The Blinking Eye

These are lovely and I love the idea of shooting portraits with a wide angle lens!

He even influenced me, a total newbie here. Several times I happened upon his orange silhouette shots and was just like WOW. How beautiful. What an enormous gift and legacy he left to his homeland, as well as the inspiration he gave to other photographers. He said you can't be precious about taking photos if you want to be a stock photographer, and yet, his work was true art.

I'm feeling this...

Stockimo rejected about 50% of my photos and that percentage was dropping as it got more popular. They only pay out 20% and I never sold a one. I'm completely done with it. But it was a good intro to the field. (yes, I know we're not supposed to talk about the S word...) 🤫

Thanks for this explanation. I understand it in concept and it confirms my thinking that one should avoid retouching photos as much as possible. So I looked back at the image in my software program and while I had not adjusted the saturation, I had adjusted the brightness substantially, and did very minor tweaks on the shadows, contrast etc. So even though it was a RAW file, I could see the chunky effects happening with the adjustments. And ironically, this is one of the photos that looks fine without any adjustments at all, so I'll upload it again. And THANK YOU for the encouraging feedback. That makes me feel really good. I've been working super hard on upping my game as a photographer and also learning to be especially picky about what photos I offer to the public. Simply picking and choosing the best photos is a skill I underestimated so, as you can see, my portfolio here is improving.

I had a few that finally disappeared. They say they will be deleted within 180 days, so that's about 6 months. OK thanks. I'm trying to be more careful as I noticed a dust spot on one of my uploads recently.

ok, on closer inspection, I AM seeing that banding on other photos, just not as obviously, so I think it's the Alamy preview.

Thanks everyone. Still feel like I'm muddling through this process.

Thanks!

I think you would see it. It's looks very obvious. Others see it! So weird.

This is very odd.

I'm getting conflicting feedback. Some see it, some don't. Colin says it's from Alamy conversion (but would a customer buy such a thing?). Mr. Standfast says it's on the original, but I don't see it at all on the original. I HAVE noticed dirt specks on other QC'd photos. Trying to be eagle-eyed as possible now, but it's easy to miss them. I have two screens -- a Mac and a Dell, and I see it on both. Looks really bad to me.

This photo of mine looks bad on Alamy. But why? I edited it slightly as a RAW file and when I examine it at 100% it looks perfectly fine. But on Alamy, the sky looks chunky. I like the photo and want to use it. I freaked out and deleted it, but I guess it takes a while for it to disappear. Not sure what's going on, but it passed QC. https://www.alamy.com/la-iglesia-de-santa-ana-church-of-santa-ana-el-barrio-de-perslvillo-la-delegacin-cuauhtmoc-papel-picado-cut-paper-flags-mexico-city-mexico-image273775823.html?pv=1&stamp=2&imageid=AF3A8287-F6CD-423D-A02A-EB4E1B0CB1D0&p=819131&n=0&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=12&IsFromSearch=1&srch=foo%3dbar%26st%3d12%26pn%3d1%26ps%3d100%26sortby%3d2%26resultview%3dsortbyPopular%26npgs%3d0%26qt%3d%26qt_raw%3d%26lic%3d3%26mr%3d0%26pr%3d0%26ot%3d0%26creative%3d%26ag%3d0%26hc%3d0%26pc%3d%26blackwhite%3d%26cutout%3d%26tbar%3d0%26et%3d0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3d0%26loc%3d0%26imgt%3d0%26dtfr%3d%26dtto%3d%26size%3d0xFF%26archive%3d1%26groupid%3d%26pseudoid%3d%26a%3d%26cdid%3d%26cdsrt%3d%26name%3dKristin%20Cato%26qn%3d%26apalib%3d%26apalic%3d%26lightbox%3d%26gname%3d%26gtype%3d%26xstx%3d0%26simid%3d%26saveQry%3d%26editorial%3d1%26nu%3d%26t%3d%26edoptin%3d%26customgeoip%3dUS%26cap%3d1%26cid%3d6FTPULFS5B6X2AMJYWJ9AK35EVUKYLCKWC55R93RDFBGMG8XADXYZB6NJG9DTDZT%26vd%3d0%26lb%3d%26fi%3d2%26edrf%3d%26ispremium%3d1%26flip%3d0%26pl%3d

Wow, thanks for sharing your technique in such detail! The second shot, especially, feels eerie with the deep focus. You can see every bubble.