Stock photography is the supply of photographs that are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, and microstock photography . 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. Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis , while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.
41-623: The Deutsche Fotothek ( German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃə fotoˈteːk] ) is a picture library in Dresden , Germany, located in the Saxon State Library . It holds more than two million images. Its strengths are in art, architecture, music, geography, technology, the economy, and the Saxony region. Its collection came from institutions, companies, and individuals such as Hermann Krone . The German Photo Library, also known as
82-462: A German Shepherd typing on a laptop and a man contemplating the sunset can both be, in their special way, stocky." 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, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. In photography and
123-642: A $ 2.5 billion market value by late 2013. Stock photography refers to the supply of photographs , which are often licensed for specific uses such as magazine publishing or pamphlet-making. 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. 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
164-651: A 'Hall of Fame Member' in commemoration of its 30th anniversary; Designers Digest awarded him the title '(Photo) Designer of the Year' in 2002 and 'novum' reports that Christian von Alvensleben is one of the most constant dimensions in German photo design and one of the most universal. In 2005 a work already awarded a prize by the Art Directors Club (ADC) was nominated for the 2006 Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland . In over 35 years of photographic work,
205-747: A nude lady with a full figure and a sunshade on the beach for an advertisement for the film manufacturer Fujifilm became world famous in 1972; Time magazine devoted a whole page to the photo, and today the motif is one of the Bilder im Kopf (Images in the mind's eye) (Deutsches Presse-Museum, Deutsches Zeitungsmuseum). This was followed by international editorials and advertising productions in architecture, interior design, fashion, beauty, food, people, still-life and transportation. Christian von Alvensleben portrays industrial managers, actors, sportsmen and women, musicians, politicians, fashion designers and TV stars. In addition to numerous photo illustrations for
246-546: 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 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. iStockphoto, or iStock.com, was acquired by Getty in 2006. In February 2009, Jupitermedia Corporation sold their online stock images division, Jupiterimages, to Getty Images for $ 96 million in cash, including
287-580: The London Polytechnic from 1964 onwards. After this he became assistant to the photographer Karl-Heinz von Ludwig/Ali Khan in Munich . Since 1968 he has been working as a freelance photographer with his own studio in Hamburg . The pictures for the social democrat party's print media advertisements for the election campaign were among his first major works. His photograph Der Sonnenschein of
328-578: 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. Rights Managed (RM) in
369-503: The photography , publishing and advertising industries and the general public. 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. 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, Shutterstock
410-573: The royalty-free license type). Christian von Alvensleben Christian von Alvensleben (born 1941) is a German photographer. Christian von Alvensleben was born in Munich , and took his first photos with a Kodak box camera from a US care parcel when he was 11. These were followed by photos for the school newspaper. As an 18-year-old schoolboy he travelled to France in order to improve his language skills in preparation for his school-leaving examinations. In Montjustin in Provence he met
451-565: The royalty-free licensing system at a time when Rights Managed licensing was the norm in the stock industry. There was a great amount of consolidation among stock photo agencies between 1990 and the mid-2000s, particularly through Corbis and Getty Images . The early microstock company iStockphoto was founded in May 2000, followed by companies such as Dreamstime , fotoLibra , Can Stock Photo , 123RF , Shutterstock , JumpStory and Adobe Stock . Newspapers and magazines were first able to reproduce photographs instead of line art in
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#1732775874194492-553: The 1980s, stock photography had become a specialty in its own right, with the stock industry advancing quickly. As photo libraries transitioned from physical archives to servers in the mid-1990s, "stock libraries" were increasingly called "stock agencies". The archives also began to rely increasingly on keywords for sorting and retrieving photographs. In 1991, Photodisc in Seattle, Washington , began selling CD ROMs with packs of images. Unlike their competitors, Photodisc licensed
