Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
When you pose for stock photos, you may not even be able to imagine how those photos will be used. Writer Abigail Johnson recently warned people to “never do stock image modeling,” as a photo of her ended up in quite an… unusual article.
But then, people joined with their own experiences, each more bizarre than the other. Some of them were funny, but most were embarrassing and downright humiliating.
Getty Images has announced that it will become a publicly-traded company on the US stock market. The company was valued at an enterprise value of $4.8 billion, and it’s going to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “GETY.”
It seems like there isn’t a week that goes by that some photographer somewhere or other isn’t bitterly complaining about Unsplash, the stock image site that lets people use photographs for free. The arguments are always similar: Unsplash has ruined stock photography/photography in general, it’s impossible to sell images these days because of Unsplash, they have devalued photography…yada yada yada. Most recently an article by amateur photographer Marcus Platt caught my eye. Now this one was slightly different and had a very personal leaning to it.
My favorite kind of trolling is self-trolling, and Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has already shown us that they’re really good at it. Now they’re back with a new set of stock photos that cover pretty much all stereotypes about Canadians. They are hilarious, free for you to download and use in your projects… Or you can just browse the gallery and have a good laugh.
The “free” image website Unsplash – a site that remains as controversial as it is popular – has released what it describes as “the most complete high-quality open image dataset ever”. The “dataset” in this instance is essentially the keywords and search metadata of a whole bunch of images that can be downloaded in one big lump.
There are two datasets available. The “Full” version contains information for over 2 million images from more than 200,000 photographers around the world and is available for non-commercial use only. It covers over 5 million keywords and 250 million+ searches. The “Lite” dataset is limited to 25,000 nature-themed images and keywords and 1 million searches.
Even though it’s not their primary purpose, stock photography websites can be a source of hilarious images. But the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) made a stock photo gallery with the sole purpose of being funny. The gallery is filled with photos that poke fun at most common stereotypes about Canada, and it’s absolutely hilarious.
While looking at my own images on Shutterstock, I noticed the Shutterstock algorithm was suggesting my photos as “similar” images. I thought it was a bug on the Shutterstock website until I noticed that others had downloaded my photos from other sites then uploaded them to Shutterstock. Shutterstock’s similar photos algorithm then noticed this and suggested the stolen photos along with my photos.
On 10 April 2019, the world has seen the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole. Some people were staring in awe, some were complaining that the image took over their news feeds, and yet the others started making memes out of it. But Visual China Group (VCG) tried selling it on its website. Since the photo is under the Creative Commons license, this move caused a massive public outcry.
Following the recent announcement, Artlist has launched a full-featured beta version of its stock footage service Artgrid. It promises to “reinvent stock footage,” offering up to 8K stock footage to filmmakers, unlimited downloads and use, the option of commercial use and much more.
Brands and marketers are increasingly reaching out to social media users for “user generated content” (UGC).
Usually, you will receive a friendly request from the social media account of a brand or a marketer that would like to re-publish or use an image or video that you have previously shared to social media.
Effective marketers will find a way to stoke your ego a little, it’s a pitch that most social media users (myself included) are inclined to accept without a second thought.
If you’re on Instagram, they will usually ask you to simply reply with a specific hashtag.
But before you submit your user generated content (UGC) to a brand or marketer you need to know your rights – you are being ripped off.
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