Stock photography

Stock photography is the supply of photographs which are often licensed for specific uses.[1] The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s,[1] has established models including traditional macrostock photography,[2] midstock photography,[3] and microstock photography.[4] Conventional stock agencies charge from several hundred to several thousand US dollars per image, while microstock photography may sell for around US$25 cents.[4] Professional stock photographers traditionally place their images with one or more stock agencies on a contractual basis,[1] while stock agencies may accept the high-quality photos of amateur photographers through online submission.[5]

Themes for stock photos are diverse, although Megan Garber of The Atlantic wrote in 2012 that "one of the more wacky/wondrous elements of stock photos is the manner in which, as a genre, they've developed a unifying editorial sensibility. To see a stock image is... to know you're seeing a stock image."[5] Historically notable traditional stock photo agencies have included RobertStock, the Bettman Archive in New York,[1] and the Hulton Archive in the United Kingdom,[6] among many others.[7] In the 1990s companies such as Photodisc in Seattle, Washington, began selling CD ROMs with packs of images, pioneering the royalty-free licensing system at a time when Rights Managed licensing was the norm in the stock industry.[7] There was a great amount of consolidation among stock photo agencies[8][9] between 1990 and the mid-2000s, particularly through Corbis and Getty Images.[1] The early microstock company iStockphoto was founded in May 2000,[10] followed by companies such as Dreamstime,[11] fotoLibra,[12][13] Can Stock Photo,[14] 123RF, Shutterstock, JumpStory and Adobe Stock.[15]