Here’s Camilla Stoddart in the witness stand, ready for questioning…

Hi Camilla, thanks for making the time for this interview. Can we start with a brief run down on your experience behind the lens?

“As far as experience goes, I did go to a swanky top London Art School (St Martins) but I didn’t study photography. I am all self taught, and really believe in getting out there, shooting as much as you can and rolling with it. Sure there are lots of technical things that I should know, but over the years I am slowly teaching myself out of trial and error and reaping the benefits, making mistakes, learning from them and experimenting. I find this has helped me grow into a more creative and free-thinking photographer.”

Nice. So a lot of people fancy themselves as a bit of a photographer. Tell me, why should someone commission your services rather than shoot it personally?

“This is where I try not to sound like a ponsy photog right? I really believe that you have an eye or you don’t. As harsh as this sounds, I think it is very true. A singer is born with a good voice, as much as an illustrator is born able to draw. You can teach yourself how to become better at these things, and learn how to get the skills, but to truly thrive in your field I think you have to have natural born talent. Having never been taught how to shoot photos, I feel that I have developed my own style, taste and way of seeing. There are many people out there who can take photos for sure, but to be able to get an image ‘that speaks a thousand words’, takes more than just point and shoot. Told you I was going to sound ponsy…!”

That’s not too ponsy, just say it how it is. Anyway, all these compact point-and-shoot digitals have pretty high mega-pixel ratings nowadays, can you tell us about some of the main differences when compared to your setup?

“Megapixles are a very good selling point for a camera. ‘ooh mine has 10 megapixles, and yours only 7!’ When it comes to SLR (single lens reflex) cameras vs compact cameras, it’s hard to compare things like megapixles. On an SLR the sensor is much bigger than a compact, therefore you can fit a lot more information on there. That combined with professional lenses (they can make all the difference to a crisp clear image), manual settings and accurate focusing, the SLR will always win. That’s not to say that you can’t take a good snap with a point and shoot!

I have a Canon EOS 1D mk III with a bunch of Canon and Sigma professional lenses and strobe flashes. Professional camera equipment doesn’t come cheap and I am always eyeing up what I want next.”

Expensive hey? So what makes a photographer like yourself different to the everyday wedding photographer out there?

“I find a lot of work out there is stale, unimaginative and seen a million times before. It depends on what you are looking for out of a photograph, be it advertising for your company, shots in magazines, or images to tell a story, there is no excuse for boring and shabby images. A lot of photographers I find forget to put their shot in context. Take, for example, a shot of a skier, if you take the skier away from the photograph, is the image still interesting?”

How would your average Joe go about finding photographers with suitable snow and adventure experience, as opposed to your average photographer?

“I would contact me! haha…. It’s a good idea to note photographers names when you are looking through a magazine, or notice a shot you really like. They will usually have a website and contact details on there. I have a bunch of photographers I really respect and I aften find myself admiring their work. It’s good to know what you like, and then you can research to what photographer will suite your needs.”

Okay, so when someone has made the decision that they want to use a pro, what should they be looking out for when selecting their photographer?

“They should like their work first of all. Look at their style, experience, client list, and previous work, from commissioned to published work. Check that their images appear professional and are right for the job in hand.”

What’s the going rates for commissioning a shoot and how does the payment structure work?

“I’m not too sure how other photographers work. But I work on a freelance basis. I can either be commissioned for the day or half day. An hour isn’t usually enough time to get anything done. I also get out there and shoot a lot, and then submit my shots for advertorial or publication. I then sell shot by shot, and each case is usually different as to what the client needs. Magazines are pretty straight forward, and getting into advertorial gets more complex. It all depends on printing numbers, circulation and size of image.

For the day rate the client can use all the shots from that day, but the photog retains copyright to the shot, unless paid for outright but this never really happens.”

How about contracts? Do you often find yourself signing on the dotted line, or are most of your gigs ‘in good faith’?

