A picture paints a thousand … dollars

The 13th Sign copyrighted Publisher logo

As writers, we want images for our book covers, blogs, adverts and tweets. It is so easy to break the law if I find the perfect picture online. All I have to do is right-click, save it and use it. Simple! As simple as picking up sweets in a shop and pocketing them. You probably wouldn’t do the latter because a) it’s stealing and b) if you get caught, you don’t just pay the price of the sweets. The same applies to using images without permission and there are some horror stories doing the rounds about the price of being caught.

I’m a writer and a photographer, with a stock portfolio of 3,500 photos at istockphoto and Getty Images. When you buy a stock image, you pay for a license to use it and have the security of knowing you are not breaking any laws. The photographer remains the copyright holder and can earn a living through multiple small sales. If you use any photo without payment (if required) or permission, you are stealing from the photographer.

You would be surprised at which photos sell best. How much do you think each of these photos has earned for me?

Untidy Wardrobe istockphoto file link

Swamp Hag istockphoto file link

The untidy wardrobe has earned $400 and the swamp hag, which involved a gutsy paid model, complicated lighting and a unique (!) location - $20. The wardrobe photo is successful and the swamp hag is not (though of course I love it). If somebody saw the wardrobe and thought, ‘That’s just an ordinary photo; why shouldn’t I use it – and I’ll pay if I get caught,’ I’d lose my income.

All this is a bit heavy when all you want is a little picture for your blog?

You have three legal options. 

1) You could use a photo that is ‘free to use without restriction’ often stated to be ‘under creative commons license’. Here are two of the many sites that offer photos free, even for commercial use.

Pixabay is a gateway to shutterstock and many of the paid stock libraries offer freebies as a taster. Help yourself!

The New York Library is also one of many sites offering free photos. Be careful. Some ‘free sites’ steal photos. You could be in trouble if you use images these sites should not be offering.

A creative commons license does NOT automatically mean that you can do anything you like with a photo. You need to read the terms of each photo, which might limit the use or require credit in a given manner.

2) You can pay for Royalty Free stock photos. Royalty Free does NOT mean free. It means you can use the photo in advertising (e.g. book jackets) and combine it with other images in any way you want. You can Photoshop it to death. Check the license use if you have a bestselling print run – you might need an extended license (usually at about 500,000 copies).

Credit your source where possible and, if you can, the photographer by name. These are your creative colleagues and, if you use one of my photos, let me know and I will publicise the fact! Photographers are your marketing friends!

3) The third option is to use your own (or a friend’s) photos. You avoid all the legal problems that way, right? Wrong. 

Photos that are fine for personal use might be illegal if used commercially and it is your responsibility as photographer (and publisher) to obey the law. Your human subjects have rights so you should have permission from them before using their photo as e.g. a book jacket. Some buildings are copyright protected so you could be sued for using a photo of e.g. the Eiffel Tower at night, without permission.

I mentioned ‘Royalty Free’ photos. Every human subject in my photos has signed a Model Release permitting sale of their photos. There are no brand names, logos or copyright places. As a photographer, you could be sued over any of these issues.

The exception is when you use or sell your photos as ‘Editorial’. This is photo-journalism; travel, news or street photography where you do not always have model permission. Editorial photos can only be used in a reporting context and cannot be changed (i.e. Photoshopped or cropped in a way that changes the context). Laws vary by country but, for instance, even for Editorial, my companies do not allow photos of one child unless model released; several children or a child with at least one adult are acceptable.

If these were your photos, which of these could you legally use for a book cover?

Lyon Old Quarter istockphoto file link

Man Hiking istockphoto file link

Collioure Harbour istockphoto file link

Cordoba istockphoto file link

Answer: all of them require Model Releases or can only be sold for Editorial use. This means that you could use them for a non-fiction (e.g. travel) book but if anybody can be recognised, it’s always safer to have permission from the subject. Number 2 (man hiking) does have a Model Release so is for sale Royalty Free. 

