Excited. Thrilled. Eager. These are some of the emotions that I felt when I first found out about stock photography. Receiving money for taking photos of random objects? How great was that?

Well, that was back in October. A massive upload of photographs later - a big slap in the face.

A true wake up call. Shortly thereafter, these emotions set in: dejected, disappointed, embarrassed, confused.

Ex-rookie photographers will recall how emotionally traumatizing it was when it seemed like no matter what we did, the photos being submitted would always get rejected. For one reason or another - with comments like, "Poor optical performance...", "Poor lighting..." or "Distorted pixels...". So traumatizing to the point where I wanted to pull out all my hair. (metaphorically speaking ...