Even if you had model releases (which you'd need for commercial licensing) you'd have to clean the images of logos and other protected property (the Ford logo and the computer screen in the shot inside a vehicle, for example). Do you understand the difference between licensing for editorial use only (such as newspapers and magazines) and commercial - ads, web site banners, brochures, etc.? There's more money to be made (generally) for commercial licensing but you'd lose some of the authenticity of your shots by scrubbing them of all the prohibited stuff.

When you say you have had issues, the stock sites give rejection reasons - what reasons were you getting? And was it with getting accepted as a contributor or getting images approved for sale after acceptance as a contributor? Generally keywording has nothing to do with getting accepted as a contributor, but is critical in getting your images found by buyers.

Hi Jo Ann,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Sounds like I may beed to clean up some of my images if I decide to go the commercial licensing way...

The issue seems to be with captions/descriptions.. I am a contributor on iStock but have not had any images approved. What are some other websites I should look into?

Hello Photographers,

I'm new to the stock community and industry. I'm a local fire department photographer in Arizona. I have a large collection of first responder images I would like to list on stock websites. I would appreciate any tips regarding keywording and any other general information.

I'm using Lightroom as my workflow. I have always hade issues getting my photos on Shutterstock and iStock. I'm not sure if its a quality issue, keywording or even caption.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Matt