Author Topic: City skylines as editorial (Read 5162 times)

eric.zx · « **on:** July 21, 2009, 10:30 »

I have noticed that some of city skylines are sold as editorial, while most others are sold as general stock. What exactly is the rule for such photographs? I know some landmarks are copyrighted (i.e. Sydney Opera House), but I've read before that as long as it isn't the main subject of your photo, it is allowed for commercial RF. Am I wrong about that? Please share your experiences with such photographs.

cascoly · « **Reply #1 on:** July 24, 2009, 14:38 »

my experience is just as you describe - there's no simple rule - here are some of my city skylines -- http://cascoly.com/trav/panoramas.asp of seattle & ny - i submitted the seattle dockyard as editorial [since i didnt want to scrub out the logos on those containers, but sme agencies that dont accept editorial at all, accepted this one!]

steve

travelstock · « **Reply #2 on:** July 24, 2009, 16:46 »

The rules vary site by site - generally if you have logos etc it will be rejected if the reviewer spots them, unless marked as editorial. Of the sites that accept editorial shots, most of them won't accept skyline shots that have signs that could have been cloned out. BS generally won't accept landmark editorial shots... not that they sell too much anyhow.

eric.zx · « **Reply #3 on:** July 26, 2009, 14:19 »

Thank you very much for you input cascoly and holgs. The logos are definitely a pain to remove, especially when there's so many of them.

PS: those are very cool panoramic shots, cascoly!

a.k.a.-tom · « **Reply #4 on:** July 26, 2009, 14:26 »

Agreed with cascoly - there are no hard and fast rules. Generally, I do go in and clean up any obvious logos, coke trucks, newspaper machines, etc. But the majority of my cityscapes are all long shots, so there isn't that much to the post edit. The subject is the skyline, the breadth of the city.
But, they do sell. Recently, Forbes used one of our shots in an article about the best cities to live in the U.S. - that was cool!
So keep shooting and sub'ng them, they'll sell one way or the other!

=tom

floridaphotog · « **Reply #5 on:** July 28, 2009, 10:27 »

good topic, this is a gray area and differnt agents/reviewers treat diffrntly. some commercial landmarks when 'prominent' in the frame are taboo unless editorial for many agents, example cn tower in toronto. same with identifiable logos.

quirky thing, i have one skyline on ft that represents 80% of all my sales from admittedly small 'trial' port of 50 shots on that site...wierd.

Jonathan Ross · « **Reply #6 on:** July 28, 2009, 12:10 »

Hi Eric,

The one that makes me chuckle is that you can shoot the Eiffel Tower during the day but not at night. They have copy written their lighting of the Tower at night but not the Tower itself. As stated above if one object doesn't stand out as the hero and it is just all city sky line you should be fine in commercial as well as editorial sales.

Good luck,
Jonathan

a.k.a.-tom · « **Reply #7 on:** July 29, 2009, 19:46 »

Last week, and you'll have to forgive me, I don't recall which one it was, but either IS or StockXpert mailed me to let me know they were deleting all my Vegas strip shots because it was determined that all the hotels and casino images were proprietary and belonged to them. I've been selling these pix for 3 years. WTH?
My crystal ball tells me the day is coming when you'll have to get the owner's sig and the pup's paw print to take a pic of a dog turd on the side of the road. LOL

=tom

...... why are we all in this hand basket and where are we going?

Jonathan Ross · « **Reply #8 on:** July 29, 2009, 22:45 »

Hi Tom,

We already have to get releases from the owners of dogs or horses or any pet or live stock in a Macro image. I am not sure how far they go with Micro but I remember the first time I was asked for a dog release. I said the same thing. Stick his paw in some ink and slap it on there

Best,
Jonathan

eric.zx · « **Reply #9 on:** July 30, 2009, 18:00 »

Wow, Macro definitely sounds alot more hardcore. I can sort-of understand if it is some prize-winning horse, a celebrity of sorts, then the release makes sense. But for other general pictures of animals a release seems to be a bit overboard in my opinion.

I have definitely heard about the Las Vegas Strip photos though. Sorry to hear about them being deleted from your port, Tom. But I know for a fact that some of those are available as editorial on DT.

The Eiffel Tower's copyright really is funny.

Quote from: floridaphotog on July 28, 2009, 10:27

example cn tower in toronto.

Yeah, I have read about that one, and apparently it's ok as long as it's not isolated. So it can be part of Toronto skyline and be suitable for commercial RF.

cascoly · « **Reply #10 on:** July 30, 2009, 21:03 »

releases arent required for all macro work -- i sell images thru corbis without releases that would be required for MS. when i got my originals back from getty a few years ago, about 500 [1/3] were images that would otherwise need releases.

alamy otoh thinks anything that looks like a human needs a release

s

Jonathan Ross · « **Reply #11 on:** July 30, 2009, 22:53 »

Hi Eric,

Actually outside of the animal thing Micro is much tighter on editing rules than Macro by far, at least that has been my experience. I have never had an image rejected from Macro for technical difficulties but I sure have in Micro.

Best,
Jonathan

eric.zx · « **Reply #12 on:** July 31, 2009, 09:39 »

Hi Johnathan,

That's very interesting that Micro has tighter rules than Macro. Could it be because most images are destined to end up in print?

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Author Topic: City skylines as editorial (Read 5162 times)

eric.zx

cascoly

travelstock

eric.zx

a.k.a.-tom

floridaphotog

Jonathan Ross

a.k.a.-tom

Jonathan Ross

eric.zx

cascoly

Jonathan Ross

eric.zx

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