Digital Stock Photography

How to Shoot and Sell

Michal Heron

• Publisher: Allworth
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781581157949
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts & Business

Digital Stock Photography equips photographers with everything they need to know to create digital stock photos that sell in today's marketplace. From organizing a shoot to raking in the profits as the pictures sell and sell and sell again, all the steps are here: Capturing digital images, working with scans, digital delivery of images, evaluating equipment, organizing digital files, building an archive, and more. Thirty assignments, designed to reflect the latest trends in photography, provide readers with a blueprint for building a stock collection. Special sections explain how to market, negotiate and quote prices, and manage a business, plus obtaining model releases and protecting copyright.Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

CHAPTER 1

The Business of Digital Stock

Not long ago I got an email from a long-time client requesting a stock photo of a Hispanic family having a picnic. The client hadn’t found anything on my Web site but knew me well enough to ask if there were some new photos I hadn’t posted yet. I didn’t happen to have it, but it didn’t seem like a tough request. I emailed back, “Sorry, I can’t provide that picture but surely you can find it easily. The only alternative I can offer is this photo from my Web site but it shows a white family on a picnic.” To my surprise, they chose my photo.

Some weeks later, I saw that client at an industry meeting and asked about her difficulty in finding the right photo of the Hispanic family, and why they’d settled for a white family. She sighed and explained that there hadn’t been time to shoot an assignment, so she had counted on finding it in stock. “I looked everywhere, on dozens of agency Web sites, but nothing worked for our concept.” They had wanted to target the Hispanic market and appeal to a mainstream middle class audience. It seemed very odd.

Were there other pictures of family picnics in stock agencies files?

Yes.

Why didn’t they work?

As the client explained it, most everything she saw was one stylistic extreme or another. Some photos were in the style of gritty photojournalism. Others were too far on the other end of the spectrum, showing the current taste for oblique angles, extreme soft focus, or moody color. There were none that presented a Hispanic family in a well-executed photo with an approachable, authentic warmth in the family interaction—and at a picnic.

This anecdote is not an isolated occurrence. I have heard many variations of it from stock clients who can’t find exactly what they need. It may seem as if virtually everything in the world has been photographed somewhere by somebody. But that doesn’t mean the photographs are a suitable style for all stock users. Or that they fit all concepts. I admit being constantly surprised that even with the seeming glut of images being produced by eager photographers, there are still so many holes in agency files.

The holes are there because either photographers haven’t thought to shoot the concept or the agencies have edited down, showing only a limited selection of styles that matched current taste—often concentrating on the most fashionable, faddish approach.

Later in this book you will learn more about the technological, stylistic, and economic reasons for the gaps. We’ll also explore the way you can fill the gaps by tailoring your techniques for the stock industry.

WHAT IS A STOCK PHOTOGRAPH?

The definition is straightforward: a stock photograph is an existing photograph that is available in the files of a photographer (or photo agency) to be loaned (licensed) for reproduction use to a wide variety of clients. Stock photographs are different from assignment photographs, which a photographer is commissioned by a client to create specifically for its needs. Stock exists, whereas assignment is potential or proposed photography. Ownership is the key issue. A photograph can’t be your stock if you don’t own it. You do automatically, under law, own the rights to a photograph at the moment you click the shutter and the image is fixed on film or on a memory card, unless you have a contract that gives those rights to somebody else, such as an assignment client. One should avoid contracts that take away your rights to a photograph. You will learn more about ownership later in the copyright chapter.

WHY THE WORD “STOCK”?

The word can cause confusion, especially for those searching the Web because “stock” to the general public refers to company shares traded on a stock exchange. Proof of this comes through reports from photographer friends who use the word stock in the name of their Web sites; they get hits from people seeking financial information. But the term stock, with reference to photography, means it’s available—it’s “stock on the shelf.” In the early years of stock there was a lingering taint attached to the word for some photographers and clients, who regarded stock as lesser form of photography, below the quality of assignment photography. But that pejorative disappeared as stock evolved to where it is now—a valued type of image, a mainstay for clients. Today’s stock photographs can be every bit as creative as the most artistic of personal or assignment photography.

WHERE DOES STOCK COME FROM?

