PhotoAsia Blog

Close-up of a young couple celebrating Deepavali. Photo Credits: PhotosIndia

When it comes to shooting stock, it’s important to plan for the upcoming holidays, festivals and events at least 3-4 months in advance. Art buyers and creative directors will generally start selecting their images at least three months ahead. So if you’re submitting your latest Deepavali images in late October, it’s unlikely we’re going to make any sales the same year. To get the most of your stock photos, you would have to submit them to us in June. This would greatly increases your chances of a client selecting your pictures for the said festival.

To kick start your stock photo sessions, we have prepared a list of photo opportunities for you to plan ahead based on the events that will be happening in year 2011.

NOVEMBER (Chinese New Year)

Decorating homes and making traditional Chinese new year cakes, performers doing lion dances, family eating together for reunion dinner, holding oranges, parents giving ang pow to young children, red lanterns, fire crackers, red Chinese New Year banners with Chinese calligraphy, children holding red packets, portraits of Chinese families or children, welcoming/entertaining non-Chinese guests in their homes.

DECEMBER (Islamic Lifestyle)

Photos of Muslim men and women in shopping malls, working at the checkout counter, customers paying with credit cards, Muslim family picnic, relaxing in the sun, kids playing in the park etc. For more details on what to shoot, check out our blog post on Islamic Lifestyle images.

JANUARY (Mother’s Day)

Affectionate moments between mothers or grandmothers and children, spending time together, such as crafts, playing, outdoor activities like gardening, picking flowers, cooking etc., portraits of young, mature or senior women bonding.

FEBRUARY (Father’s Day)

Same as Mother’s Day, but for fathers and grandfathers, portraits of young, mature or senior men bonding with their children, playing games, working together on hobbies, sharing some quality time together.

MARCH (Mid-Autumn Festival)

Photos of children playing with lanterns, eating mooncakes, shopping for colourful lanterns, portraits of Chinese families or children, still life of lanterns together with mooncakes, teapot and cups.

APRIL (Ramadan and Hari Raya)

Photos of oil lamps, ketupat, lemang, variety of Malay cakes displayed Malaysian style, Ramadhan food, such as curries, rendang, etc, in endless varieties, multi-racial people celebrating together, Malay families with children visiting grandparents in kampung setting, children asking for forgiveness, lighting oil lamps with kampung house in background.

Mooncakes for the Lantern Festival. Photo Credits: Discpicture/PhotoAsia

MAY (Hari Merdeka and Malaysia Day)

Photos of Malaysian flags, theme of 1Malaysia, multi-racial Malaysians waving flags together, working together in office, in discussion, meetings, National Day Celebrations, portraits of multi-racial groups in traditional costumes (Malay, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Iban) interacting.

JUNE (Deepavali)

Photos of couple and family working on kolam design, still life and close-up of oil lamps, praying and offerings flowers, family in traditional costumes celebrating deepavali, couple exchanging gifts, family holding deepavali gifts, family arranging deepavali lamps, lighting deepavali lamps together, close-up on deepavali decorations, close-up of row of burning lamps, portraits of Indian families or children.

JULY (Education)

Photos of multiracial students studying together, in discussion, attending college, walking outside and in campus, in classroom, writing, studying in library orinteracting with students & lecturers, multi-racial group of graduates in their robes, students using laptops indoors or outside, portraits of multi-racial students working together.

AUGUST (Christmas)

Family decorating a Christmas tree, excited adults and children opening gifts, family having Christmas dinner, father carving turkey, family singing carols together around the piano, in the living room, children on the lap of Santa Claus.

SEPTEMBER (Food and Drinks)

Photos of popular Malaysian food, such as Nasi lemak, Satay, Char kway teow, Nasi kandar, Asam laksa, Cendol, Ice kacang etc.

OCTOBER (Valentine’s)

Photos of couples holding hands, hugging, exchanging gifts, man giving flowers/chocolates to lady, romantic dinner, dancing

Multi-ethnic people in traditional dress holding hand on heart. Photo Credits: Jon Feingersh/Blend Images

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Brother and sister running outdoors smiling. Photo Credits: Monkey Business

I was reading an excellent post by photographer Jonah Kessel, who recently was responsible for the redesign of a major newspaper in China. To summarize, the post was about whether to take the leap from doing editorial photography and also doing stock photography as well.

There’s a big difference between the two, of course. For editorial images, e.g. images that appear in articles in newspapers, magazines and similar medium, you don’t generally require model releases. For images used for commercial purposes, it is required that you have model releases to show that you have obtained the model’s permission to publish his/her images to promote a product or service. It is always the publisher who takes the risk when they decide to use an image. So it makes good business sense for them to make sure that they will not be liable.