“I have signed a bunch of contracts, for magazines and companies etc, but usually work is done out of trust. I sell an image for a use outlined in my invoice and I trust that the client doesn’t steal the image for anything more. Photography theft is huge, and the most annoying thing is that the photographer may never find out about it! But it’s the game we play really… I am very careful to always send low resolution images out with my copyright plastered all over.”

And how do the copyright legalities behind the images themselves work, i.e. who owns the rights to the shots afterwards?

“I have never sold the copyright to one of my images. This can get very expensive for the client as they are saying that the image can never be used by the photographer again. As I said before, I usually sell an image to a client with the use outlined in the invoice so there is no confusion over what they are allowed to do with the image.”

Okay that’s pretty clear. Finally, if one of our readers wants to use you for a shoot how should they get in touch and what’s your availability like?

“Please take a look at my Whiteroom Pictures website for examples of my work, portfolio, client list and published work. My contact details are on there so please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am based out of Wanaka in New Zealand from May to Oct and Edinburgh or the Swiss Alps from November through April. I am available for commissioned-based work as well as individual image sales.”

Some final thoughts

There’s a traditional marketing concept called the Purchase Funnel where prospective customers go through a number of different stages before they commit to a purchase. Most often those stages are described with the acronym AIDA: AWARENESS > INTEREST > DESIRE > ACTION.

If you’re web site and and other promotional materials already achieve the Awareness and Interest steps, then consider this; do you think they create Desire?

If not, maybe a pro-shooter can help your site create this third desirability stage in your product or service. This photo of Camilla’s certainly makes me think ‘desire’…

It’s actually a good thing we waited to write this post, as we’ve since performed a fun social media project for our friend, and the interviewee in this post, Camilla over at Whiteroom Pictures.

WRP blog project

Camilla was in the process of re-designing her web site and wanted to develop her brand within the social media world. With a strong Facebook following already, this was easily done with a Wordpress blog. We designed the blog to fit alongside her new web site with very similar aesthetics and layout, but just a few subtle differences. We also created a blogging strategy to assist her as time goes on.

For more information about the project we performed look out for the case study, coming soon on Tactic Group.

In the meantime, let’s get back to the topic at hand…

So why commission a pro photographer?

In our first photography post, we discussed the different methods of sourcing images for your web site. These were:

1. Shoot it yourself
2. Look for public domain images
3. Find Royalty Free images (or stock photography)
4. Rights Managed (or liscenced images)
5. Commission a shoot

We discussed the pros and cons of each option in detail and established that ‘Commissioning a shoot’, whilst expensive and potentially time consuming, provides absolutely unique images with relevant landscapes tailored to you business niche.

Things have changed in the past year. In our current economic climate the above cons certainly make the decision to hire a pro photographer hard to swallow. But let us think about the Return On Investment (ROI) and how it can be realised. Of course it costs to hire a pro, but the investment will offer return in the form of more sales or higher brand esteem. Not expending the cost in the first place will obviously save you money but, on the flip-side, it can miss you the opportunity for increased sales.

You know your business much better than we do, so it’s simply a question of weighing up the odds. However, to help you evaluate these odds we have a professional lined up for an interview next week. So be sure to check back and see the experts perspective.

As a group of individuals we’ve been creating and applying web imagery for quite some time now and during the course of our web careers we’ve come across many different image resources. In fact, there are so many to choose from that this post was actually much harder to write than we first anticipated.

Gone are the days when you would send away for a stock photography CD and hope they had what you needed. Now it’s simply; ‘find a site that caters to your needs, sign up and start downloading’. What an easy life.

Here’s our top 5 recommended resources

…based on the following values:

• Range of snow-related photos available
• Price of images
• Artistic merit
• Usability of the web site

Please bear in mind that we haven’t purchased from every site so our usability testing really just extends search functions and navigation.

1. istockphoto

Taking the number one spot for sheer numbers. istock’s collection of winter sports, royalty free images are so in-depth that you’re bound to find something to fit your criteria.