Essentially, stock comes from five sources:

1. From a photographer’s personal shooting, that is, work derived from independent projects, such as those taken while traveling or simply when shooting for the sheer joy of it. These are the pictures you’ve been taking all along, photographs on which you hold the copyright.

2. From photographs created specifically with stock in mind—that is, photographs based on the photographer’s sense of market needs or at the suggestion of a stock agent: pragmatic but creative photographs. (More later about the costs of this type of photo production versus the projected income it might generate.)

3. From assignment outtakes—these are photographs available after an assignment has been completed and after any time restriction has expired. When negotiating with assignment clients, a photographer should grant nonexclusive rights and try to negotiate a time limit that is reasonably short so that their good stock is available soon for marketing.

4. From stock productions done with agency participation—joint ventures. Though still not the norm, cooperation between photographers and agencies in financing the production of stock is steadily increasing. Cooperation between photographers and agencies in financing the production of stock is available to a select group of photographers who have proven their value to an agency.

5. From royalty-free (R-F) shooting. Royalty-free shooting occurs when the photographer accepts a fee and turns over all rights to the company producing and or selling the R-F images. There can be a variety of financial arrangements when shooting for a royalty-free company, but generally the process provides immediate cash—but because the photographs are often sold outright to the company, there are usually no residual licensing fees. In other words, there is nothing to add to the photographers long-term income flow. This form of stock was called by the derogatory term “clip art” when it first appeared about twenty years ago. The relationships between royalty-free shooters and royalty-free companies continues to grow and change. And some major stock photographers have begun to participate in royalty-free production. (In chapter 9, Running a Stock Photography Business, there will be a greater discussion on this segment of the stock photography market, which has grown beyond what veteran stock shooters could have imagined.)

LICENSING RIGHTS

We speak casually of “selling” stock, but, except for some royalty-free arrangements, nothing is “sold”—no product actually changes hands. It’s important to reinforce the idea that you are not “selling” photos, though that’s the easy term and commonly in use. The client doesn’t buy or own an object after the stock transaction is completed. In correct terminology, stock use is the licensing of reproduction rights. By way of the license, the client receives permission to reproduce a photograph for the usage specified on the photographer’s invoice. The usages that are licensed might be as diverse as an illustration for a magazine article, a consumer ad, a calendar, or a menu cover. If the photograph happens to be physical, tangible property, such as a print or transparency, it is on loan for reproduction purposes only and is returned after use. As is more likely today, you are granting permission to use the digital file of an image provided for reproduction. Photos you value should never be sold outright; with proper vigilance in licensing stock, your photographs can have a long, fruitful earning life.

WHERE STOCK IS USED

The major markets for stock break down into the broad categories of advertising, corporate, and editorial.

• ADVERTISING AGENCIES use photographs for a wide range of client products or services in many types of ads. The best known are national consumer ads, which appear in publications circulated to the general public, and trade ads, which appear in publications directed to a particular industry, such as hospital-equipment manufacturers or the metal-refining industry. Stock photos sold to the advertising market command the highest prices.

• CORPORATIONS use photographs for corporate annual reports—(often to extol their productivity to stockholders)—for brochures, and in internal magazines. They use photographs ranging from executive portraits (usually shot on assignment) to gritty scenes—often turned into stunning graphic symbols—of workers on an assembly line, in food processing plants, or in a textile mill. The prices paid for corporate use can be on par with advertising, but are usually somewhat less.

• THE EDITORIAL MARKET for stock, primarily magazines, trade books, textbooks, and newspapers, has a high volume of “sales” but historically the lowest fees in the stock industry.

• AUXILIARY MARKETS include a wide variety of uses, from calendars and greeting cards to bank checks and T-shirts. In fact, these markets extend to every conceivable use a photograph can have.

Not so many decades ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, stock photography was thought of as a cottage industry. Now stock has blossomed into a billion-dollar business with very specific and fast-growing needs, and complex problems for photographers to handle.

WHO SELLS STOCK?

Some photographers market their own work to stock buyers, but many leave that aspect of the business to one or more of the many stock-photo agencies in the United States and abroad. Originally thought of as picture archives, today’s stock agencies are much more than mere repositories of photographic images. In addition to handling scanning, keywording, filing, billing, and licensing of reproduction rights to clients for a percentage of the reproduction fee, agencies spend large amounts of time and money maintaining and upgrading complex electronic marketing systems through a series of Web sites. In addition, they are constantly researching and opening new markets for the use of stock photography.

