Some Eye Candy
In February 2007, I decided to give FeaturePics a try. I uploaded my entire portfolio (which then consisted of around 600-700 photos) and most were approved. Throughout the following 2 years, I didn’t have any sales. Then FeaturePics decided that their catalog was growing sufficiently that they could take the opportunity to weed out some of the less popular images.
They started recommending images be deleted. You didn’t have to delete them, but they strongly suggested it. They also stopped approving a lot of my images. They said the categories I was shooting in were too full.
I still didn’t have any sales as of February 24, 2010, so I decided it was time to leave the agency. I tried to delete the photos myself, but I could not, so I sent a request that my photos be deleted and my account closed, which they did.
on August 12, 2010 I decided maybe I would give them another shot. I figured in 6 months maybe they worked some of the kinks out of the system, and I have some newer photos that seem to be selling better on other sites, so I thought I might do a little better than I did before. So I opened a new contributor account, and uploaded 5 images, all of which were approved. A few days later I uploaded some more photos, and they were all rejected with 2 reasons:
2. You have reached our daily upload limit, sorry.
I sent the following email to the Support Department looking for a reason for the 2 reasons:
I recently had several photos declined, and I saw two reasons appear on the page:
1. You have requested to close your account on 2/24/2010.
2. You have reached our daily upload limit, sorry.
I wanted to try Featurepics again, so I logged back into my account and everything was as I left it. Please disregard the fact that I wanted to close my account, as that was 6 months ago, and obviously the account was not closed.
Also, I can't find anything about a daily upload limit, and isn't it odd that I should be allowed to upload, edit, and submit the images, yet they get rejected because I reached some unknown limit? I then have to upload, edit, and submit them again, and hope I do not go over the limit, even though I don't know what that limit is.
Hopefully you can answer my questions.
Jamie Tibbott
It was true, I could not find anything on the site explaining an upload limit. I had never seen it before, and there was no documentation that said what the limit was, when it was over, how I could get it lifted, or that it even existed. Here is the first response I got from Elena (the owner of FeaturePics, and I believe the only person who actually works on the site):
" I logged back into my account and everything was as I left it... and obviously the account was not closed."
Your account created at 2/2/2007
http://www.featurepics.com/Authors/Images3429.aspx
HAS BEEN CLOSED.
You created a new account at 8/8/2010
http://www.featurepics.com/Authors/Images72616.aspx
Unfortunately we don't recreate closed accounts.
Thank you, Elena.
To which I replied:
upload limits? And what about the messages saying I requested to close
my account?
Thanks
Jamie
And got this reply:
Your new images have been accepted by mistake.
We don't reopen accounts.
Thank you, Elena.
Now I know that all these emails may get confusing to you, and believe me by now I was very confused with the situation, so I kept trying to get a straight answer, since she still hadn’t really explained to me why my images were declined because my old account was closed, nor had she explained what the upload limits were. So I asked:
And she replied:
Your new account will be closed.
Thank you, Elena.
Now at this point I was getting angry. Not only was she not answering my questions, but she was telling me my account was going to be deleted? Why? I really didn’t understand!
So finally I broke down and tried to get her to give me a real answer:
Her reply was:
The reason is your request to close the account dated by 2/2/2007
We don't recreate closed accounts.
Thank you, Elena.
So I replied with this:
To which I got no response.
Now at this point, I would like to apologize for
the endless emails I just forced you to read.
I was confused by them, and I am sure you will be confused
trying to read them on the page, but let’s get on with it.
So, I finally started to get it. Because I requested my account be closed in the past (and I am not going to lie, in my email requesting my account be closed I was rather irritated that I had been at the site for 3 years and not had a single sale, and I told her it was a waste of my time) I am now not allowed to have another account.
But rather than ban my account, she removed it, leaving me free to sign up with the same email address again, and have my images approved, only for her to realize after a few days that I was back and she wanted me gone.
So basically, at that point I gave up trying to get back into FeaturePics. Extremely shoddy business practices, as well as no sales means FeaturePics will not produce well for anyone, I fear. I was appalled with the responses I got from the Administrator of the site! You would think she would be a bit nicer, and certainly more professional! I would stay as far away from FeaturePics as I can if I were you, as you won’t likely have many sales, and if any problems come up, expect no support from the Admin.
Now that was just plain rude and dirty considering that it was the administrator of the site itself that blocked you. I hope that site won’t last long cause they dont know how to act professionally and cater their customers. In my experiences so far I could say that those replies or customer support they have are the worst ever. I support you on this.
That’s how frustrated I feel when trying to contact Istockphoto. They just don’t care. After reading this I’ll be sure to stay away from FeaturePics.
Thanks for the interesting information.
I fully support you in this dispute with FeaturePics. Companies like this should behave more professionally when it comes to working with clients.
I added your blog to bookmarks. And i’ll read your articles more often!
Why don’t you create your own site, where I an sure, you’re going to be better than this person.
I love your blog… bookmark it I’ve shared it to my friends too… Thanks so much for that great information… Cheer!
That’s very disappointing on your part. I mean, what’s their point? They really don’t want you but what’s their point. That’s so rude. Even I could get angry with that. They really don’t care. They did not even just imagine that having you with them is an advantage for their site popularity.
