Hey guys,

First of all, let me introduce myself and give you a very brief overview of my experience as a photographer. I'm pretty new to stock photography in general but I've been in photography as a hobby for many years now (since 1994). However, I'm very rusty and not very familiar with the digital photo world. I used to shoot almost always in B&W (art), develop and print my work at home, where I used to keep a darkroom. But I stayed away from shooting for years and got back 3 years ago, first very lightly and more seriously since the end of last year. My equipment is a Nikon D5000 with Nikkor lens 18-55 and 55-300. For post development I've been using Adobe Lightroom 4.

I've submitted 3 photos with my application to iStockPhoto and got a rejection. I can see flaws in all of them (almost no picture is perfect, right?), but as I'm not familiar with iStockphoto standards (I still have questions even after reading their material on it), it's not very clear to me why they got rejected. Maybe something on my poor Lightroom skills? The point is that I'm eager to learn and don't repeat my mistakes. Could you please give me your opinion? I'm very open to it and would really appreciate any comments. I've included four more photos here, if you don't mind. I'm sorry to bother you but I really would like to see your opinion on these ones too.

Rejected ones:

newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/oa0udpycew7jono/sauipe_cerca_pb_MD.jpg [nonactive]
newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/zkgkrv110c6oujw/cobra_Verde_1_MD.jpg [nonactive]
newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/5bore8eaps7p2tm/veropeso_perfumes_MD.jpg [nonactive]

Extras:

newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/1e4eysadf0srrfw/cascavel_MD.jpg [nonactive]
newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/nmdescum95sfnpl/cobra_Verde_2_MD.jpg [nonactive]
newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/jv15xtuntjcvn2i/borboleta_grande_MD.jpg [nonactive]
newbielink:https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozh0r9wj6rbbe2l/esquilo_MD.jpg [nonactive]

Thank you so much for your help,

Domingos.

^^ what he said. You're way off iStock's technical requirements.
That said, so are many others who consider their photography 'Fine Art'.
Stock isn't art, in general.
That said, I'm pretty sure that this photo, which was the one I looked at, would have fairly serious banding and focus problems even when printed out:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oa0udpycew7jono/sauipe_cerca_pb_MD.jpg
Also a huge area of sky is totally blown out - another instant rejection reason.

(BTW, don't try to cover serious focus problems like this with any sort of sharpening. That's an almost guaranteed rejection too.)

Stock is a completely different mindset, where virtual pixel perfection is mandatory.

Looked also at this one:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jv15xtuntjcvn2i/borboleta_grande_MD.jpg
The focus is sort of in the right place, but the focus fall off is odd and the cropping is just ugly.

Don't worry - everyone (I can remember) who comes in saying their work is Fine Art has exactly the same sort of issues.

In addition to all the technical flaws noted above, none of these are really useful stock images even if they were technically flawless.

Zoo animals on dark cluttered backgrounds, bright objects with lots of detail/text/visual clutter and black and white landscapes just don't have much of a market as stock. Look at popular images on iStock, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and you won't see images like the ones you were considering.

iStock generally is less concerned about commercial value than Shutterstock, but it's still a factor.

The problems pointed out above are real, but don't be discouraged.  You just need to adjust your thinking and your perceptions - I did it and you can too. 

Don't think in terms of what these agencies "want", but rather what they'll "accept".  You're not submittinig photos to editors or gallery owners, but to paid reviewers working off of checklists, grinding through thousands of boring images.  They accept simplistic images of places, objects, and people, that are rendered perfectly.  They want no sensor noise, perfect focus, infinite DOF, and no blown highlights, at 100% corner-to-corner - criteria which are irrelevant for art photos.   They'll tell you not to sharpen in post-processing, and that's a complete lie - sharpen while viewing at 100% and go as far as you can without creating halos.  The image has to tell its story in about 500 milliseconds - nothing crowded or subtle.  If you shoot some object on a white background, they'll assume it's an 'isolation' and every pixel in that background must be 255,255,255.  Shoot at ISO 200 or better -  400 is ok in good light.  They'll reject most photos with creative use of DOF - but accept some, and no one can figure out why.  They really like light-toned pastel-y photos and will usually reject anything dark and shadowy. 

In the case of 'art' photos - if an image is good, really 'does something' for the viewer, all sorts of technical flaws can be ignored. In stock it's just the opposite - any tiny flaw disqualifies the photo, regardless of its overall merit.


It's a shock at first and can be quite frustrating, so go slow.

you may not get as many replies as you hope for due to the iStock/Getty/Google drama that's still going on.

Art? C'mon MS is everything but art. The day I entered MS world left behind my most beautiful images (jazz portraits) keep them jealousy far from this beast and give them what they want. Look at the most popular images and you don't have to be super smart to see what kind of demand is on MS.
Be careful MS can easily destroy your art potential and turns you into Bollywood image production machine..... or maybe i'm wrong. Who knows?