Paris Stock Photography Expedition - Day 1: How To Avoid Copyrighted Elements In Travel Photos
In Paris, calories don’t count.
Bonnie, here, coming to you from our Stock Photo Expedition in Paris, France, where the bread, cheese, wine, and chocolate are in high supply.
Oh, but it’s not all chocolate and cheese over here. We’re doing a lot of “hard work,” too.
You know, like strolling along the streets of Montmartre, photographing details in the architecture… people making crepes and pralines in corner shops… street painters dipping their brushes into palettes of color… tiny coffee cups and flaking croissants… and, of course, the basilica of Sacré-CÅ“ur, gleaming white against a blue sky.
Hard work, I tell ya.
We have three days of model shoots up ahead, but today we’re on the hunt for iconic TRAVEL shots we can sell as stock.
Before we ventured into the streets, our instructors — professional stock photographers Lise Gagne and Shelly Perry — gave us a two-part assignment:
1. Take photos that “say Paris.”
2. Tell a story with your photos.
What does that mean, to “say Paris” with your photos?
It means that when you take travel photos for stock, you should aim to photograph things that a viewer or photo buyer would immediately recognize as coming from that place.
It’s the same as thinking “iconic,” as we did a couple of weeks ago in Holland.
However, for stock, you need to exclude any copyrighted elements, such as store signs, recognizable people (unless you can get a model release), artwork, photos, and occasionally modern buildings (for example, the pyramid in the middle of the Louvre is copyrighted).
Here are a few shots from today that definitely say “Paris” and also avoid copyrighted elements:
Maggie Martin
Eunice Kern
Jerry Newsome
Elizabeth Coughlan
Murial Erasmus
Valerie Wickland
This one, taken by Maggie Martin, was the group favorite during photo reviews. Maggie can’t sell this photo as regular stock, because the drawing of the girl is copyrighted. It belongs to the artist.
Maggie Martin
However… you CAN sell photos like this as editorial stock. So when Maggie uploads this one to a stock agency, she’ll need to mark it as “editorial.”
Same goes for photos of crowds, buildings with signs on them, and other copyrighted elements. Often, you can sell them as editorial stock. Just make sure that you take notes on where you are, and what’s going on in the photo so that you can write a caption to go along with it.
Here’s another group favorite, taken by Elizabeth Coughlan:
This one includes a recognizable person… but it’s fellow attendee Aimée, stopping for a kir break.
Another great way to take travel photos for stock is to photograph the people you’re with and get a model release from them.
Cheers, Aimée!
Tomorrow we’re going to take LOTS of photos of recognizable people — our models! But we’ll have model releases for all of them.
Can’t wait for our first model shoot in front of the Eiffel Tower — more on that tomorrow…
[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.]
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