Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

bichon · Joined: 19 Aug 2005 Posts: 11329 Location: Canada

yes, looking at my portfolio, i see that there is little 'real' stock in there. i don't think it's a composition problem. i do have about 1/2 of my pics which are downloaded on a regular basis... my chinese calendar, mask and fiji pics, shoes, 8mm movie comera do well and i think they are compositionally fine and probably would lend themselves to brochures and the like. Some make nice wallpapers and backgrounds although i realize that this is not considered to be of prime stock value. I don't think it's a compositional issue in my case.. it is a problem of SUBJECT MATTER and commercial marketability.. I only started this when Popular PHotography had a piece on SS stating that we should take our pics which are clogging our hard drives and make money with it. A year ago, they seemed to take just about anything. i can't believe some of the junk on file. when i do the math, i get about a download a day with a portfolio of about 50 pics. now what are the chances of me getting ANYTHING with a gene pool of over 800,000 and a portfolio of 53 ?. I'd say, pretty slim, and i think i am doing not too badly.
HOWEVER, since studying the top 100, i see what REALLY sells and i don't think my mindset is there. It is more of a challenge to see which new pic of mine will actually get a download with chances like that. i am waiting for my first payout which should come by the end of the summer. after that i may just drop the stock and concentrate on my 'artsy' side of my hobby.

rinder99 · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:00 pm

I understand. that article you speak of has been quoted a thousand times and used as a poor excuse for bad work being submitted and still does. I said it before that it was a huge mistake publishing that piece and still believe it. But at the time it was the only way to get an enormous amount of anything to get this and the other sites going. Now things have changed and they have people that do nothing else but go through images deleting stuff everyday. Best of luck to you in whatever you decide to do. Peace, Laurin Rinder

varius · Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:16 pm

Deja vu anyone? Is it just me or are the same questions and discussions popping up in the forums again and again? I havn't been here for long, but I'm sure I've read that one at least four times.

Bottomline of all discussions so far: Sure it would be nice if reviewers gave a full detail critique on those rejected images. But at the rate they are reviewing and the wages they get we're lucky we get more than a "yes" or "no".

Sure it would be nice if SS (and competitors) have dozens of easy to understand tutorials. But it's not their job to train their submitters. Its their job to sell our images, and they do that pretty well. Hey, they even sell MY images, and that's saying something!

Sure it would be nice if SS would announce every change in review policy (or other technical matters). Some times it happens, some times it doesn't and we find out by reading the forums. Not perfect, true, but that's how it is. Live with it.

Sure it would be nice if every photographer submitting had the perception, experience and skills as a Laurin Rinder does - but it's not happening. Forget it. A handful does. And a few handful are slowly getting there. And even a few more are honestly trying. But that's it.

In every forum there's a few thet try to help, a few that try to learn, a lot that are just having fun and quite a few that are only there to complain (this isn't aimed at you, bichon). Always was that way and won't change. Trust me on that one, as it comes from more than 20 years of forum experience (yes, that predates HTML and webbrowsers).

But really... Noise? Yes, there's a lot of mis-information out there and even more correct but not applicable information out there. Filtering the information from internet, books and whatever else has become a major skill these days. But really - noise is one of the easy ones to figure out. Took me two batches to figure that one out - never had a single rejection for noise ever since. Now, to figure out composition, lighting... Don't expect that to be anywhere near that easy...

OK, I'll stop rambling now. It's just one of those deja vu-s...

bichon · Joined: 19 Aug 2005 Posts: 11329 Location: Canada

in no way rambling !. you have outlined the whole idea consisely and extremely informative. You have outlined the concerns and solutions to the problem of this part of stock photography in the most eloquent manner and i applaud you.
thank you for putting this out and i will certainly study your ideas.
all the best,
steve

gina · Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 125 Location: Phuket, Thailand

HEllo! Thank you for the reminder and support. It is encouraging to hear that from the review team.

looby · Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 182

I agree with most of what has been said, and most times I agree with the rejections I get here. But submitting photos here has been frustrating lately, especially when there is money and lots of time involved.

Please consider the following:

Not everything with a bright background is meant to be an isolated object.

Focus on a specular highlight will often look out of focus, there is no way to avoid it.

Photos with 1% in focus have been popular for a long time popular and they sell like hot cakes. (Surely it is easy for the reviewer to tell if it is done on purpose for effect or if it is a mistake)

Poor cropping is very subjective, personally I am not interested in submitting cut-out people and items (clipart)anymore and from my experience I have seen that there is a huge market for compositions as well.

Please remember that a lot of photographers are trying to develop their skills or their style whilst submitting, I believe that if we all just submitted people and whole items 100% in focus on white backgrounds all the time, the photographers here would be out of business very quickly.

Is there room here for anything else?

(Before anybody starts the "stock photography is a different beast, it is not art" AARRGGHH....No, I am not talking about submitting obscure, blurry pictures of my left toe (: )

Thanks for bringing the subject up

ctesti · Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 1344 Location: California

Looby, you portfolio is simply amazing! A real treat for the eyes...

Best portfolio I have seen here so far :)

Cheers,
-Christophe

rinder99 · Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2006 12:10 pm

shaithis · Joined: 15 Feb 2006 Posts: 1806 Location: Queen City

In my opinion, I think recjection is a good thing. Having high standards has helped me to learn how to review my own work, and what to think about when shooting photography. When I'm taking a shot, on many occations, I have thought back to submited photos and why they were rejected so that It doesn't happen again, or at least to a lessor extent. I really appriciate what the reviewers are doing. It has to be a very difficult job. Not only are they working to make Shutter Stock a better stock site, but also help us, especially the newbs like me, to become better photographers.

talondi · Joined: 14 Jun 2005 Posts: 62

I'm far from perfect in this stock thing and still learning so this is just my humble opinion, but..

I think there is one thing that people need to remember when it comes to rejections. Just because a pic is rejected does not mean it's a bad picture so don't take it personally. Stock photographer is very different from regular photogaphy. A lot of the pictures that I sell on non-micro sites are ones that I wouldn't even submit to SS as I know they would get rejected. Some have a grainy look to them, some are not perfectly in focus and some are the filtered ones, in fact my most expensive sale was of a beach scene that was oversaturated, had a water-color filter added, was far from perfect but one that I just loved for a lot of reasons. I uploaded it and it sold less than 12 hours later for $100. So there is room for both kinds in this world but on stock sites, the work must be perfect for the reasons stated in the first post.

Something that will be hanging on a wall in a living room is a totally different creature than something that is going to be used by a designer. I don't mind grain and noise in art prints but if I purchase a photo on a stock site for a design and I find it has noise, I get quite annoyed.

So don't throw away everything that isn't perfect, if it's a good picture, someone, somewhere will want it, just don't upload it to stock sites and know your market.

looby · Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 182

Thanks guys!

Rinder, It is far from perfect and I think it CAN get a lot better.

frenchtoast · Joined: 12 Jul 2006 Posts: 1417 Location: GTA Canada

what I don't understand is the differences between stock houses. One will reject it for one reason or another, but another will accept it and it sells like hotcakes, doesn't make sense to me. But what do you expect I'm a newbie :)

rinder99 · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:46 pm

willsun · Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 11

In my opinion, if you're not getting rejected at least 10%-30% of the time, you're wasting your talent on 25 cent downloads. Sites like this exist so people can learn what's "stock." You're getting your stuff rejected because you don't know what it is.

gracey · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 2418 Location: Ontario, Canada