This gives me a little more respect for stock photographers who actually setup life style shoots with all sorts of situations and peoples, although I feel like most of them are sitting at their house taking pictures of inanimate objects. However, are they actually visually representing life accurately with their models?

Or better yet — are they even trying to? Do stock agencies want a “real image” or the “idea of a real image?”

Young woman standing by mailbox reading postcard. Photo Credits: Moodboard

The above is a quote from Jonah’s post and something we want to highlight as it is critical to whether the images will sell or not: capturing people in real situations and not “faking” the images. In stock photography a less harsher description is not faking it but to create a situation in a photo shoot. Creating images in a controlled environment is what stock photograpy is all about. This is one aspect of stock photography that is in great demand because creative directors of most advertsing agencies want stock photographers to anticipate their requirements, get inside their heads, think ahead of their creative minds and outside the box as well. So it is not as easy as going into a market scene and shooting at every photo opportunity you can find on that day. Having said that, it does not mean that images of natural market scene or any good random shots whether indoors or outdoors will not sell as stock images as well. They do but not in such great demand as images specifically created for the advertising market.

It’s not the first time we’ve talked to a photographer voicing this to us. By far, the most common response we get from photographers that aren’t doing stock, is that they believe everything has to be “fake” and the models have to be beautiful/handsome. Obviously, there is truth in these statements. Clients that choose stock images to advertise their products or services want to create a postitive reaction. They know that using a young, attractive model to advertise their product is more likely to get a positive response than no images at all or one that will generate a negative feeling.

Little girl sits on mother's lap, both smile at camera. Photo Credits: Alex Mares-Manton

However, as a stock library, we want to encourage our contributors to shoot more images that look natural and candid. In every photo shoot, a photographer will never see any return in his/her investment unless the images show spontaneous, candid shots together with some shots that show the models smiling naturally into the camera. Images that show the models posing for the camera will never sell. If the photographer can capture an intimate moment or a candid expression in a photo shoot that image will sell and that is what creative directors in all advertising agencies are searching for. It is much harder to achieve this when you are shooting specifically for stock and directing a model to create that look or expression but there are stock photographers out there who are doing it and they are the ones making big bucks.

Achieving this balance between genuine and commericaly viable images for stock is probably the hardest thing for a successful stock photographer to do but with practice, information of the current market trends and a passion for lifestyle images, any serious stock photographer can succeed. I hope this will motivate you not discourage you from shooting for stock.

PhotoAsia successfully recovered damages for copyright infringement from a client who sheepishly confessed that they have used our images for commerical use without authorisation. After five weeks of negotiations the client finally agreed to pay RM127,790 ($38,438.83) in damages for the use of 30 images from 18 different photographers represented by PhotoAsia. The 18 photographers have not been contacted yet but they should be getting their share of the damages by the first week of April 2010.

What caused the client to confess this infringement? We found out later that another library has sent them a lawyer’s letter for copyright infringement for an image. This started a chain reaction and the client decided to do some housekeeping, digging out all their projects that used images to see whether they have all been paid. To their horror they discovered that the staff in charge of these projects have not paid for the reuse of many images or renewed the licence to continue using some of the images. According to the client the staff has already resigned sometime ago and her inefficiency has only now been uncovered.

This particular client has been a regular and loyal client and we have no reason to doubt that this was an oversight on the part of one individual staff and not a deliberate desire of the company to infringe our copyright. In view of the fact that they themselves came forward to make retribution, we were happy to reduce the penalty and charged the client only three times the normal rate. They even came to hand us the cheque personally and I have to say that this is the easiet settlement that we have experienced and without the aid of a legal counsel too!

Red Chinese lanterns display at Thean Hou Temple, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during Chinese New Year celebrations. Photo Credits: Wong Sze Fei

The Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year is the most important annual festival for the Chinese community and is celebrated all over Malaysia. The first day of spring in the Lunar Calendar this year falls on the 14th of February 2010.

Marking the first day of the first new moon, Chinese New Year is traditionally an occasion to settle old debts and begin the year with a clean slate. Prayers and offerings are made. New clothes are bought and plenty of food are prepared. Although the festivities continues for fifteen days, the main festival is celebrated on the first three days. On the eve of the Chinese New Year, the family have a joint family dinner to welcome the New Year. Younger ones of the family visit their relatives and get red packets of lucky money known as ang pow as gifts.

PhotoAsia would like to take this opportunity to wish all our friends, good fortune, good health and a prosperous new year!

Portrait of three young women smiling with arms around each other. Photo Credits: Glow Images

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Portrait of a young woman standing in a robe in a garden. Photo Credits: ImageDJ

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