Phil Lowe

Thank you all for the kind words of encouragement. Yes...need to get out with my cameras more.

My estranged wife sent me her idea of a divorce settlement where she gets everything and I get nothing. Had to see an attorney about that. I've been feeling so depressed lately, I've been thinking seriously about using that full bottle of Percocet left over from my cancer surgery. Doctor put me on anti-depressants this morning. On top of that, I have inflammation in my right eye from diabetes, a right ankle swollen to the size of a grapefruit that is painful to walk on, and I have a CT scan coming up in a month to check for cancer. In short, my life is a train wreck and the only relief I get from it is my cameras. I'd feel better if sales were up, but then I realize that any money coming in from this is half my wife's, and so I get bummed because what's the point of working my ass off for her when she left me? I don't see any light at the end of this tunnel, Pamela. I wish I did. Thank you for asking.

I hope!

Will only cross this bridge once.

I just uploaded 5 HD clips (downresed from 4K) and they have yet to appear as awaiting submission yet. That was more than an hour ago. Update: I found those missing clips. Mistakenly uploaded them to AS. Curse you Filezilla for your "quick connect to server" convenience! 😥

Yeah, I know. We've been over this ground a gazillion times. I'm not angered by it anymore, just find it funny now, in a sad and distressing kind of way. I did a search for "boat on water" and found this gem on page 2 or 3 of photo-only results: Shouldn't there be a rejection reason for irrelevant key words? Bueller? Bueller?

I would be concerned, too. It's not quantity that counts. It's quality. You have to compete with pictures of boats on water at least as good as mine.

I don't ever recall getting such a rejection under the old system. There would be upload errors, but nothing that ever made it as far as the reviewer. WTH???

Same here.

And a couple more... The weather is supposed to be sunny and warm all week here in the PNW, so I'll be getting this camera/lens combination out a lot.

More images made with the Nikon D500 & Tamron 18-400:

Just went over 1200 recently (and 700+ clips) while working a full-time job. Hopefully, sales will start to reflect the effort. For all of us.

And like any other work of art publicly displayed, those buildings and the artwork they display could be shot by any news organization and displayed without regard to copyright infringement. The presumption is that the public's right to know and discuss such art outweighs the artist's right to protect and/or profit from his work under copyright. How that applies to editorial use here is that images sold here strictly for editorial use are presumed - in fact licensed - to be used by news organizations, where the public's right to know and discuss such art still applies. To reject such images for fear that a lawsuit could result from editorially licensing them, when the Associated Press sells them as such, is groundless. There's nothing to keep anyone from suing over any image licensed for sale here, editorial or otherwise. If fear of lawsuits is the deciding factor over whether certain editorial images will not be accepted here, SS should get out of licensing editorial content altogether. On the other hand, if SS is going to continue to license editorial images like the big boys (AP for one), then SS needs to step up, put on its big boy pants, and retain better legal representation. IMHO.

Think I will. Just did.

By the way, entire blogs are dedicated to nothing more than "street art", images and all, but SS won't touch this stuff??? https://phdtee.com/blogs/news/street-art-top-ten-list In the case of the train clips I submitted, the graffiti was not even all that prominent, certainly far less than that in the NYDN photo. Shutterstock's overly cautious policy regarding the editorial sale of graffiti and "street art" is pointless and absurd. If the Associated Press can sell editorial images of "street art", why won't SS??? I leave you with this: