Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic - Rejection for the second time. Critique please!

aivoges · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 7

Very upset for the second rejection in a row. I got 6/10 images accepted both times. The reasons for rejection include noise, poor composition, and incorrect white balance.

Here's the set of images I plan to submit for the 3rd attempt (in 30 days from now). Please give me advise selecting 10 from this set.

aivoges · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 7

Oops I am not sure how to upload images

ruxpriencdiam · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:06 pm

aivoges · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 7

Thanks, but I am going to use the img tag to preserve the large image size. I hope this is not against any rules.

Here are my next 3 images:

aivoges · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 7

Three more:

aivoges · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 7

And these:

THANK YOU!

ruxpriencdiam · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 9:22 pm

OK then.

OOF, lighting, noise, copyright,composition,keystoning.

And look here this is why we ask you to Post properly see below.

jhuls · Joined: 02 Jan 2012 Posts: 1046

Yep you are not going to get many responses unless you post correctly.

mikenorton · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 11:29 pm

I like some of your landscapes. IMG_4519: I like the composition, especially the reflection, but it looks like it was photographed in the middle of the day. Mountains beg to be photographed when the sun is low on the horizon. At this time of day the warm light will turn the mountains pink & orange and they will really stand out. Your mountain is in the shadow of a cloud and dull. If you are going to shoot in the middle of the day, wait for the sun to be on the mountain. The reflection of the mountain is green, what caused that?

alberta 060: You have 2 mountains with really nice stormy clouds around the far mountain. I would like to have seen the bus be juxtaposed at the bottom of that mountain instead of the one with out the stormy clouds.

IMG_7256: This picture is overexposed. I like this one but I think it and alberta 060 both suffer from bad metering. I am going to guess that you used the segmented meter mode in your camera. Am I correct? I use spot meter and I would suggest that you learn to use it too because it would have made a big difference in these 2 pictures. I'll explain. The segmented meter reads different parts of the picture, light parts, dark parts and middle parts, then averages those readings to come up with the f-stop & shutter speed. A spot meter will only read a small portion of the scene, the size of the spot, there is no averaging but you need to make sure that you meter the right spot. I use the spot meter and meter the part of the picture that I want to stand out the most. In IMG_7256 that would have been the shark fin looking peak because it is the brightest part of this picture. If you would have used the spot meter and taken a meter reading from the brightest part of the shark fin looking peak it would have made it and everything in the picture about 1 stop darker. This would have kept the peak from being overexposed but still held detail in the foreground and sky. It would have made the sky a deeper blue. The extra detail in the peak and the darker blue sky would have made this a real winner but as it is it needs work. I upped the yellow & red in Selective Color and the added saturation to the yellow & red. I can not add the stop of detail that the exposure would have but this is more what you would have had. I'm going to post one of my shots taken under similar conditions so you can see what the extra stop of detail would have done.

IMG_4927: Next time flip the 2 foreground boats over so they match the others.

IMG_8656: The clouds at the top are too bright and so is the rain. I darkened the rain a little and cropped the brightest part of the clouds. Again a spot meter reading would have been better than a averaging meter reading. But I must say I don't quite know where I would have metered (big help right). The rain would have probably stopped before I figured out where to meter and I would have been pissed!

IMG_9337: I think it is the best of the bunch. I upped the saturation of the yellows & reds a bit. It breaks my rule about No Clouds, No Pictures. The rule is really about having drama in the sky and clouds are a good way to get that drama. But the sky changing from red to blue adds all the drama you need.

I hope you learn how to use a spot meter because you sure know how to find good lighting to shoot. Some of us wait years to photograph the kind of light and clouds you have displayed here.

mikenorton · Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 11:30 pm

This is the image I promised to post:

semmickphoto · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2012 4:13 am

Cars not prominent in the photo and are not subject is fine, but clone out the logos on the cars. However, they decide if cars are acceptable on case to case basis, so its always a risk on your first 10. But hang on to them photos until you are in and then submit.

tverkhovynets · Joined: 12 Jun 2010 Posts: 749 Location: Kiev, Ukraine

I agree, you have some great landscapes. Throw away tomato shot, old building and man in the water shot. Others will probably pass if you work on them well.

Taras

hhltdave5 · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:31 am

I agree with what has been said so far. You potentially have some great shots here. The technique and understanding of light needs to be addressed as well as the composition of some of them.

Listen to Mike's comments. He is one of the best landscape photographers around and is an instructor at the landscape workshops Laurin and I do.

Mike has covered things well and I want to talk about two of your shots. The first one is the Monument Valley shot on Route 163 looking towards Monument Valley.

This is a shot I have taken many times and a place we take our students to every year. The main impact of a shot like this is the wide open expanses bisected by the roadway. It is huge in scale and that is what needs to be shown.

When I look at the way you composed it it looks cramped and tight. It doesn't show the scene for what it is. I think it is best to shoot this with a wider angle lens so you get that stretch from side to side.

Also if you are doing this for impact and a shot to be remembered wait for the cars to get out of the way or at least clone them out. When we go to shoot this we have three people watching for traffic while the others lay in the road to get the shots. It is a small detail about the cars but a very important one.

The next shot I want to talk about is the tomato shot. This has the potential to be a good shot but you missed the lighting. Notice the difference between the right and left side of the shot? That is because the left side was not filled properly with light. You did right by using the back lighting but you needed to control the light better and more effectively. It is also just a bit too centered.

Learn to look at what you are photographing from different angles and distances.

You have some talent in there. You just need to refine the technique and really learn to not only see the light but the best way to photograph it.

S.m.u.d.g.e · Joined: 30 Jun 2012 Posts: 647 Location: Essex, England.

aivoges · Joined: 07 Oct 2010 Posts: 7

Thank you all. I really appreciate your inputs. I am totally new to shutterstock and have learned a lot from your suggestions. I got accepted fairly easily at istock and others and thought that the same images would do well here, but I was wrong. I think the shutterstock reviewers are a bit harsh, I really couldn't find any noise for the image they rejected for noise/artifact reason. Your comments are really helpful.

@Mike: thank you for your very detailed comments. You are right about me using average metering. I think I'll practice with spot metering like you said. I guess I always underestimated spot metering, thinking that's only for portrait photos. But this would further darken the bottom part of 7256, wouldn't it? But I guess as long as the details are not washed out, I can use PS to bring back the light.