Stock photos

Stock photogragpy is a type of photography aimed at selling photos for all kinds of purposes. Companies that buy stock photos are mainly publishing houses (both books and magazines), advertising agencies and architects, but also businesses and individuals who need a couple of pictures for a presentation or a website. For these buyers stock photos are a much faster and more economic way to obtain high quality images than hiring a photographer and organising a photo shoot themselves.

As a stock photographer you grant the buyer of your photos certain right for use. Each stock photo agency has its own set of rules with regard to these rights. Be sure to read them carefully. This right of use can apply to using the photo in a magazine or even producing many thousands of place mats with the photo concerned printed on them.

The rapid devlopments in the world of digital photography these past years, have made stock photography available for semi-professional photographers as well. For this group of artists the so-called microstock websites were developed. They serve the photographers that lack just that bit of extra that is required for professional agencies such as Getty Images and Corbis - that work exclusively with professional, highly-qualified photographers. It is easier to become a member with these micostock sites and the potential audience is enormous due to the fairly low prices of the images.

Microstock

The number of microstock sites is still growing. Some of the more popular sites are Shutterstock, iStockPhoto, Dreamstime, Bigstock and Fotolia. Together they manage a portfolio of several millions of images. Although it is relatively easy to take part as a photographer as we mentioned earlier, your photos do need to meet certain quality standards. These standards differ considerably per site, but they have one thing in common: snapshots won't do. Your submitted photos need to be technically okay (at least 2 MP and in the JPG format, along with some other requirements), but also artistically acceptable and preferably 'different' than the bulk that is being uploaded on the internet. Due to copyright issues it may be difficult to submit photos of well-known buildings or products showing brand names. Also pictures showing identifiable persons (even if they are your friends or relatives) cannot be submitted just like that. You will need a signed model release to make sure you have the person's permission to publish and sell the photos with their image.

Recently selling and buying stock footage has become more fairly popular. The footage is usually made using a digital camera (camcorder) and is in standard or high definition image quality. The same quality standards for submitting footage apply as they do for for stock photos, but because the concept is relatively new it is fairly easy to become a contributor with one of the stock footage sites at this moment.

Overview online stock photo agencies

Referral programs

If you gained interest in buying or selling stock photos or footage, have a further look at the websites www.photosecrets.com or SubmitStockPhotos where you will find a lot of useful tips and tricks. If you have already made up your mind and want to become a contributor Shutterstock and iStock are good choices.

If you would like to know more about digital photography and stock photography in particular, have a look at our links page or perform a search with Google using the search box below:

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