Guides and information for photography enthusiasts, by photography enthusiasts

When do you need a model release for your photography? Ideally, you’ll always have one; however, you can get away without a model release in many situations.

One of the realities of photography is that you need permission to sell a photo of a person who modeled for you. The actual laws of when you need a photograph  model release get a bit complicated and we’re not going to get into them (we aren’t lawyers after all), but the stock photography agencies simplify model release matters a lot:

You need a model release anytime you can recognize the person in the photo.

Simple and straightforward. This means that you do not need a model release for shots taken behind people, if they’re covered in a ninja outfit, silhouetted, etc. However, if you have a model in full kabuki face paint they may well be unrecognizeable, but if you can see their face, you need a model release. Also note that you still need a model release even if your photography is a picture of yourself.

As a general rule of thumb try to get a model release for everyone you shoot, even if you don’t think you need it. Carry model releases with you everywhere and make getting them part of your standard operating procedure. When in doubt, assume that you need a model release.

When You Need a Model Release Examples:

If you wanted to sell this photo you would need a model release from the man sitting on the chair. Even though he’s blurry and in the background, you could easily argue that you can identify him. However you would not need a model release from the woman owning the legs in the foreground.

This photo is a bit tricksy. We can see the entire ice climber and we can even see his part of his face. However, because he’s covered in bulky winter clothing and we can only see a bit of his face — and of that his goggles cover up even more – it is not a recognizable image. If you worked with this guy and saw this image, you’d never realize the model was your coworker unless you were told.

However, that said, stock agencies are hyper-careful about model releases, and some of them may require a release even for this photo (or a silhouette, or a photo with no faces at all). In general the only way to be safe is to get a release of any photo with a person in it.

Where To Get a Model Release

Stock Photographer Blog has a sample model release that you can download in microsoft word or pdf format. You can get it here: Downloadable Model Release

I got an interesting email from iStock today in response to my application:

Thank you for taking the time to apply as a contributor with iStockphoto.com.

The iStock administrators have asked that you upload new samples based on the feedback provided below. You’re welcome to return in 3 days, upload some new samples and we’ll re-process your application.

If you’ll recall iStock Submission requirements make you send just three photos. Two of the three were accepted, including the bumblebee shot below, that was rejected by Shutterstock and Fontfolia.

1/125th at f4.2 on ISO 400 with macro lens less than an inch from a soon to be angry bee

The photo they didn’t like was this high-key shot.

They felt that the highlights were blown out (which was the point, but ah well).  However I’m very encouraged that they gave the opportunity to resubmit rather than just rejection the application out of hand.

Now I just have to figure out what to replace the high key shot with!

So I’ve gotten the first couple of responses from my first couple of stock photography submissions. Shutterstock requires you to submit 10 photos, of which 7 must be accepted. Alas I did not get enough accepted photos, for a variety of reasons that we’ll go over shortly. Thus I was not accepted; however, I can reapply in 30 days – which I will do armed with new knowledge!

Fotolia doesn’t have a requirement that a certain number be accepted, and I have several photos accepted and available online now. Yay! No response from iStock yet.

I thought it would be valuable to take a look at a few of the photos to see what was accepted and – perhaps more importantly – what was rejected and why. Let’s see what we can learn here:

Strawberry& Apples – Accepted

.4 sec at f10 on ISO 100 with 90mm focal length

White background, food, sharp focus (if in a limited area), bright saturated colors. Approved. In addition the shot of the apples lined up was approved, which was similar in concept to this – white background, sharp focus, food. Hmm…. 2 data points is not enough to make a pattern, but it’s something I’m keeping my eye on and trying more of!

BumbeBee – Rejected

1/125th at f4.2 on ISO 400 with macro lens less than an inch from a soon to be angry bee

Both Shutterstock and Fotolia rejected this on the basis of poor focus. This baffled me a bit at first and I thought perhaps they just wanted the depth of field to be deeper. But then when I really zoomed into the picture I saw that the wing is in perfect focus, but the hairs on the back and the head of the bee are in fact not in perfect focus. Click on the picture to enlarge it and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

You really have to zoom in close to really see the focus problem - which I think tells us something about how these photos are reviewed. So we know to make sure we do that before submitting – and focus is vital!

Canoe – Rejected

1.6 sec at f22 on ISO 100 with 26mm focal length

This was rejected for poor focus and overabundance of photo type. Of course I knew that this didn’t have tack sharp focus. I felt that it helped with the mood of the photo – but again we’re learning that perfect focus is an absolute necessity.

