How does stock photography work?

Question

hi, i have a website set up, i am a photographer. i was wondering how the idea of stock photography works, e.g. do the physically receive and image like a 10x8 or is it a digital download?

The main reason i want to use my own website as it is very busy with customers as well as that i have had a lot of requests of buying my images from my freelance work. so being able to adjust my website how i like by adding a page to being able to purchase the images is not an issue.

How do i go about pricing my images? and last but not least how does the copy right of the images work online?

many thanks

a very confused photographer :(

Answer 1

1. Stock photography is digital downloads - customers use the digital files for use in publishing, either in print or on the web. Some photographers might also sell prints online, but that's not what stock photography is.



2. Employ a web designer, or use a service like Smugmug or Zenfolio, or sell via a stock photography site such as istockphoto.com or dreamstime.com



3. When you sell an image, you merely sell a licence to use the image. The copyright belongs to you.

Answer 2

Stock is a digital download. Provide the biggest resolution you can and they will download it and do the printing themselves. You could start out at a place like Fotolio or Pond5 that will do all that extra work for you and will take a small portion out of your sales. Great place to start.



Also, it depends on the royalties attached to the image which you can also decide. You can do commercial-free (the more popular option) in which they buy the entire license to use the photo however they wish, commercially or not. Alternatively, you can charge royalties in which they are required to pay for each instance they use the photograph. These images get purchased a lot less often though because the royalties owed become harder to keep track of and the payments rack up quickly.

Answer 3

Stock photography is when you sell your image for general advertising, educational, and industry use. You no longer own the rights to stock photos, you have sold the rights to them. Like I might take a picture of a blue jay. A stock company may want to buy that photo as it would have several uses. A publishing company that publishes school books may want that picture for a science book, they will pay the stock company (that has already paid you for the rights to the photo and owes you nothing more) the rights to use the photo. They can and will then use the photo in their books with no photo credits to you, but they will credit the stock company. Stock companies own hundreds of thousands of photos like this and are where publishers and advertisers go to for their photos.



If you want to sell your images online, watermark them, sell them for whatever you want and what people are willing to pay. This way, unlike stock photography, you still own the rights to the image. But if you have general photos of still objects or landscapes, you may want to sell them to a stock company for quick cash.

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