FAQs for photographers

Why should I give my photos away free?

The market for paid-for photography has reached saturation. Thousands of stock photo sites are available selling millions of images with prices ranging from £1 / $1, sometimes less. Stick your images on those sites and you might sell a few copies making a few pennies each time. But put your images on Stock Photo Xposure and you could gain something much more valuable - a global portfolio of clients using your images.

Customers of paid-for stock photo sites very rarely let you know where your images were used. But everyone using StockPhotoX knows the system only works if photographers get feedback - and designers are actively encouraged to do just that.

Where will my photos be used?

Your images could be used almost anywhere. By uploading images to StockPhotoX you agree to allow those images to be used by any company on any medium (print, online, TV, etc). Your images will be covered by the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Why would a big company use this site?

Most people assume that large companies will have design or marketing budgets for every project, allowing them to buy whatever stock photography they need.

We know different. Having worked for some big, global brands we know the reality is that designers are often working to tight deadlines and don't have time to raise purchase orders and get client agreement to pay for stock images.

Using paid-for stock photography also limits creativity when producing mock-ups for clients. There's nothing worse than a client agreeing to a design concept then having to tell them it'll cost more than the other option because of the photography used.

Why can't I set my own usage restrictions?

Allowing photographers to limit their photos to specific uses goes against the philosophy of this site. When a designer, marketer or anyone else comes to the site they should feel confident that they can use any image in any medium. After all, there would be nothing worse than using an image for a successful online campaign only to find out that they couldn't use the same image on a flyer.

Therefore, any image you upload will be covered by the Creative Commons Attribution license. You must accept this agreement in order to upload images.

Can I remove my photos from the site?

You can remove your photos at any time. But please remember that images you uploaded are covered by the Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable. This means that you cannot stop someone, who has obtained your work under a Creative Commons license, from using the work according to that license. You can stop distributing your work under a Creative Commons license at any time you wish; but this will not withdraw any copies of your work that already exist under a Creative Commons license from circulation, be they verbatim copies, copies included in collective works and/or adaptations of your work. So you need to think carefully when choosing a Creative Commons license to make sure that you are happy for people to be using your work consistent with the terms of the license, even if you later stop distributing your work. See http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ

Can I put the same images on other stock photo sites at the same time?

Yes - but you should check that the other site's terms allows this too. You might find it interesting to put your images on both types of site and see which gives you a better result - the few cents you get each time a photo sells on the paid-for site, or the boost to your portfolio when your image is used by a big corporate client, website, newspaper or magazine from StockPhotoX.

When do I need a model release?

You should try to supply a model release whenever you upload an image that contains a recognisable human face. Without a model release most companies will only be able to use your images for news articles. This will ultimately limit the commercial usage of your photograph. We have more information on model releases here.