533-976: The Archive of Photographers, the Deutsche Fotothek offers a virtual showcase for the works of important German photographers or photographers working in Germany. In addition to its own photographs, a large part of the holdings come from the collections of institutions, companies and, above all, from estates and bequests, for example of Christian von Alvensleben , Christian Borchert, Ermenegildo Antonio Donadini, Fritz Eschen, Erwin Fieger , Germin, Walter Hahn, Konrad Helbig , Erich Höhne, Paul W. John, Martin Langer, Rudi Meisel, Richard Peter, Abraham Pisarek, Roger Rössing, Wolfgang G. Schröter, Jacques Schumacher , Ingolf Thiel, Reinhart Wolf and Paul Wolff. Collections in
574-751: The Deutsche Fotothek: In addition to the usual on-site use, a large part of the photographs, as of April 2022 about 2,200,000 images from 90 institutions, can be searched online. The expansion of online access to the entire collection is a permanent task of the institution. In 2009, the library announced that it was donating approximately 250,000 image files to Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license. 51°01′40″N 13°44′12″E / 51.0278°N 13.7367°E / 51.0278; 13.7367 Picture library Themes for stock photos are diverse, although Megan Garber of The Atlantic wrote in 2012 that "one of
615-706: 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. agefotostock was founded in 1973, in Barcelona, Spain, by Alfonso Gutierrez Escera. By
656-947: The Landesbildstelle Sachsen, is a photo archive located in Dresden, Germany. It was established in 1924 as the Saxon State Association for the Promotion of Film and Photography, and was later renamed the Landesbildstelle Sachsen. The library's main task is to supply educational institutions in Saxony with teaching materials, such as photographs, slides, and films. It also provides further training courses, especially for teachers. The library's holdings are primarily focused on regional history and geography, and its collections are primarily composed of photographs taken by its own photographers. The first director of
697-614: The Landesfotothek. The Landesfotothek was located in the rebuilt Saxon House of Estates and was led by Hans-Heinrich Richter until 1974. He was followed by Walter May (until 1989), Werner Starke (until 1999), and Wolfgang Hesse (until 2003). In 1952, as part of an administrative reform, the Landesfotothek was placed under the State Commission for Art Affairs as the Dresden State Photo Library. At
738-787: The Seattle-based Getty Images . In 1996, the Hulton Picture Collection was bought by Getty Images for £8.6 million. 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
779-631: The best photos by looking for elements as diverse as "bright lights", "evidence of emotional connections between people", and the tilt of faces. 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 . More recent trends in microstock photography include "lifestyle" photographs of people "at work and play", food, sports, and fashion. Other stock photo themes may include stereotypes , expressing common emotions and gesticulations , pets , and images related to travel and tourism. In
820-721: The books of chefs and bon vivants such as Alfons Schuhbeck , Alfred Biolek, Christiane Herzog, Bruno Bruni and 'Food in Vogue' / Condé Nast, Christian von Alvensleben created a work in 1992 entitled the 'Apocalyptic Menu' for which he received several renowned prizes. Many of his almost always avant-garde works appear in magazines including Architektur & Wohnen , Dance Magazine , Der Feinschmecker , FAZ , GEO , Max , Merian , Der Spiegel , Stern , Vanity Fair US, Vogue Braut , Vogue Casa , Vogue Deutsch , Vogue Pelle , and Die Zeit . The editorial team of Der Feinschmecker nominated Christian von Alvensleben as
861-600: The company delivering photos upon 24-hour request to magazines such as Look and Life . Founded in 1936 by Otto Bettmann , a German curator who emigrated to the United States in 1935, 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 . He actively expanded his collection by placing ads in magazines for stills and photos. A different early pioneer with
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#1732775874194902-489: The early 1990s, the stock industry focused on " conceptual images ", which could encapsulate themes such as "global communication, success, and teamwork". 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". Opined Megan Garber of The Atlantic in 2012, "one of
943-404: The focus of the collections shifted towards social documentary and reportage photography, in line with current cultural policy. The goal was the "cultivation and development of the humanist and proletarian-revolutionary photographic heritage, especially that of the years after 1945". These guidelines and the associated increase in acquisition funds led to a rapid expansion of the holdings. In 1996,
984-635: 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. There was a great amount of consolidation among stock photo agencies between 1990 and the mid-2000s, with Corbis notably acquiring the massive Bettmann Archive in 1995. After Photodisc went online in 1995, in September 1997, PhotoDisc agreed to combine with London -based Getty Communications to form
1025-815: The library of the Technical University and the SLB merged to form the Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library (SLUB), and the photo library came under this roof. The Ständehaus was assigned to the Dresden Higher Regional Court, and the Landesfotothek moved to rooms on Bautzner Straße 19. With the new building of the SLUB, the photo library also received new rooms on Zellescher Weg. The German Photographic Library holds over 6 million photographic documents. With
