Please Help - Stock Photography Criticism

[Chrisooo1012]

Hey everyone,
I'm new here and my name is Chris; I'm 17 and in need of some criticism. I'm taking a photography class and learning how to take some nice pictures. I recently decided that I wanted to try and put some photos up on iStockphoto.com. I've seen a lot of nice photos there, but a few that aren't terrific, and I figured I had a pretty good chance of getting a few pictures on there.

Well I've applied now a total of three times and had all three photos that I was required to submit rejected. I have submitted 9 different photos in all; many have different artistic styles. I made sure of this so that they can't bash me on being too much the same.
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Regardless, I have been rejected every time with no sort of personal criticism so I figured any criticism would help. I will show you guys 6 of the 9 because the other 3 are on a different computer. Please let me know anything I can do do improve and provide reasons why these may have been rejected.

Thanks a lot, and thank you for reading all the way through that. Haha.

Chris.

(Note these are all much bigger but photobucket made me resize them. I sent Istockphoto the largest sizes.)
And Finally... The Album!
Pictures by Chrisooo1012 - Photobucket

 

[skiboarder72]

I really hate Istockphoto too... I wrote a nice blog post about it here,

Anyways, I think that many of those photos seem to be overly post processed, the lighting is strange (especially the one with the glowing newspaper?). The best shot for stock photography would probably be the panorama of the mountains, but that is a very crowded topic, without a lot of buyers. Keep your head up high, istock doesn't really have great judgement if you ask me.

 

[Corbin Lane]

I've researched sites like this and while you do get exposure, it's not very good for making actual money. While the route that I took has generated me no money so far, it gives me 100% control of how my photos are sold, bought, discounts, where they're going to be used and everything. I can deny a purchase for any reason I want to. For some reason this seams more secure for me than giving my photos to iStock photo or any other stock photography website because I like my work and I take pride in it.

Plus I got rejected (Just Kidding)

Actually, I didn't get rejected. I just don't like my photos being in the hands of someone else. I'm the only one with the digital copies. While I'm sure you can find a few of my pictures to download, you won't be able to send them to get wrapped for a Canvas Gallery or anything.


I can't organize my thoughts too well right now so bear with me.

As for Criticism, I say just shoot for the first year. Get comfortable with the camera and such and then explore options for money. Practice makes perfect (I just tried to spell it purfect)

 

[Chrisooo1012]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. Nice blog by the way Josh, I ended up reading that for about 45 minutes. Haha.

 

[bigtwinky]

I would say all of your pictures have very limited commercial value. They are ok pictures, but in stock photography, you have to be sending a message, selling a product...the buyer must want to use your picture for things.

And I'm not saying find 1 reason for 1 person to buy your picture, just that why would a stock photo site store your image if it was limited value.

Stock photography is not about going into your backyard and snapping some nicely exposed pictures.

It also has to be something different. I wonder how many pictures of closeup flowers or landscapes get rejected, mainly because there are already tens of thousands that are up there.

If you have a picture that you think is stock worthy, head to the site and search for similar ones. Check the following:
- is mine on par with the most downloaded one?
- can you even find something similar? If not, may want to rethink putting it up

 

[manaheim]

You also just have the problem of the site having been up so long now that you have to come up with something PARTICULARLY interesting for it to be accepted.

Just to give you an idea I uploaded five fireworks pictures like 6 years ago and three were rejected. I challenge you to get a SINGLE fireworks picture up there now.

I just looked and I see I have $51 in my account from those two pics. Woot.

$51 in 6 years from two pictures... I guarantee you any decent picture I have I could make more money than that on in far less than 6 years, and still keep all my rights to the picture.

Generally speaking, iStock is probably not worth your time... particularly now.