Thirty keys to stock photography
Well, I asked for it. Ten years ago I suggested on one of Alamy‘s forums that stock photography was nothing like art, photo club or personal photography. You might have pictures which have won contests, pictures good enough for a friend or two to have asked for prints and still have them on the wall. You might have pictures from a decade or two during which you have happened on some wonderful sunsets or visited great places at just the right time.
But you might not have anything which would work in the stock image market for unreleased editorial or released royalty-free, the two big volume markets which exist.
Why do I say these are the two volume markets? Two important stock image sites say it for me. One is represented by iStockphoto and Shutterstock, the main repositories for royalty-free images at very low prices. The other is Alamy, arguably the main source for unreleased editorial and illustrative images.
Royalty-free pictures are not an intrinsic evil. In fact, for the most part the term is not accurate as the images are licensed under a set of rules which make it very clear you are not free to do what you want with them. Their uses are fairly restricted and that’s why iStockphoto offers extended licences. It would be more accurate to term the genre hassle-free; no print runs, no date or time limits, no size constraints other than the size of the digital file you get.
What has been an intrinsic evil is the association of RF with tiny fees, dollar downloads, cent payments. It would be a cut-throat business, but the photographers supplying it arrive with their throats already cut, all the site owners have to do is hang ’em up to bleed into the corporate bucket.
Alamy also offers Royalty-Free, but as statistics over the years have shown, it’s at far higher prices than typical Rights Managed usage. Just as with iStockphoto, you can only designate an image for RF sales if you have valid model releases for any human components appearing in the image, and/or property releases for any identifiable branded or privately owned element. Unreleased images, and that means nearly every picture everyone has ever taken in their pre-stock existence including their own family snaps and self-portraits, must be restricted to licenses which are appropriate. However, Alamy does not require you to upload the release with the image as it once did – you can now simply say you have one, and can provide it if asked.
That means they are not going to earn thousands as key images in a major international advertising campaign. Nor, as we know, are those iStock RF images despite having all the releases in place. They will earn the same few tens of dollars for a large file whether it’s projected on to the surface of the Moon by laser or used to liven up an invitation to your mum’s 100th birthday party.
It all makes sense. Many thanks for such a helpful post, David.
As usual great advice David.
Much of it is not new to me but I have not always (or even often) paid proper attention or had forgotten it. Fortunately your pointing out this piece is timely as I am actually working to raise my photographic game now I can work at it as full time as I wish.
Thank you, these comments and other ideas will play a major part in my business plan for 2014.
About time I read this and follwoed the advice!! All makes perfect sense now!
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Fantastic advice David, and thank you so much for offering so much advice to others on Alamy’s forum. This must consume a great deal of your time – most generous.
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Very good and interesting piece of work excellent for all who want to tread down the Stock Highway.
Excellent post! Thanks for sharing. You have provided many useful and helpful tips for all stock shooters to consider.
Clarence
Thanks, David. Will put all your fabulous advice on my 2011 resolutions list.
Bettina
This is Brilliant David, the best stockphotography advice i’ve ever read….A Stockphotographers Bible…Amen to that!
Thank You
Parm Bhandol
Interesting reading David. Hope to make at least some of that into one of my new years resolutions!
Thanks
Phil Crean
David – I adopted your cropping advice from another posting you made about a year ago… cropping a good percentage of my 2:3 format Nikon images down (or up?) to the 4:3 format because a) they do look larger and more impressive as Alamy thumbnails, and b) the 4:3 format crops-off softer image corners.
You certainly set yourself a big task David! There is so much in there to debate but I think I’d make the general comment that ‘rules’ can often be broken effectively to make an image that stands out from the crowd of generic stock. Of course a photographer has to have first learnt and mastered the rules to then reliably consider breaking them! An interesting read, thanks.
Alex
Thanks for the solid 30 keys to stock photography, David.
“The most important lesson I ever learned in photography was the simplest – you can not take a picture without being there”…. with a camera
Best piece of writing on stock photography I’ve seen. Common sense based on long experience. Unbeatable combination.