It Seems Some Folk Are Never Happy!

Yesterday afternoon I nominated a stock photo for a DD over on Deviant Art. At the time of writing, it's had almost 6000 hits, most of them in one day, which can't be bad.

For the uninitiated, in dA's own words;

The Daily Deviation is a daily feature chosen from the galleries here on deviantART.

A small assortment of submissions are chosen each day by a select group of staff/volunteer members who wish to showcase an image which they found impressive or otherwise interesting enough to deserve being brought to the attention of the community-at-large.

The staff/volunteer members responsible for selecting submissions for the daily feature often are open to suggestions and individual community members may direct their attention by noting the appropriate gallery moderator or staff member with a direct link to the deviation which you are suggesting and a brief description about why you think the work in question should be featured.

The particular photo I chose for such recognition was this;



Obviously uploaded by a man with a great sense of humour because in the same batch he's also offered up this lovely gem;



I mean seriously, what's not to like about a knight in shining armour who turns up on a bus instead of a trusty steed?

However, it appears that to the disaffected few, this FREE stock photo doesn't quite make the grade because;

A) One would prefer that he held a sword more prominently instead of the staff.

B) Four others thought his clothing was too clean.

C) And another quibbled whether or not the chain mail was fake.

Good grief! The photo has been offered up for stock use COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE with no stipulations other than it not be used commercially. The guy's not even asked to be credited for the time and effort he's put into providing people with such imagery to work with. If it's not to someones satisfaction it can be changed because that's what the provider is allowing them to do under a creative commons license. Gah!

I think I must be feeling particularly niggly this morning because for some reason I've found these comments utterly irksome, although in fairness, the positive comments outweigh the bad. Good male stock however is particularly difficult to get hold of - male fantasy/historical based stock near on impossible to find for free, unless you use photos taken at Medieval Fairs and such like, wherein you run the risk of providing/using an image of someone who hasn't consented to it's use. I do wonder sometimes whether before making such inane comments, people actually think about such things. Probably not.

I know from my own experience as a stockist just how much effort goes into providing people with images of this nature. The cost of hiring or making costumes, travel expenses and the entrance fees into various locations, do at times, seem to be taken for granted by the idiotic few willing to pass judgement in this manner. I sometimes wonder how many potentially great stockists and their photos disappear off into the ether because of it. I genuinely hope this relatively new provider isn't one of them. He's a talented guy with an eye for the unusual.

Anyway, there you have it. If nothing else I feel better for having blogged that out of my system!