While many many of my clients in the publishing, public relations, and advertising businesses work with stock photography every day, I also get inquiries from businesses that have not previously purchased rights to stock images.
This page is an attempt to provide general information about how the stock photography business works and to answer some of the most frequently asked questions.
Stock photography is the opposite of assignment photography. With assignment photography, you commission me (or another photographer) to create images that meet your specifications.
With stock photography, you license an existing image for your specific application.
Why use stock photography?
Stock photography has the following advantages:
If you commission an assignment photograph, I will need to make travel arrangements to your specified location, shoot the images, have the film processed, edit the resulting images, and present them to your for final selection. Under the best of circumstances, you are looking at a turn-around of several days, but typically a week or more.
If you commission an assignment photograph, I will do my best to produce images that meet your specifications. However, I have no control over the weather and other conditions at the shooting location, and cannot guarantee that you will get exactly what you want. Certainly, I cannot produce an image with fall colors in the spring nor shots with green leaves or grass in the middle of the winter.
Assignment photography is based on a creative fee which factors in the time required for the work and the difficulty of the work, as well as the intended application of the images AND expenses associated with the assignment. While I (and other photographers) will provide the best possible estimate of expenses, these are still estimates, and actual expenses may be higher.
What is all this stuff about licensing?
With stock photography, you license the use of an image for a specific purpose. When a photograph is created (other than under conditions of work for hire, usually only applicable when the photographer is a full-time employee of the commissioning party), the photographer owns the copyright to those images.
Most photographers will not sell the actual copyright, but rather license use of the image.
By having the possibility of licensing the same or similar images to a number of clients, the photographer can distribute the cost of production among a number of clients, providing a more reasonable fee for each of the clients.
What if I don't know all the ways I want to use an image?
You can always license additional uses later. Additional licensing of a given image is usually subject to a discount from the fee that would be quoted if the image was being licensed only for a given single use.
I am willing to consider a variety of arrangements, including allowing you to lock in fees for additional uses -- for which you do not pay until you need them.
Why do your photos cost so much?
Actually you will find that license fees for my images is generally in line with the fees asked by other photographers and stock photo agencies for similar uses.
While I do not base my fees directly on fees used or recommended by any other photographers or organizations, it does not make business sense for me to charge either substantially more or less than others do for similar services.
I try to provide licensing fees that give a fair value to my clients. However, as stock photography is one of my primary business activities, I cannot give my images away, nor can I provide fees that amount to a give-away.
Please keep in mind the following:
The most important factor to keep in mind, however, is that with stock photography, I have invested ahead of time in the production of my stock images, and with my licensing fees, I have to recoup these investments. Other than in the case of client purchasing exclusive rights to an image, the recoupment of the investment is divided among a group of clients.
So, I can purchase exclusive rights?
Yes, you can, but by eliminating the possibility of my licensing the image to other clients, your license fee will be substantially higher.
Please consider the fact that you probably don't need total exclusivity. Rather than purchasing total exclusivity, you may want to consider the following possibilities:
For example, if your intended use is publication of the image in a calendar, you may not want the image available for other calendars published that year, but the use of that image in a textbook is not really a competitive use.
How do I get the image that I need?
I can provide either a specific image -- one that you have seen published elsewhere, on some of my promotional material, or on my Web site -- or I will be glad to find an image that meets your specifications.
In the first case, if you already know you want to use a specific image, just give me as much information as possible about the image -- where you saw it, and as exact a description as possible, including my image file number, if available.
If you want to illustrate either a specific subject or general concept that falls within one of my geographic or subject specialties, just tell me. I can probably tell you right off whether I may have something that matches your needs; assembling the actual images may take a little longer.
I can provide a selection in either transparency form or as electronic previews on an unlisted Web page on my site.
Why don't you have more images on the Web site?
My total stock file contains in excess of 40,000 color transparencies. Placing even a fraction of those images on my site is simply impractical. So, instead, my site provides samples of my work and stock photo collection, giving you some indication of the types of subjects that I have in my file.
However, the entire stock collection is easily accessible, and I can quickly assemble a selection for you to review.
What about so-called royalty-free images?
First, you have no control over where else the same royalty-free image may appear. Do you really want the same image to appear in your competitor's advertisement or even in your competitor's publication?
If you request stock images from me, I will make you aware of any potentially competitive uses of any images that I offer to you. Obviously I will not offer any images to which another client has purchased exclusivity. But more than that, I have enough depth of coverage in my subject specialties that I con offer you entirely different images from what I would or have provided to one of your competitors.
And, when you purchase images on a disk, you get very little information to back up those images. I'll not just provide caption information applicable to your specific usage and audience (which can be useful in making your selection, even if you only publish a brief caption); I'll write you any type of text you need to accompany the image. And, you can rely on the accuracy of that information.
Why do you sometimes not have the image I want?
Sometimes requests are simply too specific for stock photography. Within my geographic and subject specialties, I try to make sure that I have coverage of the most important locations and subjects that past and potential clients may want to illustrate. I particularly try to keep up with concepts my clients may want to illustrate.
However, I cannot anticipate every possible request, nor is it always possible to combine all possible factors in an image being shot for stock. If you need a specific type of person, wearing specific types of clothes, under very specific conditions at a very specific location, you'll have to commission assignment photography to meet your needs. That may also involve hiring one or more models and possibly even an entire production crew.
More questions?
Give me a call or send me a note. I'll be glad to discuss these issues with you.
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