Stock FAQs

why do stock photos exist

by Blanche Kihn Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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Getting an image to pay for itself is the primary goal for any stock photographer. It may sound unbelievable, but the 'Fat Man' image made more than enough money to recoup the costs of shooting, post-work, and submission to stock sites. Making additional, long-term profit can only happen with good judgment.Jun 7, 2016

Full Answer

Why are stock photos so important?

Stock photos are largely used in all kinds of commercial, editorial, entertainment and artistic endeavors, because they have a higher impact on these projects' target audiences. As the saying goes, “a picture's worth a thousand words”.

What happens to my stock photos before I post them?

All photos are reviewed before posting for technical quality, legal compliance (for example, it doesn't infringe on any copyrights and models have signed releases), and relevance of metadata (meaning it follows the guidelines for titles and keywords). Once the stock photos are uploaded to the sites, they're available for any and all customer use.

What can I do with my stock photos?

The realm of possible uses of stock photos in this category is almost as big as your imagination goes. Your website design, your next marketing campaign, your business presentations, your social media posts, the banners and posters to decorate your store, a new t-shirt print to sell in your e-shop…

What is the commercial use of stock photos?

Commercial usage of stock photos refers to any project where the main goal is to generate profit. For stock photos to be suitable for this use (and most of them are), they must have all rights cleared, including model and property releases. But how to make money with stock photography?

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What is the point of stock photos?

Stock images are a great resource to get high-quality and cheap photos that you can use in your designs for various purposes. They are perfect for marketing and advertising, promotional work, personal, or commercial creative projects, publishing, websites and blogs, and more.

Why you shouldn't use stock images?

Corporate Stock Images Can Look Contrived and Unnatural Corporate images in particular can look very unconvincing if used to promote a business. As such images are composed to be as widely used as possible, they often have an unnatural feel. The above image showcases what is possible using a professional photographer.

Can you legally use stock photos?

Stock photos for commercial use can be placed on websites and in marketing materials and editorial work – in fact, some stock photos can be used only for editorial purposes. The only real limit is that they cannot be used in materials related to illegal or morally sensitive areas, nor can they be resold or distributed.

Should you use stock photos for social media?

Firstly, here's why using stock images is so popular: Stock images (in the most part!) are high-quality, high-resolution images with a professional feel. You can usually find an image depicting what you need to fit your content. They're easy to find, save and upload to social media, blogs or any other content you want.

Should you use stock photos on your website?

We generally recommend that clients use their own photos on their websites. However, sometimes that means spending money and time on custom photography. One way to save on both is by using stock photography—which is certainly much better than no photos.

Why are stock images so weird?

Stock photographers retain the copyrights to their work. They sell on a license to stock photography sites, who then charge a royalty fee for its usage. Something that is often overlooked is when weird stock photos go viral, they are often shared around without permission of the original author.

Can I edit stock photos and sell them?

The most useful answer to whether or not you can edit a stock photo is – most of the time. This means, in general, most stock photo agencies, including Stock Photo Secrets, allow you to alter or do professional photo retouching to your downloaded, and fully licensed stock images.

Are stock photos real?

Real images are pictures taken by you or a professional photographer for whatever use your heart desires. Stock photography is typically a storage bank of pre-existing pictures that you can choose from. Some of these storage banks are free to use, such as Google Images, but be careful!

Why use stock photos?

There's two main reasons to use stock photos for your projects instead of hiring a photographer to shoot custom photos for you: 1 They save time: stock photos are already created, post-edited and ready to be downloaded and used. 2 They save money: stock photos, specially those under Royalty Free license ( of which you can learn all about here ), come at a much, much lower cost than that of hiring the services of a photographer.

What is editorial use of stock photos?

Editorial Use. Editorial use of stock photos is that that implies using them to illustrate or accompany editorial content, and not pursuing profitability directly. Some of the main editorial uses are: News coverage: newspapers and magazines articles, broadcasted news reports, etc.

Is it easier to use stock photos?

Stock photos are just easier to use – comparable to a ready to eat food item where a normal photo would need the permission of the photographer etc.. It would take much longer to get it. So it’s more like “fast food” to “farmers market” where you negotiate a license deal per photo with every different photographer.

Is editorial stock photography for profit?

Given it's not-for-profit nature, editorial stock photos include a lot of topics and content that cannot be used commercially due to their rights not being cleared: images of large crowds of people, of famous landmarks and landscapes, of trademarked events, of celebrities and recognizable people, etc. where model and property releases are absent.

Can you use commercial stock photos for commercial projects?

Remember: while most commercial-labeled stock photos can be used for editorial purposes, the opposite is NOT valid. You can NEVER use Editorial stock photos for commercial projects. Knowing these main uses is key to knowing how to use stock photos legally.

How old was Roman when he took the photos?

Komisar told BuzzFeed News the photos were taken when, Roman, his then-3-year-old son, had gotten cranky at the end of a photo shoot. While holding his toy gun (yes, it was a toy), he started to cry.

Why are photos reviewed before posting?

All photos are reviewed before posting for technical quality, legal compliance (for example, it doesn't infringe on any copyrights and models have signed releases), and relevance of metadata (meaning it follows the guidelines for titles and keywords).

What does Blanaru do?

As a hobby, he does stock photography, as well as photography of events, families, fashion, and portraits. The image is actually part of a larger stock photo shoot that Blanaru took of his friends in 2015. "It all started when I saw a couple of colored wigs, and this was paired with some carnival accessories.

Who took the pictures of his son?

The Russian stock photographer behind the images, Sergey Komisar, took these photos of his son three years ago. But he didn't expect people to find them funny. In fact, until BuzzFeed News recently contacted him, he had no idea they'd become some of the most recognizable stock images online.

Can you miss a stock photo?

Much like how a Supreme Court justice once said he couldn't define pornography but he knew it when he saw it, you pretty much can't miss a stock photo when you see one. And, also like porn, stock photos seem to follow the rule that if you can think of something, you can almost certainly find stock photos depicting it — meaning there are some really ...

Does John Ellgen take stock photos?

Now, Ellgen works full time as a youth pastor but takes stock photos as something of a "money-making hobby.". Because photos have to be of a high enough quality to get accepted to iStock, Ellgen takes note whether they get accepted or not and uses that as feedback on his work.

Who took the pictures of a crying boy holding a gun?

The Russian stock photographer behind the images, Sergey Komisar, took these photos of his son three years ago.

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