stockphoto

A woman warned others to "NEVER do stock image modeling" after her photograph ended up being published in an unflattering article.

B.J. Novak is best known for acting in, writing, directing, and producing the hit TV show The Office. Over the past several years, however, his face has also appeared in all kinds of products around the world... completely without his knowledge or permission.

Shutterstock has announced the acquisition of PicMonkey, an online photo editing and design platform, for $110 million.

It took three years, and multiple requests, but law student Kennedy Reese has finally convinced Getty Images to stop selling a photo of her working at McDonalds when she was 15. The photo was taken without her knowledge, and used in numerous negative and embarrassing articles.

I should start off by saying that I am not a big contributor to stock photography agencies. I did take the plunge into agencies like Shutterstock and Getty Images when I was moving into digital 10 or so years ago, but I found my niche elsewhere.

Here's an unusual way to obtain the simple stock photo you need: Photo Creator is a web app that lets you build your own realistic stock photos. The site features thousands of models, objects, and backgrounds that you can combine into your own creations.

The stock photo powerhouse Getty Images is now once again owned by the Getty family from which it received its name. The company announced that the family has acquired a majority stake in the company and will take full control.

As a kid who grew up with a shelf filled with yellow spines, I can attest to the rhythm and general predictability of a National Geographic cover. With few exceptions (most notably those holographic covers from the 1980s), cover photography from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s followed a familiar pattern of a faraway place, strange creature, or “exotic” face in saturated color.

YouTube star Joe Penna (AKA MysteryGuitarMan) partnered with the stock photo company GraphicStock …

Back in 2012, photography broadcaster Frederick Van Johnson conducted this short 6-minute video …

Twenty20 is a new stock photography service that just launched to the public after months of beta testing. It claims to have the world's largest crowdsourced commercial image catalog -- one that contains 45 million photos from 250,000 photographers based in 154 countries.

A reader over at Gizmodo sent a tip their way yesterday pointing to an embarrassing situation involving PayPal's use of a certain stock photograph.

Although it has since been removed, a photo of a small pocket watch over on PayPal's Political Campaigns page with a "donate" button located over it was found bearing a rather obvious iStock watermark... oops.

There's something to say about the curious nature of journalists. Some spend all of their hours researching a particular subject, others go out into the field to experience first-hand, and some others quit their job and take up coding classes.

Wait -- what?

It's true. Just ask Benji Lanyado. This once full-time Guardian writer and contributor to other publications decided to quite literally quit his day job to pursue building what he thinks is the next big thing in stock photo buying and selling.

Bruce Livingstone knows his way around the stock photography industry, and he's doing his best to shake things up. After founding iStockphoto in 2000, he turned it into a microstock juggernaut, finally selling it to Getty Images in 2006 for a whopping $50 million. Now, as both Getty Images and iStockphoto are mired in a licensing controversy, Livingstone has a new stock photo business that may rock the boat even more.

Here's a big reason not to use stock images in a political ad campaign - the model's "loyalty" can be bought.