Well I only had 16 images approved, and I got 16 views (not 1 each, only a few ever got viewed) so going on that assumption if I had 100 up, Id make $25 over a year ><

The sites seem to have a lot of guides and info on how to be successful, but I never paid them much attention. It does seem though that the ones that sell the most are the ones that are the trickiest (IE ones with people(tricky due to photo releases etc), or from current affairs) Otherwise you need to be good at photomanipulation and graphics to take a photo that probably already exists a few hundred times on the site in some form or another, and twist it into something new.

Id be interested to know what photos eagle took to make loads of moolar, whether it was lots of photos each getting a few views, or a few good ones. I think there is a weird system too where the better submitters get their items weighted and ranked higher than others so they come up earlier in searches etc.

Try editing the camera data to a 7D or something and re-submitting? See if it then gets approved!

Issue is noise and all that gubbins. On the face of it the macros look alright, but when you go in 100% theres a bit of noise and theyre not razor sharp (the olympus tough lenses are quite soft). I actually agree about sharpness on the panos in a way, when you went to 100% they werent that hot at all (piss poor in fact) but the fact is the panos were something like 10000x5000 resolution, I could halve them and make them pretty sharp and they *might* get accepted. Some of them were rejected due to the clouds...IE it wasnt a clear blue sky and the clouds werent dramatic ><

Other issue is that with stock imagery they tend to like the critters on plain backgrounds etc, rather than just "as is". I could give it a go with a few I guess, but only 1 has made it on so far.

For all the time and effort I think youre better off printing a few and trying to flog em at an art show or market tbh. I mean 16 photos have accumulated $4 over 18 months for me. I wonder if I tried to frame some of my shots properly and printed them nicely whether I could make more profit that way...wouldnt take much to beat $4. I remember someone in the lake district selling photos on canvas, most of them almost looked like holiday snaps, he also put the data next to the prices too so I could see he had taken a few with a kit lens etc, some looked uber grainy and not too sharp and he was still charging £60+ for them.

Other thing is commissions, Ive had a few organisations use some of my photos, I let them do it for free as its good for the portfolio etc, but sooner or later Im thinking someone will want to use one commercially, I had one which I could have charged a little for before but couldnt be bothered asking for money last year. Id only charge a fiver or something silly, but thats still more than I get for the stock ><

Problem is that when it comes to photos anyone with a camera is an instant critic. I know my photos are amateur and mediocre at best, but it still doesnt stop me from turning my nose up at most other photos, and being insanely jealous of all the rest!

Ive submitted another half dozen "object" shots but these were with the 40d + 50mm again. Will see how they fair, some of them are the same as when I tried it with the 400D and kit lens but failed. If I CBA later in the week Ill post some flickr images of examples of ones that "got in" and ones that didnt and you guys can be the judge.

Of note is that between iStockphoto and shutterstock, theyve both rejected the ones the other has accepted and vice versa.

Is that dragonfly yours?

haha that worm thing in the 2nd row

Nope, I wish though.

Hint #2 is that both of the images are on different pages.

Im taking it as a compliment that people think the other photos are mine as I think theyre much better

i wasnt guessing, I was just laughing at it.

Here we go then, 1/7 photos were accepted.

This one was accepted:

lead1 by Chris_Moody, on Flickr

This one was rejected...reason "Poor Lighting--Poor or uneven lighting, or shadows. White balance may be incorrect."

lead2 by Chris_Moody, on Flickr


I can accept the reasoning, its not a plain white background, it has a gradient and is actually grey. The thing that gets me is when there are 2 photos that are very very similar and one gets accepted and one doesnt!