Their prices are very reasonable starting at $1 for a 300px X 400px sized image, up to US$20 for 3300px X 4900px. However it’s not quite as simple as that – istockphoto require you to purchase credits (at time of writing this it’s 10 for US$13) which you then use to download their images. This process, although not inconvenient keeps their customers returning to the site to use up loose credits – clever chaps!

Regarding the quality of images; istock again have a huge variety from holiday snaps to top-notch professional photographs. Most images are available at 4 or 5 download sizes and all are royalty free. istock also has a strong selection of vector illustrations, flash and video. They even have a ‘dollar bin’ for those always in search of a bargain.

2. Getty Images

Coming in a close second, simply due to price. Due to the quality of their images, the prices are somewhat higher than that of istockphoto’s. You can easily pay into the hundreds of dollars for just one image depending on it’s use.

Getty Images provide both royalty free and rights managed imagery. But it doesn’t stop there, they have licensing agreements for ‘rights ready’ (a slight tweak on rights managed), creative subscription and editorial use. See their full descriptive list of licensing agreements to find out more.

Getty have a good range of winter related images with a massive focus towards professional snow sport athletes. Their site is easy to use and functional, but getting a quote for an image can be a real slog, partly due to the fact they have so many licensing variables.

3. Stock xchng

A Hungarian site billed as “The leading FREE stock photography site”, and is a very handy and reliable resource. The motivation for the site is to create a platform for: “creative people to exchange their photos for inspiration or work”. With over a million registered users and 250 thousand photos online this leads to a good variety of attractive images.

The sign-up process is quick and easy, and the clear license agreements on their free images allow them to be used in digital format on websites, multimedia presentations; and in print format on brochures, CD covers etc.

There is also a sister site, Stock Xpert, offering more professional images at competitive rates, and the better images shown on Stock Xchng usually fall into this category.

4. Shutterstock

Described as “The largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world” – subscription being the key!. Shutterstock’s collection of winter-orientated images is strong, with a big focus towards illustrations. They have a range of ski and snowboard photographs available in 4 different sizes. All are royalty free, however they do offer an enhanced license allowing further flexibility. The web site is easy to navigate and they even offer a ‘register only’ option allowing you to search and compile a lightbox of images that you want to purchase before taking the plunge into a month-long subscription.

That bring us nicely to the subscription angle. At US$199 for one month allowing up to 25 downloads per day, it’s not unreasonable (that’s the minimum period by the way). In theory you could purchase up to 800 images in that time – rather a bargain wouldn’t you say? But what if you only need 10 or 20 images? Well then this isn’t the site for you. Ideal for a large project being performed over a long-ish duration, but not suited to the small winter tourism business in need of a few images for a quick web site or brochure refreshment.

5. Digitalrailroad Marketplace

And last but not least… Our initial reaction to Digital Railroad was very positive. It’s a great site to navigate, has a home page that provides access to well-tailored options, plus they have an abundance of quality winter tourism images – both royalty free and rights managed.

In fact, Digital Railroad are very comparable with Getty Images in terms of quality, numbers and, it seems, price too. However, this is where they begin to lose ground. I think you’ll all agree that most marketers and designers like to have quick and easy access to a products price. We all work to budgets and need to make timely decisions based what we have to spend, meaning we usually want a quote there and then. Digital Railroad’s shortfall is providing this quote. The process is time consuming and you’re required to wait for a personal email from them clarifying the image usage before finally obtaining a quote.

For me, this process is unnecessary, but then I don’t require the ‘personal touch’. For large companies purchasing multiple images on a frequent basis, I think Digital Railroad is a great source. You are allocated an account manager who is there to ease the communication process, be it over via email or telephone. This, it seems is a rarity among image-selling web sites and may be highly useful if your time is minimal but your budget extensive.

Update

In late 2008 Digital railroad closed down. This report from CNET News offers more background information.