1066-497: The library was Dr. Fritz Schimmer, who held the position until 1936 and again from 1945 to 1950. The library's first photographer was Walter Möbius. In 1944, the library's holdings included 47,000 negatives and 65,000 slides. During the air raids on Dresden in February 1945, the library was destroyed except for its negative collection (40,000 pieces) and picture card collection, which had been moved to Dippoldiswalde and Gaußig. After
1107-471: The mid-1880s with the invention of the half-tone and its use on a printing press . Initially starting with staff photographers, independent free-lance photographers eventually took over. 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
1148-479: 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
1189-765: 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." Historically notable traditional stock photo agencies have included RobertStock , the Bettman Archive in New York, and the Hulton Archive in the United Kingdom, among many others. In the 1990s companies such as Photodisc in Seattle, Washington , began selling CD ROMs with packs of images, pioneering
1230-434: The photograph and others like it to be commercially viable. 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. One of the first major stock photography libraries was founded in 1920 by H. Armstrong Roberts. The Bettmann Archive in New York is an example of an early traditional stock agency, with
1271-400: The published size of an image, circulation and other factors." Microstock photos may sell for as little as US$ 0.25. 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
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1312-404: The sites stock.xchng and StockXpert . 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. In 2012 Shutterstock became the first microstock agency to complete an initial public offering , with the company's shares reaching
1353-590: 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. 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
1394-556: 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
1435-436: The stock photography industry, fees were typically cut half and half between the agency and artist. Other stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission. 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". Other search engines may seek to quantify
1476-545: The time, the collections included about 100,000 negatives and 35,000 slides. The main tasks of the photo library were to collect, preserve, maintain, and make the holdings available for scholarly research and work. In 1956, the Ministry of Culture gave the Landesfotothek its own statute as the "Deutsche Fotothek Dresden – Zentrales Institut für kulturwissenschaftliche Bilddokumente" (German Photo Library Dresden – Central Institute for Cultural Science Image Documents). In 1961, it
1517-581: The war, the library was re-established in Dresden, and its collections continued to grow. Today, the German Photo Library holds over 2 million photographs and slides, making it one of the largest photo archives in Germany. The oldest photographs in the collection date back to the middle of the 19th century. The Landesbildstelle was a picture archive and photo workshop located in the Ehrlichstraße 1 vocational school in Dresden, Germany. It
1558-549: The young German author Hubert Fichte . The photos taken on that one day were exhibited in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg in 2005 and are now part of the Hubert-Fichte Foundation. In 1962 he travelled to Mozambique where he took photographs of big game and the respective hunters. The work titled Die Spur des Leoparden / Kaliber .378 was shown at the photokina exhibition in 1993. . He attended
1599-585: Was affiliated with the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Berlin. By 1966, the collections included over 280,000 negatives, 150,000 picture cards, and 75,000 slides for loan. In 1983, the photo library became a department of the then-Saxon State Library (SLB) due to the close proximity and the fact that the state collection priorities of the two institutions largely overlapped. The collection grew to include around 650,000 negatives, 12,000 positives, and 60,000 lending slides. In terms of content,
1640-635: Was founded in 1946 by Fritz Schimmer and officially reopened in 1947. During this time, the collection profile was expanded to include photographs from Germany, Europe, and the rest of the world. In 1950, the picture archive and photo workshop were spun off from the Landesbildstelle and renamed the Landesbildarchiv, which was assigned to the Landesamt für Volkskunde und Denkmalpflege (State Office for Folklore and Monument Preservation) as
1681-542: Was founded in 2003 with a monthly subscription fee. Online since 2000 as a royalty-free stock photography website, in 2004 Dreamstime was founded as new microstock agency. Other stock agencies with new business models around this time included fotoLibra , which opened to the public in 2005, and Can Stock Photo , which debuted in 2004. By 2007 Dreamstime was competing with iStockphoto, Fotolia and Shutterstock, all expanded into major microstock companies. In March 2013 microstock company Depositphotos launched Clashot,