Because we photographers are lovely people, this photo (Romance in Paris) is a gift to you from me, free to use without restriction. Credit is always appreciated and if you let me know of any use, I will publicise that – I love seeing my photos ‘in the wild.’ Incidentally, photographers still own copyright to a photo even if there is no name or watermark on it, or embedded identifying data. Those are mere reminders to viewers that the photo is copyright – they don’t change its status.

If you’re not sure it’s OK then it probably isn’t, so unless you’re willing to go to court, don’t take risks. The main rule is to respect others’ copyright as much as your own and to appreciate that a photographer’s subjects (human and property) have rights too. Only use photos you have permission to use, in the way that you are using them.

I am NOT a lawyer so the opinions given here are based on my experience as a photographer, author and publisher.

You can see my stock portfolio here 

You can see my fine art photo galleries here

First published in 2016 in ALLLi's Self-Publishing Advice Centre 

What kind of photographer are you?

Athabasca Glacier, Canadian Rockies, twilight

In my ongoing search for what sort of photographer I am and how to improve, I've had another professional portfolio assessment, this time from Getty Images. Although focused on stock photography, the comments apply more widely.

'Your best qualities as a photographer are working with real people, real situations and natural light.'

You have to love the stock world distinction between glamorous models and 'real people' :) and 'real situations' means acted-out situations that look real. As to natural light, I do enjoy fooling around in the attic studio with speedlights but, well, yes, 'let's go outside' is more me.

So I know how I could sell more photos as stock but who am I as a photographer, apart from stock? Sometimes knowing who you are NOT is very helpful and I've learned that photography is not just about liking the subject; it's about YOUR personality and lifestyle. So, who are you? Do you recognise who you are - or who you're not? Feel free to add some categories in your comments!

Landscape Photographer

You rise at dawn, spend the day complaining about harsh light and too much sunshine, then come alive again during the twilight blue hour and into the night. People exist to show scale as 'figures in a landscape' and are of no interest in themselves. In fact, people are irritating and you prefer there to be no people at all. You love slow exposures. Tripod, patience and natural light are your tools. You're willing and able to hike to impossible places, carrying 50kg of gear, to get The Shot.

Check out these photographers for great landscapes (and more):-
David duChemin
Chris Hepburn
Ryerson Clark
Paula Connelly

Athabasca Glacier, Canadian Rockies 6 am

Night Photographer

You come out at night, seeking places that no sensible person would go in the dark. Your partner is used to you sneaking out of bed, throwing on some clothes and going out. He/she has given up telling you it is dangerous. Whether in mean streets or trackless wilderness, you wear a cloak of invisibility that, along with your tripod, protects you from violent lowlife, human or animal. Your exposures are so slow they make people disappear and only the essential remains. You love stars. You might even specialise in astral photography.

La Belle Vie

Landscape and night photographer Tommy Dickson said 'I love turning night into day.'

Wildlife Photographer

You have inhuman patience. You could watch a patch of grass all day because three years ago a rare insect was seen on that very spot. You are a stalker. You know your subject intimately; how it behaves, where it goes; its mating habits. You have a David Attenborough commentary going on in your head at all times. You are happy to get close-up and personal with creatures that have big teeth. You think photo manipulation is cheating. You need a telephoto lens that costs the price of a house. You can lose the hiking/carrying and financial requirements if you opt for the macro version and shoot tiny wildlife, close-up.

Finalists in Wildife Photographers of the Year 2016
Check out the wildlife photos (and more) by Guenter Gueni

Street Photographer

You have no scruples about shooting strangers' private moments in public places. You shoot fast and have an eye for composing a candid scene, capturing relationships, emotions and urban settings. Usually, nobody notices you sneaking photos but every now and then a subject looks at camera with a smile, or shock or indignation. You shoot with an unobtrusive prime, probably 35mm, and you like black and white processing.

Apart from the iconic Cartier Bresson, one of the most famous street photographers is Vivian Maier, the nanny, who perfected invisibility but whose photos were never seen until after her death. Modesty? Lack of money for prints? Or scruples about the strangers whose lives she presents?

