Photography for your business is one of the most important assets for marketing and advertising yourself. Therefore your imagery needs to be personal to you so your customers and potential consumers can recognise and relate to your brand.

1. TAILORED TO YOU:

Stock photography is not tailored or personal to you and your business. Commercial photography that is tailored to you will be most effective for your marketing and advertising. It allows you to develop and create your own style which is easily recognisable and stands out among your competitors. Stock photography, even bought, will not belong to you; anyone can use it and you may even see a competitor doing just that! It may have been used by tens or hundreds of other businesses, creating a sea of similar material. You want to shine, to stand out. Having your own tailored imagery will enable this, allowing you to rise above your competitors and increase sales!

2. UNLIMITED COMMERCIAL LICENCE:

As a commercial photographer, one of the things I offer to my clients is an unlimited commercial licence. This means that what I provide my clients is theirs in all but name, they can use the images for any purpose and in any medium. This however may not be the case with stock photography. Even though stock photography is more affordable on an image by image basis, stock photographers will try to make their money in other ways, one of these is offering very specific licencing with their imagery. This means that you have to buy the photographs multiple times over if you are planning to use them for multiple different purposes. This process may, in the end, wind up costing you much more than a commercial photographer would.

3. CREATIVE, UNIQUE IMAGERY:

We live in a time where content is one of the most prevalent entities on the internet. There is so much content that one could argue that we’re spoiled these days! There’s a consequence of this however. It is much harder to wow a consumer or viewer in the modern day than it was 60 years ago. To the point where stock photography can be noticed from a mile off by almost anyone alive today. Content has a new requirement to be creative and unique. To be different but relevant. This is what every brand needs. To be noticed in this day and age your imagery has to shine, and this is something that a commercial photographer can provide you with on every single shoot.

4. RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER:

In any work environment the more you work with someone, the more your working relationship will develop. This is absolutely no different with your commercial photographer! As the shoots progress, you will both begin to ascertain more about your own imagery style and how your brand should look. Familiarity will be built between the commercial photographer and your brand, meaning they will begin to understand your brand on a much deeper level. Stock imagery does not allow this, you will never meet the photographer who is taking your imagery and therefore the images will never 100% suit your brand identity. You cannot take control creatively or otherwise. You can only look for the best possible match you can, which often isn’t a good enough representation of your business.