Stock photography

Carmen Davies

Carmen Davies

New Member
Just out of interest

How many of you use stock photographs? do you do lots of alterations to them?

Or do you have complete control and only use your own images? How do you go about it ie: models, sets?
 
I generally take my own photography. But if there are occasions that I can't I'll use stock photography that's available for commercial use. Once I've bought it, I'll edit it to how I want it.
 
Both - depending on clients' budget! Need a picture of a field of barley at the moment...so we'll be going down the stock photo route.
 
I don't own a professional quality camera so any projects requiring photography involve the hire of a photographer which obviously comes at a price. If the client's budget doesnt cover that expense I use stock photographs (which can work out almost as expensive).
 
Stock photography can be great a lot of the time. But there are some specific or personal jobs, which IMHO, need bespoke photography.
 
I'd love to have the time and budget to go and commission premium photography for every single project that comes our way, but it's just not practical. Stock sites these days are a million times better than the Photodisks and clipart books of yesteryear so I don't see a problem with them really. Often our clients ask us to use certain images and enjoy the process of selecting the pics themselves as this gives them a certain amount of control. As long as the studio keeps a grip on the creative direction and final design I see no reason why some well chosen stock shouldn't be a best case scenario in lieu of a proper shoot which is usually very expensive.
 
stock photos

Have to say, if I see another website with a woman wearing a headset I'll ...
upload one to istock and make a fortune :)
Noticed a sudden rise in the rates for photos on istock - anyone know any decent royalty free stock photo sites?
 
sdesign1 said:
Have to say, if I see another website with a woman wearing a headset I'll ...
upload one to istock and make a fortune :)
Click to expand...

:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol: Glad to see someone else is as fed up of them as me! lol

To the OP.. i use a combination of stock photography and my own. The problem with stock photography is it can appear all over the place so i try to edit the images or use several together. I once used a stock photography of a bride and created an exhibition display for a client to use at a wedding event. They loved it, but when they got there there were loads of other companies with the same image lol. Didn't exactly make them stand out, i did warn them beforehand but they didnt have the budget for their own shoot and a model.
 
You mean the one of the woman wearing a blouse, sat in an office environment, computer screen infront of her, looking back over her shoulder at the camera, smiling whilst wearing a telephone headset?.. ;)
 
The trick with stock photos is not picking the obvious choice every time and using 'as is'. A little cropping/adaptation can turn a stock photo from something obvious into something stunning. And I remember the days where a stock photo would cost £100+, these days there are so many options out there for so little money it seems daft not to play with that option.

As much as I love taking photos myself it's just not financially viable from a design point of view. If a client has the budget to hire a photographer we'll hire one, and sometimes it's absolutely necessary i.e., restaurants want photos of their food, fashion designers want photos of their clothes, (I still remember that day getting paid to hang out with professional models), otherwise it's stock all the way. Like Katedesign I wish I could take a picture of a barley field myself but I'm not going to spend half a day doing so when I can get a beautiful one from a stock site for a few quid. Most clients agree too.
 
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