Regular Digital Camera contributor David Clapp also shoots for Getty Images

Chances are you’ve seen an image by a Getty photographer – not just full stop, but today. In the last hour, even.

So diverse and pervasive is the esteemed photo agency, that the growing band of Getty contributors casts a wide net all over the globe. Getty photographers cover every major world event, and even the ones that don’t make headlines. And the agency is increasingly relying on a network of landscape and wildlife photographers to fill its needs in other genres.

We recently spoke to Anthony Parkin, Getty Images’ Director of Editorial Content, to find out how the agency finds new Getty contributors.

Digital Camera World: Apart from a strong portfolio, what do you look for in a Getty photographer?

Anthony Parkin: In a photographer I look for integrity, a great eye, consistency and a fresh approach. In their work, I need to see the ability to tell a story in either a single frame or a short series of images, whether it’s a reportage piece or a commercial lifestyle set.

It’s also important to not discount the portfolio, or more commonly a website and blog. This is often the photographer’s first point of contact and you can tell a lot by their presentation, image selection and picture quality.

With so many photographers out there, a well-thought-out site with carefully curated content can be the difference between a call back or a pass.

DCW: What is the vetting process like?

AP: It depends on what the photographer is providing. For assignments, it is often being a versatile photographer in a great location, while with editorial submissions the process is likely to include access, approach and stories that are of national and international interest.

If a photographer combines all or some of these, the chances are we are going to be in touch.

DCW: Can a photographer approach Getty Images, or does Getty Images approach the photographers it wants?

AP: Happily, we receive a large number of approaches on a daily basis from photographers all over the world. That said, for specific commissions, or if we see outstanding content, we often contact new photographers to work with them.

DCW: What is the ideal Getty image?

AP: Engaging, exclusive and unexpected.

DCW: Are there set criteria or standards that must be met in every picture?

AP: As you might expect, we have fixed criteria for all submissions and certain assignments carry additional standards depending on the particular client’s usage. Metadata is a universal requirement and has to be right to ensure the content is accepted and searchable.

Once a Getty contributor is set up, we supply them with all the information necessary, from shoot guidelines to caption style, ensuring they make the most of their submissions.

DCW: Many people think of Getty Images photographers shooting documentary work, but we know a number of landscape and wildlife photographers who shoot for Getty Images. Are these genres a growing part of the business?

AP: Getty Images has an incredibly diverse range of contributors and image partners providing our customers with unparalleled content. Landscape and environmental imagery have always been in demand and we continue to see strong customer interest in Wildlife from our National Geographic collection and also through to our Flickr contributors who bring a new perspective to the table.

DCW: Does Getty Images send its photographers on specific assignments or does it set them free in the world and ask them to send in images from time to time – or a mixture of both?

AP: Through our assignment division, as well as our news, entertainment, sport and creative teams, we are continually sending out photographers to shoot content for us and for specific client commissions.

We also receive material from a trusted network of freelancers, and our Reportage division works with a number of award-winning photojournalists who undertake their own commissions and collaborate with the team to syndicate their stories internationally.

DCW: What’s the oddest assignment one of your photographers has taken?

AP: One of the oddest assignments was sending a photographer on a whirlwind trip across America to photograph alternative theme parks (low key attractions competing with the big names).

It sounds like fun, but due to a fast approaching deadline, the drawback was five different locations shot over 10 days – shoot day, travel day, shoot day and so on, so it was a bit relentless for the photographer.

After nine days he was absolutely exhausted and nearly became lunch, when he and the venue owner got a little too close to the main attractions at Gatorland!

DCW: Photographers often tell us what specs they would like on their next new camera. From your standpoint, what new innovation within the industry would make your job easier?

AP: It is a great time to be working in the industry with HD film capable DSLR’s, 360 Video, 3D, light-field photography and the brave new world of content shot on camera phones.

I’m not necessarily looking for an innovation to make my job easier, but I am looking forward to the technological developments that will empower image makers to produce new and exciting content in ways we haven’t seen before.

Anthony Parkin’s Bio
Anthony Holland Parkin, Director, Editorial Content, develops the merchandising of Getty Images Editorial content through close partnerships with editorial teams globally. Anthony liaises with Editorial Directors of Photography on editing policy, and has recently taken on the management of Getty Images’ lauded annual Year in Focus, as well as concentrating on editorial social media output across all platforms.

Prior to his time at Getty Images, Anthony co-founded photographer’s representation agency, Felix Management, in New York where he was the agent for Robert Erdmann, Julian Broad, Alan Clarke and Trevor Ray Hart amongst others. Anthony returned to the UK seven years ago and joined Getty Images to build two premium editorial collections, before becoming the Art Director of Getty Images’ photo assignments division. He was promoted to the role of Director, Editorial Content in 2012.

