Accepted by Science Photo Library

I am extremely proud to have been accepted as a contributing photographer to the Science Photo Library, one of the leading image libraries supplying images of scientific and natural history subjects. Image quality is paramount with this library and I found that in my initial submission, a number of images I had taken a couple of years ago with my Canon 10D were not accepted due to the quality not being high enough. I applied again, this time with images taken with the Canon 1D MarkII, most of which were fine, although a couple which had been cropped still didn’t make it. Those which I have taken more recently with the Canon 5D did not have any problem as the image quality of those is absolutely superb. Of course, composition and exposure still has to be correct and the subject matter is obviously important but none of those count if the image quality is not up to standard.

I now need to make a conscious effort to shoot specific subjects alongside my own work, which will be suitable for submission as making regular submissions is obviously going to be very important. It is also essential with this library, to ensure that every image is correctly captioned and keyworded, with the scientific as well as the English or common names of every species of plant, bird or animal. This of course, makes the submission process even longer as every detail must be researched and be accurate. As each library seems to operate their own system with regards to how keywords and captions should be provided, that makes it more complex and time-consuming than it need be. Why can’t they all use the same system, like making use of the IPTC fields for example? It would make life so much easier and the whole image preparation and submission process quicker. Surely?