ABOUT ALASKA STOCK IMAGES

Alaska Stock Images is constantly on the lookout for photographers who have the desire and ability to go beyond the "norm" and who will seek out better, more unique images than what is currently on the market.  We are not really looking for more photographers, but rather better, more unique images.  If those better, more unique images come from new photographers, that’s great.

We represent images from over 120 photographers and offer 4 distinct collections to the world-wide market.  Our target client audience is advertising agencies, corporate and editorial image buyers (magazines, general books and textbooks) as well as the retail product market (postcards, posters, mouse pads etc.).  We make decisions on which images go into our various collections as we review them.

The four collections and their descriptions are:

1.  Alaska Stock Rights-Managed Collection:

Our Alaska Stock collection is our flagship and largest collection of Alaska-theme subjects.  These are the best and most unique images in the world of  Alaskan lifestyles and landscapes including; recreation, outdoor adventure, business, winter/northern lifestyles, tourism, wildlife, landscapes, nature and Christmas holiday themes.   Images in this collection were either shot in Alaska or "could" have been shot in Alaska, like a canoeist on lake w/ non-descript background OR buyers of images "associate" the image with Alaska, such as "penguins" or snowstorms.  We actively market this collection ourselves through www.alaskastock.com and also world-wide through subagents and image partners.

2.  Alaskan Express Royalty-Free Collection:

Our Alaskan Express collection is our royalty-free set of Alaska-theme images.  This smaller collection of images encompasses nearly all aspects of Alaska life including;   recreation, outdoor adventure, winter lifestyles, tourism, wildlife, landscapes and Christmas holidays.   We actively market this collection ourselves through www.alaskastock.com and also world-wide through subagents and image partners.

3.  Verge--- A Rights-Managed Collection of international images. 

Verge Images combines an eclectic mix of the best “non-Alaska specific” imagery from around the world taken by top photographers.  We deliver them for sale to the commercial marketplace via worldwide partners while controlling the image rights from our Alaska Stock office.  Images from the collection may be viewed at www.vergeimages.com

4.  StockPile--- A royalty-free collection of global life experiences.

The StockPile Collection is similar to the VERGE collection in that the images are “non-Alaska specific” photos from around the world made by a wide-range of talented photographers.  The images span the gamut of global life experiences including: adventure sports, the natural world, everyday life, travel, holidays, food, home, wildlife, art and conceptual visions.  While we do limited marketing of these images directly, the majority of the marketing of these images is performed by our world-wide partners.  Images are available at www.stockpilephotos.com

Should we like your work and feel we can license it to our clients, we will offer you a contract that sets forth our mutual agreement. The contract is for “image exclusivity”.  This means you may have contracts with other agencies (except an agency which specializes in Alaskan images) for non-similar images, however the images that we select may ONLY be with us, no other stock photo agency.  Our contract length is 4 years. Once you have signed a contract with Alaska Stock Images this is how our agency works; You submit your images to us and we edit them and keep the images we feel are most marketable to our target client group.  We put those images into one of the appropriate collections either by your choice or you let us choose the appropriate collection. We send you back any images that we do not feel are marketable. The images we keep are then scanned if necessary, keyworded and entered into our database and on the appropriate website.  As we get requests from our clients, those images are delivered to our clients for their review. We make those images available to our world-wide partners as well.

COMMISSION PAYMENTS

Commission percentages vary by collection and by who makes the sale, us or one of our world-wide partner agencies.  A specific schedule is included with your contract.  Typically you receive 40% of Rights Managed sales made from our office and 50% of the amount we receive from our partner agencies.  Our payments are made monthly for sales made in the previous month.  A photographer never pays any extra for advertising images on our website or in catalogs. All the promotional fees are paid for by Alaska Stock Images.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Choosing the right stock agency is an important decision. Selling stock photos is NOT a quick way to make money. Often a year or two goes by before regular earnings begin with a photographer contributing new work during this time. It should be looked at for the first few years as an investment. And the investment MUST be constantly updated and re-supplied. Being part of a stock photography agency should be a creative team effort. Alaska Stock Images tends to be more selective not only in which photographers to accept but also which images to accept from those photographers.  We carefully examine all material from prospective photographers as well as looking at the photographer's potential.

