Claude Huot

The customers find pictures with keywords and description. In your case, the descriptions are not accurate and you don't have enough keywords. Animals should have the scientific name. For example, for you picture of the elephant, the description should be something like: "Elephant (Africana loxodonta) feeds in Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda" and your keywords should be: elephant; loxodonta; africana; lake; mburo; national; park; africa; mammal; wild; wildlife; safari; nature; animal; grey; wilderness; large; trunk; travel; green; grass; tree; big; blue; sky; etc...... There are more than 200 millions images on this site so you have a lot of competition. To be successful, you need to upload a lot of quality pictures. Good luck.

Jim is right. https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/contributor-resources/legal/stock-image-releases Model Releases: A model release must be submitted for any commercial content that features a recognizable individual(s). Additionally, if the person might 
be recognizable (due to accessories, clothing, etc.), then a model release should be obtained.

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/warning-sign-observation-point-pilanesberg-game-323578817

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fortdefrance-martinique-january-24-2017-view-643665319

You are right. I do believe in the saying: "The harder you work, the luckier you get"

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/small-boat-on-misty-day-near-79621252

That's excellent. that puts you well above average with about 6 downloads / picture / year (average being 1). I guess you found what is selling and you're sticking to it. Congrats.

Of course this can happen. There are always exceptions. I was looking at your port and you have almost only nice food pictures but all in the same style and many are similar. I am curious to see what are your numbers. For me, I have an average of around 100 downloads / month with 1062 pictures which put me in the number of around 1 download / picture / year. This is the average with a very average portfolio.

Agree with Alexander. You also have around 400 pictures of similar windmills and solar panels. I would say that your port is probably equivalent to a 2000 pictures port with few similar. Like I said in another thread ( https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/94475-slow-sales-hard-work/ ) "According to SS earning reports, the total number of paid downloads per image is about 1 (one) per year on average". You have about 0.5 download / year / image. But to make an average it takes some better numbers like John Grummitt who found a niche and has about 3.3 downloads / year / image (very good) and some worse ones. Yes variations sell but, for example, if you have 10 similar pictures, they might sell 2 or 3 times each but if you had only 2 instead of 10, they might sell 10 to 15 times each which would make them higher in the popular search and easier to get discovered by buyers hence more sales.

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dry-stone-wall-newport-rhode-island-139673206

Since you asked, here are some of mines which sold but they are not top performers. Like Paula said, your example does't look very promising.

It's not too early. If you wait to have 1,000 pictures to ask and they are all bad, you lost valuable time. With only 18, you can follow advice given here and upload better pictures right away. Like mentioned before, descriptions and keywords are very important. Also some of your pictures are underexposed (too dark) and cropped too tight.

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-town-ravello-on-top-maori-700974727

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/port-side-large-modern-cruise-ship-131783534

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/port-side-large-modern-cruise-ship-131783534 https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-town-ravello-on-top-maori-700974727