Photohraphy A-Z

Taking Stock of Stock

A lot of assignment photographers supplement their incomes very nicely by selling their unaccounted for images as stock. What do I mean by unaccounted for? When a photographer shoots an assignment he or she usually ‘overshoots’. That is they shoot more images then their client will actually use. After the shoot the photographer goes through the images from the shoot and picks what are in his judgment the best shots from each group to deliver to the client. This is referred to as the ‘photographers picks’. the client then makes their final selection from that array. These are the shots that the photographer licenses to the client for their use.
The remainder of the images is retained in the photographer’s archives for possible future use. Even though the images were created to the specifications of a client the actual images belong to the photographer. (Refer to ‘copyright and ownership’ for a complete understanding.) Just because the client didn’t find a use for these images doesn’t mean there is anything wrong them. They were created to give the client a choice. They made their choice and this is what’s left. Perfectly good images that may well be just what someone else is looking for.
As more and more photographers gain an understanding of how all this works they are finding that their archives are becoming a valuable business asset. It is my goal to help all photographers, professional and non-professional alike find new and inventive ways to turn their images into valuable assets.

I DON’T SHOOT ASSIGNMENTS-------How do I do this?

If you don’t shoot assignments then you need to start. It is a common misconception that only photographers with big budgets, expensive equipment and a long client list shoot assignments. It’s always good when you can have a client (after all it’s someone to pay the bills), but even without a client you should not let a good idea or opportunity go to waste. When you come up with a good idea for a shoot do it as a self -assignment.
Just because you are doing it for yourself doesn’t mean that you should not plan and execute the assignment professionally. I will address the topic of planning self-assignments in future articles. Let it suffice for now to say that properly planed and executed self-assignments can yield as many if not more valuable stock images as the outtakes from a client job.

In my next installment I go into detail about planning a successful self-assignment.