Photojournalist

You care passionately about human rights, the planet and freedom of information. You want everyone to know what's happening in 'the rest of the world' so you risk police harassment, even rape or murder to portray the truth. You started as a travel photographer but you left your viewers' armchair comfort zone and you want to change their attitudes, startle them, stir them into action. You carry two cameras, no tripod, and you like shutter priority - it's not a question of shooting fast, but rather of how fast you shoot. If you slow down, it's to photograph the people who ought to be in the news, not the people who are. Home can be boring.

Two outstanding photojournalists:-
Anna Puig Rosado
Lynsey Addario

Food Photographer

You buy vast quantities of cookbooks and food magazines for the photos. Eating is a pleasure and you see food as beautiful. An aubergine is sexy and you can see what colours would set it off to perfection. Your house is full of unmatched plates, cutlery, serviettes and other objects bought as food props. Your partner is trained to ask whether you have photographed an item of food before he risks your wrath by eating it. Outdoors/indoors; tripod/free-range; macro/telephoto lens; your choice. As long as you see food items as glamour models, you're a food shooter.

French buche de Noel / Christmas log

My food photography inspiration includes Kelly Cline, whom I met online thanks to istock, and Helene Dujardin (what a great name for a French food shooter!)

Studio Photographer

You're a perfectionist and control freak. There must be no light or shadow in your image but what you allowed and intended. You can shoot beautiful studio portraits but, if you're honest, people are a little difficult to control and what you like best is a perfectly lit product shot. Your studio does not only have lights and every kind of modifier known, including mirrors and gobos; it has a beam and rail systems. You know how to name and use every piece of technology you have and what you most want is a smoke machine. Your assistant takes his/her shoes off at the impeccably clean threshold and whispers while you work.

You know who you are :)

Portrait Photographer

You're a people person. You can make someone relax in front of a camera; talk, laugh, fool around. People trust you and show you who they are, who they want to be and then magic happens. A portrait is an interactive threesome and, unlike food or landscapes, the subject has opinions and can hate the photo. Relationships can hurt and if you don't know what the other person wants, you can both be disappointed; if you work together, you can have more fun than ought to be allowed when working. Studio or natural light; tripod or not; still or movement; your favourite portrait lens (mine's an 85mm f1.4) Just steal somebody's soul!

Check out the portraits (and more) taken by Richard Clark

Architecture Photographer

You get excited at diagonal lines and architraves. You have the urge to lie on your back and shoot a cupola or skyscrapers. Stairwells induce pleasure overload. You are THE mathematical photographer, always aware of symmetry and straight horizontals. If a human being is in front of you, what you see are circles, verticals and curves. Sorry, did it say something? Your weapon of choice is a tilt-shift lens but you'll settle for a wide-angle that doesn't vignette.

Ceiling, The Palace of Joy, Zaragossa

Fashion Photographer

Designer labels and colour co-ordination make your shutter-finger twitch. You know about handbags. Only young, beautiful people exist and you can charm them into impossible poses to show off the real subjects - clothes and accessories. Star-jumps on rooftops and clinging to a cliff-face are only some of your ideas to display voile floating. You are inseparable from your favourite stylist and make-up artist.

Check out three-times-winner of Malta's Fashion Photographer of the Year Kurt Paris , and stunning work from Nils Kahle

Sports Photographer

You don't just support one team; you support twenty and you know the rules of every game, underwater, over hurdles and in the sky. You love action, motion, effort and achievement, winning and losing. If it moves, you shoot it. You like panning, tracking and motion blur. Forget the tripod and sell the house for a super-fast telephoto lens.

Check out Charlie Mann's work.

Of course there are overlaps and specialisms within specialisms; timelapse, underwater, lo-fi, baby-mugging and Pellier Noir are just some that came up when I googled photography categories!