Leaves in Minnehaha Creek – Rejected and Approved

This was approved through Shutterstock and rejected from Fotolia. Fotolia’s reason – and one that I quickly got used to seeing – was Overabundance of Images of This Type. In fact, anything remotely nature related got axed by Fotolia and most of them from Shutterstock as being the kind of photo that they just have way too many of.

The Plan

Even though the sample size is small, I think a couple of things are clear. Focus must be tack sharp – no exceptions allowed. More importantly (for me) all these gigs of nature-type photography are not useful for stock. Certainly the gems I’ll go ahead and try submitting once I’m in — but they will not be a part of any initial submission!

For now I’m going to stop submitting to new stock agencies and instead shoot some new photos over the next week or so. Specifically I think I’m going to shoot some food on a white background. It’s incredibly easy and seems to be a logical route in. Now again, I firmly believe that an initial submission to a stock agency should show a variety of shot types, and on my to-do list is to get some shots of people (with model releases).

But for now it’s to the grocery store!

This is a breakdown of the submission process to sell your stock photography to iStock Photo. Like all micro-stock agencies, they won’t put up photos from just any photographer. You must go through their submission process to see if they’ll carry you.

iStock Photo accepts images as small as 1600 x 1200.

1. Go to http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-photos.php
2. You must sign up to be an iStock Member and create an account.
3. You then are taken through a series of pages listing all manner of guidelines. At the end of this they have a simple online quiz that you have to take based on what you just read. Your quiz is instantly graded (pass or fail) online.
4. You then have to upload one piece of photo identification. For this I just snaped a photo of my driver’s license.
5. Finally, you have to upload just 3 sample images. With only three images by which you are judged, make sure they are good and show a good variety!

Unlike other micro stock agencies, Fotolia doesn’t technically have a submission process to see if they’ll carry you as a photographer. Instead, anyone can submit photos and they’ll just decide whether or not they will host the photos. This makes them without question the least stressful micro stock agency to submit to.

Fotolia accepts images as small as 4 MP. Fotolia has one of the simplest and easiest submission processes.

1. Go to http://us.fotolia.com/Info/HowToSell
2. Create an account. You’ll have the option to go exclusive with Fotolia, which I do not recommend.
3. Click the “Sell Files” link in the upper right corner.
4. Start uploading images!
5. Fotolia has an option that if your file is rejected by the editors, you can have it moved to the “free” section. I recommend against this — no point in giving your work away!
6. Note that while you can start uploading images right away you will get an email with a link you have to click on to validate your account — your images won’t be reviewed until you do so!

Unlike other stock agency submission processes, there is no special number of photos you need to upload. After all, they are not evaluating you as a contributor, but instead are just evaluating each photo on a case by case basis.

Once you’ve got your photos uploaded, you’ll be able to view a list with little color-coded icons showing the current status of your photos (which will be “awaiting validation” at this time).

This is a breakdown of the submission process to sell your stock photography to Shutterstock. Like all micro-stock agencies, they won’t put up photos from just any photographer. You must go through their submission process to see if they’ll carry you.

Shutterstock images must be at  least 4 MP. You are required to upload 10 images. At least 7 of them must be accepted in order to be carried by Shutterstock. But no pressure!

1. Go to Shutterstock Submission Page
2. Sign up for an account
3. You will then need to enter a credit card number and get charged $0.01 to verify that you’re a real person
4. You can now log in.
5. In the lower left under the “Make Money” header, click on “submit photos.” (see image below)
6. Click on the “via HTTP” header. This will let you upload straight from your browser.
7. Upload your 10 best photos!
8. You’ll then need to enter descriptions and keywords for them. You will need a minimum of 7 keywords for each photo (something I found surprisingly difficult to do, without keyword stuffing, which they don’t like).

Shutterstock says their photographer review could take as long as 7-10 days. Once your in photos are reviewed within 3 days.

Here is a list of the major micro-stock photography agencies. If you’re interested in selling your photography, these guys are the place to start!

Micro-Stock Agencies List

iStock Photo (http://www.istockphoto.com/sell-stock-photos.php)
One of the original innovators in micro-stock. They pay 20% of the price of downloads (more if you’re exclusive, which sounds like a bad deal). They charge $2 – $24 depending on the size of the photo downloaded. iStock accepts photos at 1600 x 1200 or larger (2 MP).

Checkout the breakdown of the iStock Submission Process

Shutterstock: (http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=474139)
They accept photos as small as 4 MP. Stutterstock works on a subscription model for their buyers. Buyers pay a fee for a month and can download as much as they want (great deal for buyers – and encourages them to download a lot). Photographers are paid a flat $0.25 per download, but once you make over $500 (2k downloads) you bump up to $0.30 per download. They have a nice fast review process for new photographers which makes them nice as well!

