Author: Lorraine Banks

Can i use stock photos for commercial purposes?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

The use of stock images should also never imply that a model is a genuine customer endorsing your business. You may have a real testimonial to use on your website, but, you cannot use a headshot of a model to relay this message without explicit permission from them. Stock photos for commercial use can be placed on websites, in marketing materials and in editorial work; some stock photos can be used only for editorial purposes. Although stock photos are convenient and can be an inexpensive alternative to custom photography, here are some reasons why people don’t like bad stock photos.

Stock photography is appealing because you can search a stock photo site for an appropriate image immediately. Stock photo experts point to iStock, Shutterstock and Adobe Stock as the most affordable stock-photo sites. Jasmeet Singh, owner and lead photographer at the corporate photography studio 415Headshots, said businesses should prioritize brand consistency if they use stock photos. Depending on how far down the stock photo rabbit hole you fall, you may come across stock photos that look spammy or unprofessional.

Although stock photos are more varied now than in the 1990s, any image you choose from a source like iStock or Shutterstock is bound to come up on thousands of other websites.

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What are the benefits of using stock photography sources?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

Stock photography produces licensed photos that can be used for a specific purpose, used often for digital marketing and advertising. Images enhance marketing efforts, and stock photos are widely attainable to license for creative use. They have been around for almost 100 years and are now available all over the internet. According to Shutterstock, some of the most popular stock photos include people, travel destinations, animals, and food.

While there’s nothing wrong with integrating stock photos into your marketing collateral, it is important to know when it makes sense to purchase the rights to legally use these professional photographs, and when using stock photos should be avoided. To help you establish best practices, we’ve compiled the following pros and cons. Since investing big bucks and hours on sourcing a single photograph is not feasible, stock photos offer high-quality and non-cheesy visuals to your content. Stock photography libraries offer a vast array of subjects, covering everything from people and technology to nature, architecture, business settings, creative abstracts, and more.

Instead of investing time and money in hiring a photographer for custom projects, you can easily find unique and effective imagery through stock photography websites. Just be sure to source your stock photography from a reputable source, and keep in mind that the effectiveness of stock photography depends on how it’s used throughout your marketing content. Purchasing stock photography ensures that you have a valid license to use the pictures in any manner you desire. You can see several examples of branded stock imagery above that I created for my clients during their Signature Personal Brand Photography Experience here in Austin, TX.

Stock photos can be a valuable resource, but they shouldn’t be the sole source of visuals on your website. The content on Stock Photo Secrets and associated channels is for general information only and doesn’t constitute advice related to stock photography agencies or their services. Using eye-tracking technology, studies have shown that people skip over stock images and ignore stock photos of generic people. You’re only granted seconds to capture your audience’s attention, so be mindful of the first impression stock photography makes before implementing it in your marketing, and always strive for something unique.

Stock photography is a valuable resource for individuals and businesses looking to enhance their online presence. Using a stock image source like Desygner gives you access to many photographs, regardless of what you are looking for.

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Are there any free stock photography sources available?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

Free stock photos & videos you can use everywhere. If you’re planning to use stock photos in social media graphics or other visual projects, it can be helpful to use a source that pairs easily with basic graphic design tools. Rawpixel is more than a stock photo site (although it has a wide variety of free stock images to choose from).

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How can i find high-quality stock photos?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

A lot of people here recommending things like unsplash and pixabay, but I think Freepik is amazing, it has illustrations and stock photos too. Kate Max Stock offers a massive collection of brightly lit stock photos for women bloggers and entrepreneurs. Whether you need a stock photo, stunning vector image, HD video clips, or Adobe Photoshop template, Adobe Stock has the perfect stock images, videos, and more to help you tell your story. Pexels offers a wide selection of gorgeous free stock photography that doesn’t feel sterile or staged.

Unlike the cookie-cutter photos you might expect to find on mainstream stock photography sites, the photos on Unsplash are beautiful, artistic, dynamic, and anything but ordinary. Haute Stock is a library of stock photos, mockups, graphic packs, and social media templates for female entrepreneurs.