In the United States, the Picture Agency Council of America (PACA) is a trade association that represents the interests of member photo agencies. Its Web site is www.pacaoffice.org. The British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) does the same in the United Kingdom. Its Web site is www.pbf.org.uk.

TAKING A LOOK BACK

Where did it all start and why does it matter? An understanding of the shifts in the attitudes and economics of stock over the years can inform today’s stock photographers. It is helpful when negotiating to have a keen sense of past realities and prejudices because the ploys used by clients over the years cannot be countered if not understood. For those who want to understand the history of the business, here’s an overview.

In the late 1880s, the invention of the half-tone printing process made it possible for newspapers and magazines, such as Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News, to reproduce photographs instead of the line drawings that had been their only illustrations for almost a half century. Since then, the market for photographs has grown from an enthusiastic need into an insatiable demand for exciting images.

Ways of getting paid for photography have varied over the years. At first, providing these images was the job of photographers working on salary for these nineteenth-century publications. There were also photography studios that sold prints, mostly of portraits commissioned by the customer. Later there were the emerging freelancers (before that term was used)—these photographers often sold prints of images outright rather than through the process of licensing we know today. The emergence of photojournalists and the modern magazine brought the concept of licensing to the fore in the late 1930s and 1940s. This trend was aided by the efforts of photography trade organizations like the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and cooperatives like Magnum Photos, which endorsed the practice of licensing rights and protecting copyright. (For those interested in the origins and development of magazines, consult Art Kleiner’s excellent article The History of Magazines on a Timeline at his web site www.well.com/~art/index.hrml.)

Early in the twentieth century, the first photo libraries were set up, licensing rights to stock images (all in black-and-white, of course) of such predictable subjects as babies, animals, and staged photographs of people.

The next development was the emergence of assignment agencies in both Europe and America designed to produce photo stories for magazine syndication. After World War II, the advent of color photography influenced the agencies of the period, leading, in the mid-1950s, to the establishment of photo researchers, the first modern photo agency, to make available assignment outtakes for stock. To satisfy a burgeoning demand for stock photos, inspired mostly by the post-Sputnik needs of the sciences and the TV-generation’s craving for visual images, new agencies sprang up all over the map. These agencies, like their predecessors, were still based on whatever photographers chose to contribute—personal work or assignment outtakes—and their market was primarily editorial.

A significant change occurred when The Image Bank, the first agency to serve the advertising market was founded. Assaulting the bastion of big-money assignment photography, this agency introduced aggressive sales techniques and, new to the stock industry, the concept of worldwide franchise agencies. With this opening of the previously untapped advertising market and the introduction of tough and sometimes glitzy marketing approaches, the 1970s saw the rapid and irreversible move away from the small-business mentality that had prevailed in stock in the past. As a result, stock photography changed more in one decade than in the previous six. What was once a mom-and-pop handshake business became irrevocably altered for the better—in financial terms—but the informal atmosphere that had appealed to many photographers and agents alike was fast waning. However, the changes opened up exciting new opportunities for photographers who wanted to concentrate their efforts on stock.

A bonanza in stock opportunities was under way. Like the Forty-Niners sweeping into California during the gold rush, every photographer who had heard the word “stock” rushed into the arena, some lured by the illusion of easy money.

New agencies stretched the accepted boundaries of the industry and prospered. Others overreached and failed. By the end of the twentieth century, as we’ll see later, merger mania had swept through the business. The result was that giant agencies now control most of the business. Veteran agencies either struggled to survive or were swallowed in mergers; regional or specialty agencies created their own niches in the hectic shuffling for position in the new marketplace. For photographers, there were success stories, a few horror stories, and a lot of questions about the future of stock and their place in it.

During the same period, digital technology created a definitive and global shift in the way all photography, including stock, was produced and marketed.

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF STOCK

During the 1980s, certain preconceptions were changed or put to rest. For many years there had been the underlying sense, held by photographers as well as clients, that stock was the “poor relation” of assignment photography. Stock was thought of as second-rate photography, commonly described by such negative words as “cliché,” “mundane,” “trit...