iStockPhoto.com - are they overly critical of images?

[Jordan]

.... or do my images just suck?


I uploaded fifteen (the maximum) at once about a year ago (soon after I started in pro digital photography) and only 3 were accepted. Now, a year later, when I consider myself to be much better, I uploaded 9 last night and only ONE was accepted. They reject and say things like "main subject not clear" or "focus is off" or "colors are dull" and it's really aggravating. I know I have plenty of room for improvement but still it's a bit discouraging when I can't even get more than one photo online with 9 different ones I think are quite good. My clients, friends and family say their great, but of course they could just be full of crap... anyone else have these troubles?





- Jordan Murphy


www.freshphotohawaii.com


Equipment: Canon 7D, 50D, EF 24-105 f/4 L IS USM, EF 100-400 L IS USM, Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro, Kenko extension tube 3pc set, 2 430EXII Speedlites, Manfrotto monopod and tripod with video pan head.

[Brendan7]

I have not ever submitted to istockphoto but I do know one thing...your images don't "suck". Definitely no. Maybe they're just picky (too picky), but I wouldn't be surprised if other photographers received the same acceptance rate.


brendan

[photosurfer]

I think the thing is they already have a bajillion pictures. . . idk. I do know that I've read a few articles about other stock sites that are much more profitable for the photographer, mostly in outdoor photographer magazine. http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/how-to/more-how-to/get-into-the-stock-market.htmlHere's a link to one of them- hope it helps!

[Daniel Browning]

iStockPhoto.com - are they overly critical of images... or do my images just suck?

I've bought a ton of photos off iStockPhoto.com (landscape, architecture, and people mostly). As fantastic as your photos are, and they really are very excellent, they are going up against photos in popular keyword categories ("children smiling beach", "hawaii seascape", etc.). Those keywords are filled with mounds of the most fantastic photos
I've ever seen. Looking at them, I just could not imagine any way that
they could be improved, they're just perfect. So it really doesn't matter how good your photos are, because even if they were perfect in every way (they aren't, but they're close), iStockPhoto will already have one of those, and they don't need two, so they'll reject yours.


If you took the same level of excellence and applied it to keyword categories that are further off the beaten path, I think they would get accepted much more readily.

[canoli]

Your post got me interested Jordan, thanks for sharing your experiences with istockphoto.com.


I
did a couple searches on and "Landscape," "Children," "Flowers" - each
of these produced hundreds of thousands of images. "Tarantula" came up
with less than 500. And if you've got a shot of a "Rack and Pinion"
setup, you're only going up against 23 others!


Good luck!