The problem is the reasons are so generic and so overused its impossible to tell what they are/aren't looking for.  If there was a "we just dont like it" button it would at least tell you where you stand and that's fair enough as the process is subjective.

There does seem to be "reason of the week" though with Composition winning this weeks ballot - it is the ultimate generic though for "i just dont like it".  Consistency i should imaging would drastically reduce their photo workload as pretty much everyone i know is resubmitting half the rejected stuff for the above reasons.  With no consistency its impossible to actually "learn" *exactly* what they're after.

Aha, that's it. Must have got caught between two 'rejection flavour of the week' weeks. Got rejected on focus first, reprocessed and downsized a little and on resubmission (with note on focus) got rejected again for 'composition'. I guess they just didn't like it.

It does occur to me that as reviewers get paid so little per review and have to process as many as possible per hour to make money, rejecting just about everything is the fastest way to make the money.....and by rejecting you have no more responsibility. When you accept an image, there's a lot more responsibility involved. It has to comply with all the parameters laid down by the agency and should you let one through which later receives a complaint from a customer, then, no doubt, it's your head on the chopping block.

Congrats. Great shot and looks really good in the poster. I suspect that even had you received an EL rate for the SS sale, the fee paid to the graphic artist in converting shot to poster would have made the SS price paid pale into insignificance. Must say that I had to look twice to compare both renditions to see whether the phone number on the poster wasn't there in your original.

Came across this one the other day, 'Emporis'. They run an annual modern architecture competition and request stock photography of modern architecture. All the stuff that SS refuses on copyright/structure release grounds, they seem to want (although they do stress 'new buildings' that they haven't yet got in their archive).

All RF and they say commercial use, sale prices start at �95 with 50% to photog. See their FAQ here:

http://www.emporis.com/comm

"Ready to fetch the offer? "

Strange use of language! Dogs and people fetch stuff......."Fido fetch the ball"......."Fetch me my brown trousers, Hardy".........but fetch an offer, I've never heard of that?

(Maybe it's intentional. So that you remember it. )

Try Fotolia. They don't do editorial so anything there is usable commercially.

No criticism from me on your image. It's excellent. If I did landscapes, I would aspire to creating images like yours. The sole point of my comment was to indicate that I think it's impossible to predict what any agency accepts and rejects. Reviewers are individuals with their tastes and 'biases' and we, as contributors, can have no idea about anything that goes on behind the scenes of the agencies and with their reviewers. Having said that, if the shot you posted was rejected, as far as I can see, it should have been accepted.

(I think there was a case about a year or so ago of a contributor who submitted a whole series of great landscapes to FT. All were rejected but then all were accepted on appeal..........rogue reviewer, bad hair day, etc etc...who knows).

Hi Yuri,

 I haven't read all the posts so this may be redundant but their was a french designer furniture company ( Le Corbusier ) last year that won just such a battle and every image with their furniture in it had to be pulled ( Getty is still trying to fight it ). It took our agency a lot of work but that was the final verdict, now their furniture is not in any of our stock agencies. This case sounds very similar and I am afraid might be the catalyst that will cause a great deal of stock imagery to be removed by copy written products. Best of luck I hope this isn't the beginning of the end for stock, please keep us posted. Here is a link to the topic. http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2140613/getty-images-fights-copyright-infringement-ruling-french-court

Cheers,
Jonathan

P.S. All props should be purchased at Walmart 

Thanks for the BJP link. I note that the French court views the 'Le Corbusier' furniture as 'works of art'. Interestingly, Le Corbusier himself said, "Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois". (from Wiki). Isn't 'bourgeois' another description of 'kitsch' rather than art!

IMO no way can you describe spectacle frames as works of art........not when they churn out millions of 'em every year but then again, no-one here knows the basis of the complaint against Yuri.

Quote from: RacePhoto on November 11, 2012, 22:57

Problem is, the eye wear is the same as shoes, a hat, a belt, a purse, and clothes and the buttons on a dress. It's not the subject. Unless someone is selling just images of the glasses or using the brand name. It's going to be difficult to say, there is any infringement.

Think about this. Someone shoots a photo of the busy traffic on the highway and every car maker sues. This case is overboard and there's always hope that the court will not only charge the company filing the complaint for all the court costs for Yuri, but also fine them for a frivolous lawsuit.

You'd be right if the glasses were an unimportant part of the image, but some of Yuri's photos show a tight closeup of a woman wearing designer glasses, were the glasses are definitely the main subject.  Even the caption is something like "attractive young woman wearing designer glasses".  Possibly the court case is only about these closeups.  I've even seen photos by Yuri were the woman is photographed twice, once with and once without glasses, which means that for that particular model, he cannot claim she is not able to work without her glasses.

