Being very new to Stock and after having quite a few of my first images rejected as 'not quite what we are looking for' I stayed away from uploading images that I thought were a little different just incase they weren't suitable for stock. However, searching Dreamstime I have seen so many brilliant and creative images so I thought I would upload a few of my slightly 'different' images to see how they did.

I was really pleased to see that this image had been accepted. I wasn't sure that it would be, due to the high contrast, but luckily it was. Now I will try and be more creative as well as looking out for images that seem to be obviously stock orientated. It is great that we can still be creative with our images and have them accepted.

Well it is supposed to be the beginning of summer here in London but these are the views I had last weekend when I woke up! It was very beautiful and great fun to have some good snow but seriously where is the sun!?

It's the London Marathon this weekend and guess what - it will be raining! You can always rely on the great British weather. Good luck to all runners - hopefully I will be able to get down there with my camera.

I'm really pleased today as I have reached 100 uploads - obviously there is so much more I want to achieve on Dreamstime (especially more downloads!!) but I feel that it is a milestone reached.

I have learnt so much since joining two months ago, especially from the comments received when a photograph is rejected. I find it really useful to get this feedback on why an image is not good enough and it steers me in a better direction in terms of what images I upload for stock. Hopefully in the future I will have less and less rejected and will be more confident in my uploads.

This is my 100th upload, hope you like it:

I just thought I would share some photographs I took of the South East coast of England. I was lucky enough to have a few days off from the office to go for a drive around the countryside and I was quite amazed at how beautiful this stretch of the coast is. I have lived nearby for many years but have never taken the time to explore the countryside. It's strange that we never really take the time to look around where we live and often choose to go off on holiday or vacation to other far away places. I'm also really pleased that a few of my shots were accepted on Dreamstime.

Doing a search on Dreamstime for English Coast also came up with some beautiful shots - maybe I should start appreciating this country ...

Happy Easter to all Dreamstimers!

I personally can not wait for a couple of days out of the office to spend time taking some new shots. Time to spend with the family and to go visiting new locations with my camera - sounds perfect.

I'm thinking of going to a Kent wildlife park to see if I can get any good animal shots as well as to the local beaches. What are your plans for the holiday?

I absolutely love taking landscape photographs but I feel that i would benefit from a wide angle lens.

I am currently using an Olympus e-400 with the supplied kit lenses, which are great but not exactly wide angle. The two lenses I have been looking into are the 7-14mm f4 Zuiko or the 11-22mm f2.8-3.5 Zuiko. The former is obviously a lot more expensive and would be quite an investment but i'm not sure if the 11-22mm would be wide enough to make that much difference for the 14-52 kit lens. Does anyone have one of these lenses and which would you recommend?

I am keen to try out the wide angle as I have seen some great landscape shots with dramatic cloud formations that seem more pronounced with this sort of lens. I would be ...

Well I have just managed to get over 50 uploads accepted after a few weeks of being a new member. It was one of my first goals - now all I need is sales! The past few weeks have been really interesting and I have been trying to learn as much as I can about stock photography; which still seems a bit alien to me.

Last weekend I went to Whitstable on the Kent coast armed with my camera and an aim to take some stock photos rather than my usual attempt at "pretty pretty trying to be creative" images! In some ways I succeeded, I started noticing objects and scenarios that I wouldn't have looked at before and took a few shots of things that I thought mights sell but wouldn't necessarily hang on the bedroom wall!

I uploaded about ...

I'm quite interested in getting into more product stock photography rather than my usual landscape/sunset kinda thing and I was wondering if anyone can suggest a relatively cheap light box/tent or a portable studio set up? Needs to be quite small as I don't have that much room!

I've looked at various options and they seem to range in price from £30 - £300 so it would be great if you have any ideas. I may even try making my own as described in dabobabo's blog, but I am not the most handy of people!

Cheers!

A part of me feels slightly silly but I am thrilled this morning as I have just had my first sale!! Yipee! I am really suprised that I have had a sale so quickly and although I know it really is only one sale it gives me encouragement to do more and try harder!

Thanks for all of the good advice and tips that can be found in the blogs!

It's now a few days since I joined Dreamstime and I am very much enjoying the learning curve of stock photography. So far I have had 16 images accepted out of 21, which I am pretty happy with as it is my first attempt, and I am just waiting for them to appear in my profile.

However, I am still slightly baffled at those being accepted and those that have not so I still have a long way to go. One thing that surprised me is that my sunsets and silhouettes are often rejected due to exposure issues. Unfortunately this is what I have often done on purpose to get the effect that i thought looked nice!!! Obviously the criteria is different for stock and they are looking for clearer and brighter images, especially in a topic that is quite saturated with spectacular shots. ...