Flickr and Getty Images buy your photos

Getty Images, the world’s largest distributor of still imagery, has teamed up with Flickr, the photo-sharing website, to allow keen photographers around the world the chance to make some money out of their regular, everyday snaps.

Over the past 12 months, Getty has had 30 art directors scouring Flickr’s archive of three billion images to find the ones that will “sell” and have commercial appeal.

So far, the team has identified 100,000 images it would like to add to the “Getty Flickr” collection, which can be accessed by consumers and customers alike via www.gettyimages.com/flickr. There is also a supportive Facebook application called “PictureMe”. This allows Facebook users to attach photos from the collection to their status updates to help them visually express their mood.

The collection contains only 20,000 images at the moment, as the team is still waiting to hear back from the photographers responsible for the other 80,000 cherry-picked photos, or for rights clearance. Flickr users can “opt in” to have their photos considered by the Getty art directors by clicking on a designated tab once logged into their accounts.

The rest is up to Getty, which will then email the Flickr users who have a minimum of five photos which interest them. If they consent, a contract follows and the photographer has to set about ensuring each that any photo that includes a person or piece of property has the appropriate permission from all concerned parties. Once all the formal processes are completed, Getty can go about selling the images.

Five tips to get your pictures noticed

Keep your approach original and fresh.
Think about whether you will be able to contact any people in your photo again in case you need to obtain their permission. Possibly take down their contact details at the time, just in case.
Regionality is always attractive – especially in areas such as the Far East, where the economy is booming. Photos of your travels which show off an area’s culture are very useful to us – this is something which we hope to build upon in the future.
Humour always sells and is something to bear in mind.
Don’t get into stale patterns. Keep snapping only what matters to you and not what you might think will sell.

Source : Telegraph