It's difficult for an agency to maintain a close working relationship with a photographer who does not frequently contribute new work and communicate with the agency on a regular basis. We sincerley discourage the practice of a photographer giving us a set of images and then "waiting to see what happens. If they sell, I'll contribute more". This is unacceptable to us. We expect the photographer to commit to shooting new imagery and regularly submitting it.  We want to see a minimum of 200 new images from each photographer per year.  We do make exceptions to this rule when a photographer has one or more truly unique images. A few of our photographers have only one image with us. Because they are such unique images, we allow this.

Your images and the copyright to them always remain the property of the photographer. A newsletter with a detailed needs list and other industry news is sent regularly to all Alaska Stock Images photographers.

SUBMITTING YOUR IMAGES

While this is not a solicitation, if you are interested in submitting images for consideration to Alaska Stock, please follow the guidelines below for the specific type of images you are submitting. 

Gather a broad selection of your very best and unique images.  Only send images which are not presently marketed by another agency.  We are more interested in seeing a smaller number of unique images (unique meaning unusual; locations, activities, lighting, behavior, expressions, action, etc.), rather than a large quantity of average images. Please limit your initial selection to no more than 300 images and attempt to show us at least 60. They do not need to be captioned at this initial stage.

Please include biographical information about yourself and your work. How long have you been shooting? What is the emphasis of your work? On average, how many different scens/images do you shoot per year? Do you have a web site? If so, what is the URL?  What are your future plans for your photography?--- what types of subjects will you shoot etc.  How many unique images are in your collection presently?

If your images are of people or of personal property, we will expect you to have model &/or property releases so the images may be marketed for commercial purposes.

We will review your work within 3-4 working days. At that time we'll judge whether your subject matter and quality of images will benefit the both of us. We don't want to sign you up if we don't feel we can sell your images. If we feel your images are marketable, we will then discuss with you the opportunities we have available to you and offer you a contract. If your photography is not something we feel is marketable we'll then return your work with a letter explaining why. If you are sending images from out of town, please call ahead to let us know a package is on its way to us. We highly recommend you ship your transparencies via a courier service such as Federal Express. If you choose to submit by mail we suggest you use Registered or Express Mail with Return Receipt. Be sure to enclose enough money for return of your work via the same method it was sent. If you live locally, you may drop off and pick up your slides at our office in person.

SUBMITTING ANALOG IMAGES—SLIDES, NEGATIVES - *for initial selection only

As of January 2008 Alaska Stock Images will no longer accept analog (film) images for accepted submissions. While we will continue to review analog images submitted for acceptance in the collection, it is then up to the photographer to provide to Alaska Stock a digital version meeting our current digital file specifications for any selected image.

If you have a "once-in-a-lifetime" image on color negative film, we'd be happy to see a print of this but typically we only review and keep color transparencies or digital images. Your name should be stamped on each of the image mounts.

Put your transparencies in plastic vis-sheets and organize them according to subjects.  They do not need to be captioned at this initial stage. We prefer to see original transparencies or dupes of them if they are one-of-a-kind. Send the images to our address and be sure to send them via a trackable means… such as FED EX, UPS, DHL etc.

Be sure to include return money, a FED EX airbill or postage for the safe return of your images.

WE WILL NOT RETURN YOUR TRANSPARENCIES WITHOUT RETURN POSTAGE

DIGITAL SUBMISSIONS:

Alaska Stock accepts digital images taken with digital cameras as well as from photographers who have taken film, scanned it in and done some type of manipulation to the image. For initial review purposes of digital images please do one of the following:

• Email us your website URL where we can view the images.
• Send us a CD or DVD with the images in  .jpg  format. We will only review low-res

(5x7 - 9x12  72 dpi files) Please save the images all in one folder.

Once we make the decision to accept a digital image we will need to evaluate the digital file in the high-res version before we can accept it.

Quality Control:  For final images, Alaska Stock's minimum acceptable file size from a digital camera or scanned transparency is 50mb, with a minimum 3400 pixel short axis length and a minimum 5100 pixel long axis length. Each file submitted will be looked at for acceptable sharpness, lack of pixelation, acceptable density range and other issues in our quality control area. Images that are not accepted for quality-control reasons will be returned with an explanation as to why.