Need some new places to shoot

I feel like I have pretty much exhausted all of the interesting buildings and landscapes in my area (that don't involve really long hikes).  You can only take photos of so many barns and store fronts before you run out of local options.  Although the recent suggestion to visit Fremont was pretty good.

I posted a few photos to 500px this week from my archive and didn't feel very confident with the quality, and just deleted the post.

To help keep my camera busy, I am working to photographing each of the 65 parks in my town. Some of them have some pretty interesting play equipment and some are just very basic and don't excite me.

On Saturday I am taking a road trip to Ione California to visit a haunted house that is supposed to be pretty camera friendly. I will be on the tour. I am hoping it is "self guided" so I can take my time. Otherwise I think the town itself will have a lot of interesting buildings and landscapes.

As a side note, I have started going on walks every day to get myself back into shape. A 3 mile hike used to be no big deal to me, but these days a mile is far from easy.

I also went to the eye doctor today for a checkup. Good news, the eye I use to look through my camera is in good shape for long distances. On the downside I need reading glasses.

Abstract in the Park

Decided to explore a local park with some free time today.

I took this shot in Tilden Park last year.

Not Good Enough for Stock Photography?

I submitted 10 sample images to a large stock photography website to see if I could "pass the test" and be accepted as a Stock photo contributor.

The good news is I had enough quality photos to "pass the test" and be accepted into the service as a contributor.  But the bad news is they rejected 3 photos that I happen to think are really good.

You can now be the judge. Do you agree with the assessment? I would love your feedback.

I can understand rejecting this photo as something that most "stock photo" customers would not really use.  The official reason was "Composition--Limited commercial value due to framing, cropping, and/or composition."

I happen to think this is a pretty good photo. Maybe you won't agree with me. Reason for rejection "Lighting Problems--Purple fringe, blown highlights or lenses flare."

This is one of my  most popular images on Flickr. In fact, an almost identical image from the same shoot, on the same day was published in a San Francisco Bay Area regional parks guidebook. Reason for rejection was "Lighting Problems--Purple fringe, blown highlights or lenses flare."

The stock photography site was Shutterstock.  My general feeling about the overall experience? I am not going to make contributions to the site.  I just don't have the time to submit 100's and 100's of images in hopes of making a few bucks on the side. Each photo you upload requires at least 7 tags, a clear name and then other category options selected. Then you have to wait for image approval.  This would turn into a full time job.

As a side note, today is a day for rejection. I tried to join the Flickr group "Flickr's Best Landscape Photographers". No luck. It is an exclusive group of about 300 people. Some of the images are pretty amazing. I will keep shooting until I can get my skills high enough to join. One of the contributors lives in my area and shoots in some of the same parks. His work is truly amazing.