Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. [1] The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, [1] has established models including traditional macrostock photography, [2] midstock photography, [3] and microstock photography. [4] Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while microstock photography may sell for around US$0.25 cents. [4] Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, [1] while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission. [5]
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." [5] Historically notable traditional stock photo agencies have included RobertStock, the Bettman Archive in New York, [1] and the Hulton Archive in the United Kingdom, [6] among many others. [7] In the 1990s companies such as Photodisc in Seattle, Washington, began selling CD ROMs with packs of images, pioneering the royalty-free licensing system at a time when Rights Managed licensing was the norm in the stock industry. [7] There was a great amount of consolidation among stock photo agencies [8] [9] between 1990 and the mid-2000s, particularly through Corbis and Getty Images. [1] The early microstock company iStockphoto was founded in May 2000, [10] followed by companies such as Dreamstime, [11] fotoLibra, [12] [13] Can Stock Photo, [14] 123RF, Shutterstock, JumpStory and Adobe Stock. [15]
Newspapers and magazines were first able to reproduce photographs instead of line art in the mid-1880s with the invention of the half-tone and its use on a printing press. [16] Initially starting with staff photographers, independent free-lance photographers eventually took over. [16] One of the first examples of a stock photo was circa 1920 when American photographer H. Armstrong Roberts ensured that the people photographed in "Group in Front of Tri-Motor Airplane" all signed model releases. This allowed the photograph and others like it to be commercially viable. [1] In an effort to save the cost of hiring photographers for commission-based photo shoots, publishers and advertisers began to consider stock photos as a less risky alternative. [7] One of the first major stock photography libraries [7] was founded in 1920 by H. Armstrong Roberts.
The Bettmann Archive in New York is an example of an early traditional stock agency, [1] with the company delivering photos upon 24-hour request to magazines such as Look and Life . [1] Founded in 1936 by Otto Bettmann, a German curator who emigrated to the United States in 1935, [17] the Bettman Archive began with Bettmann's personal collection of 15,000 images which he brought with him in suitcases when he escaped from Nazi Germany. [18] He actively expanded his collection by placing ads in magazines for stills and photos. [17] A different early pioneer with the stock industry was photographer Tony Stone, whose portfolio of mountain scenes proved popular with chocolate advertisers. Stone's stock library eventually reached 20,000 images, each selected for its likelihood to sell multiple copies. [7]
Known as a stock resource for newspapers and magazines, the Hulton Archive started as the photographic archive of Picture Post . As the archive expanded through World War II, it became clear that its vast collection of photographs and negatives were becoming an important historical documentary resource. In 1945, Sir Edward Hulton set up the Hulton Press Library as a semi-independent operation and commissioned Charles Gibbs-Smith of the Victoria and Albert Museum to catalogue the entire archive using a system of keywords and classifications. The Gibbs-Smith system claims to be the world's first indexing system for pictures, and it was eventually adopted by the British Museum collections. [6]
agefotostock was founded in 1973, in Barcelona, Spain, by Alfonso Gutierrez Escera. [19] [20]
By the 1980s, stock photography had become a specialty in its own right, with the stock industry advancing quickly. [7] As photo libraries transitioned from physical archives to servers in the mid-1990s, "stock libraries" were increasingly called "stock agencies". [7] The archives also began to rely increasingly on keywords for sorting and retrieving photographs. [7] In 1991, Photodisc in Seattle, Washington, began selling CD ROMs with packs of images. Unlike their competitors, Photodisc licensed the image packs as Royalty Free. In contrast to the Rights Managed system, royalty free allowed the purchaser of a CD ROM to use the images as many times as they liked without paying further fees. [7]
There was a great amount of consolidation among stock photo agencies [8] [9] between 1990 and the mid-2000s, with Corbis notably acquiring the massive Bettmann Archive in 1995. [1] After Photodisc went online in 1995, [21] in September 1997, PhotoDisc agreed to combine with London-based Getty Communications to form the Seattle-based Getty Images. [22] In 1996, the Hulton Picture Collection was bought by Getty Images for £8.6 million. [23]
Alamy (registered as Alamy Limited) is a privately owned stock photography agency launched in 1999. Alamy maintains an online archive of over one hundred million still images, illustrations and hundreds of thousands of videos contributed by agencies and independent photographers or collected from news archives, museums and national collections. Its suppliers include both professional and amateur photographers, stock agencies, news archives, museums and national collections. Its clients are from the photography, publishing and advertising industries and the general public.