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You have a growing collection of images you’re sure could sell. You’ve tried local door knocking and it’s fallen on deaf ears. You’re bored with prints too; everyone looking and no one buying. You dream of recognition and escaping the payroll. Selling your photos through stock agencies could be the answer. Many of the UK’s top photographers – David Noton, Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish – are businessmen extraordinaire and have used libraries to climb the ladder. So what’s stopping you? UK landscape photographer David Clapp shows you how to play the stock market and what to expect along the road to success.

Getting contracts with subject-specific stock agencies and learning to diversify, that’s the key to financial gain

1. How a stock library sells your shots

Traditional stock agencies sell images from contributing photographers to an ever-fluctuating client base. All of them are now internet-based, selling images either from digital cameras or scanned transparencies. Whether their use is for magazines, newspapers, websites or digital mediums, the images are sold based upon five main criteria:

LICENCE
– Rights managed (one-off commercial use), editorial (reportage in newspapers) or royalty free (many uses for the same image) Depending on this licence, the following criteria may apply:

USE
– Magazine, book, calendar, website banner etc.

SIZE
– Quarter page, A4, A3, billboard or digital dimensions.

DISTRIBUTION
– How many copies are to be made, UK or worldwide?

DURATION
– Is the image to be used once or for a period of time?

Agencies like to specialise, supplying subject-specific work – such as wildlife, architecture, travel, regional – to regular clients. Most try to create a market niche, promoting a database of stylised and consistent quality imagery. Other agencies pride themselves on the opposite, catering for all styles and subject matter. This approach has been questionable in times past, as some agencies disregarded quality on their quest for volume, lowering their prices simply to up the sales. But it’s this situation that created a blueprint for another type of agency – ‘micro stock’.

Micro stock libraries like to stack it high and sell it cheap. They stay afloat like linked rafts, selling low-cost imagery by spreading the same stock through a chain of multiple agencies. Looking for an acceptable image to spice up the village fete flyer? Who would want to pay £70 when they can pay 70p? Although a photographer makes little on the sale of an individual image, the agency can sell the same images many, many times.

Agencies offer photographers 2 forms of contracts: exclusive and non-exclusive. Each has its place and photographers can hold both types of contracts with multiple agencies. Usually the photographer is still able to market any image held by the agency directly, which keeps sales potential unrestricted.

Images managed under an exclusive contract can’t be placed with any other agencies, but those same images can usually be sold by the photographer directly (you’ll need to check the small print – sometimes only ‘non-commercial’ promotional use is allowed). Images managed under a non-exclusive contract can be placed with other agencies, as long as they also operate a non-exclusive contract. These images command lower prices, but can be placed with many agencies to compensate for this reduced earning potential. The photographer is also free to market these images directly.

Most stock libraries ask for a minimum period of 5 years, to help them nurture the photographer’s potential. Good relations and good sales can only flourish from mutual commitment.

2. What sells?

Buyers love everything from straightforward nondescript landscapes to lifestyle and workplace interaction – but it has to say something and be pitched to the right client base. Getting contracts with subject-specific agencies and learning to diversify, that’s the key to financial gain. Produce pictures that can be put to a whole range of uses, no matter what the subject. Think outside the box, too, as ‘conceptual’ shots are popular for illustrating dry news stories and business magazines. Shoot every orientation (portrait, landscape, square, panoramic), and think about front covers as these can yield high profits – although leaving space for text and titles feels strange at first. Fill memory cards full of variety, process every usable image and then put those images with the right agencies.

3. How to think ‘stock’

Get into the right mindset when you intend to make money from your pictures:

WRING EVERY POSSIBILITY OUT OF A LOCATION

– shoot for calendars, tourism, magazines, websites.

ADAPT YOUR SHOOTING STYLE TO SUIT CLIENT DEMAND
– learn to spot interaction, contradiction, juxtaposition, anything thought-provoking that may sell within and outside your specialisation.

SHOOT ALL DAY

– sticking to the ‘golden hours’ shows a lack of business sense.

UP AT DAWN, COLLAPSE AT DUSK

– stock photography requires well thought out and flexible plans, but above all a relentless disposition and punishing self-discipline.

4. Know your rights!

It’s vital that, as a potential contributor, you understand that images are sold with different usage rights which have an effect on their monetary value.

RIGHTS MANAGED
Images sold in this way are sold to a client with certain restrictions. The buyer is buying a licence to use the image, depending on intended use, medium, size, length of licence and distribution (regional, national or worldwide). The more flexibility required by the buyer, the more expensive the cost. An A4 magazine cover sold for national distribution for 1 month will command a much higher fee than the same size image positioned inside that publication. Yet a smaller image required for an entire year inside a worldwide publication can command an even higher price. The buyer is also getting assurance that the image will not be published within the same period by one of its competitors; the rights are carefully managed. A purchase history can also be requested.

