Quote from: photojay on January 26, 2008, 16:55

Quote from: stock_fan on December 29, 2007, 01:38

What I mean is � who has the copyright on a colour � a rectangle � an arrow � a traffic sign � a web button � the �business handshake� or the �pretty girl with headset?

In regard to copyright on a color check out THIS link  Can copyright issues get any more complicated?  It seems as soon as lawyers get involved, right and wrong goes out the window and winners and losers are formed based on who can argue their point better and nothing else.

totally agree.

..... cause all that the lawyers in the U.S. think about is .........the color 'green'.

I don't usually do this, but I had my dog in my studio last month and I caught this image of him:



I love my dog, and have a good number of pictures of him throughout my portfolio, but this capture has almost made Simon famous.  It is one of the images in my SS folio that gets downloaded just about everyday. 

Don't you just love it when you find that one image that gets the attention that you feel your whole portfolio deserves???

...and am currently learning more about lighting.

I highly recommend the book "Light: Science and Magic".  It is by far the best $30 I have ever spent.  It talks about all the normal "studio lighting" issues (fill light, main, reflectors, etc.) but it talks about much MUCH more.  Understanding light AND how it interacts with different subjects is so important and this book is packed with just about everything you need to know to start experimenting in a more controlled environment and understand what you are seeing and why you are seeing it. 

Right now there is a Portfolio Critique thread running on the Shutterstock boards.  Basically everyone rates the portfolio of the person to last post. 

I think the idea of throwing a rating on someone's portfolio is a little discomforting.  What I feel is most useful is a thread in which the more experienced image producers take a look at a portfolio and add a brief recommendation for improvement.  Could be to shoot a certain subject they are lacking.  Maybe improve lighting, get better colors/pop/contrast...  If the "reviewer" wants to provide an example of a picture they like and why it works, or one which clearly needs some work to be a seller, then that is great.

Anyhow, if others are interested, this could hopefully be both fun and educational.  If anyone wants to lambaste me, go for it.     (SS link below doesn't work, and I don't know why)

I looked through your SS portfolio and here is what I see from someone who has only been doing this for two years and made some big mistakes as I went along:

1: isolated pictures of toys---don't do it.  It looks cheezy.  (ie. the picture of the remote control car. 

2: Real estate pictures like this one:   

Pictures of houses are a dime a dozen. That house looks just like every other house.  The power lines have to be cloned out and you need an interesting sky to even be competitive, but there is nothing special that catches someone's eye when looking at the thumbnails.  On SS, the thumbnails matter more than any other site, because there is no larger thumb popup like on DT or other sites.

This one is much better: and I am guessing it is a better seller for you.

3. I love the natural feel of the football and cheerleader photos, but images from the front would obviously do better.  If you can't get a model release for it, you may want to not use it.  Images from the back have limited comercial value and when designers look at your portfolio they are going to get an ameteur vibe. 

Finally, your images are bright and colorful and have some real nice food photos.  I think you are on the right track. 

Hope that was what you were looking for. 

Feel free to critique my portfolio anyone!  I can take the abuse...I mean positive criticism.   

I am not in any way jumping on the perverbial bandwagon, but I have been re-evaluating my own uploading strategy and I just can't see wasting my time uploading to CanStockPhoto when I am amongst some cheezy, poorly isolated images (not yours Michael  ), and not making any sales!  One sale a month with 500 images is just beyond slow.  And to see that one sale be a sub sale half the time, is just a kick in the face with a golf shoe. 

I am having a hard time parting with the hard earned $28.50 that I currently have there.  If you are thinking about bailing on CanStockPhoto and want to convert your earnings to credits rather than forfeit them, you can purchase one of my images so I can sleep at night when I go through the laborious task of deleting 500 images off the site.

here is a link to my portfolio

I had to apply to SS I think 4 times.  My problem the first two times were the noise issues previously discussed, but I think that others have also mentioned the idea of colors and composition.  The images in your DT portfolio are not exactly great compositions for stock or you are submitting to a category that is saturated, making your competition very tough.  Your image: Urban Living V1, for example, has what appears to be part of a parking garage at the bottom.  I would have either included more of it or found a different angle to completely crop it out.  With all your skyline images, to SS you are going to seem like just another guy submitting pictures of buildings that may or may not need a property release.  For me, its not about the quality of your images that I think will keep you out, I think it is the subjects.  Even the key in scarred hand image if you do a search for the words   key + hand the results turn up 3,330 images on DT.  That is alot of competition.

There are two things that are going to get you noticed:  1: A really great camera (quality images are made by good photographers, but the camera data makes a difference in MS.  If you had two pictures of a key in a hand and one was taken with a Canon 1Ds Mark III and the other was taken with a Kodak Easyshare P&S, which one do you think the designer is going to download?)  2: Images that nobody else (or very few people) are uploading.  (The top five already have hundreds of thousands of images to choose from for their advertising numbers.  What they are looking for now are DIFFERENT images.) 

That is my two cents.   I hope I am not being too harsh, but any one of the veterans here will tell you that we have been where you are, just starting out.  If you want to increase your chances, find a reason for Shutterstock to say yes, rather than trying to dodge the reason they could possibly say no.

I don't think I have ever reloaded an image that was rejected.  I know that the reviwers make mistakes, but I just don't bother.  I have sent an email to support on certain sites and had a decision overturned.  The difference is that the problem is brought to someone's attention.  If a reviewer gets enough complaints about him or her then he or she will either be released or have to fix themselves, but if we just keep reuploading the images to get around that sorry reviewer then the problem persists.   

does StockXpert review on weekends???  I got another 100 in the queue waiting to be reviewed. 

My list:
1. Cling to my regular (non photografic) job
2. Try to see this Photo stuff more as a nice experiment
3. Take all rejections smiling
4. Experiment a bit more with my camera
5. Take my camera with me, ALWAYS !
6. Use my imagination
7. Try out some crazy ideas for concepts
8. Use hideous photos for some fun photoshop experiments
9. Buy an icecream and a coffee from my total photo earnings
10. Be terribly proud of my achivements

Carla,  you sound like me when I first started Stock.  Don't worry, if you stick to #3, and keep asking questions, it won't be long before your earn enough for a burger and fries once a week! 

Quote from: photojay on January 24, 2008, 14:55

My top ten:

1.  Be more bold about approaching people to shoot them.
2.  minimize shooting "isolated images"
3.  Figure out my new 40D
4.  Become an expert at studio lighting
5.  See light how my camera sees the light
6.  Be more confident
7.  Be more selective
8.  Stop obsessively checking the sales stats
9.  Use that time to shoot more images
10. Shoot better images out of the camera and us PS to embed keywords, etc. only

you don't mind if I borrow your list ,do you?
in addition I'd only add invest on better equipment especially glasses  but wisely and try to create some stuff especially for macro stock.

I don't mind at all!    I definitely need to invest in better glass.  I took my 70-200 lens to Iraq with me and now I can't get a good image out of it at any focal length!  I am looking to get a Canon lens with a USM motor in it so I can use it with a 580EX external flash unit. 

final count: 113 out of 150.  Not bad, I guess.  Everything I uploaded had been accepted elsewhere, but not all of them on one site.  I amjust playing the numbers!! 

So, being a newbie doesn't have anything to do with the 150 images I currently have waiting in the queue?  It's only been a few days, but I have been reading that people get their images reviewed in less than 24 hours?  I wonder why there is such a discrepency in review times?  123rf.com had this same issue for a while.  I never got an answer from them either on the way their queue worked, but I have a feeling that they work(ed) the same way.