Stock photography consists of existing photographs that can be licensed for specific uses. Publishers, advertising agencies, graphic artists, and others use stock photography to fulfill the needs of their creative assignments.
A customer who uses stock photography instead of hiring a photographer can save time and money, but can also sacrifice creative control. Stock images can be presented in searchable online databases, purchased online, and delivered via download or email.
A collection of stock photography may also be called a photo archive, picture library, image bank or photo bank. As modern stock photography distributors often carry stills, video, and illustrations, none of the existing terminology provides a perfect match.
Stock photography is simply photography that can be used in a variety of ways. It's usually shot on
"spec", meaning the photographer is not on an assignment when they take the stock pictures. Instead, the photographer takes pictures of subjects and concepts they choose.
Stock photography is commonly used by graphic designers to create advertisements, websites, brochures and other creative for their company's promotions. There are many other uses as well
though. Sometimes stock photography is used in magazine or newspaper articles, sometimes it's used by tourist centers in towns or cities, and sometimes it's used in software applications.
Stock photography means photographs of objects, places, landscapes, nature, events, people that are bought and sold on a royalty-free basis and can be used and reused for
commercial design purposes. Stock photography sites also accept and sell computer graphic designs such as backgrounds, textures, illustrations, clip-art and vectors. The stock photography distributor, which is the photographer has the copyright and all the rights of the image.
For designers, stock is a method to obtain professional photos or other images for
a reasonable price. Also the buyer has the advantage of choosing the right picture from a big number of photographs and images. Designers can buy stock photographs in more then one way: through a subscription (method used by buyers who constantly need pictures for their business, they can download a number a pictures for a certain periodic fee), single picture download (for occasional buyers, or for personal purpose), purchasing a CD-ROM collection,
etc.
Usually, becoming a contributor photographer to a royalty free stock photography site doesn't cost anything. You should avoid royalty free sites that ask you to pay for a fee to store or handle your images. To become a contributor first you have to search for a website that suites your needs. You should be aware of what kind of pictures they
accept, is it aerial photography, wild life or general stock and what resolution do they need (can you supply pictures at that resolution?). Next you should read the Terms of service of the website. You need to know how are you going to be paid for your photographs, if the site is exclusive or not, read the Photo Submission Guidelines or anything else that may interest you as a contributor photograph. Next you may register to the royalty free site and
submit a batch of photos for approval. Each site has its own procedure for submitting and reviewing images, and the process can take a few day. Once your submission has been approved, you are free to upload as many photos as you like and as often as you like. Each photograph has to be approved for quality before it is added into the picture database for sale.
Stock photography is simply photos taken "on spec". This means the photographer takes pictures of various objects, people, or situations, and sells them after the pictures have been taken. They are not on a specific photography assignment, instead they are taking photos of subjects they'd like to take pictures of.
Stock photography is primarily used in printed advertisements, brochures, magazines, and websites, though there are many other ways stock photography can be used.
Stock photography is licensed in several different ways. The two most popular are Rights Managed Stock Photography, and Royalty Free Stock Photography.
ROYALTY - FREE LICENSE
"Free" in this context means "free of royalties (paying each time you use an image)". It does not mean the image is free to use without purchasing a license or that the image is in the
public domain.
Pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times for multiple purposes (with limits).
No time limit on when the buyer can use an image.
No one can have exclusive rights of a Royalty-free image (the photographer can sell the image as many times as he wants).
A Royalty-free image usually has a limit to how many times the buyer can reproduce it. For example, a license might allow the buyer to print 500,000 brochures with the purchased image. The amount of copies made is called the print run.
Above that print run the buyer is required to pay a fee per brochure, usually 1 to 3 cents. Magazines with a large print run cannot use a standard Royalty-free license and therefore they either purchase images with a Rights-managed license or have in-house photographers.
RIGHTS MANAGED LICENSE
(sometimes called "licensed images")
The buyer must pay each time he uses the image.
There is a time limit on how long a buyer has exclusive use of an image (usually one year). This allows the photographer to sell exclusive rights to the image again when the first buyer's time limit is up.
The buyer must choose a Rights-managed license if the buyer wants exclusive use of an image. The photographer would not be allowed to sell the image to anyone else if exclusivity is part of the license. Not all Rights-managed licenses are exclusive, that must be stipulated in the agreement.
Fee is based on such things as exclusivity, distribution, length of time used, geographic location of use.
A Rights-managed image usually allows a much larger print run per image than a Royalty-free license.
Editorial is a form of rights-managed license when there are no releases for the subjects. Since there are no releases the images cannot be used for advertising or to depict controversial subjects, only for news or educational purposes.
