iStock has made it official. They are encouraging contributors to shoot with cell phones and accepting those images into the general collection. The next generation of stock photography – from RM to RF to Microstock to Cell Phones -- is upon us. See iStock’s
Creative Brief.
It appears iStock has been listening to photo buyers who say they want “more authentic” images and mobilestock seems to be the way to get them. Their creative brief says they are looking for “real,” “authentic,” “spontaneous moments” and that mobile devices that are always with the creator are the perfect tool for capturing such genuine moments. They are asking for images of things photographer sees every day.
However the simplicity of pulling that phone out and grabbing a shot is not necessarily what they want. iStock suggests that “brighter is better” and the use of supplemental “continuous light sources” are often appropriate. In addition apps like Camera+ and Camera Awesome offer controls for setting focus and exposure separately rather than being tied to the fixed aperture and narrow shutter speed range of the typical mobile phone. And finally mobile photographers should set app preferences to save at maximum image resolution. The default for many photo apps is to save files at a medium resolution in order to save on mobile storage and data upload costs.
Cell phone pictures must also be keyworded in the normal manner and have the keyword tag “mobilestock.” It appears that there will be looser inspection standards for mobile images, than the standards for images created with other cameras. Model and property releases will still be required. (Check out the
ASMP app.)
Now that mobilestock is considered a separate genre some photographers believe that images created with slim point and shoot cameras ought to be included in the same category. On the other hand when microstock started out, a big percentage of the images were created with point and shoot cameras. But, when offered the point-and-shoot pictures customers began to ask for more quality and photographers started producing images with more professional cameras, lighting, sets and models.
Is Mobilestock What Customers Want?
While microstock images have certainly become very polished and slick many photographers on the
Microstock Group forum question whether buyers will use much mobile photography given its lower quality and candid (almost haphazard) nature.
One designer commented that the use of such images would for the most part not be satisfactory for print production, but could be useful for web and PDF products. He suggested that while the quality produced by these mobile devices may not always be satisfactory for web use today within one of two years such imagery will probably be perfectly usable. He added that “noise (which microstock photographers have always been taught to avoid) is not always a critical point in quality. Sometimes it can be pretty appealing or even desired.”
Another designer said, “after years of torturing photographers over nonexistent 'artifacts', and demanding edge-to-edge focus and infinite depth of field - now they want cell phone photos. Excuse me, 'mobile photography'. It's the biggest ‘never mind’ that was ever issued.”
Currently there are 592 mobilestock images in the iStock collection. Some are priced at the base rate and other are priced at the Exclusive and Exclusive+ levels. Some are also only available as editorial. The best selling image so far has been downloaded 6 times.
For more on mobilestock check out “
iPhoneography: The Future?” and “
Photographer Earns $19,000 From Cellphone Pics.” Also check out
this story about three top instagram photographers who have been given unprecedented court side access at U.S. Tennis Open. Together these three photographers have over 600,000 followers.