It’s a daily battle in the agency world when it comes to photography and what’s the best image to represent the project at hand.  Designers often use stock photos in their comps to get across the concept of the piece but even if the client likes that specific image it does not always make the most sense financially to purchase the rights to use it.  There are many stock houses out there these days and they all offer a variety of pricing structures from subscription based services to royalty free and rights managed options.  Along with pricing concerns, quality and variety of images also comes into play.

Photos that are rights-managed cost more and tend to offer better quality and variety of images with even the option of exclusivity within a given industry. However, there are no guarantees of that exclusivity and many companies find their image elsewhere which can lead to embarrassment and an overall cheapening of your project and brand.

We often try to persuade our clients to set up custom photo shoots to capture the image(s) they need.  Custom photo shoots used to be considered too costly for some budgets but with digital technology it often costs less with the added benefit of getting the exact image you are looking for.  You won’t see the image being used by another company when you drive down the freeway and you want have to worry about purchasing additional photo rights from the stock house if you negotiate a full buyout with your photographer. Tip to the wise: make sure you have that conversation with your photographer up front. Often you will get a better deal if you package the usage up front rather than add it on later.

While stock photo usage will always have its place for convenience and ease of use, the growing need to build a company’s photo library for the long-term makes owning the image outright and shooting photos specifically to a company’s needs the smarter strategic move.