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What are some popular stock photography sources?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

The best free stock photos, royalty free images & videos shared by creators. The best stock photography submission platform is, without a doubt, Microstock, plus. While my list above might make Microstock, plus seem perfect, it’s as close to perfect as it comes in the world of stock photography. Yes, Microstock, plus is free to use, but that comes with limited monthly submissions.

If you want to submit more than 33 submissions per agency per month, that’s when Microstock, plus requires you to pay. However, what I love about Microstock, plus is that you can complete over 33 submissions in one month, and your file will simply move to a pending status that will automatically submit at the start of the next month without you having to do anything. You can close it and forget about it. Now, like any submission tool, Microstock, plus is a lot of work when you’re just getting started.

During this time, you will probably run out of submissions many times over if you’re starting with a big library, but paying once just to get your files online at the beginning is not that big of a barrier. Finally, it may appear that Microstock, plus charges storage fees, but they are easily avoidable. Paying for storage is only on the Microstock, plus platform. Once your file has been accepted with an agency, you can delete your files off of Microstock, plus to avoid the fee.

This will not delete your files off of various stock agency sites. It’s amazing that Microstock, plus supports FTP uploads, but in my experience, it’s really only useful when uploading larger video files. That being said, I recommend FileZilla, so that you can upload multiple video files directly to Microstock, plus at once. However, if you only plan to submit photos, the simple drag-and-drop browser feature is more than sufficient for smaller image files.

Microstock, plus is the best submission tool when it comes to the amount of stock agencies that you can submit to. However, there’s really only a handful of agencies that you should consider, which I’ll get to later. While most of the other submission platforms support the same large agencies, Microstock, plus is the only platform that supports StoryBlocks, which is a key agency for videographers. Other than my thoughts about the external program, the biggest red flag is that you have to visit each agency separately from the Xpiks program to manually submit your work.

No other stock submission tool in the industry requires this, which is why I default to Microstock, plus. With Microstock, plus, your work is submitted automatically as soon as you hit submit or through the pending feature that I mentioned earlier. Past what submission tool you choose to use, and I hope I made it clear why Microstock, plus is the best, it’s all about where you choose to sell your work. Take it from someone that signed up for every agency on Microstock, plus and tried them for a year to say that the only agencies that you should sell your work on are the ones mentioned below.

However, Pixpa has a terrible contributor interface, but at the very least, everything submits, tracks earnings, and works great straight from Microstock, plus. On the other hand, MostPhotos has a much more user-friendly interface, but it requires you to manually submit each photo individually from inside MostPhotos (like Xpiks) after first submitting on Microstock, plus. If you’re a busy photographer, this may not be worth your time. If an agency has a website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2003, stay away.

Cavan is not found through any submission platform, like Microstock, plus, because everything has to be done manually, image by image, through Cavan only. This is because they act both as an agency and as a submission platform, which I’ll explain in more detail below. There are a few other agencies, like 500px, 123rf, or YayImages, that look like good, clean, professional stock photography agencies, but what all of these and so many more have in common is terrible earnings because of terrible traffic. The world of stock photography can be very complicated and overwhelming because of the number of agencies, and the barrier to entry can feel more difficult to overcome than it actually is.

All that being said, yes, there are full-time stock photography contributors out there, and yes, I still have submissions for sale on my recommended platforms. What I can conclude is that if you want to make stock photography a full-time thing, or even a small, part-time portion of passive income, expect to dedicate countless hours not only to getting started but also to shooting. No, and while saying no isn’t entirely true, I think it’s important to understand my experience with stock photography. Whether you need a stock photo, stunning vector image, HD video clips, or Adobe Photoshop template, Adobe Stock has the perfect stock images, videos, and more to help you tell your story.

While it may seem like BlackBox isn’t worth the effort based on my thoughts above, it does have one key feature that can allow it to be the most passive form of stock photography on the market. All three of these agencies are similar enough to talk about as one, and combined, they pretty much set the industry standard for what stock photography is today. When I first decided to dive into photography full-time, I thought that I would do things like sell prints and stock photography to make money.

