You won\u2019t be making nearly as much money for stock as for\u00a0other commercial print work, and you won\u2019t be getting any\u00a0renewal or residual money either — all rights are \u201cbought out\u201d.\u00a0But it gets worse.\u00a0Neither the model nor the photographer knows the eventual\u00a0end use of the pictures. In a worst case scenario a model may find\u00a0that a picture of her was just used on a box of laundry soap, and\u00a0the next day she gets an offer to be the box cover girl for a\u00a0competing brand. The job would pay several thousand dollars —\u00a0but she is disqualified because of that stock job she did for two\u00a0hundred dollars a few years earlier.\u00a0That is what most worries those who argue against doing\u00a0stock: that for a little money you may give up the opportunity to\u00a0make a great deal of money later. And truth be told, things like\u00a0that do happen. The argument is not wrong.
\nThere is another argument against stock as well: you have no\u00a0control over the products your pictures are used to advertise. It\u00a0may be something embarrassing (bladder control pads) or worse,\u00a0something you have a moral objection to.<\/p>\n
The Argument For Stock
\nWhich is worth more: a lottery ticket a day before the\u00a0drawing, or a ten dollar bill? Suppose someone with a hunch\u00a0offers you ten bucks for a lottery ticket you just bought, and you\u00a0take the deal. Two days later, if the ticket is a winner, you kick
\nyourself for being so stupid as to sell it and lose all winnings. The\u00a0great majority of the time, however, the ticket would not have hit,\u00a0and you would be better off stuffing that ten bucks in your pocket with a smile on your face. Selling the ticket is statistically the\u00a0right answer, even though once in a long while you may lose out\u00a0on a big score.\u00a0Stock photography can be like that. It is true that someone\u00a0sometimes loses a big opportunity because they took the smaller,\u00a0sure money. But those cases are infrequent enough that the\u00a0mathematics can argue in favor of taking the money and the\u00a0chance.
\nAnother side of the issue: frequently a stock job will also\u00a0give you pictures which you can use for your composite card. For\u00a0those with lots of money who can hire a professional\u00a0photographer this may not be a big benefit; for those on a\u00a0restricted budget who cannot afford to get the pictures to get their\u00a0career started, it may make a huge difference. Certainly it is\u00a0possible that shooting stock may cost you some future job; but,\u00a0for a beginning model, the lack of a composite card may cost you\u00a0several jobs. If stock enables you to jump-start a career that\u00a0otherwise is languishing, the economics work out in your favor\u00a0even if you do lose a future job.\u00a0Each model has to make an individual choice: to take a few\u00a0hundred dollars and perhaps some pictures and accept the\u00a0possibility that they would lose a big job later, or to wait and hope\u00a0for the big job to come along. Some agencies make that decision\u00a0for you, others will let you make it for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You won\u2019t be making nearly as much money for stock as for\u00a0other commercial print work, and you won\u2019t be getting any\u00a0renewal or residual money either — all rights are \u201cbought out\u201d.\u00a0But it gets worse.\u00a0Neither the model nor the photographer knows the eventual\u00a0end use of the pictures. In a worst case scenario a model may find\u00a0that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":13804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2166],"tags":[644,2191,2190,2192],"class_list":["post-13803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guide","tag-model","tag-the-argument","tag-the-argument-against-stock","tag-the-argument-for-stock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13803"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13829,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13803\/revisions\/13829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/map.model.world\/directory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}