ROYALTY FREE
These images are sold with far fewer restrictions. The buyer is able to use the image for multiple uses. If a company requires an image for both digital and paper media, it may be far cheaper to license a royalty free image than a rights managed image. Should their needs change, the buyer doesn’t have to license the image again.

5. Keep it legal

When shooting images on private property or pictures that contain people as their main subject (or even pets) a ‘release’ is required. It’s a signed document that states the model or property owner agrees the images can be used by the photographer for commercial gain (either with or without restrictions agreed between the two parties). Agencies require any releases to be submitted with restricted images, so buyers can be made aware that they’re free to use them without being be sued by an angry property owner or model.

So what happens to images that don’t have licenses? Are they of any use? You photograph a celebrity leaving a boutique, or a spectacular interior to a historical building, can these be sold commercially? Yes, they can, as ‘editorial’ imagery. Shots of building interiors can be used, so as long as there were no obvious signs stating ‘no photography’ when the images were taken. Exterior shots can generally be used without requiring a release as long as the image wasn’t taken while you were standing on private property.

6. Adding detail

It’s your responsibility to embed descriptions, contact info and keywords so that the agency can slide your submission into their database trouble free. The agency will usually supply the photographer with guidelines. Some also supply a Photoshop template if their requirements are more specific. Image data can be input using a specialist program like Adobe Bridge, or just using Photoshop’s File Info template (found in the File menu). Bridge is far more intuitive, as data can be input on batch.

First provide a detailed description of the image identifying the subject, the context and location: ‘Light reflecting on maram grass, a colourful sunrise across the sand dunes at Bamburgh Castle, on the beach near Budle Bay, Northumberland, England, UK.’ This description is packed full of information.

In terms of keywords, more is better. Agencies will remove inappropriate ones and also add their own to fit in with the ‘collections’ that your work matches. The main concern is that generalised keywords like ‘landscape’, ‘flower’ and ‘rock’ will be of little use to them, but may be useful in categorising your own archive. Where is the landscape? What is the Latin name of the flower? Is the rock sandstone or granite? Add conditions (stormy, still, calm) and feelings too.

7. Focus on quality

If you decide to start working towards selling your work through stock libraries, you may need to consider the quality of the equipment in your kit bag. Most professionals buy flagship digital cameras as a way of protecting their future sales. It’s not because they demand the absolute best, but because they require the largest file size possible to maximise sales potential. You could already have a camera that an agency would accept, but all too often it’s poor lenses, careless photographic technique and shoddy post processing that get a contract turned down.

LENSES
Ensure you use the best glass you can afford. This doesn’t mean spend £1000′s on premium glass. You may be surprised to learn that there are plenty of ‘alternative lenses’, decades older and often far superior that can be adapted to fit your system. Do your research. Using older Contax, Olympus and Nikkor primes could be the answer on a budget.

TECHNIQUE
Make sure your pictures are pin sharp. Using a solid tripod at every opportunity or shooting with image stabilisation will help greatly. Agencies check all shots at 100% so you’ll kick yourself if that jaw-dropping sunset is better appreciated as just a sharpened web JPEG.

PROCESSING
Learn to pull the best from your imagery with competent processing. Agencies are rarely interested in shots that display obvious computer tampering; excessive HDR, soft focusing effects, over-saturation and poor cloning will all usually confine your work to your home hard drives. It’s important that you’re ruthless when choosing images in the first place, too.

EDIT IMAGES WITHOUT EMOTION
Stock photography is about developing a sharp sense of business acumen. It’s crucial that you learn to wear different ‘hats’ and develop a detachment from your artistry. This is business. Become a visionary behind the camera and an unbearable critic at the computer. Edit your work by detaching yourself from the memory; no one else can feel how special your life may have felt at the point you pressed the shutter release. To an editor it’s just another image that must tick certain criteria or it will not sell – that’s all that counts, it’s nothing personal. Discussing why images were rejected will only help refine your skills, so see your failures in a different light.

8. Can you hit the required file size?

Most consumer DSLRs produce TIFF files that fall short of the 8-bit 50MB 300 dpi limit agencies require. For instance, after processing even a Canon EOS 5D image as a 16-bit TIFF, you end up with a 72MB file. Once converted to 8-bit the image is just 36MB. (You can find out this information for your own camera by opening the file in Photoshop and clicking on Image >Image Size). However, by increasing the file size using Photoshop it’s possible to ‘up-res’ an image without degrading it. Check a stock library’s submission guidelines to ensure they accept interpolated images first though.