Landscape for Stock

[Redneck]

I have a problem and would like to hear y'alls opinions about it.

As some of you know I spent a couple of days in Colorado, mostly at Rocky Mountain National Park, shooting stock images. No people, just landscape and a little wildlife.
I submitted the images to a stock agency and they rejected every single one of them due to the lack of property releases.
I contacted the contributor support asking how anybody is supposed to get a property release of public property like a national park.

I'm quoting a part of their answer:
"We were unable to accept the Rocky Mountain National Park images that you had submitted to us without a Property Release. This is mainly due to the permits information found for Rocky Mountain National Park at Permits and Rocky Mountain National Park - Commercial Use Authorizations (U.S. National Park Service) . Should there be other relevant documents that can confirm that a license is not required for commercial photography in the mentioned location, please feel free to share it with us and we may re-consider the set of images which had been rejected under the reason "no/incomplete property or model release"."


I'm wondering how to prove that something isn't forbidden. I know there are more landscape stock shooters on this forum - did you ever run into problems like that? What did/would you do? Is there maybe an official source explaining why you can take pictures of public land and offer them to a stock agency without property release?

[auddii]

Their filiming permit specifically states taking stock photos/stills. Looks like you need a permit.

http://www.nps.gov/romo/parkmgmt/upl..._long_2007.pdf

[stephenpinn]

Interesting situation, I read through the permit and use sections that both Auddii and Redneck posted and although the park service will issue a permit for the commercial use of the park they do not mention anything regarding property release.

[Flores]

unless the permit -is- the legal release for use. (which it seems to be, otherwise, you wouldn't need a permit)

[pbyd]

From what I have been told, all Fedreal parks require professional photographers (this must mean if we sell images) pay a fee and sign with the parks office. When signing in I would assume you would receive the releases required to sell images. The subject of property rights including image rights has been covered on TPF. It has always seemed to me that we only like the laws when the protect our property not when we are requred to follow the same laws.
I am not a lawyer nor have I ever played one on TV :)
Just saying,
Wayne
Photography by Design

[scottbuckel]

I'm not a lawyer and have never played one on TV as well..

Each and every National Park and other federal lands have a different set of rules which creates a number of issues for photographers. Also microstock agencies are taking an utlraconservative view makes it difficult for many photographers. None of the parks to my knowledge ever provide property releases - technically as a taxpayer you own all federal lands.

The application form is much simpler than it was about 10 years ago and to top all of it off the definition of commercial photography is not constant either. Many years ago the definition of commercial photography at RMNP was images that were shot to advertise a product. They had a very high permit fee to commercial photography. This was to compensate the park for the disruption of the park with the large crews and tons of equipment. A couple of us ran into a group like that a number of years ago and they blocked us into the trail head parking lots and it took us about 3 hours to get out of the parking area as we had started our hike into the park at 2am and wanted to leave about noon.

I also hope no one here is selling images, as they should only license use of the images. For example a client pays us for a print of RMNP, they know own the paper the image is printed on and a license to display and view the the image. They do not own the image.

Scott

[stephenpinn]

Originally Posted by Flores

unless the permit -is- the legal release for use. (which it seems to be, otherwise, you wouldn't need a permit)

Not necessarily and assumption is a very bad thing in legal matters.

my initial comments just point out that there is no explicit property release on the permit forms nor is a property release mentioned.

I am sure there must be someone at the parks service that can give an official position.

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by pbyd

From what I have been told, all Fedreal parks require professional photographers (this must mean if we sell images) pay a fee and sign with the parks office.

This is not the case. There have been some instances in years past of rangers not understanding the NPS policy and harassing photographers, but NPS has clarified this in recent years and the official policy states that still photography does not require a permit unless you're using models or props, or require special access. See this link.

Originally Posted by scottbuckel

Each and every National Park and other federal lands have a different set of rules which creates a number of issues for photographers.

