Recent Stock Photography Articles

Musicbed’s Newly Launched Site Filmsupply Aims to Revolutionize the Stock Footage Industry

Musicbed, the music licensing website in which many filmmakers rely on for quality pieces to accompany their videos, has launched a new site with big goals in the film licensing sector. Filmsupply is not content with the way stock footage tends to always stick out, and wants to change that with a highly curated library from hand-picked contributors.

Over 1,500 4K Video Clips Available Free for Commercial Use

Philadelphia based Director of Photography Mitch Martinez thought the world needed access to more 4K footage for free. So, he collected clips he shot from all over the United States and created a catalog with over 35 different categories of footage on his website just for that. An even cooler aspect of this collection: it's free for commercial use as well.

GoPro Licensing Allows Agencies to License Premium Content on Its Own Platform

Monday, GoPro unveiled a new licensing service that allows professionals to license content to agencies and brands. GoPro calls the service "a premium content licensing portal for global advertising brands and agencies to license premiere video and images” that “offers high production value content.”

Adobe Announces New Stock Image Service

Yesterday, along with many other updates across its creative suite, Adobe announced new its stock image licensing program. The libraries are integrated directly into Adobe’s various creative software, making it incredibly easy for users to browse, test, and integrate stock images or graphics directly into their projects. Adobe acquired stock photo provider Fotolia earlier this year, and has used its image and graphic assets to launch this new service. According to Adobe, there are over 40 million different image and graphics available, with contributors adding new content daily....

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Flickr's tumultuous history has been well documented over the years, but this photo sharing site has been fighting back with revamped designs, generous storage for users and new photographic services. Among these initiatives is a new Wall Art service, allowing users to make prints from a mind blowing 50 million freely-licensed Creative Commons images as well as Flickr hand-selected collections. While this service provides an opportunity for photographers to have greater exposure and to make money from their work, some are very upset with how their photographs are being treated.

Getty Images Launches Stream, Mobile App for Consumers to Browse and Share

Stock photo giant Getty Images has launched a new mobile application called Stream, free for iPhones and iPads updated to iOS 8. Getty Images Stream is introduced as their first consumer app in which allows users to access the company’s vast library of news, sport, and entertainment images. Users will be able to curate photos within the app, and share photos non-commercially on social media and blogs using Getty’s earlier implemented embed feature.

How Do You Determine A Fair Price For Licensing Your Videos And Photos?

Figuring out a fair rate for providing photography or video services can be a slippery slope, filled with pitfalls if you happen to price yourself incorrectly. But what's more complicated than setting a rate for services is how to approach setting a rate for someone who wants to license a piece of work you've already created. In this post I'll share my insight on the factors I look at, and my rationale for determining a fair fee for video and photo licensing.

“Nimia” Offers Videographers A Venue To Store, Share, And Sell Their Footage

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got hard drives full of footage from personal or other non-commercial projects, that don’t serve much use once the project they were shot for is completed. I’ve considered trying to license it as stock footage, but never really taken the time to do it. After checking out the site Nimia and interviewing one of their staff however, I decided to give it a try.

How Much Is Too Much For Stock Video And Photography?

Most of the readers of this site I’d wager fall into the category of content creators, not content consumers. That being the case, rants about not being properly compensated for the hard work put in to producing images comes up every so often. But have you ever been on the other side of that situation?

Truth In Advertising? "This Is A Generic Brand Video" Is Equally Parts Scary And Funny

Creative writer Kendra Eash wrote a painfully accurate article for Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendencies that put into perspective what most brand and corporation videos look and sound like. Taking it to the next level, stock clip site Dissolve realized it was indeed generic, and pulled together their own stock clips cut to Kendra's writing, resulting in a hilarious edit.

Getty Images Announces The Termination of Their Partnership With Flickr

Almost 6 years ago Getty Images and Flickr announced a partnership that allowed Flickr members to sell stock images through Getty. Over 400,000 images were picked by Getty editors since the partnership started and made them available for commercial use. Today Getty Images officially announced they won't renew their agreement with Flickr and will part ways.

Is Talent House the New Way to Make Money With Your Art?

Social media has progressed to a point where anyone can personalize their online experience. Through your own network of friends and filters, "Likes" and "Shares" now prioritize funny or relevant content for you and those you share commonalities with. Talenthouse now seeks to utilize that method of content sharing to popularize your artistic capability. The site is designed to set apart the best of the best in any category of art through popular vote.

Get More Money From Your Image Library

If you are like me, your image library is full of personal shoots and client images that were never used. Instead of just letting those images collect dust on your hard drives, now these images may have a new home. The people at Image Brief partner with designers and advertisers and pair them with photographers who may just have that perfect image for their campaign.

Awkward Stock Photos Will Make You Re-evaluate Stock Photography

'Awkward Stock Photos' is a great tumblr blog featuring some of the weirdest and the most unnecessary stock images in the world. From Santa without pants to a snake smoking pot all the way to a banana kicking a cow. You wont believe the amount of awkward stock photos companies like Shutterstock, iStockPhoto or Getty Images offer for sale. I wonder who are the people who shoot that stuff (and why?!), and more importantly - I wonder how many people buy these photos.

'From Love To Bingo in 873 Images' - A Beautiful Getty Images Commercial

'From Love to Bingo in 873 images' is a short video and commercial which moves at 15 images a second. The video shows an entire lifetime depicted through stock images. Copywriter Sophie Schoenburg and art director Marcus Kotlhar spent 6 months making it happen and the end result is quite touching. I can only imagine how arduous going through all those images must have been!

[Video] The Most Famous, Unknown Model In The World

His name is Jesper Bruun and they call him "the most downloaded man in the world." He is a male model that specializes in stock photography which gets published far more than standard photography simply because it is so cheap. I would agree that he is in more legitimate ads than anyone else but I may have to argue that his face is NOT the most used. Noam Galai, may still be winning that contest.