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The early microstock company iStockphoto was founded in May 2000. Originally a free stock imagery website, it transitioned into its current micropayment model in 2001. [10] iStockphoto co-founders Bruce Livingstone and Brianna Wettlaufer then went on to start Stocksy United in 2013. Helping pioneer the subscription-based model of stock photography, [24] Shutterstock was founded in 2003 with a monthly subscription fee. [25] Online since 2000 as a royalty-free stock photography website, in 2004 Dreamstime [11] was founded as new microstock agency. [15] Other stock agencies with new business models around this time included fotoLibra, which opened to the public in 2005, [12] [13] and Can Stock Photo, which debuted in 2004. [14] By 2007 Dreamstime was competing with iStockphoto, Fotolia and Shutterstock, all expanded into major microstock companies. [15] In March 2013 microstock company Depositphotos launched Clashot, [26] a service that allows smartphone users to instantly upload photos to the photobank from their devices, followed by Fotolia, that launched the very similar Fotolia Instant [27] later that year.
Between the 1990s and the mid-2000s, Bill Gates' Corbis Images and Getty Images combined purchased more than 40 stock photo agencies. [1] iStockphoto, or iStock.com, was acquired by Getty in 2006. [7] In February 2009, [28] Jupitermedia Corporation sold their online stock images division, Jupiterimages, to Getty Images for $96 million in cash, [29] including the sites stock.xchng and StockXpert. [28] In 2005, Scoopt started a photo news agency for citizen journalism enabling the public to upload and sell breaking news images taken with cameraphones. In 2007 Scoopt was purchased by Getty Images, which closed it in 2009. [30] In 2012 Shutterstock became the first microstock agency to complete an initial public offering, [31] with the company's shares reaching a $2.5 billion market value by late 2013. [25]
Stock photography refers to the supply of photographs, which are often licensed for specific uses such as magazine publishing or pamphlet-making. [32] According to The New York Times , as of 2005 "most" book cover designers prefer stock photography agencies over photographers in efforts to save costs. Publishers can then purchase photographs on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. [33]
Established models of stock photography include:
According to The New York Times , conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand American dollars per image, and "base fees on the published size of an image, circulation and other factors." Microstock photos may sell for as little as US$0.25. [4] Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis, with a defined commission basis and specified contract term. The industry standard is purportedly 30 to 50 percent to the photographer, although at the start of the stock photography industry, fees were typically cut half and half between the agency and artist. [1] Other stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission. [5]
Some online photo websites have created unique software to search for fitting stock photos, for example searching for complicated keyword combinations, color, shapes, and "moods". [34] [35] Other search engines may seek to quantify the best photos by looking for elements as diverse as "bright lights", "evidence of emotional connections between people", and the tilt of faces. [36]
Traditional stock photo agencies have large catalogues that may include press archives and works by notable photographers such as Bert Hardy, Bill Brandt, Weegee and Ernst Haas. [37] More recent trends in microstock photography include "lifestyle" photographs of people "at work and play", [4] food, sports, and fashion. [4] Other stock photo themes may include stereotypes, expressing common emotions and gesticulations, pets,[ citation needed ] and images related to travel and tourism.[ citation needed ]
In the early 1990s, the stock industry focused on "conceptual images", which could encapsulate themes such as "global communication, success, and teamwork". [7] After the consolidation of many stock photo agencies in the 1990s and early 2000s, new companies began focusing on "niche collections" including "medical, science, minorities, gay and lesbian lifestyles, aviation, maps, panoramas, historical, sports, and celebrity homes". [1] Opined Megan Garber of The Atlantic in 2012, "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, Potter Stewart-style, to know you're seeing a stock image. And while stock images' stockiness may be in part due to the common visual tropes that give them their easy, cheesy impact - prettiness, preciousness, pose-iness - there's part of it that's more ephemeral, too. Though they have little in common, shots of a German Shepherd typing on a laptop and a man contemplating the sunset can both be, in their special way, stocky." [5]
In relation to photography and graphics, public domain (PD) means the image is free to use without purchasing a license, and can be used for commercial or personal purposes. Works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, [38] have been forfeited, [39] or are inapplicable. [40]
In photography and the illustration industry, royalty-free (RF) refers to a copyright license where the user has the right to use the picture without many restrictions based on one-time payment to the licensor. The user can, therefore, use the image in several projects without having to purchase any additional licenses. RF licenses cannot be given on an exclusive basis. In stock photography, RF is one of the common licenses sometimes contrasted with Rights Managed licenses and often employed in subscription-based or microstock photography business models. [41]
Rights Managed (RM) in the stock photo industry (sometimes called "licensed images") refers to a copyright license that, if purchased by a user, allows the one-time use of the photo as specified by the license. If the user wants to use the photo for other uses an additional license needs to be purchased. RM licenses can be given on a nonexclusive or exclusive basis. In stock photography RM is one of the two common license types together with royalty-free, subscription, and microstock photography being business models often confused as separate license types (both use the royalty-free license type). [42] [43]
A photographer is a person who uses a camera to make photographs.
Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is a visual media company and supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets—creative professionals, the media, and corporate.
BENlabs, formerly BEN Group Inc, is a Los Angeles–based product placement, influencer marketing and licensing company. The company offers AI-driven product placement, influencer marketing services, music partnerships, rights clearance, and personality rights management services for the entertainment industry.
stock.xchng was a website providing free-to use stock photography and illustrations, its name being a reduced version of "stock exchange". The site was launched in February 2001 by Peter Hamza, and allows users to contribute, share and download high-resolution photographs and illustrations free of charge. Contributors are encouraged to submit material to enhance their photography career through wider public exposure. In 2009, the site had over 2,500,000 registered users and more than 400,000 photos. Until 2009, it operated parallel to its sister site, Stockxpert.com, until the site's parent company, Jupiterimages, was purchased by Getty Images, and the site is now tied in with the iStock library of paid images.
Picture Post was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,000,000 copies a week after only two months. It has been called the UK's equivalent of Life magazine.
Mecklermedia was a U.S.-based corporation. The original WebMediaBrands was established in 1994, and headquartered in New York. Founded by Alan M. Meckler and Tristan Louis, the company provided business-to-business (B2B) services for creative, business and information technology professionals, including recruitment and event promotion.
Royalty-free (RF) material subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights may be used without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use, per each copy or volume sold or some time period of use or sales.
Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is a part of the stock photography industry. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) do so from a wider range of photographers than the traditional stock agencies, and (3) sell their images at a very low rate for a royalty-free (RF) image.
iStock is an online royalty free, international micro stock photography provider based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Shutterstock, Inc. is an American provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools; it is headquartered in New York. Founded in 2003 by programmer and photographer Jon Oringer, Shutterstock maintains a library of around 200 million royalty-free stock photos, vector graphics, and illustrations, with around 10 million video clips and music tracks available for licensing. Originally a subscription site only, Shutterstock expanded beyond subscriptions into a la carte pricing in 2008. It has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 2012.
Bruce Livingstone is a Canadian entrepreneur who founded Calgary-based iStockphoto, an online distributor of stock photography.
DreamsTime.com is an online royalty-free microstock provider based in Brentwood, Tennessee.
Bigstock is an online royalty-free, international microstock photography website that sells images via a credit-based system. Bigstock's photos, vectors and illustrations cost from between 1 and 6 credits each, depending on size, with credits ranging from $.90 to US$3.00. BigStockPhoto was founded in Davis, California, in the fall of 2004. Bigstock adds to its library every day as photographers and designers from around the world submit their work. As of June 2015, Bigstock had more than 25 million royalty-free images available.
The Topical Press Photographic Agency, also known as Topical Press Agency, or simply Topical, was a British photo agency established in 1903 and dissolved in 1957.
EyeEm, pronounced "I am", is a German technology company that provides services related to photography. It was co-founded by Florian Meissner, Ramzi Rizk, Gen Sadakane, and Lorenz Aschoff in Berlin in 2011.
Yuri Arcurs, born Jacob Yuri Wackerhausen on July 27, 1979 is a Danish stock photographer and owner of PeopleImages.com. In 2007 he was the top ranked selling contributor at Shutterstock, Fotolia, Crestock and BigStockPhoto In 2008 Arcurs sold 650,000 images per year through 16 different microstock agencies
Alamy Limited is a British privately owned stock photography agency launched in September 1999. It is an online supplier of stock images, videos, and other image material. Their content comes from agencies and independent photographers, or are collected from news archives, museums, national collections, and public domain content copied from Wikimedia Commons. Its headquarters are in Milton Park, near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. It has a development and operations centre at Technopark in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, and a sales office in Brooklyn, New York, United States.
Pond5 is a New York–based online marketplace for royalty-free media. The company licenses stock footage, stock music, stock photography, sound effects, Adobe After Effects templates, and 3D models. Pond5 claims to have the world's largest collection of stock footage, and that they host more than 38 million clips as of September 2023.
Can Stock Photo was a stock photography provider which licensed royalty-free images, photos, digital illustrations, picture clip art and footage files on behalf of photographers, illustrators, and videographers. Founded in 2004, it was one of the earliest microstock agencies. The Can Stock Photo website ceased to exist on October 1, 2023.
Featurepics was a royalty-free microstock photography digital content agency that has been actively working in the stock photography market since 2007 based in Fremont, California.