Actually there is one policy set at the federal level, that applies to all parks,(again, see above link). The only wiggle room a specific park might have is in determining what activities "incur additional administrative costs to monitor", but that doesn't apply to a photographer taking landscape photos, even when he has a nice camera and tripod.

As to the original question of stock agencies and property leases, there's not much you can do. Stock agencies are pretty stupid when it comes to this stuff. They'd rather reject a whole bunch of images based on a overly restrictive CYA policy than have to worry about the chance of having to defend even one law suit.

Having said that, there's no legal basis for property releases, as the Photo Attorney Blog has written about on numerous occasions (here's just one).

But it doesn't really matter because there's no real market for landscape stock photography anyway. What little bit of market exists is tightly wrapped up by well established photographers with huge libraries of images going back decades. Worst case, you're out a few cents from microstock sales, so nothing to lose sleep over.

[scottbuckel]

Jeff - have you been into any of the parks recently? Several years ago I heard from a few photographers that the policy was interpreted differently from park to park - this web page is a great clarification for photographers.

Scott

[Redneck]

Jeff, thank you very much. I know if the agency fears any risks there's not much I can do about it. I feel however they are insecure about it, too.

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

But it doesn't really matter because there's no real market for landscape stock photography anyway. What little bit of market exists is tightly wrapped up by well established photographers with huge libraries of images going back decades. Worst case, you're out a few cents from microstock sales, so nothing to lose sleep over.

I don't do microstock so it's not just a few cents we're talking about. I was hoping to refinance the cost of the trip. And I've been told landscape and travel photography is still one of the stronger markets in stock since there is always a huge demand for print media in the travel industry.

[auddii]

I agree with several other posts. Try and contact some of the rangers, as I'm sure this has come up before. Hopefully it's something you can figure out so that you can recoup some of your money!

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by scottbuckel

Jeff - have you been into any of the parks recently? Several years ago I heard from a few photographers that the policy was interpreted differently from park to park - this web page is a great clarification for photographers.

I shoot on federal land several times a year, including National Parks, National Monuments, and Wilderness Areas. I've never been hassled.

Back in the 2005-2006 time frame, the NPS policy wasn't quite as clearly stated as it now is, and many rangers were being overly aggressive enforcing the permit policy in cases it wasn't originally meant to apply. The page I linked to above was put up in 2006 by the NPS in response to requests that the policy be clarified.

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by Redneck

I don't do microstock so it's not just a few cents we're talking about. I was hoping to refinance the cost of the trip. And I've been told landscape and travel photography is still one of the stronger markets in stock since there is always a huge demand for print media in the travel industry.

Travel photography, maybe. I don't really consider landscapes shot without people in national parks as travel photography though. Rather I think that would be more like the stuff you see in Conde Nast Traveler, etc. Everything I've read is that the market for wilderness/landscape stock photography has massively declined in the last few decades due to a glut in supply. It used to be a photographer could make a pretty good living at it, but not really any more (except a lucky few at the top). I guess there's still the market for calendars, postcards, etc, but I don't know how much those publishers draw from general stock agencies as opposed to direct submissions or existing relationships with photographers. If you really want to make a go at it, I would try to find publishers/agencies that specialize in that top of imagery to submit to, rather than a general stock agency.

[Bruce M. Morris]

Andre', I seem to recall you talking about shooting stock imagery before. Have you looked into the Photographer's Market book recently for other sources besides the stock agencies? Just scanning the listings in the book can give you all kinds of ideas. And who knows, maybe the Park Service would be interested....

Originally Posted by Redneck

I don't do microstock so it's not just a few cents we're talking about. I was hoping to refinance the cost of the trip. And I've been told landscape and travel photography is still one of the stronger markets in stock since there is always a huge demand for print media in the travel industry.

[auddii]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

This is not the case. There have been some instances in years past of rangers not understanding the NPS policy and harassing photographers, but NPS has clarified this in recent years and the official policy states that still photography does not require a permit unless you're using models or props, or require special access. See this link.

Just saw this link. Looks like you could direct the stock company to this page
to try and show that you don't need a permit. Worth a try at least.