you could show the pictures here if you want?

Shutterstock is very much worth it... so try as much as you can to get in.

It took me at least (15) times before I got in three months ago.  Don't give up.

I got accepted on my fourth try, and it is my best selling site since. DON'T GIVE UP!!!

I got accepted on my fourth try, and it is my best selling site since. DON'T GIVE UP!!!

I've been guiding tutoring 3 photogs in the past year.. they all got in on first try.

Patrick H.

But please take into account not to sumit : flowers; cats: dogs: landscapes: waterfalls; cherries, strawberries, cell phones, apples isolated, acutally every fruit isolated.... feet of children, feet of yourself, or wide angle shots of your girl, yourself etc.... another bee on flower... or even butterfly on flower.... etc.. etc.. etc.... etc....

Many of the bestsellers are one of the above. And people love them.   It�s just a matter of unique approach.  A shot of a flower can be truly amazing or extremely boring.   I don�t think they�d reject a flower if it was great.    But as Patric means I guess, it�s safer to submit shots of something they never seen, so there�s nothing to compare to

To Jimmi King: As a shooter of aerial photos - any photos I shoot the airplane better be moving or I am in big trouble
Smiling Jack

Shoot as large as you can, without having to crop (fill the frame) and reduce to Minimum allowed. It makes a big difference.

Read what Jimi King posted.

I wouldn't be so certain about filling the frame.
I got knocked on one or two for tight cropping.

Quote from: RacePhoto on August 11, 2008, 01:23

Shoot as large as you can, without having to crop (fill the frame) and reduce to Minimum allowed. It makes a big difference.

Just finished a three day weekend shooting outdoors and camping. I'm a little toasted. 

I was struggling with the wording on that one when I wrote it. Originally I had, un-cropped, but that didn't make sense, because the photo may need cropping. Filling the frame was meant to describe not cropping, because it increases the size of any blurs and flaws.

The photo should be as close to framed, In Camera, as possible. Minimal cropping. Then reduce to the minimum acceptable dimensions, which makes the photo look much better.

kane513, you don't say what camera you have. That may be part of the problem. Or not...

Do not give up and in meanwhile also upload to other "easier" sites like 123rf

YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

you will get in of course

I got in 3th time. And yes, you should always leave some nice note to reviewer

I have great sales (for a beginner of 3 months now with only ~70 photos online) on SS, and lousy on every other site (IS being second worst by a dollar), so comparisons aren't always viable. In my case, what I consider a great shot and it sells on FT,DT and StockXpert, it doesn't have a single dl on IS. it will take me 5 more months to reach payout on other sites, and I'm only on SS for a month and a week and will get a payout at the end of this September. So it is definitely worth it, but it requires you to upload constantly through out the week. On the day my batch get accepted (unless it is weekend) I get 15 dls, next day 5, next day 3, and so on until I get another batch approved. On other sites it's loong days without dls.
I got in on the first try, but it was 10 photos of beautiful girls isolated on white in the studio. I recommend hiring a model or two and getting them to go through some concept shots and submit that to SS. You should pass with flying colors. Afterwards, fill your portfolio with your usual stuff.

Am I the only one that thinks it's not hard to take ten pictures that will pass inspection with flying colours?  I could do that in twenty mins sitting at my kitchen table.

If you get turned down to sell your stock, perhaps you should go away for a few months and learn how to use your camera properly?

Take your very same 10 photos and submit them around else where and see if very same photos ALL get accepted. You know as well as I do this   industry is quite a racket that has photographer's jumping though hoops and playing guessing games all the time. None of them seem to know what they want, what's selling and what's hot or not. I'm not afraid to say that since I left a very established B&W film history to persue this crazy commercial stock world as a new challenge that I have had blanket rejects and with that said have taken the very same photos and not only had them accepted at more than one place but have derived sales from said photos.

Take your photos honey and go RM and submit to say, Alamy and you'll be at your kitchen table with your camera and coffee alright pouting over your rash of rejections. Your statement and theory leads no credibility to your said statement and is self-appointed elitism and pompous without purpose.

Dirk

P.S. You know upon further thought several months ago when I first started and I got blanket rejections from SS I was spurred but then submitted again to have it happen again until they became a part of my workflow process and after they in fact rejected them they in turn would be most likely be accpeted elsewhere. Another man's junk is another man's treasure. SS-0 Me-$$$ This is another valid point of what was mentioned above, also on the subject of credibility, it applies greatly upon the industry as well as a whole. This is the "Hollywood" of the photography world; you wanna friend, go buy a puppy, think you actually made a friend, think again, think your acceptance at some stock place makes you special or accepeted overall, again, think again, what's hot today isn't in 24 hours or less later, sitting in forums grandstanding our own ego's, yep, slamming others, yep, all in a NYC second.

Take your photos honey and go RM and submit to say, Alamy and you'll be at your kitchen table with your camera and coffee alright pouting over your rash of rejections. Your statement and theory leads no credibility to your said statement and is self-appointed elitism and pompous without purpose.