My photographic adventures in 2016 have included organising and shooting professional models in Paris with some amazingly talented photographer friends; giving a ten minute presentation on my work at a Getty Images event; and testing my landscape skills in Zaragossa, Northumberland and the Canadian Rockies. Next weekend I'm attending a portrait workshop with Anna Puig Rosado who lives only 30 minutes from me and is not only internationally respected as a photojournalist but also a warm, friendly person and a great teacher. Watch this space!

Barred in Paris

One of the treats for my big forthcoming birthday was to visit the photography exhibition in Paris: 'Qui a peur des femmes photographes' (Who's afraid of women photographers) The tongue-in-cheek reference to Virginia Woolf was echoed by a portrait of her mother, taken by one of the photographers featured. The hint of an allusion to the big, bad wolf was no accident either.

The exhibition challenged, informed and inspired me. We think our digital cameras are state-of-the-art but Kodak happily targeted the mass photographer market a hundred years ago with tag lines like 'You press the button; the camera does the rest'. Queen Victoria thought photography an appropriate hobby for ladies and as long as the ladies kept their cameras focused on family and flowers, everybody was happy. But women did not stay confined within their Brownie - or any other - Boxes. Nor did photography remain a bourgeois hobby. If you are lucky enough to see the exhibition, you'll find photography beyond gender as well as imagery exploring gender; from war journalism to smashed dolls.

Maybe the ghosts of Margaret Bourke-White, Lee Miller and Lisette Model whispered in my ear as I re-visited Paris. For many years, I have focused beyond the bars - made them disappear. If I didn't see them, they couldn't stand in my way. When I am described as a 'woman writer' or - ironically, in view of this wonderful exhibition - a 'woman photographer', bars are created. Is the glass ceiling there if I behave as if it's not? 

Self-portrait: Going through the glass ceiling

Even if the exhibition hadn't got me thinking about women's exclusion in the past from e.g. The National Geographical Society, being in a city always makes me feel constrained, regardless of gender. I love the explosion of culture and contrasts in cities - for a maximum of five days. Then the feeling of being trapped becomes too much for me. In Paris, this time, I let myself see the bars. Here are a small selection of the images and all twenty-six can be seen in my new gallery. 

Paris, the honeymoon city

Notre-Dame behind locks; Pont de l'Archevêché

Since 2010, the craze has spread for couples to declare their love by attaching a padlock (!) to a bridge and throwing the key into the Seine. I'd be tempted to throw the man in with it if he offered me such a 'romantic' gesture. Despite the removal of padlocks from one bridge, which was breaking under the weight, the craze continues and entire bridges are covered. Any railings are now starting to display padlocks. 

The Seine at Night

City gardens and parks are forbidding places behind their fences and walls, prohibitive signs and controlled access. Plants and flowers live behind bars.

This sign for 'Keep off the grass' reminds me of political posters protesting repressive regimes. But we are in France...

Don't Kill the Grass in Winter

Such signs arouse the instinctive rebel in me. Before I saw the 'Don't pee in public' sign, I never considered doing so.

The City and the City by China Miéville describes two cities occupying the same space, the inhabitants of one city pretending not to see the inhabitants of the other, and that dislocation is what I felt, sitting in a cosy bar, drinking a glass of wine, looking at this window. 

Nouvel Arrivage

You can see the whole gallery here in the Photography Galleries on my website. If you find my photos interesting, you can see a selection in my illustrated collection of shorts One Sixth of a Gill, free if you sign up for my newsletter. 

amazon link

Taking Stock as a Photographer

What do you really want to photograph?

To answer that question, I spent last weekend in a workshop with Ana Puig Rosado, an amazing photographer who lives only 30 minutes' drive from me in the beautiful lavender valley of La Roche St Secret. This is my photo of her house, reflected in the window of a typical Provencal cabanon. She maintains two websites to separate her photo-journalism from her weddings and other projects. Both are stunning.

