All flashy smiling, very unnatural looking, plastic people. If designers really want those, why not using 3d-renders in the first place?

If you look for plants and animals by scientific names, you are better off visiting specialized sites.
I host my generic stuff with microstock agencies like Shutterstock or Dreamstime, but the nature shots with the scientific names go to my own website www.colorstockphoto.com, just as an example.
Of course microstock and free pictures are much cheaper...

Working for free is common in other professions as well. I�m running a healthcare-related shop, where people more or less expect me to counsel them for free- I earn money if I sell something, but general opinon is my time is worth nothing.

People get in, want advice for free, it takes minutes, sometimes up to an hour, then they just smile, say thank you, and order the stuff in the nest internet shop (where they don�t get this advice) for less money, and expect me to be happy about still having them as customers, albeit not paying ones...

And because everybody tells them they are fools if they pay for things they can get for free, they think it�s normal, they did alright.

I have to work for free and still must smile and be happy if a tiny little number of them, maybe in the future, one day, perhaps, actually buy something. There are many times I would like to do a rant myself (like now).

So- what�s the difference to said fashion photography?

The article mingles facts, wishful thinking and a deep mistrust against pharmaceutical companies. While I understand this mistrust (who doesn't?),
wishful thinking has never been a good method to keep people safe. I prefer to err on the side of caution.
Yes, vaccinations can have very bad side effects. But what of diseases themselves? When I was at school we were routinely vaccinated against smallpox. All of us. That was a vaccination with some really nasty side effects. It made several children seriously ill, one or the other even died. Everybody knew about that danger. Nobody canceled that vaccination, because  parents remembered all too well how much lives smallpox used to take.

Nowadays so few people have experienced a real epidemic that fears run low and people trend to underestimate possibly lethal germs (and that goes for more than just flu).

Now you don�t have to panic, of course, but try to really evaluate the risks before you judge what�s right or wrong. Remember, you see so few of these dangerous infection diseases because a certain part of the population is vaccinated. As long as there are enough of them, you are relatively safe. If the number of vaccinated people falls under a certain percentage, these diseases will magically resurface.

It�s not the actual form of swine flu which threatens the whole world population. It�s the possibility that Swine flu combines with avian flu or other highly dangerous flu forms. All flu viruses are known to combine merrily among each other. And swine flu is known to spread easily, that�s an added danger.
So you better pray that we will have our vaccinations before swine flu develops into a more lethal form.

Clipartof states on it�s website that it needs the same paperwork shutterstock is asking for right now.
So every contributor who is not an US-citizen MUST have this tax- formular before he want�s to apply. That�s what their website explicitly says.

Is there another illustration site which is not from the US? (I don�t want to have the hassle with all these formulars and such).

My legal name is much too long and difficult...

Why do you argue against NASA giving their photos for free? Such a thing is called "altruism" (or sometimes "common sense") and was the basis of survival of our species.
Going back a little bit in history: how would mankind have fared with black pox hat the vaccination be copyrighted at that time? Many more people would have died. Long term it doesn�t always pay to look for money first. And now there are pharmaceutical firms who earn money with this vaccination stuff. Would you call that low morals and insist they shouldn�t be allowed to make a salable product from some knowledge freely available.?
Same with our pictures. The photographer invested some time in changing these pictures. That is why he get�s money for them.

Redbubble is more "just for fun", not for sale, so I put fractals there which I do really like (in fact I like them so much that I�d prefer have them stolen on Redbubble than have them sold for 0,35 Cets subscription on a microstock site). 

If you want to err on the side of caution, it�s 70 years after the death of the photograph AND no person on the photo is still living (highly probability, after all that time), then the photo is out of any copyright.
Which means you CAN NOT sell it on microstock, as microstock wants you to be the copyright holder.

If you are the sole heir of photos and negatives AND no person on the photo is still living, then (by German law) you are the copyright holder and you can sell the photo for whatever use.

All the rest- works only with model release.

IrfanView does bulk editing with IPTC-data.

I made my whole stock portfolio (between 75 and 400 photos online on the different major stockphoto-sites) with a point-and-shoot (Canon Powershot S2IS).
Will upgrade to a DSLR this year, because it gives me a bigger sensor and the opportunity to downsize photos when they are not totally sharp...
But I will keep my old Canon, because it�s easy work, and suitable for most things I want to photograph.