“I could not find anything on the site explaining an upload limit”. Honestly, i had never seen it before too. So, there was look complicated & crowded. Doesn’t matter. It’s a good topics. It certainly explained something more for me. I like it. Thanks for sharing.
very nice pictures…
Thanks for sharing your experience. There’s too much theoretical knowledge flooding blogs. Keep up what you are doing.
Good Blog, Thanks for sharing your Experience. Keep up good work.
Have you tried iStockPhoto? I would have thought they were the biggest name in this field.
It is a shame that after photographers like yourself have managed to capture beautiful scenes the process to sale is so longwinded and often has little success.
I guess most people don’t want to pay for photos and either download them from another website (and use them illegally).
This is truly appalling behaviour from a website you are meant to be able to trust. And why should you not be able to close an account and then reopen or create a new one six months later? Never heard of that before. I think it’s great that you’ve opened your own website so that you can provide the kind of service you expected from FeaturePics.
I do contribute to iStock, however I haven’t reviewed them yet because the upload process is limited, so I have very few photos there now, and no sales. I will review them later when I have something worthwhile to say.
Featurepics administrator should not have responded like that. They even didn’t explain you the reason why they deleted your account. It’s very disappointing. As you told you have already created your own site, so leave Featurepics and do it in your site. I am sure you will get success.
I’m sorry to hear that.
I never sold any pics on featurepic.com too.
I’m having a great time going through you blog… I hope that solutions will came up you way… Your a brilliant artist and I love the feature pics you have… Good luck… Great Day!
That admin is just so rude. People like him shouldn’t even be qualified to put up a business. As we all know customers are what keeps a business from falling. If they can’t take care of their customers then they totally aren’t worth it.
Did you try picssearch.com, but as I said, you should create your own. You really do great photos.
Good luck
What happened to the customer is always right? People are so eager to follow the written policy, check their latest facebook status updates and tell everyone else what is going on in their lives that they don’t stop to actually listen to a person and help solve their problems when it is within their power.
i am contented with my facebook albums..i am not really a photographer but i do appreciate arts a lot..maybe i can try that some time,.
Well, isn’t that a taste of bureaucracy…
In connection to your post, all i can say is that, just try to learn from your experienced but, also go beyond every circumstances maybe there are certain reasons why such things happen to your account. try to evaluate things first before making such decisions.
Amazing location to have a photo just like that! I really want to learn photography but no time for that. All i have to do is to buy photo pics from stores and this site would be a great Consumers Review to have a beautiful pictures just like this.
I just browsed your site and it looks great. I hope it turns out well for your site and you won’t be like that nasty owner of FeaturePics.
Wow!!!!!!!!!!! great Location
The best thing to do to ignore them. Just give importance to your work..After all they suffer from the wrong act that they do. Prove that your in the right point. Thanks.. I do hope they stop already.
That kind of site is not a user friendly site in my own opinion its because they did not state clearly all their rules and regulations for their readers and to those people who are willing to open an account on their site. On the other hand if you have a mistake on registering a new account they must inform you early so that you can correct it and not to the extent that they will delete all your files in their. I suggest just try to find for another site where you can upload all your photos.
It’s nice that you are sharing your thoughts and experience regarding on your problem on uploaded photos. So we could also know what kind of problem we could encounter if we download photos on that site. Sometimes there are reason that some sites don’t accept pictures when your uploading.
That is so unfortunate and frustrating. I had a hard time deleting images and an account with a similar site after college. Good luck with your future ventures- I hope it’s not as much of a hassle as this one. And if that’s your photo at the top, it’s gorgeous.
Yes it is my photo, I took this one on a trip to Montana and Wyoming. I believe this was in Yellowstone National Park.
Thanks for sharing your experience to us. That was very disappointing, it could really annoy and irritate anybody who would be in that kind of situation. Maybe their admin really work that way to many other users. By the examples of your photos, I can see that you are such a gifted photographer. Really beautiful. Anyway, it’s a learning experience for and for us also. I hope that won’t stop you from posting more of your photos. More power!
Wow, she is really unprofessional. She should have explained everything in one email. That’s all it would have taken, and email that says, we are sorry, but it has come to our attention that you have had an account and closed it in the past. This is against our terms and we will now be closing your new account. DONE. How hard is that… I typed it in 10 seconds! lol
EXACTLY!!! That is all I wanted, if they don’t want me to have an account so be it, but instead she lead me around in circles through several emails, wasting my time and confusing me!
Whew! If I’m at your situation, I’d probably threw some foul words to that Elena. She’s not answering your question and she’s confusing you. What kind of policy is that? hmpf!
True that picture of yours is such an eye-candy. It is not just beautiful, it is so heart warming. I would like to have a painted version of that. Thank you for sharing it.
An eye-catching landscape photo! Wow
That is so unfortunate and frustrating. I had a hard time deleting images and an account with a similar site after college. Good luck with your future ventures- I hope it’s not as much of a hassle as this one. And if that’s your photo at the top, it’s gorgeous.
Thank you, it is mine. I took it on a trip to Yellowstone National Park.
the admin is really a little tough as some people have said.
after reading it,i feel so sorry! good luck!
With so many images you should just create your own site to sell your stock!
I actually tried that for a little while, but ran into the problem that it was costing too much money to host tens of gigabytes of images without any sales to cover the overhead.
Wow, talk about getting the run around. There are plenty of other places to put your pictures so who cares.