Check out the breakdown of the Shutterstock Submission Process

Fotolia (http://us.fotolia.com/Info/HowToSell)
Fotolia pays from $0.30 to $0.60 per download – the exact amount depends on how many total downloads you’ve had. The more images you sell, the more you get paid for each image you sell. They accept images as small as 4MP, and certainly have the easiest submission process.

Checkout the breakdown of the Fotolia Submission Process

Dreamstime (http://www.dreamstime.com/sell)

Stockxpert (http://www.stockxpert.com/support/help/4)

ClusterShot (https://www.clustershot.com/account/edit)
ClusterShot seems to have an unusual approach, in which they let you set your own prices for your photos. I’ll be digging into this more closely as I work down the list, but my hunch is that it’s a smaller site that won’t get nearly as many sales (bad deal for the buyers).

The concept of stock photography is that an agency, or a photographer, has a stock of general-purpose photographs — as opposed to hiring a photographer for a specific shoot. Stock photos are technically licensed, rather than sold. This means that the photographer retains the copyright and simply allows someone else to use the photo.

There are three basic types of stock photography: Royalty-Free Stock, Right’s Managed, and Micro-Stock. Let’s take a look at each of these.

Royalty-Free Stock Photography

Royalty-Free means that when someone purchases a photo from an agency they are paying for the right to use that photo as many times as they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. There are a few restrictions – the big one being that they don’t have the right to sell the photo for someone else to use – but it’s pretty wide open. This is the standard of stock photography.

Until recently buying Royalty-Free photos was the cheapest way to get quality photos, and they would cost around a few hundred dollars per photo. Getting into a stock agency was very difficult and exclusive. However, the cost of standard royalty-free photography has been dropping steeply with the rise of micro-stock agencies, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Rights Managed Photography

Rights Managed means that buyers pay for specific rights to a photo. For example, they might purchase the right to use a photo only in a calendar, or for a book, but they can’t use it for anything else. Rights managed photos always come with a sunset – someone buys rights to the photo for a limited amount of time.

Rights Managed photos can cost tens of thousands of dollars to purchase. The main advantage for the buyer is that they’re not only buying rights to the photo, but they’re keeping anyone else from getting it. So if you buy rights to use a photo in calendars, then no one else can use that photo in a calendar for the duration of your contract.

Rights Managed photography is a very small and elite group of photographers. Getting accepted by an agency often has more to do with your reputation and renown than simply the quality of your work.

Micro-Stock Photography

Micro-stock is basically just royalty-free stock photography that has taken advantage of the internet and the proliferation of talented amateur photographers with digital cameras. The only difference between micro-stock and standard royalty-free is that micro stock uses thousands of photographers (anyone can submit) and in turn they charge radically less for the photos — often as little as $1 for a small photo.

Micro Stock sites typicaly allow a photo to be purchased in a number of different sizes. The smallest size (usually only good for web use) is the cheapest. If you want high resolution large files they charge up to $25 or more — still far, far cheaper than standard royalty-free.

The last couple of years have proven that micro-stock is the future of stock photography. Standard royalty-free stock agencies have had to continually lower their prices to compete. Professional stock photographers have found their income from stock plummeting with the competition, and many of them have even moved to offer their photos through micro-stock agencies themselves.

Anyone with decent equipment and good photos can sell their photos to micro-stock agencies.

Just how much money can you make with micro-stock agencies? It all depends on how many pictures you take — and if those are the kinds of photos that those marketing people want to buy. I have friends that do some stock photography on the side through micro-stock agencies and fund their photography hobby with it — buying all their new cameras and lenses with the money. And of course on the upper end, you can certainly earn a full-time living doing stock photography. But you need good photos, and you need a lot of them!

If you’re taking pictures of people (including yourself) that you plan to sell to micro-stock stock photography agencies, you are going to need a model release. Stock Photographer Blog has a sample model release for stock photography that you can download in either Microsoft Word or PDF formats:

Download Model Release (Microsoft Word Format)
Download Model Release (PDF Format)

This sample model release should be valid with any of the major stock agencies. Please note that all of it must be filled out – assume that every blank on the model release is required, because for some stock agency it is. That includes the phone number, the description of the shoot, the photographer signature, and the witness signature on the model release.

And no, the photographer cannot sign as the witness. Furthermore you cannot use a “blanket” release for a model. You must have a new release for each shoot.

Here is a quick look at what this stock photography model release looks like:

If you download the word format of the model release, you can change the second blank in the first paragraph to read your name, or your company name. Thereafter you just need to print out a stack of the model releases and include them in your camera bag to bring with you wherever you go.

You can also read our guide on When Do You Need a Model Release for more information about when the model release is actualy needed.