Their photo acceptance standard is getting ridiculous these days.  The same exact lighting and you get "Poor Lighting" as the rejection reason.

Welcome to microstock.

Thank you!

I guess it's the difference between trying to place your product at Tescos and trying to place it at Harrods (or Wal Mart and Bloomingdales, if that's your area).

Next week the rant will be reversed.

I definitely see a trend in SS for suddenly increasing rejections.

The one thing you will learn in microstock is that there isn't the same standard of acceptance across agencies. If it makes you feel any better FT has trended from 90 percent acceptance to about 80 percent rejections for me while shutterstock, except for a few Attila reviews, is at 90+ percent and has remained at that level since 2007 when I joined them. Istock, when it was hard on submissions, I went from 50 percent acceptance in 2007 to 90 percent acceptance......due specifically to improving my work, not because they changed their criteria.  Today, however, Istock accepts just about anything. Dreamstime is also very high acceptance for me and always has been except for the similars policy, which they have loosened up on a bit.

Overall, yes the criteria for getting images accepted has gone up. Why? Because they can given all the garbage they'd receive if they didn't up their standards. SS has probably raised their standards of quality AND aesthetics the most of any microstock agency in my opinion and new contributors who aren't experienced or in sync with the needs of microstock are in for a surprise as you've experienced.

Now believe this or not.
I have had the  same rejection ratio with all agencies for a long time.
I evolve, and they evolve.
and soft and hardware.

nop, agencies still approve crap and reject well composed/lit images, it will stay like this forever unless you are shooting models or stuff on white where you can control everything

and another minus, you are on a roll dude, whatever makes you happy!

ok, I am going to toss this out (might be way off) for thought. I've noticed a much higher rejection rate from the weekend (Sat/Sun) reviewers than the Weekday (Mon- Fri) reviewers. Might just be me but food for thought

That may exactly be why on Shutterstock.