Honey, I already DO submit to Alamy.  I'm in the process of removing all my micro photos because they don't make me nearly as much as alamy and other specialist agencies for my sports and military work.

And I'll say this.  It was easier to get accepted at Alamy than iStock.  I've not had a rejection on Alamy yet.

In fact, after browsing your collection, I must confess I was wrong: you are not even a good photographer. Not bad, just OK.

Sorry to be so rude, but you deserve it IMHO 

Quote from: Seren on September 19, 2008, 01:24

Quote from: Dirk Diggler on September 13, 2008, 08:04

Take your photos honey and go RM and submit to say, Alamy and you'll be at your kitchen table with your camera and coffee alright pouting over your rash of rejections. Your statement and theory leads no credibility to your said statement and is self-appointed elitism and pompous without purpose.

Honey, I already DO submit to Alamy.  I'm in the process of removing all my micro photos because they don't make me nearly as much as alamy and other specialist agencies for my sports and military work.

And I'll say this.  It was easier to get accepted at Alamy than iStock.  I've not had a rejection on Alamy yet.

Seren,

Why don't you take some of that phat money you make and go by an ounce of class.

Why? Cos she doesn't make phat money lol

 

I'm sure there are reviewer members here Tom. Even if not, they absolutely are lurking.

Never crap where you eat. 

Just a further thought too.  Because it seems the attitude around here is "Keep trying till you get in".

If I stacked the shelves in a supermarket and kept putting damaged products on the shelves, that's not acceptable.  If I turned up for an interview, and I demonstrated how I was going to stack the shelves with these damaged products, they wouldn't let me come back for another interview.

Apply that to stock.  People here have claimed that they have interviewed for shutterstock nearly ten times.  Why does shutterstock keep letting people present their damaged photographs to sell?

Where is the honor anymore?  Surely before you offer a product to sell to the general publish you must be accomplished in your craft and produce a final end product.

Back to food again.  If I rocked up to a farmers market and started selling my jam that I had accidently spilt vinegar in, people are going to have something to say and I'm not going to be asked back to the farmers market again.  (MMmm, Jam).  It's the same thing.  Why do people keep being offered multiple chances to do something that should be done right first time?

I bet, that if you set your dSLR to program mode, ISO100, walked outside and took a picture of a well lit, well composed scene, (I don't know, a cat on a windowsill) then I bet it would be accepted to all the libraries (notwithstanding the "too many" rejection).  dSLR's will inherently take a technically good picture, that's what they're designed to do.  I don't know how people manage to stuff it up so much.  Like I've said before, I've had my MUMS holiday pictures accepted to microstock and Alamy taken with her compact on Auto.

P.S.  Alamy reviewers aren't photographers - I applied for a job there as QC, it's just down the road from me. 

Yes they are and you need to have a recognised photography qualification, maybe that's why you didn't get in!

http://www.alamy.com/jobs/stock-photography-digital-images-quality-controller.asp

Check the first line of the 'Essential requirement'

Paulie - fed up perhaps because everyone I talk to is a "photographer".  Fed up because I got stopped again last week while out shooting by a guy with a Casio compact saying he was trying to get accepted at iStock and just couldn't seem to manage it.  Fed up with the amateur photography magazines convincing everyone that they're a photographer.  Fed up with people with portfolios of 20 images who make two sales a month claiming to be "proffessssional".

Guess I'm turning into one of them nasty "pro's" that all the microstockers hate.

Fed up with people who think they're good enough to sell their pictures but can't take ten good pictures.  Read a book.  In fact, read the camera manual.  It's got everything you need to know!

Fed up with people who show me their crappy photographs taken on ISO 800 in bright sunshine, out of focus and suffering from serious CA and yet having to go "yes, it's lovely".

Fed up I suppose with pissing around with people who don't have a clue what a good technical photograph looks like.

Seren, I�m not sure where you are going with all of this, but you are not helping yourself. There are many people in this world with a real reason to be �fed up� you not wanting to help others is not in my opinion worthy of our consideration.

Shutterstock�s acceptance policy is I�m sure based on good business practice, your attitude to others isn�t.

Has anyone here heard of crowdsourcing? When istock started the microstock industry it was based on the crowdsourcing model, and they still pride themselves in encouraging contributors to grow as photographers and develop their skills. I wonder if yuri had all his original submission to shutterstock accepted. I know a couple of excellent photographers who didn't.

From anecdotal evidence it appears to me that Shutterstock is only interested in people who are persistent. They probably don't want a lot of accounts of people who have uploaded a dozen images and then stopped. All of my 10 were rejected and every one of them had been accepted on istock, whose inspectors are not renowned for their leniency.

Guess I'm turning into one of them nasty "pro's" that all the microstockers hate.

Seren... I guess this is the point of the whole discussion as of late.  You can be a 'pro'  and not be nasty.
   You had mentioned that your grandfather was a photographer. Was he pro? Was he nasty?
      You are an accomplished, published photographer. I would venture to guess that you learned something if not much from your grandfather, whether by direct guidance or by observation of his work [ I don't know your circumstances],  but at the very least, you were probably influenced by him to some degree.
   If it was direct, how did he handle you.  If you were not fortunate to spend time with him,  do you know how he handled others that wanted to learn the craft, be it pro or just hobby?

