Quote from: Gannet77 on June 18, 2013, 08:57

I just wouldn't have expected iStock to accept it.  I've often uploaded a borderline image if it's the best I have, but I usually do it without any great expectations and no small surprise if it gets accepted.  My complaint is with them apparently dropping their standards so drastically, after making such a big deal of their strict requirements in the past.

It's a total mystery, and I'm sure there's a Dark Plan behind it.

Yes, there must be.
it seems totally insane what they are doing, but there must be a plan.
Or at least a reason.
Even an ever so low reason.

They  had a base of strictly sorted quality pictures ( at least thats what they claimed) now they are doing their best to dilute it.
And why would they?
Is it so important to have many new pictures.
Or is it so that many new images of poor quality, can be used to qualify the rest?

Maybe the answer is in the timing, where many things reviel their true faces:

The come up with new categories/ collections, new upload limits and new lesser quallity demands at the same time.

So are they just collecting pictures so the customers can compare good and bad and such be motivated to buy the expensive high quality stuff?

Lies is not an argument.

The same piece of information can be true to one person and false to another.
Lie and truth can cooexcist.
It is up to people to judge and select.

I like that better than when information is selected, and distributed through more or less controlled channels to deliberately manipulate you.
With liberation of information comes of course liberation of both lie and truth.

Thats how it is among people, and always has been. Some lie, some tell the truth, its up to you to find out.
I like that far better than when you are fed institutionalized lies and you are manipulated by someone to suit their purposes.

Let me tell you a story. Ill make it as short as I can and hopefully not loose importat details.

I was in my mid twenties, and I had just saved up enough money so I could buy a used rifle, so I could shoot roe deer.
While I was sitting there cleaning the new thing, my 60 + neighbour entered the house:
"I had such one", he said.

It was a rebuilt German Mauser so I wondered a bit, where he had had such one.
"What, where, when?" I asked".
Silence.

Then at the age of 60 or 70 he decided to tell, for the first time:
" I was in the waffen SS at the eastern front, so I know such a Mauser better than you ever will".
I was chocked!
My nice neighbour had been in the Waffen SS!

"But, but, what about the autrocities?" I asked. "Did you take part?"

"It was not like that, the victor writes the history, we did not do all that, we were just soldiers, and that was bad enough".

To this day, I dont know what to make out of his statement. He was a nice and kind person.
However I am glad that I heard his point of view. I still have the mauser.

He is not the only one.

I scan mine. 2500 x 3500 pix
How big is your file? Can you read it?

Sure.
But then again.
We have a few poisonous plants here in Europe, some of them are very poisonous, in the deadly range.
Like this one, Cowbane: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicuta_virosa
It is considered the most poisonous plant  of them all.

Still I have handled it a few times, and as long as you do not eat it, nothing bad will happen (dont lick your fingers).
Poison ivy is something different, since it is the dust and vapour from the leaves that causes the reactions.
Im unfamiliar with that, so I dont know.
But let us make a deal. Ill pose and be a model with any European plant.....

He is actually very good and has adapted well and his images are amazing.

Many of the old schoolers who have problems have not adapted.

So in this case it is not because he cannot compete.
It is globalization and internet distribution that has hit him as the rest of us.
And it is getting worse.
There are some interesting threads on the ss forum.

Im getting tired of the personal attacks from some people here.

Sure, there are many things that are better than newspapers, but newspapers are often at hand when you need them.

And then can be used in quite an advanced way.
Fx the pages are not the same and the misture of black letters, images and white space can add to the quality of the reflection.
Not to mention if there is a colour photo on the page.
Plus they can be folded and such direct light from more than one direction.

Let it be a white brick wall then, so it can be used as a reflector.

ja, with the right angle you could have used the paper as a reflector.
then you would have gotten no shadows on his neck and a couple of steps that would have kept the paper in dof.

had you turned him 30 degrees North.

No. he can draw and design all he wants, but he signed the rights over to the public.
He can still promote his product: it was me who built this. Which he did.
But as well as the public can drive across the bridges, they can also lean onto them or photograph them.
They are there in the landscape. For us all to use and eventually earn money on, be that by moving goods across, or selling the smell or photographs of them.

The observant reader will note the wording in the PR release.
It allows any public infrastructure in The Kingdom of Denmark to be photographed and redistributed.
The Kingdom of Denmark is: Denmark, the Faroe islands and Greenland.
So go ahead and photograph habors and roadsigns in Greenland.