Once upon a time at Dreamstime – rejections

This isn’t a ‘whining’ post but situation seems to be happening fairly frequently, thus maybe You’ll find it useful.

Me @ Dreamstime forum

“Hi there, maybe anyone can give me some info about that issue faster than the support staff.

My question is where i can find some information about the single SERIE rules.

I’ve just got rejected about 8/11 shots from big Battle of Grunwald event.
Accepted 3 and not the best of whole 11.

Completely different photos and carefully SELECTED out of about 2000 taken shots.
There was about 100 thousands of people, about 1400 actors and the whole thing wasn’t some tiny 5 minutes show.

People submit single object multiple times so how the… my batch could be a problem.

Got this funny message:

‘Too many shots of the same item or from the same series. Please be more selective and choose only the best shots.’

How do i supose to cover that event with 3 images, or how the DT want’s to cover that with these 3. Also where is the sense to try to cover that for DT? I don’t need the 5$ for editorial, it’s enough if someone will buy my photo or not.

Also i have uploaded just about 100 images in six months (about 0.5 a day) which is nothing when compared to other submitters and i do my best to not repeat submitted pictures.

Anyone help please with few words or link to adequate rule.”

Before anyone could answer i’ve deleted that thread cause the staff told me:

“Thank you for contacting us.
We simply do not consider these images to have much of a customer base.
I have accepted a few from your series and if there will be sales and
more will be required we will be more than happy to accept them. Too
many identical shots refers to images from the same series, the fewer
and better images you upload the less rejections you will receive.Sincerely yours”

What can i say.. they choosed not the best shots. Totally i’ve submitted about 22 photos in 3 batches to avoid to big series issue, these You can see there Grunwald Battle photos.

22 photos from few hours lasting big event, just to cover it honestly and to offer diversified images. Shutterstock accepted these. As a designer i would like to choose pictures from a large base to increase the possibility of distinguish my work from others.  That’s why i tried to cover most important parts of the Grunwald Battle show – to give  some choice.

The funny part was when i joined some Dreamstime forum thread just about the same (series) issue. They closed it right away without giving some rational answers. It’s strange that Dreamstime staff always cares about the feedback but when people start really think and share their thoughts DT is stopping the discussion;) Unlike at Shutterstock where You can really push to the max, get some explanations and nobody kills the forum thread. Altough at Shutterstock is really hard to see some changes and new features ;) Thus i say is 1:1.

When DT closed the thread i used my DT BLOG to share all my opinions about series rejections and get some feedback from contributors, then again – DT blog isn’t a blog, You just can say how happy You are there, otherwise they delete Your post – looks like DT doesn’t know what the blog is.

My deleted DT blog post:

“From the “Stock Photography that BLOGS!”:
“or simply exchange opinions with your with fellow dreamstimers”

So i am doing it, blog is a blog.
————————————————————————–

From forum thread

“Bottom line is, shooting a series of 30 images with the same concept has no point as only 2-3 images will get downloads and in the long run is better to have 3 level 3 images than 30 level 1 images.” @Nikitu

Me: You (DT) have some wrong assumptions there.

How so can only 3 images (of series) got downloaded when thousands of submitters have their similar pictures downloaded/uploaded at the same time.
Submitters create such -virtually similar series- by uploading similar content.

I have series of paragraph symbol conceptual illustrations, so in one batch these gonna be probably rejected today because of the ‘same subject’? Also i’m curious how come some portfolios can have thousands of -same people shots- and these aren’t similar.

If we have 30 different images – we have 30 different images, since when a batch or serie limits their variety?

First – buyer has to CHOOSE what he likes from the serie and limiting it limits also the choice. Then none of these ‘selected’ can ever achieve level 2.

You (DT [and any] ) don’t know for sure WHICH image would sell for 100% thus You can easily select WRONG images from the serie. The proof is each image with 0 downloads through months [years].

But deleting these would be also unwise cause each image has it’s time, and each portfolio has it’s exposure and each photo has different keywords.

Limiting that way is just a mistake and i’m pretty sure DT will change that policy in time.

“As I said before, if you want to talk on a certain series write to support. ”
@Nikitu

Me: This post isn’t about specific rejection (and i don’t want any reaction for it) but about the general rule. I’ve spoken with support and here just put my opinion about that GENERAL rule.”

Through one night this post was read by about 140 people and next day just disappeared an i’ve got some funny messages from @Nikitu to stop restarting threads (it was my blog not the forum thread ;)) to not to post on that subject anymore and that they read all what people say – but unfortunately as You can read also in that selected thread – it doesn’t look like the admin was trying to understand what people want to say.

Especially blog is a BLOG and feedback requesting is for FEEDBACK or it isn’t ?? I just don’t like that silly attitude. Also earlier i was writing about similarity at Dreamstime forum and there was ZERO replies also from the staff and suddenly they see similiarity issue but try to solve it that pitiful way.

My answer to admin comments:

“Then change the name – BLOG to something relevant.
And my posts ( and the thread ) wasn’t about REFUSAL REASONS just about the series/batch limits what i stated clear few times there.
You should be thankful for users feedback and do not close the discussion before reading, only because the word refusal or rejection showed up.
And yes, i think i’ll have to ask support about you deleting my blog articles which wasn’t about REFUSAL REASONS.

From forum thread:
“Originally posted by Nikitu:
Quoted Message:
And again, there is no point in complaining about reasons of rejections on the message boards, we can only answer on specific cases and that will only happen on email.
—————————————————
Maybe you didn’t understand my questioning … i wasn’t complaining about a rejection.. i was pointing out how much is too much.
@Patrick H.

”

As You can see i wasn’t alone surprised by such specific reading/answering style.

If there would be hundreds of images as there are thousands of sandwiches, paprikas, cell phones, faces, dogs, laptops photos etc. but see how many there are from that GRUNWALD EVENT.

Look at Dreamstime search query with “Grunwald”. = 12 images ;)

I understand that kind of event might not be so popular (stock oriented) but is this an editorial or not, is this a big international historical event with hundreds of thousands speactators or just ordinary 30 person club dance contest UGH ?? :>.

Nothing special but i like things to be clear, this is just a story and nothing more. You may just want to take some precautions based on that. And I just won’t submit more than 3-5 editorials to Dreamstime (or none) and that’s it, have no time to work  for nothing and to care about their reasons. Got my own.
Dreamstime is a nice site but as each microstock (and other type) has it’s own ideas which don’t have to be mine too.

You may want to check out  similar thread about Most incompetent rejection on other agency I got in my life @ Shutterstock :) or thread @ Microstockgroup.

Greetings!