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Facial Framing in Editorial Photography

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

Facial Framing in Editorial Photography

In editorial and stock photography, small details often determine whether an image feels balanced, adaptable, and usable across multiple contexts. Facial framing is one of those details. It influences how expressions read, how attention is guided within the frame, and how well an image performs when cropped or resized for different layouts.

For stock imagery used in media, lifestyle, and commercial projects, facial framing is less about stylization and more about clarity and neutrality. Images need to remain flexible, allowing designers and editors to place text, logos, or headlines without visual tension.

Why facial framing matters in stock imagery

Facial framing refers to how features such as the eyes, eyebrows, hairline, and jawline interact within a composition. In close-up or mid-range shots, these elements create structure and help anchor the viewer’s attention.

Stock photographs are frequently reused in ways the photographer cannot predict. A single image might appear:

  • as a full-width hero image

  • as a cropped square for social media

  • as a tight headshot alongside editorial text

Strong facial framing ensures that expressions remain readable and natural across these formats.

The role of eyebrows in visual balance

Among facial features, eyebrows play a subtle but important role. They help define expressions, frame the eyes, and contribute to symmetry, especially in neutral or softly lit images commonly used in editorial photography.

In stock contexts, exaggerated makeup or sharply defined styling can limit an image’s usability. As a result, many photographers and subjects prefer understated approaches that preserve facial structure without drawing attention away from the overall composition.

Some individuals choose low-maintenance options such as nano brows to maintain a consistent, natural eyebrow shape for photography and everyday life. When done conservatively, these techniques can support facial balance without appearing stylized or distracting in close-up editorial images. For readers unfamiliar with the technique, Ellebrow provides a clear, informational overview of how nano brows are designed to look soft and realistic rather than cosmetic.

Editorial usage and New York photography

In New York–based stock photography, facial framing is particularly important due to the way images are used across industries. Editorial imagery from NYC often appears in finance, technology, real estate, and lifestyle publications, where neutral expressions and adaptable visuals are preferred.

Photographs shot in this context are frequently cropped to fit banners, thumbnails, and layouts that prioritize text placement. Balanced facial features help ensure that images remain effective even when portions of the frame are removed.

Keeping imagery adaptable

The most versatile stock photographs are those that avoid extremes. From lighting choices to facial presentation, restraint tends to increase an image’s longevity and usefulness.

Facial framing, including eyebrow shape and density, is one of many small considerations that contribute to this adaptability. When handled subtly, it supports clarity and expression without defining the image too narrowly for a single purpose.

What facial features are photogenic?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

We know that women with feminine facial features are treated as much more attractive, so that’s things like having bigger eyes, and a smaller jaw. I have the big eyes, small and narrow chin that you described though I didn’t know these features contributed to one being photogenic. However, the very features that give her the unforgettable, exotic look (upturned almond-shaped eyes, slightly asymmetrical face) make her look horrible in pictures. This is why celebrities on the red carpet are holding a very calculated pose with their body and a very intense, measured facial expression for long enough for the Paparazzi to get the perfect photo.

After all, these are the same features that scientists have declared to be what we, as humans, find the most attractive in the opposite sex. I think despite conventionally attractive features my features are not in balance and u do not have good cheeks or bone structure. If she didn’t do that, even Angelina Jolie with her perfectly symmetrical face would look like Sloth from The Goonies if the photographer hit the shutter button at the wrong moment when she’s in between facial expressions. Maybe, because photographs are 2 dimensional and features that are sharp stick out more, thus making a face photogenic.

Even though science can find trends, there are still rule breakers in the attractiveness category, such as individuals with an eye color that is decidedly not average, or striking features that draw attention like super sharp cheekbones, an interesting lip shape, or a strongly squared jawline. Anthropologists, neuroscientists, and psychologists have been researching “attractiveness for decades, with mixed conclusions, but the majority of research studies find that in general, the human brain weighs symmetry and something called “averageness of facial features when determining if someone is attractive.

