculously long, so it's not unreasonable to grumble about that.  Surely you realise that although we aren't part of the CTA process, we are privvy to more info than you about what Stocksy wants? Frankly, i'm not sure I should even have to spell that much out... ok, do it your way. this chocolate is getting back into the box. All the best.