So I’ve gotten the first couple of reponses from my first couple of stock photography submissions. Shutterstock requires you to submit 10 photos, of which 7 must be accepted. Alas I did not get enough accepted photos, for a variety of reasons that we’ll go over shortly. Thus I was not accepted; however, I can reapply in 30 days – which I will do armed with new knowledge!

Fotolia doesn’t have a requirement that a certain number be accepted, and I have several photos accepted and available online now. Yay!

I thought it would be valuable to take a look at a few of the photos to see what was accepted and – perhaps more importantly – what was rejected and why. Let’s see what we can learn here:

Strawberry – Accepted

White background, food, sharp focus (if in a limited area), bright saturated colors. Approved. In addition the shot of the apples lined up was approved, which was similar in concept to this – white background, sharp focus, food. Hmm…. 2 data points is not enough to make a pattern, but it’s something I’m keeping my eye on and trying more of!

BumbeBee – Rejected

Both Shutterstock and Fotolia rejected this on the basis of poor focus. This baffled me a bit at first and I thought perhaps they just wanted the depth of field to be deeper. But then when I really zoomed into the picture I saw that the wing is in perfect focus, but the hairs on the back and the head of the bee are in fact not in perfect focus. Click on the picture to enlarge it and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

 You really have to zoom in close to really see the focus problem - which I think tells us something about how these photos are reviewed. So we know to make sure we do that before submitting – and focus is vital!

Canoe – Rejected

This was rejected for poor focus and overabundance of photo type. Of course I knew that this didn’t have tack sharp focus. I felt that it helped with the mood of the photo – but again we’re learning that perfect focus is an absolute necessity.

Leaves in Creek – Rejected and Approved

This was approved through Shutterstock and rejected from Fotolia. Fotolia’s reason – and one that I quickly got used to seeing – was Overabundance of Images of This Type. In fact, anything remotely nature related got axed by Fotolia and most of them from Shutterstock as being the kind of photo that they just have way too many of.

The Plan

Even though the sample size is small, I think a couple of things are clear. Focus must be tack sharp – no exceptions allowed. More importantly (for me) all these gigs of nature-type photography are not useful for stock. Certainly the gems I’ll go ahead and try submitting once I’m in — but they will not be a part of any initial submission!

For now I’m going to stop submitting to new stock agencies and instead shoot some new photos over the next week or so. Specifically I think I’m going to shoot some food on a white background. It’s incredibly easy and seems to be a logical route in. Now again, I firmly believe that an inital submission to a stock agency should show a variety of shot types, and on my to-do list is to get some shots of people (with model releases).

But for now it’s to the grocery store!