I’ve successfully passed the application process to be allowed to upload content to a well known provider of stock content. As I’ve said to the couple of people at work who are interested in photography, I’m not anticipating a change in career. It’s primarily an objective way of finding out where I am in terms of quality of output. I had to take a couple of bites at the process, and was pretty chuffed to have my second submission accepted.
It’s proving to be an education on a number of levels. First and foremost is what is considered to be in focus. The subject matter has to be as sharp as a pin. I’ve had a few submissions [I uploaded a batch of 10 pictures after getting notification after getting the nod] rejected on this basis. The other major consideration is around model releases, and what part of a face is deemed sufficiently recogniseable to warrant one. I’d assumed that if it was a partial profile, where the person is turned away from the camera [as in the ploughing pic a couple of articles down, one of my favourite shots], or completely unrecogniseable like the woman wearing the conical hat and mask combo in the picture directly below, that I’d be ok. Not so. I did read the FAQ before applying, which talks about identifiability. I think that in practice, the threshold is much higher than this: any partial face in the composition needs a release.
Regarding releases, I wonder if some pap sticks a camera in the face of a celebrity what the deal is there…. Or, for that matter, for journalistic shots that end up in a newspaper.
Anway, with the benefit of hindsight, the whole exercise has set me to thinking about what I deleted when I was on holiday in Vietnam, something like around 600 shots. One of my rules of thumb was an assumption that the back of someone’s head was pretty likely to be poor composition. [Nine times out of ten it probably is, but I wish I could take another pass at what I deleted on the card.]
The requirements of the stock company are definitely going to inform what I’ll do the next time that I’m taking pics somewhere interesting [in Cornwall at the end of February, and hopefully with a brand spanking 24-105mm L lens, which I intend buying in the next couple of weeks].
Final point on this one: I’ve just finished reading a fantastic book by Scott Kelby, Digital Photography Volume 1. A lot of the pictures in the book are clearly marked as stock, but it’s interesting to look at, for instance, a sporting shot where the players’ faces just happen to be obscured. I’d never have noticed it a few weeks ago.
The book is, without a doubt, the best that I’ve come across in the two years that photography has been a hobby for me. It was recommended to me when we got into conversation with a couple on holiday in Vietnam: the bloke had a 40D as well. It’s a complete distillation of advice on various photographic scenarios. As much as I enjoy the [very popular] magazine that I subscribe to for suggested exercises etc, it’s simply not in the interest of the company producing it to communicate techniques with the sort of density this author manages.