Think you've hit the nail on the head there. I must say that I hadn't taken the trouble to look at Yuri's images of girls wearing glasses but it's clear that some images appear almost as if they're advertising shots for the glasses themselves. And any large design company wouldn't want that.
They design and market their product along the lines of their clearly defined marketing strategy. They determine how their design is presented for sale and can control every aspect of the image-making process.......until 'unapproved' images from microstockers start turning up in the marketplace.
Whilst Yuri's images maybe excellent images of an attractive person wearing their 'frames' it's not their photo and they want control over every part of the process. From a corporate point of view, a monopoly is the highest form 'enterprise'.

(As an aside, I have a bro-in-law that works for an importer of the top/hot studio flash equipment maker and he reports that whereas the average photostudio is closing down, they are now making their money from the designer clothing/accessory brands that are setting up their own 'in-house' studio's so that they have absolute control over the images of their wares that reach their target group).

Edit: Should the company win the case, it's going to cause huge problems for the stock industry as a whole. All the big microstock names have similar images in their portfolios and who will decide which images infringe whatever it is they're purported to be infringing. A general takedown of all images with spectacle frames by the agencies would ensue, just to be safe. And in a broader sense, any product (used in an image to show a 'concept') has been designed by someone. The designer/producer of that product could claim that they didn't approve the use of their product in that way and have the image (and all similar images) taken down. A very slippery slope indeed.

In my opinion they are actually being very stupid. You have the most widely used files in the world and your pictures are a massive passive advertising campaign for them.

The only risk for them is that someone who copies their design could use your pictures for advertising. But then they would have to sue the copy cat anyway.

I would go and talk to their main competitor and get a deal so that in future you only use their glasses...and I would also present this option very clearly to teh company that is suing you. Maybe their business and marketing department can be convinced to sit down and calculate how much added free exposure their competition will then be getting and come to their senses...

Oh and of course point out that there will be lots of negative press once the case is open to the public. What kind of starlet, actor, model to be, celebrity will want to use their glasses if there is a risk of being sued??

Your models and business partners would obviously be reporting about this horrible case on all their blogs and discourage people from wearing them.

And again there competitors could advertise with "we don�t sue our customers"..."we are proud that Yuri Arcurs has chosen our designs for his next collection" etc...

I think the fallout from negative press might be the only thing to get idiots to think. But it is a longterm strategy, not something that will help you with the judge.

Slightly oblique approach but if starlets/celebs are photographed by paparazzi and the celeb is pictured wearing sunglasses of a certain design, will the designer sue the paparazzo for taking a picture for commercial purposes without their permission. Of course not, because the designer wants their product shown associated with celebs. Unless that designer is prepared to sue every paparazzo/publisher for every photo in which their product appears (without permission), then they shouldn't be suing you. Sounds like they are trying it on. My 2c and not legal advice.

I use a Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF (nonD) for most of my work with an APS-c sensor camera. It's a great lens that I use for most work whether it be for product shots or for people. It only has one thing to look out for and that is a tendency to plant a purple flare spot right in the middle of the picture when there's a large area of bright/white background outside the shot. When shooting for white isolated you need to flag off the background as much as possible. Somewhere in a Zack Arias tutorial, he mentions this tendency of the 50mm 1.8. Maybe it's only a problem with the older (Made in Japan...D/non-D) lenses and that the new ones (Made in China?) have been improved.
Used anywhere between f2.8 and f11, it's a great little performer.......certainly compared to any of the Nikon kit zooms (they look good until you compare them with a 50mm f1..

@Cobalt

For example a DT police to follow:
Same subject, different colors - one image, collage.
Same subject, flipped, change perspective - one image, collage.
Subject A online, subject B online - don't submit Subject A+B.
Whole view of subject A - don't submit crops, rotates, fill corners, multiple 'stamps' of it etc.
Subject A isolated on white - don't submit same with background color changed.

Cheers.

Blimey, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" I'm only here for the beer. 

Yup. SS faster than FT on my last upload. Maybe my upload isn't large enough to be of any importance. 

Quote from: melking on October 16, 2012, 13:56

Well 6 days later guess what I have in my Account now???    $17.70   Like WHAT!!!  I lost $0.30 in 6 days and did not make any money!

I think I might just delete all my images!

thats shocking, the only explanation is really in the searches that is connected to the regular uploading which for them isn�t enough in your case, I don�t think that 150 images in a year is low but I believe FT is really wanting a few files every week even if those don�t sell much, pretty much that will somehow get you a better placement in terms of searches...

your latest file is from the end of January 2012

It may indeed be the number of recent uploads that helps get you pole position in searches. In the example I quoted above where every keyword produced a position on p1 for that one image, I noticed that the contributor uploaded/had approved 290 images in the last week and 1,300 in the last month. Wow! Seems to work for them too. I counted 1,000+ downloads for those 1,300 images submitted in the last month. Per ardua ad astra an all that stuff but I'm afraid I'm not joining in that sort of competition........I prefer my own pace.