Learn How to Use Licensed Stock Photography

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1181147: Choosing postcards and scenic photo folders at Yellowstone Park

Having the right visuals is essential if you’re hoping to survive in today’s highly visual world. Humans are intensely visual creatures. The right imagery helps your audience remember and relate to your content, making it stand out in their memory.

For example, when presented with strictly content made up only of text, people could only remember 10% of what they’d seen three days later. They could recall 65% of a text with accompanying images, on the other hand.

Images are especially important on the internet, which is a highly visual medium. Links that feature graphics receive 352% more shares on social media than those without.

This makes stock photography an appealing option for those of us who aren’t professional photographers or illustrators. We don’t all have the skill, experience, or resources necessary to create the kind of graphics that will make our businesses thrive.

Here’s what you need to know to learn how to use stock photography for your own business, brand, or creative project.

Your Guide To Stock Photography

Stock photography is simple and straightforward, isn’t it? Simply find a stock photo you like, pay the fee if there is one, then cut-and-paste your new graphic in your book, blog post, or wherever else you’re planning on using your stock photography.

It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Understanding Rights Managed Stock Photography

There are numerous different licenses you can obtain for stock photography, ranging everywhere from creative commons to royalty free stock photography to rights managed stock photography. We’re going to focus on rights managed stock photography as that’s what you’ll find in our collection of curated historical images.

Rights managed stock photos involve a one time payment for a singular use of a photo. A rights managed stock photo can be either exclusive or non-exclusive. Non-exclusive stock photos can be used by more than one person whereas exclusive rights for a rights managed stock photo can only be used by the rights holder.

The rights for rights managed stock photos only pertain to a single project, however, so keep that in mind. If you hope to use that photo again you’ll need to renew the rights for an additional project.

The ability to ensure exclusivity is one of the reason why rights managed stock photos are so popular. One of the principal benefits of seeking out stock photography is helping your business, brand, or project to be memorable and stand out in a sea of competition.

Consider this case mentioned in this Wall Street Journal article from 2006. In this example, two different banks both chose the same stock photo for competing ad campaigns.

Considering how much money brands often spend on their marketing campaigns, it doesn’t make much sense to run the risk of choosing forgettable art. This is as true for a smaller, independently-run blog as it is for a major Fortune 500 company.

After all, you put a lot of time and effort into the things that you create. Do you really want to give the impression that your creation is just like everyone else’s? Taking the time to find and license rights managed stock photos positions your business, brand, or project to look its absolute best.

Reasons To Use Stock Photos

Stock photo companies give you access to some of the world’s most striking and iconic images. Like these images from Take Stock, a group dedicated to the history of the American Civil Rights movement.

Stock photos from legendary photographers and organizations were simply not available to anybody but the wealthiest content creators and organizations, before the internet. Licensed stock photos give you access to some of the best, most famous photographs ever taken without needing a 7-figure budget.

Stock photo agencies also know how to find the best photos, which is a skill in and of itself. We don’t all have the time to sort through the British Library archives. Even if we did, not everybody possesses the legal know-how to understand the laws around licensing a piece of historic media.

The time has never been more perfect to seek out high-quality stock photos. Society’s been taking a long, hard look at the past, trying to make sense of the world and how we’ve got here. Historical interest hasn’t been so high in a long, long time.

That’s not even mentioning the quality of classic photography. Historic photos taken by expert photographers and photojournalists capture the moment in a way that few are capable of. And what moments there were to be captured!

Consider these images from our ClassicStock collection. These images of growing up in the 1930s and ’40s are captured in the most beautifully detailed black-and-white film. Not only have these ways of life vanished, so have the pictures for the most part. Hardly anyone shoots on analog film anymore!

Licensing stock photography gives you access to a small part of history. It gives you access to world-class media that will put your content on par with major newspapers and corporations.

It makes your creations look their absolute best, helping your content stand out and shine in the minds of your audience.

Looking For Stock Photography?

We’ve never had such a need for high-quality visual media as we do today. Whether you’re looking for rights managed stock photography for your blog posts and social media, a book project, a documentary, or some other inspired idea, you’ll find inspiring images of all kinds in our archives.

Create an account with us today to help your content look its absolute best!

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