The Descent Into Insanity - Tales of a Stock Photographer

I was recently reading the iStock forums today and my current emotional state is best described as "little child syndrome" (kickers). To see your hard work get simply disregarded into the never ending digital trash pile of stock photography. To put it simply ... it hurts.

I am currently going through the "little child syndrome" right now. No, I am not a shrink but I did take (but didn't pass) one psychology class in college. You spend hours thinking of a concept, then setting up your studio (which your wife doesn't like taking up the entire basement), taking the shots, hours of editing, and then you have to put even more time into it key wording and uploading. Then you wait, and wait, and if you are not exclusive you wait some more. Then the bomb hits your inbox like diarrhoea after a night of drinking, and the bloody thing was thrown in that freakn' trash pile! Not even a chance to resubmit, no chance what soever. WTF! It hurts, it really does. You think that you have an absolute winner, and then some (seemingly heartless) inspector shuts you right down.

Oh the pain! Yeah you get over it, and after more and more rejections you get over it quicker. So why am I complaining? Well people have a way of finding my random bitching through Google and hopefully some newbie stock photographer finds this. If you did, and you got a rejection ... don't worry you'll get more :P No I am just joking. That is exactly the way you take it or you will make a complete ass out of yourself.

There is something however to learn from a rejection ... you have to make all that time spent worth something right? Read the generic, pre-caned pieces of horse sh... there I go again. Uhm, yeah this is why this blog post has the title it does. Read the rejection letter, and then go back to your photo. Find ever single defect, lens flair, dust spot, flat fu... (whooosaaa) Back to the story at hand here, find the defects, and the most important part. Write them down, and write them down as you see them. Then add this ever growing list to your post processing procedure.

I have now stepped away from this for a few minutes and I realize as we all do, why you must leave emotions out of your "rejection process". Rejections should not be looked at as a personal attack, but a learning process. Think about the inspectors as I did while having a smoke and a shot of whiskey. Did you think of them? OK, so now that you have done that imagine that these people (mostly stock photographers themselves) see everything from the next mind blowing "vetta" cover shot, to an application including the person's kids and dog that are out of focus and the background has so many distractions that you don't even notice the subject. Yes, now you get it. These people are troopers! Even though at the same time they are soul crushers!

I have now went back and checked out my rejections and I see it (and have pulled other photos out of the inspection queue). My mind was so concentrated on the concept that I was trying to convey that I totally over saturated and cranked the blacks up way too high. Now for the humbling part. The inspector was right. Yeah I said it, don't get hung up on it. I personally loved my photo so much because I babied it, caressed it, and turning it into what I thought was the next big thing. I just didn't think about the elements that make a photo great. Not only is it a concept or story clearly conveyed to the viewer, but it is also about technical perfection which I pushed too far and corrupted the image.

So where or where does the newbie or veteran go from "little child syndrome"? That is the beauty of stock photography ... it is completely your choice. Don't you love it? You finally have control over something that the inspectors don't! HA! You can either learn from this experience and try to push your acceptance rating higher, or say **** it and quit. It is really that simple. Don't go bitching about it, don't cry over it, but learn ... and ask for other photographer's opinions as Kickers did. Then let it sink in, write it down, implement, and grow. Don't forget the reason why you started battling in the world of stock photography. Now if you started to make money ... RUN, RUN NOW! You will spend more in equipment than you will make. Participate in the world of stock photography for the love, the passion, and the pride. This is the only way that dreamers like myself will ever be able to quit their day job and live the dream of being a full time photographer. To do what we love, enjoy, and put our souls into for a living ... and not live in a cardboard box doing it!