I’ve been a member of Dreamstime for a little over a year now, a place where you can find free stock photos for your blog, website or whatever your need for photos may be. The one thing you must know is that whether you go for the free photo or paid photo they are of the highest quality.

Whilst I have purchased photos from them on more than one occasion this site is more than a multitude of the best photos you will find on the net, it is also a place for members to upload their photos and once accepted these very same photos may be purchased by others. So you see it’s also a place for photographers, professionals and amateurs alike, to make money form their photography.

Unfortunately, whilst I only had my point and shoot camera the quality of it’s photos were not of a high enough standard. That however is a thing of the past because I’ve just purchased my very own Canon EOS 550D Digital SLR. Alas, like I said earlier Dreamstime only accept photos of the highest standards, so while my Canon is capable of 18MP photos, it seems that my photographic ability is somewhat lacking, but I don’t mind because every time I get rejected it’s forcing me to improve the quality of my shots.

I’ve learned a few things along the way and I know for a fact there is a lot more to learn. Take this photo for example.

Adelaide by Night

I uploaded a series of photos of Adelaide by night which I took from across the River Torrens. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do, as was explained in an email.

As for the submission of the entire series – it is highly recommended that you do the selection yourself and only upload the best image of a series, provided that they are so similar. In the case of your series none of the images is acceptable and this is why one was refused with a more detailed explanation and the rest – for similarity. Your other images suffer either from the same problems or have very prominent
noise. At this point, given the problems with the images, you cannot resubmit either of them.

OK, so I bummed out. The email also went to say that the photos were ‘over filtered’ which I don’t understand because there wasn’t any filtering or editing of any of the pictures. They did suggest though that I take the photos at an earlier time so that there would be more light and not so many black areas. Oh well, I still like the photo.

Another thing you have to remember is not to upload any photos that have trademarks of any kind as these would also be rejected.

One thing I don’t understand about this mob is that when a photo is rejected they tell you what’s wrong with the photo so that you can fix the errors and resubmit it. So I took the photo again paying attention to what was required only to find out that it was rejected because I didn’t upload the same photo with the errors fixed? WTF? If they tell me that the composition was wrong or that the photo was out of focus how can I fix those errors without taking another photo.

Another thing that has me mystified is that on several occasions they’ve told me that my ‘white balance’ was incorrect. I don’t see how they can tell when they don’t know the actual color of the subject. Besides I’ve always left the auto white balance on, so does that mean that I shouldn’t use the auto white balance feature?

While frustrating I’m still going to persevere with them because I see it as being only a matter of time before my photography improves and I finally start making a bit of money from my hobby.

If you think your photos are of a good standard then perhaps you should consider joining Dreamstime so that you can make a bit of extra cash on the side.

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Filed under: Just Photos • Night Shots

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