So there you have it. Five great image-selling resources, reviewed and detailed to keep these decisions simple. We’d like to hear of any other good resources that you can recommend too.

The breakthrough of Mosaic was its ability to display images embedded on pages (rather than in a separate window) – paving the way for the web to metamorphasise from a black-and-white, Times New Roman world into the colourful, visually-rich medium it is today.

Fast-forward 15 years—through the rise of e-commerce, dot-com boom and bust, the blogoshpere, web 2.0 and the social-web—and good imagery is one of the most important aspects of success on the web.

If you are on the web to do business high-quality, relevant photography goes a long way to promote your products or services to potential customers. Along with killer content it can persuade and influence, turning visitors into buyers.

However, one of the trickiest (and often most time consuming) decisions marketers have to make when producing a new publication, whether it be print or web based, is the sourcing and selecting of photographic material. Of course, this becomes even more problematic when it’s a specific ‘niche’ that you’re promoting.

Not that winter tourism can be described as ‘niche’, but the particular image your business is looking to portray within this industry may be just that.

Finding appropriate shots is the first and, in most cases, the hardest step. There’s just so many considerations; quality, file size, colour scheme, cost, legalities of use, the list goes on.

Many of our readers will have come across at least one of these problems before. So we’ve decided it time the Tactical Thinking team bring you a series on how to source, select and utilise photographic images. To kick it off, this first post discusses the different methods of sourcing photographs and the pros and cons of each.

Use your own… who doesn’t own a camera these days?

The cheapest source of photographic imagery is probably sitting in your computer’s hard drive right now. Nowadays most people own a digital camera and some even own a digital SLR (single lens reflex). If you enjoy photography and have an eye for what looks good, this is certainly the cheapest, most realistic option available. All you need is a decent editing programme, like Adobe Photoshop, some time to learn how to use it, and you’re away.

That said there’s a big difference between your Sony Cybershot and a professional SLR camera – and the person behind the lens. If you’re in need of small ‘filler’ images for your site then your Sony Cybershot may well do the job. However, if you’re looking for larger images suitable for web page furniture like banners or, even more importantly, for printed publications, high-resolution images are essential – this is where your Cybershot just ain’t gonna cut it.

So where can you find high-res, good quality photographic images?

Well, there’s actually quite a few options here but we’ve boiled it down to four different sourcing categories for the sake of simplicity.

1. Public domain images

Described as ‘freely available’ and ‘copyright-free works’, public domain images are available at no cost. However, it is your responsibility to ensure the image you’re using is actually free-to-use. Complications here include photos of people (often requiring a model release) and of recognizable building structures.

2. Royalty free (or stock photography)

This is defined as ‘free of royalties’ and essentially means you can pay a single fee to use an image repeatedly. The amount of times a buyer can use the image is usually defined in the agreement of sale. Royalty free also means that no one can own exclusive rights to the image and the photographer can sell the image as many times as they want. As a buyer you cannot resell the image on, no matter of circumstances.

3. Rights managed (or licensed images)

As the next step up from ‘Royalty free’ this is simply just a logical increase in availability and exclusivity. Here the buyer usually pays each time the image is used in a different format or medium, but has complete exclusivity to the image for an agreed time frame. If you’re finding it hard to distinguish between Royalty free and Rights managed read more here.

4. Commission a shoot

Predominantly used by larger companies with more market spread and deeper budgets, commissioning a professional photographer for a specific shoot is certainly the most exclusive method. Most photographers charge for their time and per image that you purchase. However many provide a full-package price allowing the buyer to own all images taken during the shoot.

Right, with those definitions out of the way, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each…

Hopefully, that’s given you enough information to roll with for time being – and will lead to some good image sourcing decisions. There’s more information to come; the next post in the series will reveal Tactical Thinking’s top 5 photographic web resources (places you can find and download images).

In the meantime, please share your thoughts and experiences on image sourcing and licensing here, so others can from learn them too.