Stock photos or original photography? How to decide

The choice is not only about budget or convenience. It is about whether your images will be looked at at all. Nielsen Norman Group's eyetracking research found that users treat images as either decoration or information: they ignore stock photos of generic people, while they study images that help them understand or decide something.¹

Photos of real people performed differently. On one company website in the study, users spent about 10% more time looking at staff portraits than reading the biographies beside them, even though the biographies took up 316% more space.¹ The author's advice was simple: invest in good photo shoots, and use photographs that serve the reader's task rather than fill space.¹

For organisations that report on their own work, authentic imagery is also an ethical matter. The Dóchas Guide to Ethical Communications opens with a commitment to provide truth and context when portraying the lives of individuals and communities.² Among its review questions, it asks whether content uses stock imagery or footage unrelated to the specific story or period.²

Original photography lets you show the actual people, places and results you describe. It also allows people to take part in how they are shown. Dóchas encourages organisations to enable individuals and communities to tell their own stories and to use local staff and providers.² A stock photo of an anonymous classroom cannot do that for a school programme in Nyaruguru.

Stock still has a place. It can work well for objects, textures, landscapes and abstract ideas such as connectivity or finance, and for quick-turnaround illustrations where no real event is being reported. Bond's ethical guidelines note that stock imagery featuring models poses far less risk than imagery featuring people as themselves.³

Even then, be honest about it. Bond advises signalling in captions when images are posed by models, to maintain audience trust.³ It also advises NGOs to avoid stock images from news and journalistic agencies in which individuals are identifiable, because such images are unlikely to come with evidence of informed consent.³ A real person photographed in a crisis did not agree to become the face of your campaign.

Free does not mean unrestricted. Bond notes that organisations use images bought from commercial, news and photography agencies as well as images freely available under Creative Commons licences, and recommends an internal sign-off and risk assessment before publishing any of them.³ Its checklist for third-party images of identifiable people who are not models includes the following:³

• The image comes from a trusted and verifiable source, such as a reputable agency.
• There is a guarantee that anyone identifiable gave informed consent, or the image goes through a rigorous internal risk assessment.
• Caption information is available.
• The correct copyright terms and licence are agreed.
• The image is used accurately in relation to the situation it shows, and not beside a different person's story.

Many professional images carry embedded rights information. Google's documentation on image metadata describes IPTC fields for the Creator, Credit Line and Copyright Notice, plus a Web Statement of Rights that links to the licence governing the image's use.⁴ Reading these fields, and keeping them intact, helps you credit correctly and prove you had permission.

Popular stock photos also appear in many places. Bond recommends investigating whether other organisations have bought the same image, so it is not used across organisations or for different purposes.³ Google's 'About this image' feature can show other pages that use similar versions of an image and when Google may have first seen it, although it is only available in some regions.⁵ Finding your hero image on a competitor's homepage is a poor surprise.

Original photography is yours to use only on the terms you agree. UK government guidance, for example, explains that the creator of a work is usually the first owner of its copyright, and that freelancers usually keep copyright in work they produce under a contract for services unless the contract says otherwise.⁶ Without a written agreement, the commissioner may only have a limited, non-exclusive implied licence.⁶

Copyright law differs between countries, so take advice where you work. The practical lesson travels well: decide before the shoot whether you need ownership, which is assigned, or permission to use, which is licensed, and put it in writing.⁶ Include where and for how long you may use the images, whether partners may use them, and how photographers should be credited.

Ask three questions about each image you need. Does it show a specific person, place or result that you claim as your own? If so, only original photography is honest. Will readers use it to understand or decide something? If so, invest in a real photograph, because those are the images people look at.¹ Is it a generic object, texture or concept with no people as themselves? Then a properly licensed stock image is usually fine.

In our own practice, we find most organisations need a mix: a library of original photographs of their people and work, supplemented by a small set of well-chosen, clearly licensed stock images for everything else. Planning one good shoot a year around your main programmes often covers most of the images you will need.

• Original photos for anything that shows your own people, places or results
• Stock only for objects, concepts and illustrations
• No identifiable people from news agencies without proof of consent
• Captions say when people shown are models
• Licence terms checked and saved with the file
• Credit and copyright metadata kept intact
• A quick search to see who else uses the image
• Written rights agreement for every commissioned shoot