PHOTO: Bible verse with selective focus/lighting

What I did in this picture of a Bible was to focus and shed more light upon the verse.
The intention is that Bible readers will easily identify this verse and realize it is there intentionally.
Is there a chance iStock sees this as a nice file to be added to my portfolio?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kz8pri2i5mpbitq/Psalm%20119v105%2002.jpg
(Edited on 2013-02-21 18:22:56 by jluizmail)

(Edited on 2013-02-21 19:02:54 by jluizmail)

Awkward angle view of the subject resulting in a fairly uncompelling composition, random background that seems to be neither a home or church setting nor isolated well enough to make it useful to a designer. Lighting poor, with distracting shadows and mixed lighting temperatures.

I definitely wouldn't upload it. I'd reshoot it, if you don't think we already have enough shots of bibles, and fill the frame with the subject more, place it in a context or ideally in someone's hands.

You do have a point there. What I was looking at was a chance that a few publishers might be interested at promoting the Day of the Bible a little more. That's why I started out with that verse.


As for the photography skills I displayed...  Hmmm... I didn't know what I was missing by not coming to this section of the forums before. :)

The verse isn't very visible from your shot and it certainly won't be seen in the thumbnail version shown on site. If you do a search for bible images, you will see that many that are trying to emphasise one chapter are shot much closer.

Agree completely with all of Kelvin's points.

All other points aside, this is a guaranteed lighting rejection, sorry. A hard, dramatic light casting a hard shadow like this could work if it was a little more focused and the rest of the image went darker - in other words, the existence of the hard shadow is not necessarily an instant rejection - but you don't appear to have committed to that, the rest of the shot is too illuminated and you've got light sources competing with each other rather than complementing each other, both in terms of color temperature as Kelvin pointed out, and with competing hard shadows, e.g. from the bookmark ribbon.

The dull gray background in no way contributes to the message here. That sterile background may have worked with a slick modern Bible in perfect condition, but feels arbitrary behind this older, more worn looking book. A darker background material, a wooden table, etc would have been a better visual match. Designers who buy the images here are sensitive to these kinds of details. They don't necessarily just want a photo of some thing. They want a whole "feel" that will help support whatever message they need to design around.

The slightly skewed angle looks arbitrary & accidental. Skew obviously and deliberately with a specific purpose, or else make sure you're shooting square.

Technically, footnoted Bibles are generally copyright-protected and are supposed to be rejected (although this gets missed by some Inspectors). Next time around use a different Bible that only displays the ancient text.

I hope you won't get discouraged by the checklists of flaws we've found on your images. I know it gets hard to hear over and over. The whole point of this forum, however, is to enable contributors to better see these details themselves in their own images, so we'd be doing you a disservice to not point out everything that doesn't work.

Rest assured that virtually every successful contributor here went through this same learning process. I've been a photo Inspector here for 10 years this May, and so I've witnessed, from the Inspector's chair, the humble beginnings of virtually every single super mega hotshot black diamond here. The successful ones take the rejections and critiques to heart, apply what they learn, and persevere.

Keep at it, and keep bringing us files!

Dear Donald,


Thank you so much for the words of encouragement.  Believe me, I value all words I've been told in this forum.