A stock photo is a particular photograph shot by a professional or a semi-professional photographer which is in an electronic form and used for media, advertising, creative or other related business purposes. Such photos are made available through websites or other such searchable electronic databases and are generally licensed for the specific use or sold on royalty-free rights basis. The photos are of any theme like prominent landmarks, events, animals, food, nature, people or places. During the early 1920s, while the stock photography industry gained popularity, only large news organizations could afford to buy photos from a limited number of stock photo companies. But today, the internet has eased to break all barriers and change the dynamics of the way this industry once worked.Stock photography may actually be photos, computer-generated graphics, clip-arts, vectors or other forms of imagery that can be downloaded from a website or bought as a CD. Just by typing in some fitting keywords like color, shapes, moods, etc., a search engine may be able to throw up hundreds of matching images. An article in The New York Times said that stock photos were preferred over professional photographs by most book cover designers in order to save costs. As stock images are ready to use, they can save time and money in hiring a photographer, conceptualizing, getting the necessary equipment, shooting the photograph, etc. Due to the ease of availing and convenience of usage, stock photos are used in various fields as discussed below.

• Marketing and Advertising industry
• TV and web commercials, printed materials, product packaging, films and videos, brochures, microstock.
• Business purposes including presentations, branding materials, letterheads, trade booth displays etc.
• Promotional circulation like flyers, posters, greeting cards, postcards etc.
• Entertainment and editorial purposes like book covers, book illustrations, magazines, newspapers, blogs and online publications, broadcasts, theatrical presentations, newsletters etc.
• Design industry like graphic designing, web designing with themes and elements, creating digital wallpapers, interior decorations etc.
• Personal usage of posters, printing, art etc.

Various models of stock photography:

• Macrostock
  Also known as traditional stock photos, these photos are shot by professionals, are exclusive and hence expensive. The prices can be anywhere in the range of hundred to several thousands of dollars per image with the base fees depending on various factors like the published size of an image, circulation etc.
• Midstock
  The price range of these photos falls in between micro stock and macro stock. Largely comprising photos of amateurs, these high-quality stock photos may generally sell for around USD 25 cents which is often accepted through online submissions.
• Microstock
  This is an inclusive form of stock photography and relatively new. Stock agencies sell these images at lower prices but in large volume. These are always royalty free.

Traditional images are usually sold through one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis. The contract carries a defined commission and a contract term. Based on the different models, let us now understand the different styles of contracts available in relation to stock photography and graphics.

• Royalty-free (RF) photos
  This kind of photos has a copyright license that can be generally bought with a one-time payment. Such agreements do not restrict the user too much on multiple usages of the image allowing him to use the image in several projects without having to purchase any additional licenses. These licenses are not given on exclusive basis and are often used in subscription-based or microstock models of the photography business. Generally, 1000 times usage allowance is built into the license and thus called a print run.
• Rights-managed (RM) photos
  These photos are sometimes called “licensed images” as the copyright license allows the user to use the image only once. Additional licenses need to be purchased if the photo is required to be used again or for other purposes. These licenses are issued based on the exclusivity of the images decided based on the usage, image size, subject and other factors. The market value of these photos are fluctuating, expensive and very competitive.
• Public domain (PD) photos
  These stock photos include images in the public domain whose copyrights or intellectual properties either do not exist, have expired, have been fortified or are not applicable. Such photos are free and do not involve any cost in purchasing a license. Stock photos in PD can be used for either commercial or personal purpose and the number of usage times can be limitless.

Disadvantages of stock photos:

• These photos are not based on original concepts and are vague in their execution. One can find hundreds of similar photos either with different people or at different places and varying degrees of quality.
• Brand identity cannot be built with these photos as they are available to be bought by anyone.
• There’s no high income for a stock photo owner as there is very high competition in the market.
• When several people are involved in a project at multiple levels (a hierarchy of clients), the licensing of an image might get complicated to understand and work on.