Shutterstock

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Good afternoon, all. I hope everyone is well. Today's discussion is all about Shutterstock and my attempts to sell photos online. I signed up only yesterday (or maybe it was the day before). I looked at their information and thought, as I have some nice pictures, I might as well try to make a few extra pennies from them. So far, I have uploaded 8 photos. So far, I have had 8 photos rejected. Now, the ones where the rejection reason is a problem with exposure or other quality issue, I absolutely understand. Two were rejected because the main subject was not in focus - the first was, I think, because of having to change the size. The original image was very clear but too small and I don't have the technical skills or knowledge to enlarge it without losing quality! The second was of a sunset. The sun was clearly in focus so I'm not sure about that one! Some were rejected due to not have a 'property release' to use images of a building. They were pictures of train stations - i.e. public spaces - but, OK, I accept I'd have to request permission from Network Rail to use images of train stations. Looking through my own collection of photos, it seems there are very few in which there are neither people nor buildings. The most confusing for me, though, are the 'visible trademark' and 'brand name in tags' reasons for rejection. I didn't put any brand names or trade marks in the tags. There is one perfectly good photo that was rejected solely because it contains a visible trademark - the photo is of a sign which has the name of a town on it. I concluded, then, that that was my problem - I'd put names of towns in my tags and some of the images contained names of towns. Anyway, I am now a little stuck. I can try to improve some of the images for clarity and focus. I wanted to do a collection of train stations but that's not going to be possible either - unless, of course, I source permission from the owners of the stations. It seems like it's going to be pretty difficult to have anything accepted. Maybe I'll try a little harder but I actually like the moods I capture in my pictures but I don't think Shutterstock will accept any of them. Have you had any experience with Shutterstock? Have you used any similar site to sell photos? Are there any tips to get pictures accepted? The image here is the one I had to enlarge so it wasn't quite as sharp as the original.