On the magic of Stock Photography

Ilsa 7 by Faestock

Over on my twitter, I bemoaned some of the rules of stock photography. I didn't complain about them, mind, because those rules were fair and proper. I just bemoaned that sometimes it meant I couldn't use all the stock references I wanted to make cover art for my e-books.

See, here's the thing. I make all my covers myself, by photomanipulating stock photography.

If you don't know, 'stock photography' usually refers to 'royalty free photography,' where for a single fee you can use an image in specific ways without having to pay the photographer royalties. When you see advertising, a lot of the time the still images you see in those ads come from stock photography -- when the pictures were taken, the photographer and models sign all the proper paperwork that allows them to be put up as 'stock,' which then can be purchased by a large number of people and used for different purposes, depending on the licensing model under which the photographer makes their work available.

And that's where we can have problems.

There was a funny, telling story not too long ago -- a model named Samantha Ovens had done some stock photo work, and the Guardian had purchased one of those photos to illustrate one of their articles -- specifically, a sex advice column about a woman who was sexually attracted to older obese gentlemen. Ovens was reportedly amused to discover a shot of her portraying anxiety had become the poster child for chasing older men with weight issues. Some people suggested she get outraged or sue, but even if she wanted to (and she didn't), she couldn't have. The license didn't restrict the usage the picture had been put to, and she'd signed the model release.

Apocolypse Girl
manipulations by Kimberly Dale
photo by prometeus via Bigstock

Which brings this around to me, because I use stock photography in my day to day work. When I'm making a cover, I manipulate the stock so that it becomes... well, mine. I use it as a stepping stone to art (usually). I don't just want a pretty face in a corset or bathing suit -- I want something that evokes the subject of my story in a reasonable way. Something that will catch the eye of the reader and let them know there's something about this story they want to know.

Or at least, that the story actually is about something.

As a side note? I'd probably be better off with the bikini model, at least in selling erotic literature. They tend to sell more copies. I can't bring myself to do it, though.

All this is well and good. The cover art production is satisfying and I'm getting increasingly decent results, I think. Well, okay, the Incubus cover was almost embarrassing, but things like Apocolypse Girl, or cover work for "Resistance" or the upcoming "The Lady of Briarwood Manor" work way better. I hope.

To get access to the stock I need, I spend around sixty dollars a month on a subscription to Bigstock. That gives me the ability to download five images a day, or a hundred and fifty a month, and they have a huge collection of images to work from, produced by a series of talented photographers, artists and models, predominantly from the Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Why from there? I assume it's exchange rate/cost of living differences.

So what's the problem? I have reams of art to work with and it seems to do pretty well for me, right?

Well... a lot of it... a lot of it... is generic.

Photo by Michael Jung
via Bigstock

Look at the Michael Jung photo I've included off to the side (assuming your browser supports such things, and that there aren't accessibility concerns and... right, I'll stop stalling). It's a beautiful shot of a beautiful woman in a business setting. You could easily see that in a product catalogue or a business setting or a Guardian article that describes how the woman in question secretly craves the touch of men covered in chocolate ganache.

And that's my point. It could be any of those things, or all of those things. There's no attitude in the picture. No soul. It's... a woman with a tablet, ready to let your context define it.

That's its job. Its job is to be all things to all people, whether they're laying out a prospectus or writing porny stories about girls having sex with aliens.

Don't get me wrong -- there's plenty of amazing pictures on Bigstock and things like it. I know. I've lightboxed a ton of them. But there's so many limits involved. And for a writer like me, that can be a problem.

See, one of the things I write -- and want to write -- is erotic adventure. Especially involving superheroes. And that doesn't fit a category on Bigstock.

Trust me. I've looked.

Vampire Hunter 24 by Tasastock

Cosplay and the like appears on Bigstock and its similar sites, but is rare and far between, and is far more likely to be vampires or cheesy Little Red Riding Hood than men and women in spandex ready to fight crime. The Ukrainians tend to shoot things that inspire them and will bring in a lot of money. So, plenty of goth, not so much four color.

Which brings me to Deviantart.

Deviantart is a site made up of photographers and artists sharing their art with the world. It acts as gallery and in some cases gives people an opportunity to sell prints and other merchandise. It's an amazing community and it's bloody wonderful.

And some artists choose to release some of their work as stock.