Fears that my French would let me down diminished as I discovered that 'RAW' is 'RAW' in French, pronounced 'Roe', evidemment. Camera settings and menus are all in English so it's my French friends who have to get used to S for Vitesse (or for Canon shooters TV, which I always think of as Toute Vitesse).

Ana travels. Sometimes commissioned, sometimes with a project she hopes to sell afterwards and sometimes because she just 'wants to go to Tel Aviv.' She is a photo-reporter, working usually with natural light and an emphasis on getting it right in camera. She is the antidote to stock photography, in which I've been semi-conditioned for the last 6 years. Her notion of editing is to choose a small selection of photos that make a coherent collection.

Here's the portfolio that Ana put together showing the workshop behind the scenes as well as mini-galleries from each of us (mine is the first one).  

Until recently, I saw each photo as a one-off. Albums were 'best of'. Influenced by reading David DuChemin, I have started to think about collections as a whole, in the galleries on my website; in the selection chosen with my Editor for 'One Sixth of a Gill'. You can imagine how pleased I was with the reviews from the Wishing Shelf judges; 'A worthy finalist... 5 (of the 31) judges thought that the photography was the best part.' It is time to ask more of myself as a photographer.
If you'd like a free copy of 'One Sixth of a Gill' please sign up here for my newsletter.

With perfect timing, I received a professional report on the portfolio from LensCulture, whose portrait competition I'd entered. By happenstance, this is also the organisation which featured Dead Season on the Edge of the Black Sea by - guess who - Ana Puig Rosado! Some things are just meant to be.

The opportunity to receive a review was given as a bonus for entry and I was asked to submit a portfolio of 10 photos. I chose the 3 portraits I'd entered for the competition (that hadn't won) and 7 others I liked, showing the range of my work.

Don't cheat. look at these photos and decide what feedback you would give. Then read what I was told. 

Reviewer Feedback

I found some of these individual images very interesting and was drawn in by your innovative approach to self-portraiture. The mix of work here is very eclectic. I can understand it is hard to summarize your work in one edit and you may have wanted to demonstrate the depth and breadth of your practice, but I suppose we are just very used to seeing series of work in photography where you see one body of work explored in-depth. There are many images here that are very singular and beautifully taken shots particularly image 5 and 6. But I would encourage you to move from picking an individual good image to thinking about your work as a series.

Editing into a coherent series would enable the viewer to see more of you and how you work and also what you have to say. As we are so saturated by images all the time we need to work out what we are looking at and how to position it easily. I notice you do not have an artist's statement. It might be a very helpful exercise for you to write one. I realise they are hard to do as they in part require you to be concise and clear about what you are doing and you may work in a more organic less premeditated way. But the advantage is they force you to consider what might connect your work, and help you to develop confidence in your own voice.

Perhaps that is why the self-portraits interest me, they tell me more about you ( I am assuming they are of you). They make me think of Bill Viola's moving and slow studies of faces which take on a religious or spiritual edge and are very powerful. I like the idea that a single fixed image of self is never enough. We change so much over time and expressions alter our faces completely and you capture this well with this group of 3 images. I hope you will continue with those more in the future.

What do I think of the review?
I'm chuffed! And I smile now at my naivete in putting the collection together in such a random way. I'm writing this blog for everybody who's shared in my progress as a photographer - and for others who still think of one photo at a time.

Compliments like those in the review are really motivating me to carry on experimenting without worrying about what will sell in my istockphoto portfolio. 

Thank you to that anonymous reviewer, who made further suggestions. I would love comments from other photographers on the blog, on the review, on the idea of collections. I haven't answered the question of what I really want to photograph but I have some ideas!

These were the additional recommendations

Recommended Books

The Family of Man, curated by Edward Steichen

The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression, by Bruce Barnbaum

Here is a good article on things to think about when creating a photo essay.

Publish Your Photography Book, by Darius D. Himes and Mary Virgina Swanson

How to write an Artist's Statement

The Artist Statement: How and Why to Write Yours by Jennifer Schwartz

Other Resources to Consider

5 workshops, 5 days, 5 women in Berlin