Microstock revenue » Interesting forum discussions

Be careful what you shoot!

Sarah Holmlund — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:04:27 +0000

In a forum post at Lucky Oliver Beth Pulsipher (LoonGirl) tells us about what happened when she and her friend where out shooting yesterday. Her friend stopped at a public road near an airport and took some shoots of the radar tower. An airport maintenance guy shows up and asks for his ID and an explanation about what he is doing. Later the Sheriff’s Dept contacts them for an interview. They are told that they are going to report this to the FBI and FFA.

I don’t think they did anything wrong since they where on a public road. But it’s not very fun to be in that situation anyway. If a police would contact me and start questioning what I was doing and telling me he is going to notify the FBI and FFA I would become a bit nervous, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. Or I would get very angry and contact TV and newspapers to see if they would like to follow up the story.

I don’t think this would ever happen to me since I live in Sweden but you never know. It’s best to be careful when shooting and know about which rights apply. At this site you can print out a copy of “The Photographer’s Right”. It’s a flyer explaining your rights when stopped or confronted for photography.

Have Shutterstock reviewers gone crazy? Mass rejections for everyone!

Sarah Holmlund — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:04:36 +0000

It seems like something has happened at Shutterstock the last couple of days. Many contributors are reporting rejections of whole batches of images for strange reasons. Most seem to be rejected due to limited commercial value and some because they are too similar (when there are no similar images). Yesterday the speculations where wild in the forum about what could have caused this. Some thought it was a software bug and some thought it may have been a new reviewer not doing their job properly. Finally a staff member told us that it wasn’t a software bug but a problem with the reviewer. Some time later they left this message:

“Unfortunately, some recent rejections were not reviewed properly. However, I am not stating that all rejections were, but some are very apparent and, again, these will be addressed individually with each submitter, as possible.”

I must admit that I had prefered it to be a software bug and not a bad reviewer. I think it’s easier to fix the software than the reviewer. I haven’t sent any pictures to Shutterstock this last week because I have worked with other stuff and now I’m glad that I haven’t. I think I will wait a couple of more days before I start submitting to them again. But it seems like they are reviewing all the images that has been rejected once again.

Shutterstock staff also said:

“Now, in regards to recent rejections & to allay any concerns with reviews: All reviewers are being reviewed for both quality approvals and rejections on a daily basis. When a situation like this occurs, I will do my best to address everyone’s concerns right away and will move to correct the situation immediately. I have done so today.”

It would be interesting to know the whole story. What happened “behind the scenes”?

Interesting background materials

Sarah Holmlund — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:16:04 +0000

In a thread at Shutterstock’s forum people show their photos and tell which material they have used for the background. It’s very interesting to see and I have gained a lot of good tips. One of the best tips was to use a photo as a background. I must try and print out a photo I took of the sky this last summer and use as a background for one of my photos.