      That's one of the problems universally on this planet.  Some who become accomplished have a tendency to  'look down'  on those that are not so accomplished.  Some are gifted and talented... some are not.  Just because one has become successful in  their craft is no reason to  be demeaning to those that aren't.
    In this case...  we don't know Kane,  the person who made the original comment in the thread.  Maybe he is a person who just got into the biz because he read he could make a quick buck with a point&shoot. Maybe he has no talent, no experience at all..... He could very well be one of those that thinks because a dige-cam can do a lot of the tech of photography, that    everything he shoots is utterly fantastic.....
    And then again, maybe he's a guy thats been shooting pro photog for decades and now decided to try his hand at stock photography.
    The point of that?   There are plenty of pro photographers out there and some on this forum who have been pro for years and years...  ones who had to attack the learning curve between film and dige. Some who made a good living but then wanted to get into this stock thing on the side and had to learn the idiosyncracies of stock.
 The fact is, there are lifelong,  high paid, successful pros right here on this forum that......   had  a  problem  getting  into  SS.  Getting shot down by SS once, twice, five times   IS NOT  indicative of ones professional talents as a photographer.   Like many, I was accepted on the first try at  IS, Alamy, StockXpert, ... 14 agencies... Jupiter is selling my work.. I have had featured magazine articles developed around my photography... books, national advertisments, gov't agencies, lobbying groups in D.C. , heck, the list goes on and continues to expand...   SO WHAT??    .... and it took me... I think, four times to get into SS.   This is not bragging,  I know there are many here that can say the very same and even more,even greater.

      SS reviewers are not the be all, end all  authority on how talented you are as  a photog.

     Seren,  Be all that you can be,  more power to you, may you have greater success than you even do now...    but please........   DON'T turn into one of those very things that we DO all hate around here.  A bitter, nasty 'pro'. Share your talent and knowledge and be encouraging to newbies....
     If they have no talent, sooner or later they will find that out on their own. On the other hand, you may by squelching someone that has talent and could possibly be the next ... Ansel Adams  or whoever...   
   If I came on too nasty myself in my comments to you... I apologize. Just trying to grab your attention on the matter... I wish you success in your new ventures.

 Peace.  =tom

 

I guess to me it is an issue of putting the cart before the horse.  Knowing the basics is essential to any undertaking, be it microstock or something else.

Thank you Lisa!  You said what I wanted to say.  Words don't come easily to me, and I find it even harder to express what I mean on paper.

It struck me again yesterday.  I went to a furniture market where there were artisan cabinet makers.  Now, most of these guys were awesome.  They lovingly created the most beautiful pieces of furniture that were to die for.  Their stalls were busy all the time with loads of money changing hands.

Then there was the guy who somehow managed to get in on a limb...  His work was shoddy and looked like it might have fallen apart in a few months!  He had no one around his stall...


I suppose I come from a family of traditionalists where you have to be accomplished at your craft before saying believing you're any good.  Hard work and study has always been something that has always been encouraged.  I spoke to a girl I went to school with recently, and she said she was looking for work as an interior designer and could I do some pictures for her.  I asked her if she had been to university / college / self studied, since there are all sorts of building regs you need to know before doing that sort of work (my father had wanted me to be an architect!).  She said no, she was just going to blag her first few clients and go from there.

Which just feels like the attitude of so many people in microstock, in the shutterstock forums especially.  If you show them the ten photos you failed with, then will then teach you TO PASS THE TEST.  It's like a major complaint about driving instructors in the UK.  They don't really teach you how to drive, they teach you how to pass your driving test.  We should be encouraging people to be better photographers, not just pass some arbitrary test which doesn't mean anything.  If someone fails, then the best thing they can do, is go away for a few months, study books, hit up some exhibitions, talk to other photographers outside of microstock, critique their own work etc.  THEN they will come back a better, more rounded photographer.

We should be encouraging others in our industry to improve their craft, not just pass a test.

 I think that's my definition of a professional photographer. Someone who can take on a client's brief and deliver what is expected for the going market rate.

Susan,  a superb definition!!

It's all in the eye of the client.  I have had many photos rejected in microstock for technical flaws (by the reviewers decision based on the guidelines they have been given to work with) ...that now have graced the pages of  thousands of magazines in articles that were written around those very pictures...  And I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of my brothers and sisters here that can say the same or a similar story.

that's my point in all this thread.  SS, IS, DT, ABCDEFGHIJKLMONO-STOCK.. WHATEVER...  a reviewer of a microstock agency is not the end all, be all evaluator of your photgraphic skills.  That is the reason I encourage newbies to keep trying.  In the final analysis, if they have no talent,  they will realize it.  On the other hand, they may turn out to be the next Elvis of the Camera.  =tom

A point to my reviewer friends.  My comments are not to be taken that I think all reviewers have no talent.  Much to the contrary. Many are skillful, professional photographers themselves. The rejection is usually based upon the parameters set out by the agency that employs them, and not by their sole personal opinion.