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What are the 27 facial expressions?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

Understanding these shapes helps in choosing flattering haircuts, glasses, and makeup to enhance facial features, creating illusions of balance or highlighting specific areas, as described in guides from Maximum FX Salon, Gabrielle Arruda, and AskMags, com. I taught my students that both facial expression and eye contact are vital cogs in the gears of good communication. To accentuate that facial expression, I remove the natural background and place it on a black background. The 7 common face shapes are Oval, Round, Square, Heart, Diamond, Oblong (Rectangle), and Triangle (Pear), each defined by specific proportions and angles in the forehead, cheekbones, jawline, and chin, with the oval shape considered a balanced ideal for styling.

Then with people who have more smooth features, the light just bounces off of their face in really weird and awkward ways when you try to take a picture of them. I didn’t (and still don’t) like the standard “say cheese pictures; I wanted to capture the candid facial expression. What I want is to capture a human face and show the feelings and the state of mind of that person at that moment. I want the viewer to be alone with the portrait without any other elements that might disturbs his or her attention.

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Can you take a photo of a person without their consent?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

Some people have no problems with photography, and you should treat them in the same courteous and respectful way you would treat people at home, by engaging them and seeking their permission. Some people have no problems with photography, and you should treat them in the same courteous and respectful way you would treat people at home, by engaging them and seeking their permission. You need to be personable and able to sense peoples emotions if you are going to be regularly photographing people. You need to be personable and able to sense peoples emotions if you are going to be regularly photographing people.

Instead of Direction  Read more You need to be personable and able to sense peoples emotions if you are going to be regularly photographing people. A great deal of people photography is understanding human nature and being aware of how people usually react in given situations. Having that diversity in my portfolio helps me come into a shoot feeling confident and shows people that I will be able to photograph them specifically. When you’re just starting out with people photography, you may be tempted to use sophisticated poses, add lots of props, go crazy with lighting patterns, and so on.

If you photograph people from below, the results will be very unflattering and your subjects won’t be pleased. Photographs families, kids, couples, and other groups of people who, for whatever reason, kind of like each other. Learn a few simple phrases in the local language so you can at least say hello to people and ask if you can make photographs of them. An important element in people photography is knowing your subjects well enough to be able to anticipate what they are going to do.

Try taking a more documentary approach to photographing people by placing yourself among the activity get ahead of the shot by predicting what’s about to occur in front of your phone lens.

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What skills are needed for editorial photography?

Posted on by Lorraine Banks

Editorial photographers should have a solid understanding of composition principles, such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing, to create visually engaging photographs. Therefore, I’m assuming, based on my experience, that a beginner photographer may only conceive of a final image that requires only basic techniques, something that is achievable with basic editing skills. A keen eye for detail that ensures all essential elements are captured in each photograph. For more detailed guidance, please consult with your news organization’s editorial policy and or creative director.

Consider  Read more Editorial photographers need a blend of technical skills, creative storytelling, and strong interpersonal abilities to excel. You can also begin to take on more responsibility, such as heading up an editorial photoshoot or working with a team of photographers. Throughout history, several People have made a significant impact on the field of editorial and commercial photography. You should also be familiar with the different types of editorial photography, as well as the editing process.

The subject, lighting, background and the composition should blend together harmoniously to convey the right vision and the right message. Necessary technical skills like equipment use, photography techniques and image processing. Technical skills such as camera operation, lighting techniques, and post-processing. The skills, vision, and creativity of the photographer are equally, if not more, important in capturing compelling photographs.

Editorial photography, in particular, has gained immense popularity due to its ability to tell stories and convey powerful messages through images. An eye for detail is the most important. They also require artistic skills like composition and storytelling, as well as business skills including networking, marketing, and client management. I can’t wait to see where the next few years take me as a fashion photographer and I look forward to elevating my creative energy, further hone my skills and enhance my expertise.

They often collaborate closely with subjects and clients, ensuring authenticity in their imagery. Editorial photographers need a blend of technical skills, creative storytelling, and strong interpersonal abilities to excel.

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