After reading about many of the forum posters' experiences with Shuttertock, I may already know the answer to this question.

I'm fairly new to MicroStock, and I'm doing well for a start. I have portfolios of between 50 and 150 images at various sites, an approval record of 50% at the lowest all the way up to 100% at some of the other sites. Probably 75% is a fair average. Plus some sales here and there...nough to make me think the geometry of this might work out as I upload more images.

I started on Istock...and I guess they made me nervous, so I'm pretty diligent about noise, etc.

So, my question regarding Shutterstock: Is it worth it to keep trying to break in? I've gone through the submission process twice with solid selling images and ShutterStock finds something wrong with most of them.

From the sound of things, even when you do get in, downloads are falling off and the approval process is getting tougher. I'm thinking about just skipping them altogether - unless someone wiser talks me out of it.

Thanks...

Scott

That's good advice. On the illustration question, I'm strictly a photographer...so I don't have anything in the portfolio from an illustration standpoint. I'm very adept with Photoshop...and fairly artistic. Any thoughts that I could whip up a few illustrations to get in and then switch to photography once I get accepted? What sort of illustrations are they looking for? Not even sure I'd want to do that...but it is an idea.

I've gotten fairly emotion-free about submissions. In fact, I find a bit of humor in it...and have a lot of compassion for the reviewers. They are looking at a bazillion shots, with pressure from management to dump a certain number. I just go with the flow.

Sometimes I find I'll submit a set that gets separated by time. Almost identical pics on identical sites get selected and rejected. Occaisionally my "fix" has been to push the curves about 1% and resubmit (so I can honestly say I adjusted the photo). I just hope I get the reviewer that has already met the rejection quota for that day.

Anyway, maybe I'll give Shutterstock one more go. Maybe...

It seems like submission/audition #3 is the lucky one for many folks, and I've only done two so far.

Cheers,

Scott

Good luck. If you do illustrations, try and center them on a theme. Violence, pressure, stress, success, etc. Good selling illustrations portray what is very hard to portray with a real life photo.

I too have re-submitted with minor chnages and even received good feedback on what was rejected previously. I agree with the "ever changing" concept. I have noticed majors shifts in each agency, especially when iStock got bought out.