So far I've got nothing for January, but thats not saying much as I have a super small portfolio.   I will keep my finger crossed.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 16, 2013, 14:43
You can see from the scene outside that the studio/kitchen is lit to about EV14 (shade on a sunny day). which is seven or eight stops brighter than an ordinary kitchen. So it's hardly a wonder that he can shoot hand-held in those conditions, it would involve something like f/8 to  f/14 and at 1/200s with an ISO of 200 to 400 - guaranteed sharp with reasonable DoF.

The lesson is that if you want to shoot in your kitchen you need to flood it with an awful lot of light.

With the amount of light required, would it be worthwhile to utilize florescent work lights or halogen lights to elevate the amount of "ambient" lighting levels in your kitchen?  I suspect doing something like that with my current kitchen would be just shy of a nightmare...  Row homes aren't exactly the most forgiving places to photograph. 

Thank you everyone for all of your responses, I am really appreciative of how much everyone here is so willing to help out.

I was having trouble with 123RF, crestock, and GLStockImages with FileZilla.  An email to crestock suggested that I download another ftp program to test the connection since they were able to connect with FileZilla.  I downloaded CyberDuck to give it a whirl since it appeared to be the simple, and free.  It appeared to work just fine at all three sites I had been having trouble with, but it also doesn't appear to have any higher end functionality. 

I need to look into exporting directly from Lightroom Fran - that would be an absolutely fantastic time saving method.  I find it hard to keep track of the photos that I have uploaded to which stock agency - and having an export function from within LR would dramatically simplify that.

If nothing else, using an ftp client like ftp voyager or transmit that can schedule uploads or combining with automater routines is a phenomenal idea.  I will have to spend some time looking into those individual programs.

Thanks again everyone.  This has been really helpful!

Alas - I have a mac.  :-) 

Sorry - I should have included that information from the beginning.  :-)

Hey everyone,

I ahve been using FileZilla to upload images but I am finding that it is not successfully connecting to a couple sites and I was wondering if anyone had other programs they are using instead of FileZilla?  FileZilla seems to work most of the time, but not always.

Thanks!!!!

Is it possible to concentrate on all of your organizations equally as opposed to concentrating on just a single one?  I get that SS does indeed sell more, and that DT and FT are also in the top tier based on sales, however, if you take a broad based approach you cast a larger net, cumulative sales at other organizations can help to make up a larger sample size.  And really, once you have your photos keyworded, with titles and descriptions, then submitting the photos to multiples stock sites shouldn't require all that much effort.  Especially if you are using an FTP upload service that you can leave uploading overnight.

I am still experimenting with all of this myself.  But I am thinking that the greatest loss of time is spent uploading and submitting your photos to these sites, so I am going to experiment with only uploading photos once I have reached a certain threshold - perhaps 50 photos - so that I can gain some level of efficiency in the whole process (keep in mind - some organizations like IS will only allow you to submit 18 per week and will inherently take additional time though you can use their deepmeta software package to make this process significantly easier).

Those are just my two cents.  I am still learning and experimenting with the best way to approach this industry.

I really liked the video, but I am with everyone here in that I dont understand how on earth you can get that much light in a kitchen without setting up flashes.  I go home and look at my own kitchen and couldn't imagine doing it with the kit lenses I currently own or at an ISO level that would stand the remotest chance of getting accepted.  It really seems as though the lighting in the video had to have some additional sources of light.  Maybe not flashes - but constant lighting.

I wonder if an option for some of us with small kitchens and low budgets is to put halogen work lights on a stand outside of the nearest window to throw some additional light into the scene or to create some additional ambient light.  I know that the light from these aren't exactly the best but they may serve to brighten up the entire scene enough that you could use kit lenses at lower ISOs.  It also appeared that they spent a bit of time using a 50mm on one of the cameras as well, and the DOF on some of those photos did look a bit shallow. 

Regardless, it is really inspiring to see these guys do a shoot in an ambient setting without having to truck a bunch of light stands and adjust a bunch of lights around.

Thanks for posting the video.  Definitely some new ideas are churning in my head.  :-)

Thanks again for all of the advice everyone.  It is incredibly helpful for a newbie like me.  I am in the process of applying to several other agencies and will spend february standardizing my keyword structure in lightroom (should massively reduce the amount of time I spend key wording).  Thankfully my image library is super small and I am generally only able to put up images that I shot a month or so earlier. 

