Not everything goes smoothly, and I think that’s worth documenting honestly. One of my photos was rejected this week. The email explained the reason: The photo had an issue regarding image quality. Submissions should be of high quality composition, lighting, focus, and color. The image should be free of blur (for the primary subject), noise, lens flare, glare, and spots due to water or dirt on the lens.

At first I was a little frustrated, since the photo looked fine to me — but reading the directory’s guidelines again helped me understand why. I found higher-resolution landscape photos to replace the rejected ones.

On the positive side, I’ve now crossed the halfway point: 27 of my photos have been officially approved and are live in the public directory. Seeing my own images appear at wordpress.org/photos, available for anyone in the world to use for free, has been the most rewarding part of this project so far.