Stock photography is the supply of photographs, which are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920’s, has established models including traditional macro-stock photography, mid-stock photography, and micro-stock photography. Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while micro-stock photography may sell for around USD 25 cents. Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.
Themes for stock photos are diverse, although Megan Garber of ‘The Atlantic’ wrote in 2012 that “one of the more wacky/wondrous elements of stock photos is the manner in which, as a genre, they’ve developed a unifying editorial sensibility. To see a stock image is… to know you’re seeing a stock image.” Historically notable traditional stock photo agencies have included Robert Stock, the Bettman archive in New York, and the Hultan Archive in the United Kingdom among many others. In the 1990’s companies such as Photo-disc in Seattle, Washington began selling CD ROM’s with packs of images, pioneering the royalty free licensing system at a time when rights managed licensing was the norm in the stock industry. There was a great amount of consolidation among stock photo agencies between 1990 and the mid-2000’s, particularly through Corbis and Getty Images. The early micro-stock company iStock-Photo was founded in May 2000, followed by companies such as Dreamstime, FotoLira, Can Stock Photo, Shutter-stock and Fotolia.
Internet – wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_photography 22nd February 2017
Stock photography – Image Library & Image Collections
There are many image libraries, al before they accept ones images. of which one has to join and agree their terms and conditions. As far as it is understood, one does not get a great seal of money from stock photography.
There are also types of image collections which are:
- Generalist – Getty, Alamy who have an extensive client base/network and where a diverse selection of images are accepted.
- Specialist – Oxford Scientific, Mellennium where only highly specialist images are accepted – generally from specialist photographers and commissioned work.
- Microstock – IStock, Shutterstock where a high volume of images are accepted from amateur and professional photographers alike. This type of stock library has a low return attached to it.
Management of Image Libraries –
- Exclusive – These are images in one library which is usually actively marketed. This type of library works closely with the photographer and has an agency distribution scheme.
- Non Exclusive – Here, numerous libraries have the same image and give no feedback and very little income is earned from these.
- Rights managed – Here one gets to know who and where each image is sold. One can also keep a record so there is a certain exclusiveness to this type of library and can also charge a higher price for each image.
- Royalty free – These images can be sold anywhere with no tracking of individual images. Images are fee based purely on image file size.
Visual Trends
There are different types of visual trends – they are:
- The Outsider In – celebrating rebels, outlaws and rule breakers.
- Divine Living – brand purpose, search for something more mindful and spiritual.
- Extended Human – It shows how technology is becoming an extension of ourselves
- Messthetics – breaking away from predictability of clean advertising imagery, messy, grimy, sweaty, visceral, beautiful and ugly.
- Silence vs Noise – Simple and minimalistic , more frenetic, visually, it says ‘less is more’
- Surreality – Photographers are using many new photo manipulation techniques to create very playful and often surreal images.
Task:
Working in groups……..
- Pick two visual trends.
- Find 6 images that represent each.
- Add 4 key words that might be used on a stock. photography website.
The task was undertaken by Abi, Sophie, Georgia and myself. A link to our PP is below:
Andy Young Photography 