[Stock Photography] Yuri Arcurs Explains How To Sell Stock Imaging

We've featured Yuri Arcurs, the worlds most successful micro stock photographer, many times here on Fstoppers. In a time when people complain that the value of photography has gone the way of the buffalo, Yuri has created an empire on images that cost less than $1. In this video Yuri explains exactly what makes a great stock image and what it is specifically [read full story]
Monte Isom's Pepsi Photoshoot With Jahvid Best

A few weeks ago I posted a video that created a lot of unintentional buzz about poorly compositing athletes together on a football field. Well this video from Monte Isom doesn't include much photoshop but still produces a lot of great images. Monte always has a great time on his sets and hopefully you NYC readers will be able to share a drink with him tomorrow at our FS Meetup.
Capturing Exploding Glass With Silver Acetylide and Flash Photography

Capturing images of high speed events can be done in many different ways. In this video, flickr member Jon Rutlen went with a more explosive approach. Using a sound capturing device to trigger his camera, Jon shattered a bunch of different glasses in front of his DSLR camera and recorded the unique moment easily, reliably, and ultimately in a pretty safe environment. I remember my organic chemistry classes pretty vividly and Silver Acetylide is nothing to play around with so don't try this at home (I know no one really listens to that warning right?). I think the next step Jon and crew need to take is lighting the glasses in a more pleasing manner with some backlighting and off axis lighting to really give some depth to these explosions. Since we just launched our BTS Contest and everyone is thinking with a bit more creativity, what do you guys suggest Jon does to take this shoot to the next level?
Take Your Product Photography To The Next Level: Catching Up With Richard Gary

Hey everyone! I'm Reese and I'm excited to be a part of the Fstoppers team. My segment, The FS Spotlight, is a new weekly Q&A session with professional photographers at the absolute top of their field. The interviews are going to touch on everything from from how they reached rock star status to their shooting style to what cameras they shoot with as well as their advice to all aspiring photographers. Click the full post to read my interview with product photographer Richard Gary! As a writer/photographer myself, I want to hear how photographers got to where they are and how they get these amazing shots; but more importantly I want to know what YOU want to hear from them as well. What’s your interest? Surfing? Combat photography? Food? Retouching? If you could score a 5 minute Q&A with any photographer in the world, who would that be? Let me know!
EA Sports NCAA Football 12 Cover Shoot

EA Sports has been allowing fans to vote for the cover of their newest installment in the college football series NCAA Football 12. For the contest, they filmed four short behind the scenes videos from each player's photoshoot which can all be found in the full post. The photoshoots consist of two primary setups: hall of fame style portraits and on the field action shots. Each portrait was created with a gridded beauty dish and a hard background light while the action shots were lit with a huge octabank, some stripboxes, and a bunch of white v-flats acting as both gobos and reflectors. I'm not sure that the final images are online yet since the contest just wrapped up, but you can see a lot of them on photographer Tim Mantoani's site. My vote goes to Mark Ingram; roll tide roll!
How To Get The Most Out Of Micro Stock Photography

Yuri Arcurs is perhaps the most well known photographer shooting microstock images in the world. His images are clean, inviting, crisp, and natural looking which are all important qualities needed to sell images in bulk. This video by Fototv might be the best video you watch all week because Yuri's tips are not only related to stock photographs but also hold true with almost any photograph requiring a model or human emotion. If you've never signed up to a stock website like Istockphoto, Fotolia, or Shutterstock, I'd recommend you at least try to get approved and test the waters for a few months. Nothing in my opinion strengthens your eye and photographic skills more than producing images that can sell in a highly competitive market like the stock agencies.
How To Suspend Your Model From Wires In The Studio

In the video below Jay P. Morgan shows us the setup for his latest sports image. Using a special body harness, the goalie is able to move in a very realistic way without the potential for injury. As always, Jay does a fantastic job of also breaking down his lighting scheme.
Proof That Hand Models Are Insane

Does anyone remember the Domino's Pizza "cheese puller" video that we posted a few months back? Well I remember commenting about that lady because she seemed a little crazy. Well she did seem crazy until I saw this interview with Ellen Sirot. We all take our job seriously... but com'on... Check the full post for another video of her acting insane and a Funny Or Die spoof. <
Jay P Morgan Explains A Three Light Setup

Jay P. Morgan is a commercial and advertising photographer based out in Los Angeles, California. We have featured his work before and this time Jay is using a three light setup to make some portraits of a jazz player. If you are still uncomfortable with your lighting skills, Jay does a really good job explaining exactly what each light does and why he placed them where he did. Click on the full post for part two of this photoshoot where Jay adds some "special effects" in the form of an air canon firing at his subject.
John Lund Shoots Imaginative Stock Photography

We have all seen standard stock photography before and most of the time its not so good. John Lund shoot stock, but it is unlike anything else you have seen before. Check out his quick interview below. ><
How To Photograph A Movie Theater By Rich Legg

Rich Legg is a successful stock photographer, and he goes all out in this video as he tries to make the prefect stock photo of a movie theater audience. If you haven't checked out stock photography, I highly encourage you to sign up and test your skills. Nothing proves whether your photography is marketable or not like putting it up on a site like shutterstock or istockphoto. This video is great on how to light large groups and also how to efficiently gather model releases from a large pool of model.
Contest Entry: Diana Deaver Shoots With Window Light

Diana Deaver is a talented photographer and good friend of mine from Charleston SC. A few weeks before the deadline she told me that she was working on a contest submission that would focus on natural lighting. Diana is a master of natural light and so I was very excited to see what she could come up with. Check out her very informatve video below. You don't need expensive gear to get quality images guys! <