PhotoAsia Blog

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

PhotoAsia is proud to represent Blend Images, a world leading multicultural commercial stock photography agency. Blend strives to understand the needs of marketing to diverse communities. Through extensive market research and creative intelligence, Blend Images creates vibrant, culturally relevant imagery for the marketplace, capturing the real-life essence of a variety of ethnic groups.

Blend Images
Blend Images is the largest premiere Royalty Free collection for ethnically diverse business and lifestyle imagery, rich with families, groups and peoples of various ages and ethnic backgrounds.

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Blend Boost
Introducing Boost, Blend Images’ Royalty-Free value collection. Boost offers another high quality image option with a budget-friendly price. Images in the collection range in size from a 500KB file for RM 25 to a 48MB file for RM 300.

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Browse Blend Boost entire image collection

Can’t find what you are looking for? Call us at +6(03) 7955 3237 or email us at info@photoasia.com.my.

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

Premium Subscription Service from Glow Images now available through PhotoAsia!

Glow Images is a multi-ethnic commercial Royalty-Free subscription service from MYR 1.46 per image! Choose over 1.2 million images and download 750 images a month. Every Glow subscriber gets access to our entire collection of high-end subscription images for one month. Select a plan that’s right for you – full access, unlimited, print or web.

Feel free to view the collection of images at www.glowimages.com.

The Right Plan for Every Budget

Web – Web resolution. 25 downloads / day. Perfect for designers and web publishers who need access to lots of images for one low fee.
Print – Up to 15MB files. 25 downloads / day. Ideal for brochures, newsletters and higher resolution interactive projects.
Unlimited – Up to 25MB files. Unlimited downloads / day. The designers survival kit.
Full access – Up to 60MB files. 25 downloads / day. Get access to every image, file size or resolution.

Pricing

Web – MYR 1,100 / month
Print – MYR 2,100 / month
Unlimited – MYR 2,700 / month
Full access – MYR 4,200 / month

To order Glow Images subscription, fill out the sign-up form on this page.

Want to know more?

Contact us at 603-7955 3237 or email us at at info@photoasia.com.my if you want more information.

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

ImageDJ is a new Royalty-Free Asian photo collection at PhotoAsia with over 250 CDs covering a wide variety of subjects ranging from people, lifestyle, nature, technology, business, scenery, medicine, science, architecture, to transportation. The formats are composed of photography, illustration, web image, 3D modeling, composite layered images and more. With over 20,000 images, ImageDJ delivers diversified and professional quality imagery in one stop.

Search ImageDJ Royalty-Free Images
Browse this collection’s CDs (251)

Can’t find what you are looking for? Call us at +6(03) 7955 3237 or email us at info@photoasia.com.my.

2 for the price of 1 - Buy one PIXTAL Virtual CD and get another one for free

Buy an image or CD from the Pixtal collection and choose another one for free!

Search in the Pixtal Royalty-Free Image Collection
Browse this collection’s CD titles (385)

The promotion is valid from December 1st through December 31st and it is limited to purchases of images and CDs separately; the two types of products cannot be combined to qualify for the offer. The free image must have the same value as the purchased image. The offer is limited to offline purchases only.

Can’t find what you are looking for? Call us at +6(03) 7955 3237 or email us at info@photoasia.com.my.

Offer ends on December 31, 2009.

Three children lying on father's back, smiling. Photo Credits: ASIASTOCK

Asia Stock is a new collection at PhotoAsia that specializes in locally significant images that evoke an Asian style that is both traditional and contemporary. This Royalty-Free image collection depicts Asian culture and people including kids and teens to families and seniors.

Search Asia Stock Royalty-Free Images
Browse this collection’s CDs (253)

Can’t find what you are looking for? Call us at +6(03) 7955 3237 or email us at info@photoasia.com.my.

Young family with one child in traditional clothes smiling at the camera with hands clasped. Photo Credits: IMAGEMORE

Buy 3 Imagemore VCDs for only MYR 2499! (Regular price MYR 1290 each)

Imagemore offers premium-quality digital imagery that features lifestyle and conceptual aspects of the modern and traditional culture of Greater China and other Asian countries.

Search Imagemore CD collections (495)

Can’t find what you are looking for? Call us at +6(03) 7955 3237 or email us at info@photoasia.com.my.

Offer ends on December 31, 2009.