Deviantart is full of soul -- the stock on Deviantart is laden with personal projects, with things the artists and models feel passionate about, or which "look cool." Superhero stuff? There's tons of it. There's tons of things that have heaps of context. Look at Faestock's beautiful picture up at the top of the page. Or the Vampire Hunter near this paragraph. These aren't pictures that can be repurposed to infinity and back -- they have context. These aren't all things to all people.

They're flexible, mind. There's a ton of things that they can be used for. But they're not generic -- each one feels like it has a story that needs telling, and if you push too far away from that you'd end up breaking the sense of disbelief.

And, believe it or not, a huge amount of it is free to use....

...conditionally.

JBF Gesture 3 by Geoectomy-Stock

Remember Samantha Ovens up above? Remember being a lover of obese older men, and how she really wasn't, but hey -- stock photo! It's what we make of it!

The photographers remember. And they have conditions. Licensing conditions. Conditions that say "hey -- I'm not going to use this for hate sites! I'm not going to cut off the model's head and paste in someone else's! I'm not going to use this for commercial work without credit or licensing fees! I'm not going to use this for pornography or obscene purposes!"

...and there's the problem. I write smut. If I had to define it in a binary sense, with one side being the old school Harlequin romance where everything is done in flowery language and there's never any actual description of coitus versus the side where scripts for James Deen movies live? I'm on the porn side. I write erotica, first and foremost. I call it erotic adventure or erotic romance or erotic horror or erotic superheroism et cetera, but the keyword in each is 'erotic.' I describe acts. They involve actual body parts and actual fluids and the actual mental process involved with full on sex. Sometimes it's nonconsensual. Sometimes it's very consensual but kinky. Sometimes....

You get the picture.

I have limits, but they're broad, and inside of those limits there are a lot of naked people doing stuff to each other. Am I writing porn, as a result? Maybe? Sure, why not. I don't write anything without trying to make it worthy as fiction -- I don't see the point, otherwise. My vignettes have character development, my fiction has plot beyond the primary sexual characteristics. But whether or not I call it erotica (or smut. I love the word smut.) some people will call it porn.

Black Cat 2 Stock by Mirish

So. If someone has their stock up, and says "nothing I would find offensive" or "nothing pornographic," I don't use their stock. They asked me, very nicely, not to use their stock. And more importantly, they wrote a license saying what the stock could be used for -- and whether or not I think my stuff is offensive doesn't matter. I always err on the side of respecting the wishes of the photographer.

Even when the art is pretty.

I've had people look at me funny when I say that. "They don't mean your stories," they say. "Your stories aren't offensive." Or else they'll say "you're not depicting pornography -- you're not going to photoshop in boobs everywhere behind them," or my personal favorite "what -- they're going to check? They'll never know and you'll have the law on your side if they complain."

And... well... whatever. It's not about the letter of the law. They have intent, and I'm not going to cross it. They're being incredibly nice by letting artists use their stock to create something new and cool. I'm not going to be the one to pee in that pool.

Of course, that doesn't let out everyone on Deviantart. Some folks are perfectly fine with being associated with smut. So why don't I use their stock?

Well... because they generally want to be paid for it.

If you look at most peoples' licensing terms, they're really open. If you want to do almost anything artistic on Deviantart with their stock, they just want to be told and to have the original linked -- even if you want to sell prints. The same with website ads and the like: give credit and it's all good.

But if you're going to use their work as part of a full on commercial endeavor -- like an e-book cover -- then they generally want to be paid a licensing fee. This is fair. You're going to be making a profit off their work. They deserve to be paid for it. And most of the fees really aren't bad. Take the gorgeous photo Ilsa 7, at the very top of this article. Faestock has some really liberal terms for usage. Her rules wouldn't prohibit my using this picture as the basis of an e-book cover. But, she wants thirty bucks to do it.

Aer 8 by Tasastock

Thirty bucks is cheap. She so deserves to get paid it's not even funny.

But thirty bucks is half the amount I spend per month with Bigstock, and it's for one picture.

Look, I'm getting royalties in. I'm really happy with how my career is progressing. But I'm new to the e-publishing game, and I'm not making enough to frontload thirty bucks for cover art that I then design. I will get there, but it's not yet.

And no, I'm not going to ask or beg for Faestock or anyone else to give me the fruits of their labor for free, any more than I'm going to ask one of the other artists to let me put their work on my smutty e-book outside of their Rules. That's disrespectful to them. It's crass. It's wrong.

So I work with what I have, and I do my best with it. And sometimes I get really lucky.

And I look at the gorgeous work on Deviantart, and sometimes I yearn for what cannot be.