Great Escape Publishing

Posted June 8th, 2012 by Bonnie Caton & filed under Travel Photography.

Can you sell this photo as stock without a model release? Reader Maggie Martin submitted this shot to the Breakfast Stock Club Premium Challenge,“Travel Stock Photography.” She doesn’t have a model release for the monk… but she’s selling this photo on a stock site. I’ll tell you how in just a sec. If you like to take travel photos, or even shoot around your hometown, it can be hard to take photos with no people or trademarks in them. And we all know that photos including recognizable people or trademarks can’t be sold as stock… right? Not necessarily. Take a look at these photos. They all sell online as stock, and yet they all include recognizable people and legible shop signs and brand names: Istanbul, Turkey Bangkok, Thailand Dublin, Ireland Nottingham, England The reason these photos are allowed onto stock sites is because they’re all designated as editorial stock. That means that the photo buyer agrees to only use them for editorial purposes, such as in a magazine, newspaper, blog article, or text book. If you decide to try this, make sure you:

Inspect your editorial photos at 100%. And hold them to the same standards as your other stock photos: well-composed, well-exposed, noise free, etc.
Don’t do any major processing. With editorial photos, you’re not allowed to alter the “truth” in any way. So no Photoshopping anything like power lines or logos out of the photo.
Write a caption, including who, what, when, where, and why. Where did you take it and what was going on? Newspapers, blogs, and magazines may need that information for their article.

This month’s Breakfast Stock Club Premium Challenge is: Editorial Stock Photos. Premium Members should submit their photos for the Challenge by Friday, June 22. Archived Roadmaps from previous Premium Member Challenges including Shooting Sports… Photographing on a White Background… Using Yourself as a Model (Self Portraits)… Food Photography and more are also available to Premium Members on your Breakfast Stock Club Premium Membership page in MyTravelPrograms.com. Enjoy your weekend! [Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can turn your pictures into cash in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Selling Photos for Cash: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.] Your Weekly Breakfast Dish The latest from your Breakfast StockClub Facebook Page From Caroline Maryan: Woohoo! First 3 photos accepted on iStock from the Paris shoot. (Check out one of Caroline’s photos, here.) Joy Ciaccio asks: What agencies seem to work best for everyone? Now that I finally made it into iStock, I seem to only upload there, Shutterstock, and Dreamstime. I haven’t uploaded to 123RF, fotolia, or canstock in months. From Deidre McConnell: Very excited about this month’s challenge. Have already been out at an event shooting! I have another one planned for tomorrow. From Katrina Elena Trninich: I just sold a sweet merbaby. Newborns are my favorite to photograph! (Check out Katrina’s merbaby photo, here.)