If you just want to share files, use dropbox.com. Give everybody the password so that they can upload and download freely.

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

Sure as hell I will never give them a free photo again!

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...

Why I don´t charge anything?
Easy.
Nobody in my profession does  (at least not in my country).
The moment I charge my customers money for my advice they are gone. Next retail is directly on the other side of the street.

It´s just a sad reality in modern business that sometimes you have to work for free. Nevertheless I like my profession, and I knew about this before I started, so I won´t complain too much...

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?

No. 

I don't like stock and I will never like it- there are just two things which make me continue:
I learned a lot more about my camera doing stock.
It pays for my camera gear (advanced hobbyist, still working with a good point-and-shoot) and some nice stuff more.

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.

Don´t want to scare you, but I´m less inclined to joke about flu. Last time a combination of new virus/aggressive virus/ fast spreading virus roamed this planet (shortly after WorldWar I) it killed more people than all weapons of that war together. And it were the young people, not the old ones, who died.

I´m old enough to remember some epidemics which have vanished with vaccination. (Or at least they seem to have vanished, but they still exist, waiting for their chance). Maybe having a first-hand experience with the damage some infections can do makes me a bit paranoid.

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.

It´s easy for me- no vectors and no videos from me on fotolia. As for the rest, I have half the files on fotolia as on shutterstock, but fotolia makes about the same money, despite their weird ways of doing business.

Which means that I´m not bashing any of them- or all.

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).

Is anybody else having difficulties as well?
No matter what I do, I´m unabel to connect with Dreamstime. No login, no main website, no nothing....
Just a vacant page all in white...

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

Got one payout as well, after that no more pictures sold (nearly one year now). Besides they are very picky with what to accept.

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.

Must definitely be the photo- reviewers.
Photos still have more rejections than accept, vectors and other illustrations are accepted at a normal rate.
Two days ago I tried submitting some very mediocre fractals (testing just for fun), they were accepted (I would have be inclined to reject some of these, had I been a reviewer).

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). 

Acceptance at fotolia is very irregular, but those of mine which are accepted sell well at the moment (better than dreamstime and istockphoto together), so in your place I would leave the accepted pictures there and wait for better times  .

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.

I remember I tried five times alltogether. First try there was one picture they didn´t like, two were o.k.,I submitted another one in exchange, equally not liked, etc., and after the fourth try I was mailed to submit three totally new pictures and that this would be my last possible try.
So it seems they can be very strict with submitters!

IrfanView does bulk editing with IPTC-data.

Science says certain types of recognition of art are inborn, therefore defined by genes, like the human preference for symmetry or the rule of thirds.
To express art is a bit more difficult. Even if your brain produces great ideas, you need training in the media you wish to express your ideas with. Training can be learned, with interest, enough time, effort and a good teacher by almost everybody.
Last thing is the great idea itself. That´s where artists are different. They think beyond the norm. And the ability to do so seems to be mostly inborn. So thats 2:1 for the genetics.

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.

Just tried it- uploading is fast and easy! Wish every new site would be like this...