I think if my end game is to provide a financial means to upgrade my equipment, then there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't cast as wide a net as possible - especially if the prevailing thought is that designers are largely loyal to a single site and do not shop around.  Even if they do - then it is possible to get equal income from other agencies as compared to IS which has an incredibly low RPD in comparison to almost all other agencies that I have looked at so far.

Additionally, I have already noted the differences between acceptance criteria at different agencies.  For example - FT denied 38 of 40 submitted files that were accepted by IS, while DT accepted 38 of 40 including several that IS didn't accept as well.  I can see that I have quite a bit to learn.

Thanks again for all of your advice and help.  It is really great to know that this community exists and is so willing to share their thoughts and opinions.

All of that makes a hell of a lot of sense.  Thanks to all of you for taking the time to respond to my question - it really helps a newbie like me who is just getting his feet wet.

I had read somewhere that most designers used 2-3 sites however, most tended to be loyal to only one.  It would make sense since time is money that a designer will have a single go to site and not spend too much time shopping around for a lower cost image from elsewhere.  Its not like I go to Bing if Google search fails to return a result I want, so why would a designer do anything differently?

I will be sure to post how I do at some point once I have evaluated my numbers once I get past the point of being excited when I make a sale.  :-)

Okay - so I recently decided that I would start trying to earn some money to support my hobby and allow me to upgrade my equipment and maybe pay for a couple of classes over at RMSP in the future.  I have been concentrating on building up my portfolio up at iStock and have recently been submitting images to Fotolia, Dreamstime because of all this stuff about iStock/Getty/Google/Microsoft/EndofWorld came to my attention in the forums honestly scared the ever loving bejesus out of me and I dont want to put all of my eggs in a single basket.

I was debating on applying to the middle tier stock agencies but am worried about the potential of cannibalizing my sales at the top tier sites.  Is this actually a valid concern if I am submitting largely the same images across all of the sites, or is it really more about just getting your stuff up on as many sites as humanly possible?  My current RPI at iStock is about 0.17 (only have 1 month of data though) which isn't quite what I was hoping for - but then again - I am still learning what stock photography actually is (I dont really have an eye for it yet). 

Thanks again for anyones help.

Sorry everyone for not responding sooner to my own post - full time job has been keeping me busy with 13-14 hour days since I made that post.

First and foremost - thank you everyone for taking the time to comment on my application and photos.  It has been really helpful and I have been going back through and looking at SS again to try and determine what images I should submit.

That being said - a quick search of SS landscapes shows me that I might not be in the same realm as the SS photographers.  In comparison - I do tend to underexpose my images which I artistically prefer as I think it creates drama - but is indeed not what stock agencies are looking for nor what they tend to accept.  I am in the process of re-evaluating this aspect of my photography and will try to make the necessary adjustments to lighten up my photo's as I am taking the picture.

Additionally, I will go back through and evaluate my images with stricter standards at 1:1 and try to submit only images that meet the highest standards.  Unfortunately I tend to get attached to my images which seems to cause "defect blindness" - usually because I know what I had to go through to get those images.

I did have one question that I have not been easily able to find the answer too - and that is whether or not your "acceptances" on your SS application can be carried over to your next application or whether they require you to submit 10 wholly different images.   

Again, thanks for all of your comments.  You guys have been extremely helpful with your comments, opinions, and evaluations.

Sorry about that - I should have thought about that.  I uploaded 2x 1:1 samples per image.

Thanks for the help!

Okay - this is my first post here and I am hoping that you guys can help me out.

I have been accepted by IS, DT, and alamy but had recently applied to shutterstock when I realized the potential for a 2:1 earnings ratio when compared to IS (according to the poll results).

I uploaded 10 images that had been accepted elsewhere and was quite suprised to get a pretty bad rejection (of 10 images submitted, 4 were accepted, 4 rejected for focus, 1 for poor lighting, and 1 for trademark).  I guess I suspected different results given that all of the rejected files had been accepted and have sold on other sites.  I understand that SS is different and - as I am learning - maybe more selective than IS.  However, I am a bit lost and was wondering if anyone could provide some feedback if possible.

The rejected files are located here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/txw84wrvxxwdm4l/hhZxUsJC-y/SS%20Rejection and are organized by their rejection reason.

Really any help at all would be wonderful.  I am just more confused than anything else and as always - looking to be better at this side of the business.

Thanks in advance for any comments.  Reading through the forums has been quite helpful and I am thankful that there is a resource like this one.